I was at the hospital that the study was in! A few years before the study though. One of the people I met there said that Gunderson was her doctor there. She said she was nervous at seeing such a big shot specialist.
I also saw the ads for the study- I think both the BPD arm and the depressive arm. I thought about signing up for it, but I didn't want to deal with my parents. I think BPD is associated with not-very-good family relations, so I wonder if the study was skewed by whether the patients with the diagnosis could convince family members to participate or were willing to tell them at all. The authors note that their sampling method and corrections assume that the participation by patients with BPD diagnosis was not affected by characteristics of the family. I feel that this is probably a reasonable assumption, but as I said, I do have some doubts about it.
Most BPD patients are women: I feel as though perhaps the way girls are brought up contributes to the triggering or development of underlying BPD susceptibility.
Under cognitive I don't think I have many of the things listed. Perhaps thought distortions, although I suppose if I'm having that, I could be having any of the others and not know about it. Only slightly related, I was reading a blog by a woman who suffered horrific child abuse (not central to the blog, incidental as context for a 9-11 story) and realized (again?) that other people have different experiences than I do and see things differently. I try to be empathetic, but every so often things like this make me realize how little I know about how other people feel and think.
Right now I'm feeling kinda ok. I took a long time to read that article so I had time to process it. It's a relief that there is (probably) an underlying partially genetic cause, because that means its not my fault.
However, realizing that 5% of the population has it makes me feel less special. Having a disorder makes me special, it means that it's okay if I do things not as well as everyone else. But if it's actually basically normal to have this, I have no excuse.
I think the above is some of the thoughts I'm supposed to try to avoid focusing on. I think I'm supposed to say, if I don't feel well, I don't feel well, and I have to take that, as well as other things into account when making my decisions.
Thats it for now
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Monday, August 8, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
The start of the blog
I live with mental illness. This is far from pleasant-one could even say it sucks.
I don't like it when I read things about people saying that mental illness isn't real, or should be dealt with alone, or that people like me aren't worth being around.
However, during a recent trip to the Amaz!ng Meeting, I realized that I don't know much about my illness or any others from a scientific perspective. I know my own experience, and that's really it. As a scientist (or skeptic), though not in a medical field, I do care to know the perspective from outside. What does the research say? I am but one subjective data point, so I wish to round that out, and perhaps it will help others as well.
The plan is to read real research on mental illness, mine specifically as well as possibly others. I will post about the papers I read and my thoughts on them. I want this to be about my journey in understanding mental illness better from a scientific perspective and as objectively as possible.
I anticipate that reading this sort of research will be difficult, so I will also post about my personal experience trying to make sense of things. It helps to write when I am upset so likely there will be some therapeutic posts as well.
I am not a medical doctor or medical researcher of any sort, and never will be, but I hope to write as much as possible about peer-reviewed research. I do hope that this blog will eventually become useful to others. I am not a great writer, so may not express myself perfectly at all times, but this blog is a process, and with luck will improve with time.
I don't like it when I read things about people saying that mental illness isn't real, or should be dealt with alone, or that people like me aren't worth being around.
However, during a recent trip to the Amaz!ng Meeting, I realized that I don't know much about my illness or any others from a scientific perspective. I know my own experience, and that's really it. As a scientist (or skeptic), though not in a medical field, I do care to know the perspective from outside. What does the research say? I am but one subjective data point, so I wish to round that out, and perhaps it will help others as well.
The plan is to read real research on mental illness, mine specifically as well as possibly others. I will post about the papers I read and my thoughts on them. I want this to be about my journey in understanding mental illness better from a scientific perspective and as objectively as possible.
I anticipate that reading this sort of research will be difficult, so I will also post about my personal experience trying to make sense of things. It helps to write when I am upset so likely there will be some therapeutic posts as well.
I am not a medical doctor or medical researcher of any sort, and never will be, but I hope to write as much as possible about peer-reviewed research. I do hope that this blog will eventually become useful to others. I am not a great writer, so may not express myself perfectly at all times, but this blog is a process, and with luck will improve with time.
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