Posted by yxibow on January 22, 2009, at 5:31:30
In reply to Re: Risk of sudden death?, posted by Trans-Human on January 22, 2009, at 4:51:19
I can appreciate not liking labels -- I don't like the idea that I have a disorder I never would have thought I would have encountered, somatoform NOS, psychosis NOS. But it is not otherwise specified, meaning it doesn't meet the standard criteria for the disorders, it is an orphan disorder that is no less distressing to me.
I don't like that it is theoretically possible that I can temporarily become "psychotic", or so a theory on a rather important psychological testing (which I think if someone is able to obtain such a thing is a valuable asset to their treatment), if I have a situation of extreme stress.
Nevertheless I know what I see, call it psychosis, or call it an unexplained hypersensitivity and exaggeration of ordinary visual phenomenon (lights too bright, headlights and taillights annoying, blinking things distracting and confusion occurs).
I also know its not what others may call reality but it is my reality, and that is also a moot point -- it is distressing and I'm quite aware of it, that which is making it more difficult to express my own intelligence and good charm at times though it is very much still there.
For me, "psychosis" and "psychotic" sometimes brings up a connotation of someone running around with a machete because they believe that someone channeled them through the television to do destruction. (please pardon me if I'm starting to offend people with such a diagnosis)
But that's not what the DSM term necessarily means really, its a clinical definition, and people with strong psychosis and psychotic features are actually usually quite distressed that they have these conditions.
I would say that 99% of schizophrenic patients are not serial killers, or depraved individuals. In fact, numbers are very introverted and at a greater risk to themselves rather than others. Sensationalist movie and television scripts might paint things otherwise, but that's not how things generally are.
Schizophrenia, schizo-affective and the schizophreniform disorders are very real conditions and have been around since we have been modern homo sapiens probably. They just were never identified like a lot of conditions.
Not all schizophrenic patients, but some can be identified on PET and MRI scans because of some changes in brain structure and certain degradation of areas due to disease progression.
What I think really is that what labels bring is stigma, and I think that's the feeling that people may have when they are labeled, which is something that organizations like NAMI are attempting to change in society, the stigma of mental illness.Today NAMI calls patients "consumers" -- you go to a mental health professional, you or insurance pays, and you get help, a service, just like any other individual.
That doesnt change the fact that the medical label is still there. And in a way its important to categorize diseases because if we want to put mental illness on par with heart conditions and other "organic" disorders, there has to be some sort of classification. This brings things together and makes more of a case for equality in insurance and other matters.
Some may still think so, but schizophrenia is not split personalities and the like -- whether origins of names from greek and latin routes may be misleading at times, this is what the medical community has settled at this time on DSM-IV-TR.There are numbers of people with schizophrenia, who with proper treatment since chlorphromazine came in and stopped drilling holes and insulin in hospitals in the 50s, and with more recent, less harsh medications, are leading productive lives and you would not know it at first.
I don't know what else you would call it -- I don't know what else you would call "depression" or "anxiety" or "bipolar" (which is a more recent scientific name, and granted better, than manic depression which didn't address that depression has polarities).
I'm just free associating here -- call your diagnosis what you wish or just not focus on the name of it at all but the recovery process for it.
Science has to call it something until (as manic depression e.g. above) there are other terms, often because there are other treatments too.-- tidings
Jay
poster:yxibow
thread:874659
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090104/msgs/875390.html