Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Education, Web technology and Personality disorders

Have you ever truly had to deal with someone who had a severe personality disorder that was untreated? Well it can be many things, baffling, humorous, stressful, fun, and so on. If you need to know the diagnostic criteria for a borderline personality disorder check out http://www.mentalhealth.com

Now This is not one of those crazy psychotic disorders where people think that aliens are trying to probe them rectally while they are sleeping to extract top secret information they collected form satellite transmissions. This is more about thought processes, the person can't cope with the world around them so they create this really, really self-destructive thought processes to help them cope with the world around them. Great Now they can cope but they are all fucked up in their thought processes and CAN'T deal with all kinds of other normal everyday things that most people have no trouble with. Remember Self-destructive. Me, as far as personality disorders go, I am just moderately obsessive-compulsive. I derive immense amounts of pleasure out of counting things and calculating totally irrelevant and inconsequential numbers relating to whatever it is my head happens to be spitting out at the time. But me, I'm assertive, sometimes aggressive; with of course the ability to be passive-aggressive when necessary, and I can make a decision.

I have been dealing with an untreated severe borderline personality disorder (for starters, I'd venture a guess the shrink will throw in a mood disorder for good measure) in another person for a while now. It is very frustrating. The basic Socratic thinking that I learned in the 6th grade and they teach in every cognitive psychology class is totally foreign to these people. Logic and reason are so foreign that they make little sense even when explained, and if you throw in a metaphor to try and explain something you might as well just shoot yourself right then and there. Now, Me, I am a quite literal person and a BPD takes and deals with nothing in literal terms. I am aware that I often ask to much of other people and expect them to be as literal as I, which is irrational a bit ridiculous, but......when I ask I a very simple question with two possible polar answers and literal or any grey area I get something totally different. Now, I see things in black and white and sometimes have difficulty communicating with people because they exist or see things in the grey area, but THIS is a whole 'nother matter. I ask a simple question and I get a lengthy justification for some irrational behaviour or thought pattern that has absolutely nothing to do with anything that either of us are talking about, though this person will try and convince me that it is related.

Being mentally ill, there are few options available to you, you can not deal with it ever, go nuts and let some state agency take care of you for the rest of your life, you can deal with it (therapy, medication, alternative coping mechanisms) and function as best as possible in society or you cansit around waiting for the mental health faiery to comr and wave his or her magic wand and heal you. I've got my proble3ms but i take my meds and go to therapy and deal with everything as best as possible and try toi integrate myself into society as I am best able. But hanging around other mentally ill people, particularly those who are untreated makes you feel better about yourself. you look at this other person and you say, "damn it could be alot worse." It's really no different than the fat ugly girl standing next to the fatter uglier girl in the bar. Stansding next to her she doesn't look so bad.

I have an uncle that is the same way. If he asks you how you have been and you mention the arthritis in your knees and how it has gotten worse since that last cold front came through he is going to say something like, "well hell, I've had that for 57 years, it's no big deal." So you walk away from there feeling a little better about your arthritic knees even if they don't actually feel any better and you know your Uncle's story was bullshit. It's all about perspective. the power of Positive thinking will set you free.

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