Most people associate PTSD with combat soldiers. Espescially the Vietnam war era, when I think the term was coined. Soldiers experience horrible things and some relive it when they get home in flashbacks and other symptoms.
Now if you had a rough childhood you can be diagnosed with PTSD. I am not discounting bad childhoods okay? The other day I saw someone had an alcoholic father and from that was diagnosed with PTSD. Now, lots of people come from families with alcoholism (Probably a good 75% of nurses for example), but seriously do the majority have PTSD? No. My point being, sometimes I think that people who are neurotic and anxious and can't seem to cope with life are given these labels too easily.
Another popular new label: bipolar disorder. Its the new de rigeur label. I mean Catherine Zeta Jones has it. Again, not saying there aren't a lot of people who truly have it. Lord knows I've seen my share of manic patients, but sometimes I think it is just too easy to diagnose someone with a serious mental illness.
What bugs me the most is when kids are given these labels, teenagers. Its a big deal to be labelled at any age, let alone adolescence. It becomes a part of your medical record. Then the medication merry go round begins in which they try ten meds to see which one works, which messes people up further and if you weren't nuts to begin with, you will be by the end.
Its a sometimes a stressful, harsh world we live in. Perhaps its easier for psychiatry to label people and throw a pill at them, then it is to talk to them and teach them how to cope. Mental illness still has a lot of stigma, how will it ever be taken seriously if this labelling fad doesn't stop?
5 comments:
I think they're moving away from the peds bipolar fad. Now the hot thing is calling formerly "naughty" then "bipolar" kids is "oppositional defiant disorder" with ADHD or some combo like that. Now every kid has oppositional defiant disorder.
Well I have hit the jackpot having been diagnosed with bipolar AND PTSD. I can tell you that I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy and am sick of hearing about celebreties being diagnosed with these conditions. You are right that it was first diagnosed after the Veitnam war but the military did not want to accept this information. Actually PTSD and Bipolar often go hand in hand. I am now getting treatment but it took 20 years to be diagnosed.
Those disorders suck when they're legit. Being diagnosed with BPD gave me something concrete to focus on and get help for.
It was strange to actually see the underlying causes of my self-hate and weirdness. Not that I'm any less weird now... but at least I can function.
I was just mentioning this to someone the other day. The put a label on everything now. They also have schools "diagnosing" to parents that something may be wrong with their child, when really they just don't know how to act.
I like your blogs.
Bit late on this but isn't oppositional defiant disorder the normal pattern for a toddler? It describes the "symptoms" - just like polymyalgia rheumatica does, lots of muscles are painful. Doesn't necessarily mean it needs drugs to deal with though - just proper parenting. But that takes time and effort, stops you playing on your cell phone...
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