What does pain and depression look like? - Page 3 — Scope | Disability forum
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What does pain and depression look like?

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  • [Deleted User]
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  • Waylay
    Waylay Community member, Scope Member Posts: 973 Pioneering
    No worries, @Victoriad! I suspect that I've been misdiagnosed as having BPD when I actually have Complex PTSD, but you have to go with the diagnoses you're given, right?
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  • Waylay
    Waylay Community member, Scope Member Posts: 973 Pioneering
    Good God, @Victoriad! That's terrifying! You managed to get to Tribunal before they started the ECT, right?! A psychiatrist I saw a few years ago suggested that I have 6 ECT sessions, but no way, Jose. I've known several people who've had it, and they all said they lost short-term memories and felt somehow...different afterwards (not just better from the depression). The scary thing is, you'd never know if you were actually different, would you? Maybe you'd be a bit stupider, or you'd have forgotten some memories which were important to you, or maybe chocolate would taste different afterwards, but you wouldn't remember it. Eek. My brain doesn't work so well, but I'd like to stay me, thank you very much. If it was the only thing left to try and I was going to be sectioned over and over and never have a chance to live a vaguely reasonable life, then I'd say yes, but I'm not at that point yet. Hmmm. Well. Actually, I very rarely leave the house, don't eat enough, barely sleep, don't talk to people except my partners... Hmmm. Maybe I need to think about that.

    I've always been terrified of being sectioned. I know that hospitals are supposed to be safe, restful places where you can recover, but I've heard enough from others in my BPD program to convince me that I never want to go in there. (On the other hand, I had to get a friend sectioned a few weeks back because he had a psychotic break, and he was talking very calmly about having to kill himself so the world would continue to exist. :/. He said the hospital was fantastic. It's possible that, once again, people with BPD get treated poorly because even mental health practitioners have the wrong idea about what BPD is. Sigh.) I probably should have been sectioned a couple of times over the past few years, but I'd told my partners and friends how terrified I was of it, so they set up suicide watch rotas to keep me under constant surveillance until I stopped wanting to kill myself. I'm very lucky to have such amazing friends.

    TRIGGERS (sexual assault ahead) A few years ago I was drugged, taken to some stranger's flat, and raped multiple times. I couldn't even turn my head, or lift a finger, and I only remember tiny bits and pieces of it. I'm still traumatized. The idea of being taken to a strange place against my will, possibly restrained, and forcibly injected with drugs... And if it was a male nurse... Yikes! I think it'd undo all the progress I've made. TRIGGERS OVER.

    Some genes have been discovered for schizophrenia (my Dad was involved in the discovery of two of them), although most geneticists believe that the genes just make the person more vulnerable to developing the disease - it probably also needs to be triggered by something (a virus? trauma? environment? who knows). I keep reading about differences in the brains of people with various mental illnesses - psychopaths have a smaller something-or-other, people with BPD have less white matter (I think? Don't take my word for it - I've been awake for 47 hours). The thing is, the papers I've read about these differences almost always assume that the structural differences in the brain are the *cause* of the mental illness. What if the mental illness causes the brain structure to change? Or what if the most common class of meds for a particular disease causes the structural changes? They never address that, and as the work is so new, I suspect that they haven't been able to do long-term studies looking at differences in brain structure of people before and after they develop a mental illness. How is that even allowed? That's not science!

    I agree, psychiatry freaks me out too. I think it can be useful to be put into categories sometimes - you don't want to give someone with bipolar disorder straight anti-depressants, as it can send them manic. Of course, the categories aren't great, and people still get put into the wrong one sometimes, but it cuts down on the mid-medication of some patients, etc. I do find it odd, though, that many psychiatrists: 1) Seem to have completely bought into the medical model (um, trauma? Abuse? Physical illnesses? Stress? Nope, only brain chemicals and genes!), and 2) Seem so certain of their diagnoses, when they *must* know how generally **** humans are at inventing useful categories and sticking people in the right ones. What pisses me off the most is mental health practitioners (and physical health ones) who don't bother to listen to you, treat you like a 5 year old, and assume that they, in their god-like wisdom, know what's best for you. Yeah, I'm crazy, but most of the time I have enough insight into my condition to make vaguely reasonable choices. If I say "no ECT", perhaps they could treat me with meds until I stabilized a bit, and check back with me about the ECT thing a few days later? Don't get me wrong, I've met a few physical health practitioners who act the same way, but the key difference is that if I refuse to have surgery on my knee, I can just walk out of the surgery.
  • [Deleted User]
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  • whistles
    whistles Community member Posts: 1,583 Disability Gamechanger
    @WaylayThe scary thing is, you'd never know if you were actually different, would you?

    Yes. Sadly that comes under insight. 
    Do not follow me, I don't know where I am going.
  • [Deleted User]
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  • [Deleted User]
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  • whistles
    whistles Community member Posts: 1,583 Disability Gamechanger
    Victoriad said:
    Hello @whistles
    Lack of insight is a basis tenet of mental illness.

    Personality disorder seems to be dealing with inherent traits within an individual and nothing to do with insight.

    I thought psychosis lacked insight and neurosis didn't. 
    Personality disorders I would figure were there from birth. Different aspects of you coming forwards at different times. But you all the same?
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  • [Deleted User]
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  • CockneyRebel
    CockneyRebel Community member Posts: 5,209 Disability Gamechanger
    Victoriad said:
    Hello @CockneyRebel
    I think it would help under question 2 and question 13.

    For Question2 If you don’t have a label eg a medical label using the DSM psychiatry manual then the condition and it’s symptoms would have to be clearly stated by the consultant signing the DVLA form.

    For Question 13A and 13C in the going out sections.




    I have thought long and hard and I don't see how this can apply. Of course I may well be wrong

    CR
    Be all you can be, make  every day count. Namaste
  • [Deleted User]
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  • whistles
    whistles Community member Posts: 1,583 Disability Gamechanger
    https://www.gov.uk/health-conditions-and-driving

    If you are applying for pip and are saying that your condition/ illness/ disability is so severe that you  should score enough points to qualify- the dvla should be aware of your difficulties to make a decision. That's just my opinion.

    You need to be medically fit to be behind the wheel of a car. 
    I am thinking of the planning and following a journey. If you can't do that, how can you be driving? 
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  • [Deleted User]
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  • whistles
    whistles Community member Posts: 1,583 Disability Gamechanger
    I had to Google blue sky thinking.  :)
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  • whistles
    whistles Community member Posts: 1,583 Disability Gamechanger
    edited April 2018
    @Victoriad I do lots of thinking cos I'm always sitting on the naughty step, there be nothing else to do.
    Do not follow me, I don't know where I am going.
  • susan48
    susan48 Community member Posts: 2,221 Disability Gamechanger

Brightness

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