Madness Defined: 'Loony' And 'Nuts' Just Don't Cut It

[rodeodance]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-mentalsidebar10apr10,0,3673795.story


April 10, 2005

LABELS
Madness Defined: 'Loony' And 'Nuts' Just Don't Cut It


Michael Soller Mental illness, though real and often devastating, is subject to fashions and fads. Diagnoses seem to burst into popular consciousness and just as quickly sink into obscurity. A look at the au courant diagnoses of the past and present shows that what's on our minds today might not be tomorrow.

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— Michael Soller

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1700s-1800s: Melancholia 1990s: Depression



If John Keats were a citizen of Prozac nation, would he have still penned an "Ode on Melancholy"? Another early 19th century poet who caught the melancholy fever: Abraham Lincoln, who once imagined himself a "companion of the dead." Melancholia, a disease of the spirit, reemerged in the 20th century as depression, a disease of the chemical brain. In popular culture, the bête noir of poets and at least one president became, with the publication of Elizabeth Wurtzel's "Prozac Nation" in 1994, the pet rock of post-college slackers. For the millions who suffer from it, depression exists on a continuum from truly disabling to chronic but less disruptive.

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1880-1910: Hysteria

In the 1880s, hysteria was all the rage. Artists, dilettantes and a young Sigmund Freud crowded Jean-Martin Charcot's famous Paris clinic, where the doctor paraded his weeping and wailing female patients. Hysteria "has so grand and so beautiful a history that it would be painful to give it up," one psychiatrist wrote. By 1910, many psychiatrists had. And the much-criticized "female malady" lost its grip for good.
much more.......
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[whistle]

1. And the point of this article is.......?

[Maraya1969]

2. I remember when Multiple Personality Disorder was all the rage

I knew it was stupid and wrong. All sorts of people coming out of drug and alcohol rehabs were saying, "I have MPD" I have no idea how their doctors came to that diagnosis but I'm sure all these people have different ones now.

They forgot to mention Borderline Personality Disorder. That one was all the rage in the 80's.

[undergroundpanther]

3. Umm dude

Multiple personality is REAL so is PTSD. Why? I have it.I was diagnosed before it was"the rage" I have it because been through severe trauma. If people didn't abuse kids,start wars,beat each otherup,rape each other,bully eavch other, intimidate each other and reinforce in nequality so much,and sociopaths could be detected and contained trauma disorders would be reduced tremendously.Natural disasters happen,but less people have MPD due to natural disasters.Aklot of pain in traumas cauised by abuers comes from a betrayal of a child's basic trust in whom they must depend on,a the buse and denial and inability to say honestly what happened due to keeping up a false family appearance.
SRA might be alot of drama,some cases might be true some not true some may be mixed. Regardless of the SRA sensationalism, child abuse is really a bad problem at church at home,school..,and abuse in childhood scars show up in adults who recreate traumas in kids.Trauma tends to sometimes reinforce itself in adulthood thorough further traumatization,which is an ass backwards way trying to resolve the original trauma and it creates more symptoms.Trauma causes changes in your brain waves and scars your brain.Abuse and stress causes dissociation.Profound dissociation causes the ego to create compartments,those compartments are how a personality can hold a structure despite an assault that would destroy it.

I suggest you educate yourself on mental illness, listen to people that have it,quit reading stuff that exists just to make excuses and minimize the individual and social damage done by pedophiles bullies and abusers, and grow some compassion in that heart of yours.

[lonestarnot]

4. Ewww damn! Very well said!

[undergroundpanther]

5. Thanks

I'm just Sick to death of how people who devalue someone else's pain and minimize the impact all this abuse(look at the statistics) has on people and cultures,who gets hurt? all who are NOT sociopaths,rapists,bullies abusers. It's because of the pseudo scientific bullshit put out by the false memory syndrome yahoos and the sensationalism people tend to minimize traumas and fail to intervene when kids are hurt(recently a kid was buried alive in florida..looks to me like some of the tortures described by SRA victims isn't totally bullshit).The FM SF are advocates for abusive people and their enablers funded by a few ethically bankrupt rich sources hellbent on making excuses that people will buy that sound oh so 'scientific' designed precisely for excusing abusive people's acts by minimizing the damage by calling it something other than what it IS..FMSF is all about making abusive people unaccountable to victims and the people who love them and are affected by the damage bullies and abusers do to human beings..

Too many abusive authoritarian,wannabe tali ban fuck heads in this world getting away with shattering innocent trusting souls..

[Maraya1969]

7. Hey I'm bi-polar!

That is how I know so many people who got diagnosed. I'm sorry if I offended you, I really am. I was stuck with schizophrenia in the 70's and Borderline in the early 80's until someone accurately diagnosed me.

I'm not saying that you do not have MPD either. My own illness was so hard to treat that I finally went to a very expensive expert on manic depression. He was the one that told me MPD is extremely rare. I asked him specifically because I knew so many people coming out of rehabs, (I'm alcoholic also) with the MPD disorder.

Trust me I know what mental pain is like. I also have/had anxiety disorder/agoraphobia. I spent one entire year not going out of the house at night. And during the day I could only go a certain distance from my home.

It has been many years for me and I am so much better. I believe that this country treats the mentally ill horribly. If my parents could not afford to pay for that expensive specialist I don't think I would be alive today. I always think about that when I see people coming from "clinics" and doctors that treat everything with the same drugs.
Remember two jerks who shouldn't have had doctor's licenses diagnosed me with Borderline Personality and Schizophrenia. I would have never gotten well had I been treated for those disorders instead of the one that really fits me.

I am truly sorry again and trust me - I know.

EDIT - for grammer

[EFerrari]

6. BPD is very real. And people who have it often receive

crappy or inappropriate treatment because of the rep it has.

[Maraya1969]

8. I just put up a new post - please read it Thanks

OH, I must say also that the doctor that finally helped me said that a lot of people who are diagnosed with Borderline really have mild forms of bi-polar. Not all of course but if you have that diagnosis it might me a good idea to try a mood stabilizer and see if it helps. That would make the diagnosis right there.

[EFerrari]

9. I'm confused. Are you referring to this one I'm responding to? nt

[EFerrari]

10. Ah. I see!

Maraya,

Good for you for fighting the good fight! My husband is borderline and somewhat autistic, he isn't bipolar. But I totally agree with you that DXs are handed out to vulnerable people that are not useful, accurate or helpful. (I was told I had depression for years until someone "discovered" PTSD. lol -- I can laugh now, but it wasn't all that funny at the time.

Hey, have you considered posting in the Mental Health Support Group? There's a great group of really wonderful people there.

Be well,
Beth

[XemaSab]

11. This article also forgot Asperger's

the diagnosis de jour for the socially maladjusted.

Asperger's is what used to be called nerdiness, but now we have to slap a label on it and consider it an illness instead of a normal part of the spectrum of human personalities.

I think we need to bring back hysteria as a diagnosis.

"Sorry boss, I can't come to work because I'm hysterical. I need to go relax at a sanatarium in the Napa Valley for a few months. See ya."

[EFerrari]

12. Asperger' s is not nerdiness.

It is a measureable medical condition.

[XemaSab]

15. It's a measurable facet of personality

parts of which can be very rewarding or very debilitating depending on peer acceptance and how extreme it is.

[tibbir]

13. Maybe it's just me, but I have bipolar disorder

and I'd love for what I go through to turn out to be just a fad that'll die out for lack of popularity. I believe this article is highly insensitive to the real pain of a lot of people.

[jbnow]

14. Ah, Charcot and hysteria

Charcot was actually the first to recognize some common symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Charcot's triad (Nystagmus, Intention Tremor, & Scanning Speech)is observed if a certain part of the brain is affected.

But what this reminds me of is that for many, many years physical symptoms such as those with MS were thought to be hysterical reactions, especially since they affected women much more often. They were thought to have a mental illness.

If someone with a physical illness such as MS or chronic fatigue takes the MMPI they will have elevations on the histrionic scale! The old hysterical neurosis Charcot was so fond of because the scale has questions about physical symptoms that come with many auto-immune disorders (that affect mostly women of course.)

The root word of hysteria is uterus. Hippocrates believed hysteria was caused by a "wandering uterus" and to anchor it the woman should get pregnant or at least have frequent intercourse so that moist, it would not steal moisture from other organs, causing hysteria.

[BeFree]

16. HEY...who is perfect?

Shoot, I'm sure, if I let them examine me, they'd come up with some 'New to Science' explanation for my ego. So,,, don't yall think your something special.

We are all bozos on this bus! <G>

[EFerrari]

17. "Gracefully surrender the things of youth

clean air, Taiwan . . ."

:)