It seems it’s more politically correct these days to say “behavioral health” rather than “mental health.” Hospitals and governments are changing their programs from mental health programs to behavioral health problems. And somehow this is progress. Somehow this is less stigmatizing.
How’s that again?
Did my behavior suddenly become a problem while I wasn’t watching? Because, quite frankly, I found the notion there was something wrong with my mind to be insulting enough, to find out that now, my behavior is the problem has pushed me over the insultant edge.
Mental Health – There’s Something Wrong with my Mind?
Let me make this clear, there is nothing wrong with my mind. My mind is me. It’s who I am. It’s everything I am. It’s the thing that likes chocolate-peanut butter ice cream from Hagen Dazs. It’s the thing that thinks skydiving is one of the coolest things in the world. It’s the thing that makes me loquacious, slightly misanthropic and a writer. It’s me. There’s nothing wrong with me.
Behavioral Health – There’s Something Wrong with my Behavior?
And let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with my behavior either. I am not a naughty puppy who piddled on the carpet or a two-year-old with her hand in the cookie jar. I am an adult, completely in control of what I do and I take responsibility for my actions. My behavior is as healthy as anyone else’s.
Brain Health – Bipolar, Depression, etc. is a Brain Illness
On the other hand, my brain is completely fucked up. My brain has big problems. I don’t exactly know what the problems are with my brain, but it’s extraordinarily evident to me that they exist. It’s the neurotransmitters or the structures or the hormones or the wrinkly-bits I don’t know, but there’s something up there that’s not working the way it’s supposed to.
It’s not an illness of the mind; it’s not an illness of behavior; it’s an illness of the brain.
How is Behavioral Health Better than Mental Health?
So my question is: What is more politically correct about behavioral health than mental health? What is better about that? How is it less stigmatizing to suggest that my behavior is sick and erratic than my mind is? Does it not sound like I’m suddenly going to go bonkers in front of you, do something crazy and hurt someone? Does it not sound like I’m dangerous, all of a sudden? How is that better than saying mental illness? Who was on the committee that decided that? I would like to talk to them.
I Have a Brain Illness, a Brain Disorder
Now I get it, neurology has the line on the concept of a brain illness. I get that. But honestly, what’s the difference between neurology and psychiatry. Both of them deal in illnesses of the brain. In some cases, the treatments are even the same. Guess who implanted my vagus nerve stimulator? A neurosurgeon. There is no different between my brain illness and accepted brain illnesses like Parkinson’s.
This is really interesting to read about, as far as I know as an employee of the NHS – Mental health services as well as being a “ service User “ I hate that term we do not have the term behavioural health in the UK
Thankfully
To be a Service User with Behavioural health problems would add insult to injury ,!
I just want to say that I love the above blog post. I just printed it out, and I plan to share it with others, especially in the health center where I work. This is an excellent piece !!!!!!!!
Hi Barbara,
Thank you so much. I’m so glad you liked it. :)
– Natasha Tracy
Natasha, I just found your blog. I admire your bravery for posting about yourself. I am a Registered Nurse. The first half of my 34+ year career I worked inpatient Psychiatry (later Mental Hygiene, then Mental Health). Now as a consultant I work with folks who use the “Behavioral Health” label. In my own life, my deceased wife had Bipolar Illness and ADHD. My older daughter has ADHD and some Generalized Anxiety. An earlier post has made me realize that Bipolar and ADHD are probably closely related somehow and I suspect there is a strong genetic component. I have never been in favor of “Behavioral Health” myself, as I see the behavior as the symptom and not the actual problem. But unfortunately in our current environment of cost-cutting, I think Behavioral Health may accurately describe what is being done. The system just wants to fix the behavior. As long as the undesirable behavior is extinguished, the system doesn’t really care about the underlying problem (or the person’s continued suffering). I think those who invented “Behavioral Health” were trying to be more politically correct, but I don’t fee that it really has helped.
I agree totally. If behavioural treatment was effective for me, my bipolar would have been extinguished in childhood before it began. I subscribe to the theory that there is something defective in the functioning of my brain. I can compensate only to a certain extent – medicine to address the underlying problem was eventually needed.
I’m public about my issues because of trying to fight stigma. When I was higher functioning than I am now that was more effective. I had a very bad experience, got PTSD from it, and two major mental health problems instead of just one broke my functioning for a while.
I went to a “Behavioral Health Care Center” — it was an outpatient care group that offered a wide range of services for a very wide range of problems and issues — and got not only my psychiatric services but also my meds, help getting on the right financial assistance programs for my meds, case management to coordinate me with any and all social services in the community and whatever practical “life stuff” I might need (like making sure I had a safe roof over my head, food, transportation to appointments, a physician for any other illnesses and was making and keeping appointments, etc.), therapy, and group therapy in (in my case) a series of skills groups based on DBT.
For budgetary, not clinical, reasons, they couldn’t deliver full on DBT anymore. They used to. They took the skills and packaged them up into a 3 part, 10 week, 1.5 hour, group therapy training series. I went through the series twice. Found it amazingly helpful with my PTSD. For having to make do with the budget they had, they did an amazing job.
Most of the people in group with me, but not all, had bipolar disorder, but all of us had it comorbid with some additional problem or issue. In some of my groups, one or more of my classmates would be there by court order.
The kinds of behaviors my classmates had had trouble with were not being able to leave the house except to come to therapy (a big one), getting violent or scary in what they might do or say when they lost their tempers, substance abuse, some had had trouble with hypersexual behaviors.
I completely get what you’re saying about you, personally, having control over your own behavior and taking responsibility for your own behavior.
While I am high function, I have pretty good control over my behavior. When I was in the grips of the worst of the PTSD and was scared all the time, I didn’t have control over whether I sobbed my eyes out and locked up in fear and pain. Rather, I had very, very limited control over my response to a flashback situation. The control was mostly limited to some control over where I’d be or who I’d be around while having the flashback, maybe postponing it a little, maybe sometimes fighting one off. But overall control that I had flashbacks and frequently sobbed my eyes out and locked up in fear? I didn’t have a lot of control over those behaviors, and those behaviors of locking up in fear were frequently happening when I was trying to work.
I’m self-employed; a writer. I was make-a-living-at-it level writing. The PTSD disabled me completely from being able to do that by affecting my behavior. (Sobbing, and ultimately doing something else, very, very “lightweight,” to let the anxiety attack end. Or not doing anything at all.)
What’s my point? My point is that behavioral health care centers serve many people with a wide variety of issues and problems, and many of those problems are best addressed with behavioral or cognitive treatments. For many of those people, helping them improve behaviors that they can’t seem to stop on their own that are giving them problems in living really is what they need. And usually there’s a lot more of them getting treated at those centers than there are people who have bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. Given the short duration per person of most episodes of unipolar depression, and the more chronic nature of a lot of other difficulties, they’ve got a lot more people with “issues” than people with unipolar depression, too.
And the truth is, a whole lot of those of us with bipolar disorder do have a comorbidity issue. The only reason the majority of us aren’t listed with an ADHD cormorbidity is because the psychologists and psychiatrists can’t agree on terminology. The ones who have looked at the research numbers all agree that a majority of us show sufficient symptoms to meet the diagnostic criteria for ADHD. (I forget the percentage.)
What they disagree on is strictly the labeling issue. For the patients who meet the diagnostic criteria for both bipolar disorder and adhd, is it most useful and informative for treatment purposes to list them as having both conditions, or do the symptoms of adhd occur in bipolar people so often that we should just consider those symptoms a natural part of bipolar disorder and just more of the whole list of symptoms that may or may not show up in each specific patient, diagnose “bipolar” and call it a day? There’s also the biological question of underlying cause–does whatever causes bipolar disorder also cause adhd-like symptoms in many bipolar patients? Or do patients who have bipolar disorder wrong with them also frequently have the thing that causes ADHD symptoms wrong with them, too, and therefore causing their ADHD symptoms? Big debate, no truly definitive answers last I heard, labeling issue still up for grabs.
In any case, the ADHD symptoms and the executive function problems that we bipolar people frequently have can very frequently be helped with compensatory skills, strategies and, well, behaviors.
We’re never going to get rid of stigma until we find a cure, for the same reason that mental retardation is never going to get rid of stigma until they find a cure.
You can change the names every 20 years because the current name has become an insult and an epithet that the public “misunderstands” and throws about as an insult and makes jokes about.
The problem is, in 20 years, whatever word you changed it to will have the same problem, because it’s not the word, or anything about the *words* that they’re stigmatizing. There is no fundamental misunderstanding here between us and the people who were born with healthy brains.
They are looking at the girl in the black clothes, with the black hair, with the cuts down her arms and legs, who is always talking about death, and they fully intend to point and jeer.
They are looking someone my age when my meds aren’t right and at 40-mumble and curvy-mumble I go out to Walmart dressed like a hypomanic, hypersexual, bipolar woman might dress, and I have an anxiety attack or a flashback and start sobbing, and they fully intend to point and jeer.
It doesn’t matter what you change the name to, until there’s a cure, because there are no “fundamental myths” to dispel between us and the “normal” people, for the most part.
Sure, when Hollywood gets it wrong, we can continue to say so. When the newspaper gets it wrong, we can say so. When “normal” people propose things that won’t work or show no compassion, or when an incident comes up that illustrates why we’re asking for a particular public policy, yes, use the teachable moments. Sure. I do.
But mostly? Any label you stick on us, even if you invent it from random syllables and it starts off as a blank slate with no meaning at all, in a matter of just a few years it will have a stigma attached to it.
Embrace the suck: The “normal” people aren’t jeering at the label; they’re jeering at us.
Thank you so much for sharing your difficult story. It takes a lot of guts. I am very much against the “Behavioral Health” label for this reason: many other illnesses have behavioral modification elements to them as well, usually changing eating, sleeping, excercising, or other behaviors that negatively impact their physical health, yet they are not lumped in as “behavioral health”.
Until we accept the behaviors as symptoms of real medical problems, “Behavioral Health” will always have this stigma attached. I do feel that your last statement, that if you made up a term, it too would have a stigma attached to it very quickly, but at least our behaviors would be kept out of it.
That’s what I think anyway.
Thank you so much for sharing your story.
I’m with Natasha. My brain (the organ) is malfunctioning, my mind albeit it influenced by my illness, is in fact sharper and wiser for my experiences. I am so excited to have found others that are high functioning, have read of many but online community has offered a whole new perspective and hope.
Hi Amelia_mims,
I’m glad you found us (if I may say). I’m glad we could be a bit more “real” to you than the people you read about :)
– Natasha Tracy
As for the ‘broken brain’ idea, this brain of mine has served me well: I graduated in the top 1% at Cornell, and have no discernable deficits now, except for those normal limits I’ve always had: a proclivity to procrastination, rationalization, etc. Nobody’s perfect. Just because we have one word: “brain” or “mind,” does not make it one thing in reality: a brain or mind is complex entity, far more complex than the rest of the body and despite all our best efforts, still quite poorly understood. That is has limits, that these limits vary over time, does not make it “broken” any more than one’s skeleton is broken when you break one bone. I take medicine that I do not notice at all, except to the extent I greatly lessen my future risk of depressive symptoms. While depression is rather treatable, most of apparently should focus on ignorance instead.
Hi Greg,
As for the broken brain, we’ll have to agree to disagree. It’s very clear that my brain, with bipolar disorder, doesn’t work correctly – that’s where all the pain comes from. However, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work well in other areas. Clearly yours has done quite well as has mine in many ways.
I differentiate brain and mind and consider the brain an organ (obviously) and the mind a concept: https://natashatracy.com/mental-illness-issues/brain-vs-mind/damaged-brain-mind-deal/
My mind is not broken, just my brain, the organ is.
– Natasha Tracy
I’m an experienced Psych Nurse, a budding Professor of Psych Nursing, and have suffered bouts of Depression here and there for decades, with multiple admissions when I felt up to nothing but death. “Behavioral health” may be well intended, I’m not familiar with it’s source, but in any case it’s an Orwellian term: you can’t erase stigma or misconceptions with terminology alone, especially with such a truly awful replacement. Except in dangerous emergencies where immediate harm is involved, behavior is never the primary issue: suffering is. We overdiagnose mental illnesses at times, and confuse undesirable behavior with disease too often, but there remains a solid core of severely suffering individuals in huge numbers. Illness is at its core about suffering; so to is mental illness. It’s not an identity although some try to make it so, not a character flaw although used as na excuse sometimes: it is suffering that deserves our best efforts at understanding and relief.
Hi Greg,
I totally agree that stigma can’t be fixed with words and agree particularly not with _these_ words.
And yes, absolutely, illness is about suffering as is mental illness. It has very little to do with behavior and if anything, behavior is the easiest thing to change, the pain, on the other hand, is not.
Thanks for the comment.
– Natasha Tracy
So, if someone is irritable with hypoglycemia, does that become a behavioural illness? I’m in Canada and have only heard of CBT and DBT as therapy models that are behaviour based, not behaviour as a reference to Mental Illness per se. I’m angered at this nonetheless. It piles another stigma onto one we’re already trying to fight. I may have bipolar disorder, but at no time am i ‘misbehaving’ as that would imply i chose to and I most certainly did not choose this disorder.
Hi Amelia_mims,
Ah yes, the idea that I’m “misbehaving” makes me want to downright, um, misbehave!
(I’m in Canada too and trust me the language is up here too.)
– Natasha Tracy
That’s odd to be that they would call it behavioral because behavioral therapy is for those among us (I kind of suspect myself along with my bipolar disorder) who have personality disorders. That’s a bit confusing if you ask me.
Hi Synna,
Yes, behavioral therapy has been around quite a while and is different than behaivoral health, and you’re right, that is confusing.
– Natasha Tracy
Hi!
Just discovered your blog…New to blog reading so I hope you are good…:) (I discovered you thru a Top Ten Bi-Polar Blogs list)…..New name change sucks a big one…So, my problem is NOW unhealthy behavior? Well, then all I gotta do is merely change to HEALTHY behavior….Ok, I’ll get right on it….Now, I’ll just:
*bounce out of my bed of depression
*take my bi-mthly or better shower
*dig in closet for clothes that fit my fat ass (gained 50 lbs from psy med n inactive isolation)
*diligently pop the latest useless anti-depressant (or dr won’t think I am trying)
*plop down in liv. rm. chair and try to corral enough motivation, energy n guts to be productive i.e. (1) load laundry or groom self to leave my safe house for group therapy.
Gotta go..All tired out from writing….Hope can fix my behavior tomorrow!
Oops…Sorry for duplication….That damn dumb-my-ass depression!
Double oops! I now see how to correct the name issue….Thanks!
Hi Pam,
Thanks for the comment. Don’t work about the duplication and the like. It happens. You’ll get the hang of it
:)
– Natasha Tracy
Hi!
Just discovered your blog…New to blog reading so I hope you are good…:) (I discovered you thru a Top Ten Bi-Polar Blogs list)…..New name change sucks a big one…So, my problem is NOW unhealthy behavior? Well, then all I gotta do is merely change to HEALTHY behavior….Ok, I’ll get right on it….Now, I’ll just:
*bounce out of my bed of depression
*take my bi-mthly or better shower
*dig in closet for clothes that fit my fat ass (gained 50 lbs from psy med n inactive isolation)
*diligently pop the latest useless anti-depressant (or dr won’t think I am trying)
*plop down in liv. rm. chair and try to corral enough motivation, energy n guts to be productive i.e. (1) load laundry or groom self to leave my safe house for group therapy.
Actually, to me, the issue is mental ‘health’ vs. mental ‘illness’. Anything that makes you sad is considered a ‘risk factor’ and therefore mental health departments justify spending to eliminate it. Likewise, anything that makes you happy, improves mental ‘health’ and therefore mental health departments spend on it. But they spend very little on mental illness. One of the articles I am most proud of is entitled, “Mental Health kills Mentally Ill ” at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dj-jaffe/mental-health-kills-the-m_b_426672.html
Hi DJ Jaffe,
That’s an interesting point of view but I haven’t seen that, personally. I think a lot of spending is done on mental illness by people like the National Council for Mental Health and in things like the CATIE study.
– Natasha
I find the term behavioral health demeaning in a way. It’s as if they’re (whoever came up with it) trying to make brain illnesses less important or less debilitating than other physical illness. You wouldn’t call a cancer clinic a cell multiplication treatment center, would you? Call it what it is. Sheesh.
Hi MaryAnn,
Yes, I think demeaning and minimizing is about right and those who hand out here know how much I hate that.
There is an impression that mental illness is, or should be, less debilitating than “real” illnesses and this verbiage doesn’t help. But it’s a brain illness and of course that is debilitating.
– Natasha Tracy
Isn’t it stigmatizing to have “a broken brain”?
Not any more stigmatizing than having a broken leg. It’s just reality.
– Natasha
I disagree. The brain is much closer to being the person’s identity than a leg is.
If one wants to fight stigma, one should listen to what research says about that.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/09/ben-goldacre-bad-science-adhd-stigma
And this one: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10psyche-t.html?pagewanted=4&ref=magazine
In 2007 I touched on the same subject in one of my posts, but only wrote this short paragraph:
Another confusing thought that I’ve wondered about for a long time is the term “behavioural health”. The psychiatric hospital I was in is called a “behavioural health” hospital. Doesn’t that term fly in the face of the research that says mental illnesses are biological in nature, just like other medical illnesses? Whenever I see that term “behavioural”, I think it’s degrading to people with mental illnesses. It’s as if they’re saying we simply need to behave better and then we’ll magically be cured. Would they say that to someone with cancer? “Your behaviour needs adjusting, and if you’d just do that, you won’t lose your left breast to this disease.”
As you mentioned, I do think using the term “mental” to describe psychiatric illnesses is also stigmatizing, but in my opinion it’s the lesser of the two evils. Another thing I find stigmatizing is that when someone seeks help for a psychiatric condition they are referred to as a consumer or client instead of a patient. A psychiatrist is a licensed physician, just like a primary care doctor, gynecologist, neurologist or any other doctor. They all had to go through the same four years of medical school. So if I’m a patient when I see any other physician, I’m a patient when I see my pdoc too.
Hi Sid,
Great comment.
Regarding the term “patient.” It is going away, not just in mental health circles but in all health care arenas. Some people prefer “consumer” some “client” but most are getting away from patient, I think because it’s seen as disempowering.
However, you are correct, it’s hard to argue that one is not the _patient_ of, say, a surgeon, so if you’re a patient there, you’re a patient for any doctor. It’s only disempowering if we let it be.
– Natasha Tracy
:) Sometimes we just have to be patient with our doctors. Maybe that’s why we’ve been called patients.
Lisa,
Ah, it’s so true. Natalie, one of the bipolar bloggers at HealthyPlace just wrote about that: http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/recoveringfrommentalillness/2011/10/being-a-mental-health-patient-requires-patience/
– Natasha Tracy
Well, New York is going through some drastic changes. There will no longer be a behavioral health label. Between January 2012 and July 2012, psychiatry, case management, and medical health will be under the umbrella of health homes. Thanks Natasha, I do believe life events have an impact and that the chemical imbalance in the brain varies for the person. But behavioral modifications do lead to change. Just like when we exercise our bodies create more endorphins. Medication only helps 66% of the symptoms, the rest is how we cope.
As far as the word “patient” I really do not like that term. I like consumer because the language is empowering and it makes you feel that you are an active participant in the treatment. Psychiatrists are doctors, so when you see them you are still a patient. However, when you see a therapist, social worker, counselor, you are a consumer/client not a patient whether you are struggling with cancer or schizophrenia. The wellness recovery advocates have fought hard for the mental health system to get rid of the word patient.
Lastly, I don’t mind the label mental health. I like telling people that I work in the mental health field (I do work in this field) as opposed to the brain illness field. Now a disease is a disease. But alzherimers & mental illness are caused in large part by brain chemistry, in comparison to breast cancer.
Hi Rosa,
Thanks for the information. Not sure what “health homes” means.
“Thanks Natasha, I do believe life events have an impact and that the chemical imbalance in the brain varies for the person. But behavioral modifications do lead to change. Just like when we exercise our bodies create more endorphins. Medication only helps 66% of the symptoms, the rest is how we cope.”
It varies per person, but yes, something like that.
“As far as the word “patient” I really do not like that term. I like consumer because the language is empowering and it makes you feel that you are an active participant in the treatment.”
I understand. Many people would agree with you on that. I don’t mind “patient” because when I see a doctor it’s what I am. I don’t feel the need to run from that, or any other accurate, label.
“However, when you see a therapist, social worker, counselor, you are a consumer/client not a patient whether you are struggling with cancer or schizophrenia.”
That’s true.
“Lastly, I don’t mind the label mental health.”
Mental health is just the label we have and it’s accurate from an etymological point of view so while I do think the idea is rather insulting, I don’t feel the need to rile against it. It’s the best of the options whether the illness is about the brain or not. However, when I explain bipolar disorder to people, I call it a brain illness because I think in that case, it is more clear and more accurate for people.
– Natasha Tracy
Health Homes are not a physical location or a facilty. Here is a link to the NYS Website: http://www.health.ny.gov/health_care/medicaid/program/medicaid_health_homes/
I totally agree that the term behavioral health is just as stigmatizing, if not more so than the term mental illness… Thanks for this post.
Adam, thanks for your comment.
– Natasha
It did close – damn it! An over-site on my part. It’s open again. Thanks for linking up. I’m actually considering stopping it because – well it takes up so much time getting people to come by. But I really have appreciated your support, Natasha. And that you really do fight the good fight! Good to have someone in our corner with such a strong voice ;D X
Hi Shah,
I voted, as requested.
I know how much time running a blog takes, trust me, so I know that it’s hard work and sometimes it doesn’t seem like all the time is worth it. So sometimes you have to change formats or information a bit to engage with your audience differently or attract a new audience. That’s OK. You’ll just spend you time differently. And maybe you’ll have more for you :)
I suffer from Bipolar illness and was diagnosed in 2006, most likely had it since high school. I am the more manicky type and went through suicidal “downs”. I don’t think it is all about the brain. Some of it is my exposure to life (the social part). I hate it when the brain is blamed, it’s stigma for me. My brain works fast, my emotions can be a mess. Given my life experiences my parents psychological history, I was predisposed. Once, we call Bipolar illness a brain illness we are stuck with the stigma that you need to depend on meds to regulate our chemical balance. BUT NOT EVERYTHING ABOUT BIPOLAR ILLNESS IS CHEMICAL imbalance (making life changes help-therapy, monitoring your symptoms with things that make you happy).
Rosa,
You are correct, not everything is about that brain. Psychology interacts with neurology, for some people, quite a lot. But then psychology affects everything in everyone’s life, it’s not mental illness specific.
However, in my opinion, there is no bipolar disorder _without_ an illness in the brain. It is influenced by psychology, life events and so on, but it not caused by it.
– Natasha Tracy
I must agree that the word behavior only explains how are mental/brain (which is better) illness affects us. Should we change the name of Parkinson’s to Rigger disorder? No!
Lisa,
That’s exactly what I was thinking. The problem with bipolar isn’t the behavior it’s causes the behavior, or, more correctly, the symptoms, most of which are not behaviors.
Tremor disorder indeed.
(Depression becomes crying disorder.)
– Natasha
Wow. Did you ever just get me thinking. My 6yo son has ADHD and ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder), which come under the heading “mental illness.” I have shied away from that terminology for two reasons. The first is that, quite frankly, the term evokes images of bipolar and schizophrenia. Sorry…but it’s true. The second is because ADHD is regarded by much of the population as a made-up disorder used to make bad/lazy parents feel better, so I feel like I’m greatly exaggerating to describe it as a mental illness. The fact is that ADHD, in its truest form, affects a person’s ability to function properly in their daily life and in society as a whole.
I’ve used the term “mental health challenges” or “behavioural challenges” because ADHD manifests outwardly as behaviour issues. The fact that imaging studies have shown that the brains of people with ADHD have not developed properly hasn’t changed the terms I use to describe it. Mind you, I’m pretty quick to explain to people, including my son, that his brain is different. Not his mind…but his brain.
Thanks for making me think.
Hi Laura,
I know some people shy away from the “mental illness” label as well, but you’re right ADHD and ODD are both mental illnesses (although how you refer to it is up to you).
And you are correct, ADHD is one of the disorders that has very clear brain implications and is very clearly seen on brain scans. And I, myself, have recently become educated on the disorder and you’re absolutely right, true cases of ADHD are not made up and can absolutely affect a person’s ability to function. They are not about parenting, they are about the brain.
I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Douglas Cootey, but he has a very good ADHD blog you might find helpful: http://thesplinteredmind.blogspot.com/ I love him. He’s a good writer.
– Natasha Tracy
I used to think just like all the others – that ADD and ADHD were just lazy parents’ excuses for never disciplining their children, and in some cases I believe it is – but I have a couple of adult friends now who have ADD and I can see clearly that their brains function ‘differently’. They, for lack of better description, have acute short term memory issues. Because I also have short term memory issues as a result of the depression that goes with my Bipolar II and the drugs that treat it I can sympathize and empathize.
I wondered why it seemed easier for me to accept it in adults when I realized that it wasn’t then accompanied by the natural exhuberance and emotionalism of youth. My own daughter could have been the poster child for ADHD because she had global brain damage and autism as a result. Every moment was the best or worst moment of her life, alternating within minutes or the half hour or hours, but no two days were ever alike, with no middle ground EVER. But because I knew the source was for certain a physical defect it never occurred to me to take any of it personally.
Coming from my experience I say to you truly “I empathize!” I had to endure far too many ill-informed people who tried to respond to my girl as though she had “behavioural issues” instead of “brain malfunction issues”. And so very often they treated me as the source of her problems. Fools. We smile and wave goodbye to such ignorance…it’s the best we can do if they won’t listen to reason.
Shared!! Oh my god. I haven’t heard of this behaviour disorder? It makes us sound like we are delinquents robbing granny’s in the market! How utterly insulting? Who on Earth thinks of these politically correct slogans anyway – sure-as-Hell not anyone with anything in common with the selection of people they claim to be ‘helping’!! Grrr! This is infuriating, Natasha. If ANYONE dares to address me as having a behaviour disorder, they want to hope I don’t show they just how out of ‘order’ it can become!
Love you to link this post up at Monday Madness mental health linky and to know what you think of my Survivor Archive and the poll at top of page re writing meme. Just 1 question. http://wordsinsync.blogspot.com/2011/10/survivor-archives-project-my-archive.html
Shah .X
Hi Shah,
If you’re curious, it’s Texas that made me think of this particular issue (but they are far from the only ones making the change) http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/mhsa/databook/
I’m not sure who the politically correct police are, but I wouldn’t mind a chat with them.
I linked up on your linky but the poll says it’s closed so I can’t vote.
– Natasha Tracy