Does normal, not mentally ill, exist?

There should be a pill for it.

Moi

moi621 (imported) wrote: Sat Apr 16, 2011 7:41 pm Does normal, not mentally ill, exist?

There should be a pill for it.

Moi

Agreed! Normalcy is mankind's curse. It should be wiped out at all costs.

I suppose I might as well chime in. ^^

My cousin had her first child at 13, and he had serious problems--I've never seen the exact diagnoses, but it seems like it was similar to cerebral paulsy (keeping in mind that I don't know much of anything about said condition, or even if I spelled it right).

I bring him up mainly because that's how specialized nurses and education got involved, and stayed involved for a bit after she had two other kids later (once it was legal...).

Said two other kids currently live with my parents (the first one only lived to age 7 ).

These two are extremely different from one another. One is extremely energetic, skinny, athletic, and reasonably intelligent (I imagine he'd be even smarter if he had the attention span to do more reading). The other is relatively lazy, overweight (115Lbs at age 9... sometimes I can get down to that weight still...!), not academically inclined at all, and gets extremely emotional over the slightest inconvenience. (Lest I be accused of picking favorites, will point out that this does not strictly lump one as good and the other as bad... I'm giving basic information, here! ).

The one that's had the most concerns come up from people in the field as to his mental health is the skinny one. They insist that the fat one is perfectly healthy and can't find anything wrong with him.

The skinny one might well be diagnosed with some ADHD all fine and well (nothing anywhere near bad enough to require medicating). But the fat one is the one whose issues straight up hurt everyone to deal with. The problem is that noone likes his behavior, and lets him know it all fine and well. So I can see this developing into something even worse just because none of us know how to deal with it.

I think some of it is just his personality clashing with the rest of us. But the amount of help that the "experts" have provided is not encouraging. (And, well, I got a renouned state psychologist that works on my campus to basically go "I have no idea what your deal is... stop seeing me until you have something clearer" to me last year. There's got to be something positive in here somewhere...).

SplitDik (imported) wrote: Fri Apr 15, 2011 8:52 pm I agree that meds can help, but the trick is the risk-reward.

I'm not sure where to start. SplitDik has said so many reasonable things in this thread.

One stands out - a decision to not medicate a kid who could study, concentrate, play piano, etc, but needed time on emotional control.

I do not envy making that decision - my default answer is "hell no!" but there are times when it makes sense. I congratulate him on thinking about it long-and-hard, which he clearly has, and articulating WHY in this thread.

I think SplitDik is right and I think he's paying attention to the right things.

I agree completely.

chibifish (imported) wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2011 7:43 am I think some of it is just his personality clashing with the rest of us. But the amount of help that the "experts" have provided is not encouraging. (And, well, I got a renouned state psychologist that works on my campus to basically go "I have no idea what your deal is... stop seeing me until you have something clearer" to me last year. There's got to be something positive in here somewhere...).

I believe in evolution, and always find it odd that we've evolved such that children are so aggravating. You would think that evolution would quickly ensure that all kids listen to their parents. First of all, that would make sense from point of view that the parents have survived so must know something about survival. Secondly, you would think that in times before society was strong that bad kids would just get killed or abandoned.

However, if evolution favors rebellious, annoying kids, then it must have an evolutionary survival advantage. I think it must come from a few things -- first of all, we are the descendents of the most exploratory ancestors. Explorers are by definition people who are dissatisfied with where they are and are willing to risk their lives just to find new horizons. We're also descendants of the most dominating ancestors, often the most warlike. Heck we're still happily fighting wars and toting guns and generally being violent to each other. So being dissatisfied and sociopathic actually have an evolutionary advantage, and as a result kids are frigging aggravating.

Like my son has so much potential. He is smart (classified gifted and can program computers at age 10), handsome (even been in tv commercials), healthy, funny. But he still does really extremely oppositional things that make him entirely unteachable in a classroom setting. He's just making life hard for himself (and for us), and yet he continues to do it and then doctors think he must be mentally ill and requires meds.

Anyway, my point is that it is natural for kids to be odd, oppositional, unpleasant, aggravating, etc. So don't worry too much about those two kids you're talking about. The main thing is to set a good example, and they will pick up a bit of it and then otherwise they will do what humans have evolved to do -- go their own way.

coinflipper_21 (imported) wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2011 7:29 am The dramatic increase in diagnoses of autism, especially Asberger's , ADHD, and HAD, tells me not, as some people suggest, that something modern technology is introducing into the environment is causing these conditions to increase, but that they have become the diagnoses du jour. This is particularly disturbing when it comes to boys. So many are being diagnosed, medicated, or put into special schools simply for what in the past would have been recognized as being boys. While some people legitimately have these conditions to varying degrees, I'd confidently wager that if current diagnostic practice had been in place for the previous 200 years many of the people we now hail as geniuses would not have gotten the chance to be great.

coinflipper,

Agreed 100%!

A generation ago (80's and 90's), it seemed like *every* kid had ADD/ADHD, and they were put on Ritalin. In fact, there have been a number of lawsuits against Novartis (maker of Ritalin), claiming that they created a disease in order to sell meds!

I have *no* doubt that ADD/ADHD was *seriously* overdiagnosed/misdiagnosed back then, or that the various Autism Spectrum Disorders are *seriously* overdiagnosed/misdiagnosed today!

-YPA

YourPhriendlyAuthor (imported) wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2011 11:45 pm coinflipper,

Agreed 100%!

A generation ago (80's and 90's), it seemed like *every* kid had ADD/ADHD, and they were put on Ritalin. In fact, there have been a number of lawsuits against Novartis (maker of Ritalin), claiming that they created a disease in order to sell meds!

I have *no* doubt that ADD/ADHD was *seriously* overdiagnosed/misdiagnosed back then, or that the various Autism Spectrum Disorders are *seriously* overdiagnosed/misdiagnosed today!

-YPA

Add to these depression and the fashionable bipolar disorder.

Do other creatures on Earth that have brains have mental illness? And how could you tell?

The brain is a very complicated thing. Evolution is the process of deviation from the norm. What works, continues on. What doesn't, does not continue or if it does continue leads to an eventual demise of the species. It just might be that different mental states are part of that evolutionary process. To the normal brain, the different brain is abnormal and ill.

Thankfully in some situations the deviation can be mask or treated.

But not in all.

If those who have brains with deviations do not reproduce, then the deviation is removed from evolution.

I know its more complicated than that, but it's a thought from one who is obviously a tad deviant (and I did not reproduce)

kristoff wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2011 6:01 am Add to these depression and the fashionable bipolar disorder.

Yeah, there are definitely fads in these diagnosises. In the 1980s it was all about schizophrenia and bipolar. In 1990s it was depression. In 2000s it was ADHD and Autism/Aspergers. In 2010s it is anxiety -- I know lots of young children who are diagnosed with "generalized anxiety". I've also recently gotten that classification as well.