Posted by Cece on November 17, 2002, at 15:23:27
In reply to Re: To tell or not to tell .... » Jumpy, posted by Dinah on November 17, 2002, at 8:58:54
I'm curious as to how much of the variable in acceptance versus unacceptance of psychistric problems has to do with age.
I'm 53. My generation started in a time when going to a shrink was a sign of being either a rich intellectual New Yorker, or a lost case. Lots has been learned and made public in the meantime, but the old dogs and new tricks syndrome prevails. I have friends (with other redeeming features of course) who think that psychiatry is composed of snake oil salesmen. "I can handle my problems myself", they say, "I don't want anyone poking around in my mind", "those guys are all frauds", etc.. Some of them could use a little help themselves, and I'm sure that if one of their children had a psychiatric breakdown they would learn a lot in a big hurry and be humbled. In the meantime, they can sit comfortably on their outdated attitudes- but they are not people who would be cruel and call someone "prozac head" or whatever it was.
Anyway, we didn't grow up with articles in magazines and newspapers about medical treatment for psych problems, people didn't know the names of psych meds like people now know Prozac, it was not known that there are biological bases for psych disorders. It was deep, dark, and shameful to 'lose your mind' or 'have a breakdown'.
My neice on the other hand is 39 and BP. She still needs to be circumspect about who she discloses to, but she has many friends on meds and plenty of people that she can easily talk to with without fear of rejection or judgement.
And for those of you who are in your 20's it must be different still. Is that true? Do you feel more fear of judgement from older people than from your peers?
Cece
P.S. A related sideline: my great-grandfather's obituary reads like a case study of a manic-depressive (not a known diagnosis in 1910), there are (total) 3 suicides on both side of my family in the next 2 generations, both my mother and sister were hospitalized with post-partum psychosis (my mother attempted suicide)- and yet when I had a breakdown in my mid-20's my parents blamed it on the fact that I had been smoking marijuana- and they were intelligent, well-educated people.
poster:Cece
thread:24808
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20021106/msgs/32424.html