Breaking Down "My" Mental Problems--by Emi

I actually got this idea from the book "Girl, Interrupted". She sat down with a book about her disorder and went through things making comments about it. Now she truly had this disorder, but I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what Sue said my problems were.

So lets see, Sue called me bipolar, schizophrenic, ADHD, and a compulsive liar. That's all I can remember at the moment. So lets take a look at those four.

We'll start with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.)

"The core symptoms of ADD themselves interfere with the child's functioning in a variety of areas: academic performance in school, behavior in school, adult relationships inside and outside of the home, sibling and peer relationships, and the ability to take part in age-appropriate leisure activities." - Now I have to wonder about this. I mean, wouldn't the fact that I was being beaten and put down constantly help make me like this? My friends made fun of me, which was the problem in peer relationships. Kent and Sue basically taught me not to trust adults, causing the problem with adult relationships. And when your depressed, behavior in school tends to go bad. So, doesn't that describe a depressed suicidal just as well as ADHD? Jumping to conclusions..

"ADD is a clinical diagnosis." - Last time I checked, Sue was not a doctor, no where close to one. Nope, she worked at clothing stores... *raises eyebrow*

"The core symptoms of ADD occur in other psychiatric disorders and in medical and neurological conditions." - Proving my earlier statements. She was not a doctor, and if she had been, she would have been a very bad one.

"of the central nervous system stimulants appear to be equally effective in the treatment of core ADD symptomatology. Each produces about a 70% positive response rate." - I guess I'm part of that 30% who is doesn't help then?

It's really the third one that proves my point entirely, so I'm done there.

Now onto Schizophrenia.

"Although schizophrenia affects men and women with equal frequency, the disorder often appears earlier in men, usually in the late teens or early twenties, than in women, who are generally affected in the twenties to early thirties." - Okay, I was like, what, 8?? 9 maybe? Nice one Sue, check your data again.

"People with schizophrenia often suffer terrifying symptoms such as hearing internal voices not heard by others, or believing that other people are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them. These symptoms may leave them fearful and withdrawn." - Another one that makes me wonder. Yeah, I hear voices (we'll get to that later on in the story), but I don't hear anyone telling me to do harm to myself except for the real people in my live. I have an imagination, so no one was reading my mind, but I could read theirs *grin*. And, um, yeah, the fearful and withdrawn comes from abuse in this case. So far, her diagnosis doesn't seem to be true, for the most part.

I do know for a fact that I'm a bit dellusional. I'm not going to lie about that because I know its true. But I think the fact that my own psychiatrist now says I'm not Schizophrenic means something.

Bipolar:

This one will be a little easier to disprove because my mom and I have talked about this over and over.

"bipolar disorder is a medical condition in which people have mood swings out of proportion, or totally unrelated, to things going on in their lives." - No, things were as bad as they seemed. It was al related to what was going on in my life.

Much of what is said is redundant, talking about the mania episodes, depressive episodes. What my doctor said in response to whether I was bipolar (and my mom said it too) is that my mood pretty much seems to stay the same. I don't go into extremes much, and I also never go into moods of extreme happiness. My main mood was always: life sucks, so let's all die. That was it. Most Bipolars have major mood swings. I had a friend who has this disorder, and it was nothing like my depression.

And last but not least, Compulsive liar. Now, I'll just give a small thing for this, because I pretty much can tell you in a sentance why this isn't true. I DON'T NEED TO LIE! Yes, I lied a lot in Utah, and sometimes lied once I moved to California after the abuse, but that was because I learned in my childhood that telling the truth only got me smacked.

How can you have a disorder when you were taught to act a certain way? It was all I saw, lying. My step siblings lied all the time, I lied to get out of trouble, I lied to get attention. But I don't need to. I'm happy with whats real in my life.

So, all in all, sorry Susan, but you were off.

I'm a depressive/suicidal. That's all there is to it.

* Emi *

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