Panic attacks

[kakapo]

 

Ah man, you're falling in so many traps that good reason and intelligence should keep you out of.

 

 

You're using an Aunt Sally repeatedly through your post. At no point have I made the argument that panic attacks or Bipolar disorder or any other anxiety spectrum disorder aren't real, or all in the mind, and everyone should man up or anything like that. Perhaps I should have put panic attacks in italics or apostrophes with my panic attacks do not exist comment, but you should have been able to infer that it was not meant to be taken literally from the fact that I'd previously stated that I'd had panic attacks or equivalent. 'Panic attacks do not exist' in that context was referring to a particular phenomenom described in my previous post. Perhaps I should have said 'panic attacks should not exist' (The phrase that is). It's that viral (mis)appropriation of 'panic attacks' and 'bipolar disorder' and 'nervous breakdown' by the public consciousness, that I take issue with. My point is not just one of accuracy, but that it creates a semantic, semiotic even (god I hate those words) maze, one more barrier for that person to overcome. This is what I mean by a question of clarity and perspective. I think the DSMIV is half the solution and half the problem.

 

 

1. There is no distinction between "mind" and "body"...the mind is what the brain does. You panicked your ass off at the perceived threat of the misery of a migraine until you were trained otherwise to watch for auras. Guess what? Your panic was the same as that weak ass suck face who can't seem to get just how easy this all is!. That's a sub-failure to this point: the assumption that what was elementary and straightforward will be the same for someone else. I'll maybe give you a 1985 slow clap for your Conquistador status over your fear of disease--don't call it any other way, you were scared of a migraine and as you should have been--they're miserable as I've seen but I've never had one. It was not a special kind of "man's panic" by dint of neurological disorder--c'mon dude, it's 2010, it's ok, you don't have to be afraid of being seen as "hysterical". Do you see me saying "HAI JUST TAKE A TRIPTAN GAWD IT'S SO EAZY"? No, because I appreciate the unique challenges migraine sufferers face and would never presume to choose this time of people's genuine self-disclosure to get all pat and naive.

 

And you're making assumptions. At what point have I suggested a distinction between mind and body? Again this comes down to exactly my point, the 'problem' can be understood, treated in most cases or we're getting there, there is no reason to fetishize and put on a pedestal a mental disorder.

 

No I was not suggesting that my experience could be extrapolated to anybdoy elses. Again this can be inferred through me stating that I was lucky enough that I was able to tackle them and get a handle on them myself, and then stating that other people may need help from a specialist or chemicals, not because they are 'weaker' or whatever, but exactly because my own personal experience doesn't necessarily extrapolate to anybody elses.

 

Again as stated my migraine is within the spectrum of complicated migraine. It is relatively infrequent for me to have a full blown migraine in the 'headache' sense. What I do have is a very extended aura. At first there was no obvious association between the aura and the panic attacks because the aura did not occur in a linear fashion. There was neither a conscious or subconscious fear of impending migraine, because there was no 'migraine'. Neither was it directly linked to the vertigo, the vertigo was simply the most obvious symptom to a 13 year old that I was going to be a little bit funny for the next few hours/days/weeks. It generally occurred in the 'hangover' phase. And its a good job you didn't prescribe that triptan because it would induce a stroke in me. When I'm stupid it leads to internet bollocks syndrome. You need to go back and retake migraine 101 before you kill someone.

 

*self slow handclap*

 

2. Problems are not on an Absolute and Objective sliding scale of importance. Hey, there's 10 billion resources for blind people plus a straight-ahead, do not pass go ticket to full disability in a hurry. I say that woman will be just fine. I am sympathetic to her going blind but it sounds like she's got loads of resources ahead so I would put the American bum on the street ahead of her because he has zero resources but I don't play that child-like and simplistic game. I dunno, you may really be 15-19 so this would all make more sense. You're using your own scale of "problem legitimacy" and then telling the rest of the world they ought to abide. Kakapo and 5.999 billion other cunts that need to get on board, right?

 

I'd rather have an anxiety spectrum disorder that can potentially be treated/'cured'/relieved with something as straightforward as a pill once a day, than lose my sight permanently. I can only apologise if that makes me sound like an idiot. I would wish neither on anyone.

 

 

3. We all know there's an undesirable element of marketing, money and conspiracy in medicine. Yes, doctors do get together with government who gets together with pharmaceuticals and so forth until their particular lobby becomes "science" or "law". But, you know what? I'm fine with that if it means more people can get treatment. No great fortune is without some great crime typically but at least the spoils of that fortune mean free drug samples and increased practitioners and more awareness and less stigma. Let me make this clear: NOT EVERYONE "GETS ON" AS WELL AS YOU. Not everybody has the same resources or cognitive abilities as you. So fucking what if the goal post changed? You know what I see? More players. That's great! But that leads me to....

 

National Health Service, limited resources.

 

4. Good job on brilliant statistical analysis. You know one person who claims to have bipolar disorder and now you're ready to speak for millions of others? Again, you may really be 14 or 15, in which case I'd delete everything I've said because it would be unfair to call you out on being such an egregious git. You're like some kind of psychological racist--like...they all look alike and eat watermelon, correct? You're making the same error on a different dimension. There will always be people who seek out a label and then stamp it all over themselves but psychiatry itself discourages this. I never say "I'm bipolar" and I always discouraged my clients from doing the same. "I have bipolar disorder" but I would never let it fucking have me by making it the singular adjective to describe me in a sentence like "I am bipolar". This is the prevailing practice of NAMI and most other recovery-focused organization. That's another thing. If your "friend" is still drinking and in the Columbian, he has no concept of "recovery" and this has been the biggest forward step in psychiatry probably since the invention of Prozac. Once upon a time, all your therapists and doctors really would "diagnose" you with a "disease" and you would be "sick" until you were "cured". You reveal just how outside of the realm you claim so much expertise in you really are. In fact, you've struggled to make even one valid or useful statement on any discipline--biology, psychology, sociology, even science in general.

 

I've not claimed expertise in any discipline. I'm currently training to be a vicar.

 

It was clearly an anecdote to illustrate a point, not statistical analysis. That point was not this person represents everyone who has been diagnosed as Bipolar. The point was not that people who have Bipolar are all seccret smackheads. The point was he was never going to 'get better' until he stopped taking shitloads of drugs and then using his diagnosis as an excuse. In the meantime I'm perfectly comfortable allocating those limited resources to the blind girl/someone with bipolar who has a concept of 'recovery'.

 

People getting psychitric help are dealt with in the recovery model whereby they understand that there will be no "cure" since there isn't a total "disease" strictly speaking in the medical model. The mentally ill understand that there is a component of brain disease that they can only treat with medicine and not do much about currently but that there are basically an infinite number of other dimensions in their life that they can use to forge a recovery that is unique to them and not fall under that trap of "thinking sick". Most people want to get well but were not gifted with your particular resilience in life and have to go find it themselves--a task for which you should muster a slow-clap of your own for. There will always be the cunts trying to wear it like a badge, to wear it to shakedown the government for benefits, to wear it to manipulate others and basically be a jerkface like your "friend"...by the way, did you notice that, while you wouldn't concede to the term "bipolar", you did speak of "spastic mentalism". Well, "a rose by any other name...." yes or no? Do you think one has control of a "spastic mentalism" not like "bipolar", whereby one doesn't have control. Jesus mate, you need so much education it's a huge assignment for you at this point.

 

You've just articulated one of my points more eloquently than I could ever hope to do myself. Thank you. 'Spastic mentalism' has a cultural resonance in the UK that you're missing.

 

As for me, I've never used cocaine or anything beyond marijuana in my life because I knew better. I knew that I didn't have the brain for it. I'll "tie one on" in the booze department, even though I know it's terrible for my brain, but current social practice sort of ties my hands--we all have to take something so I'll booze it for a night but no more than once every 2 months or so because the drink is actually the most deleterious from a neurological standpoint. I have a 3.7 graduate GPA, hundreds of college hours, a 5.5 out of possible 6 on the Graduate Record Exam, a 23 on the Medical College Application Test, an abuse-free upbringing, loving parents, plenty of friends, a marriage of 6 years---all the "trappings" but there has always been one thing that held me back and it's what you call "spastic mentalism". Do you think for a second that I would choose or embrace something like that--"fetishize" it as you say? NOT FOR A FUCKING SECOND! It's literally the one thing that has held me back. Because I used to think like you, I tried to just "shoulder" it and shunned help so as to not appear weak on "Kakapo's scale of problems"--after all, I was "big man on campus", attractive, popular with girls, had great grades and even worked part-time in a hospital on top of it--I should have "gotten it together". But I didn't and am only getting ahold of that Big Pharm that you so maligned but is serving as something of a miracle drug and helping me to get through nursing school whereas before, I always fell just a few ticks short thanks to that "bad thing I wasn't supposed to talk about" according to people like my parents and just like you.

 

I love science because it allows me to stay out of so many arguments and not have to appear knowledgeable in all areas. If you don't have solid, contemporary evidence, hypotheses that can withstand the rigor of reason, then, STAY THE FUCK OUT, right? It's great--it frees up so much time and effort. You don't have to know the whole world like your posts portend.

 

Again, limited resources. I want you to have them, not the cunt with the cocaine problem.

[kakapo]

 

 

XXX has replied well in true XXX style.... I'll be a bit more brusque:

 

I understand that Raj P is a psychiatrist and was famous for a time for plagiarizing or something. I'm not sure what you're getting at with your question but, of course, I am not this gentleman. I am a psychotherapist however and direct a company that provides therapeutic interventions like desensitization for ptsd and specific phobia.

 

Yes, but he was more famous for being the pop psychologist on daytime tv. However, you need to read, "Who the fuck are you, Raj Persaud?" in a Geordie accent to understand that the comment was good natured.

 

 

I understand that there are faults with the DSM IV, but your claim that its authors have purposefully widened the "goalposts" of certain disorders in order to just include more people is fairly lame. symptom inclusions change over time as we learn more about different disorders. science becomes hip to new information from research or from treatment. It's pretty conspiratorial to believe that all the doctors and pharm companies are in on it so that we can all profit somehow.

 

 

We both know that's not how 'vested' interests always work, it can be a lot more insiduous than that. My last line about the patient being happy because he now has a label was in part ironic. I suspect that the scepticism towards the DSMIV is a lot more prevalent in the UK than the US. It often forms a subtext to the ongoing psychiatry vs therapy debate in this country. If there is a difference in opinion here, and I think both yourself and xxx are closer to my point than you realise, it is at least in part explained by that.

 

 

The argument that some of these disorders didn't exist in older times is always an interesting one... it could be that because we weren't looking for it we didn't see it.... or it could be that different disorders have developed as biology has changed or as society has changed. Either way we can't just say that they don't exist now when tons of people are walking around with very similar symptoms and are generally not having that great of a time dealing with them.

 

That wasn't my point.

 

getting back to the panic part.... you talk about people fetishizing these disorders and not "tackling the real problem." What's the real problem? you're providing a bit of a circular argument so it's difficult to respond to properly.

 

The real problem is the panic attack and its causes. The 'panic attack' doesn't exist.

[Guest tht tne]

[Guest nene multiple assgasms]

I can do a decent karl but not for long as it makes my throat sore.