My freewheeling curious mind - a minor rant

2010 in Zen? How could I have got that wrong? The title of my last post. Doesn't make a huge amount of difference to the meaning I guess. Up early this morning. At least, earlier than usual. I'm reading a lot at the moment. It all seems brain related. Read about a couple who've decided to ignore the clock going back and it's solved the problem of his cluster headaches and saved electricity. Bonus. Reading a fantastic book called A Brilliant Madness about, of course, manic depression, as this is my obsession at the moment. This one has a different slant to the others and focuses very strongly on the mood disorders being physical illness - chemical imbalance - not mental. And I think, as I always have done, about the distinction between mental and physical illness and, as usual, it irritates me. How common is it to feel depressed following a virus - post-viral blues? How many neurological-based problems have psychological outcomes? What about anxiety and manic depression causing physical symptoms such as nausea and digestive problems? Or allergy causing anxiety and a sense of impending doom. It angers me hugely that there is still such stigma against mental health problems, when really the distinction between mental and physical is so slim, barely a thread, that can easily be broken with your teeth. I understand that some 'mental' health problems can be frightening - psychosis for one, whether related to manic depression and therefore relatively easily treatable, or schizophrenia, or overuse of drugs, or... Alzheimers, Parkinson's, lupus, HIV (yes it can - I didn't know that one before!), multiple sclerosis - a multitude of 'physical' conditions... I don't like this distinction. It makes me feel uneasy. It reminds me of the way we all (myself included) have a tendency to need to box things up neatly. If someone is different we treat them as if there is something wrong with them and why should we do this? Who are we to say that this something is wrong? A lot of these 'conditions' have benefits which is why they have remained through natural selection - the mania of manic depression can have massively creative outcomes or insights, as well as sometimes being destructive, Asperger's provides those of use without it with a totally different way of seeing the world, which I have found in my own personal life to be hugely beneficial. For example, how many of you have seen couples arguing in public and she is screaming at him and saying "Well if you don't know, I'm not going to tell you!" as if he should be able to read her mind and has let her down terribly by not bothering to know her well enough to what is inside her head. Asperger's teaches us in a most striking fashion that this really isn't possible and why is it so hard to just say "Okay, well if you don't know, I'll tell you, because obviously you can't read my mind." How much more sensible and mature would a conversation of that nature be? Of course, some 'conditions' remain because a symptom of them may be promiscuity, but that's another issue.

I seem to be ranting. I am fascinated. Back to manic depression. Those with it often have family histories peppered with depression (or recurrent depression, which can actually be manic depression misdiagnosed with low level manic episodes that are so low they are unrecognisable - more likely if the depression was never effectively treated as such), anaemia, colour blindness, thyroid problems, alcoholism, other substance abuse including legal drugs such as tranquilisers), stories of eccentric relatives who regularly disappear into a dark room for days with a 'headache' or otherwise slightly bizarre behaviour, periods of lows and elation, inspiration, impulsivity. It's not purely genetic as environmental factors do play a part in triggering the condition, it would seem. It usually hits in late teens/early 20s. Then there are the psychlothymics who just swing gently from high to low on a regular basis and never need medication. Misdiagnoses can include depression, schizophrenia (especially for the 'good outcome' or 'quick recovery' ones), premenstrual tension, schizoaffective disorder. There's a whole range of things that people often get labelled with before being correctly diagnosed.

I don't know why it fascinates me so much, but something, somewhere, somehow, is beginning to make a lot of sense to me in the back of my little, freewheeling, curious, mind.

I am aiming to complete my essay on the use of creativity in Gestalt therapy this week, though more realistically I have postponed this until 'end of 2010' and then. Then I have time to write and I am so excited. It has been building up in me, frustratingly, for months, this desire to write and little time to do so. The time is coming and my fingers will soon flow with what they want to say, rather than what I have to say, as required by my college! :-) Wishing you all a fabulous week. If you're in the UK and reading this, wrap up warm. Snow is on the way again! xx