[PurpleFlyingMonkeys]

Everyone seems to have some kind of mental disorder.. Wether it ve attention defecit disorder, bipolar disorder, dissasociative identity disorder, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder... Etc etc etc... Once we can stop calling them "disorders" and just realize that our minds are all unique, we will realize that these so called disorders are only the way our brains are wired to percieve the world. These disorders will become the categories of like minds which could change the way we view the psychiatric field and in turn create new and better ways to understand and move forward with these categories and the healing process involved.

Just my over night thoughts, figured I would share with my psych family

[Indie'sOK]

I agree. Just look at the great minds of people like John Nash, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Susanna Kaysen, and countless other artists, writers, musicians, poets, and thinkers. There's a link between disorder and brilliance.

I mean, how many of us are artists and writers ourselves?

Interesting post,

I'm definitely not a professional in the mental health field...but I think I'd feel weird labelling my Bipolar Disorder and OCD as "unique ways of perceiving the world". That makes it sound like a positive thing. But the reality is, these are disorders because they are problematic and require treatment. Without therapy, medication, and even ECT, I believe I would be dead right now. I suppose they could be called unique in the sense that they are different than what society deems a "normal" brain and mind. But because Bipolar, OCD, depression, schizophrenia, etc have such negative effects on those suffering from it, I think it makes sense to label them as mental illnesses. Otherwise, people may not take these illnesses so seriously.

[shezbut]

I would say that everyone has various traits that can fall into unhealthy levels. The majority of general population don't carry extreme levels of the traits though.

It can feel as though everyone has emotional troubles. And to some extent, that is true. We all suffer in life. Some of us to more dramatic degrees than others though. And we're the ones that tend to suffer a variety of mental (and physical) health issues.

The illnesses are real. They can cause a lot of pain, suffering, confusion, and inconveniences. It's better that the general population has some degree of understanding the many illnesses that affect millions of people. This understanding leads to a lot less hurt feelings and allows the disabled to still play a part in their communities without feeling like some dark plague, feared by others.

That's my personal perspective.

[PurpleFlyingMonkeys]

I do realize how scary some of these can be, as I myself have been diagnosed with schizophrenia, DID, manic depression, as well as anxiety disorder ADD and Bipolar. Some of these I do not believe myself but over all I have paranoia, I have moments where I do very dangerous things and moments where I am over cautious to extremes, I have blackouts and I have severe mood swings along with hallucinations and dillusions. I have been in and out of therapy for 10 years and have finally over time come to learn to live with and accept my categories. These categories can be looked at in one or two ways, you hate yourself for it or you work to live with it and work to deal with it and face it head on. Sure when I'm under high ammounts of stress I hallucinate still. I was at one point on 1,350 mg of Lithium and 75mg of seroquil along with tranquelizers, mood stabalizers, antipsychotics, valium, you name it I've been on it and at the age of 15 I was taking 32 pills a day for my moods. As someone who is now 24 years old and on absolutely NO meds at all, happy with myself, and for the first time in my life I don't feel as if I am the only one carrying this weight on my shoulders. I have realized that whether or not people admit to it, no one is perfect and everyone has something "wrong" with them. That being said, if everyone has something wrong with them mentally in some way shape or form, then it's not so strange after all and is in turn normal. You can agree or disagree. The way I look at it when posting this thread is that a good outlook on life sometimes is not so bad and to spread that good outlook is even better. A lot of these "disorders" we will live with for the rest of our life. Alot of us will never be 100% "healed" of these "disorders" and for that reason I believe we should look at it differently as well as the psychiatric field in general.

I can't tell you how many times a therapist of mine has said they themselves have bipolar or have been through depression, borderline, and even one of my therapists said she wished she had Dissasociative Identity Disorder. Something you would think no one, especially a therapist would want. She specialized in DID and still wished to have DID.

Look at the illegal drugs of the world today as well. Ecstacy as well as LSD, Peyote and Mushrooms have all been used to study the psychological field. These studies have shown a lot of good results from such hallucinogenics but the lack of control the government has on these drugs have forced them to make it illegal. These "drugs" that were mostly created by doctors and psychiatrists. These drugs have a very strong similarity to the "symptoms" that I have experienced my entire life with the schizophrenia. The hallucinations, the ups and downs with my mood, the paranoia even, hearing feeling and sensing things, it's strange because in a stressful point of my life, where things were out of hand and I had lost control of my mind and was seeing things everywhere and going berzerk, I experimented with these things for the first time and responsibly and the end result was nothing I had expected. Years ago I tried these and I didn't see too many things different than if I were having a schizo melt down, I heard pretty much the same things and my state of mind was not altered so much at all. Things still seemed rather normal for me. The only difference was that for a short time during those dark days my spirit was lifted a little. My mood was lighter and I smiled and laughed non stop.

I wont touch Ecstacy, it's dirty dangerous and I want nothing to do with it. The only thing I will possibly try again in the future would be LSD or Mushrooms, but I don't think I want to do them without supervision. I think they should bring back that method of treatment for those who need it. Some people I do believe did have psychotic breakdowns after using these drugs but if you had never experienced the hallucinations that I have, or felt the way I have... Just the schizophrenia would drive someone crazy if never experiencing something similar before. But for someone who lives the life LSD creates but without the ups LSD gives, I do wish they would legalize it for therapists and psychiatrists to use on willing patients again like they used to. I hope this doesn't get deleted. Let me say this... My dad is a crack head and always has been, I don't agree with illegal drugs and I hate them, I also don't care for legal pills. Narcotics I never take. I hate taking Tylenol even. Rather than put us on countless pills every day why not teach us to accept and live with our "disorder" and teach us to live on as little chemical dependency as we possibly can? Again these are just my opinions, I'm not trying to step on anyones toes.

[Sophia57]

I think being bipolar makes me unique. There are definitely special qualities to being mentally ill. But on the other hand, ask me on a depression cycle and I will have a totally different answer. I like that I can be hypomanic, (slightly) and have more fun than all the people who are drinking and doing drugs. I like that I am a contagious and lively person. But is that bipolar or just the person God created me to be? Good thread.