Personality disorders.....
 

http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/library/DS/00562.html

This interesting....
I think I fit the obcessive compulsive personality disorder....
bizi

Bizi,
I know people who have some odc-like traits.
In their cases, anxiety seems to make it worse.

Are you anxious?

Mari

That's right you have to have a minimum of 5 symptoms with a couple of them, I don't know how many with ocd, before you get the diagnosis.

I had seen a psychiatrist before the debacle with the anti-depressants. Plus of course the one that gave them to me. Only after I "lost it" is when suddenly different people diagnosed me with a host of personality disorders. Borderline, Bipolar, Autism, ADHD, to name a few. I have no OCD, Narcissism, Schizofrenia or Psychosis. Those are I think the only one's missing.

I just wonder, you know, if I were to see a shrink now, who does not know anything about me, what diagnosis I would get. Could these things in some cases be snapshot of a moment? How long do you have to go back to say whether you do or do not have a symptom? They say certain things are incurable. But if you found a way outside the standard circuit and got well, wouldn't you just forget about the circuit a.s.a.p. and get on with life? So they would not know about it? You just don't come to their attention any more, in that case. Thus far, the only thing they diagnose you by is partially what they see you doing but mainly what you tell them, possibly what a friend or family member tells them. They can not really measure anything physical about you that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt you have x personality disorder, whereas with physical diseases they can. Anybody else ever wonder about these things? I do believe people can find ways to emotionally "retrain" themselves so they lose certain symptoms.

Hi, Bizi,
Well I was using "trait" as a lay person. I have no idea what the psychiatrists mean when they say "trait."
Still, it seems like you understood what I mean. :)

Be free of worry.
Focus on things that make you feel better.

M.

Dear Minnie,
thank you for posting your thoughts about this.
I agree 100% with you.
The last time I was manic was when my old pdoc put me on prozac because I asked about compulsive picking/self injury thing that I was doing.
I had asked about anafronil....used for OCD behaviors.
My whole life I have done some sort of picking on my body and my fingers were getting the brunt of this abuse. I used to dissociate when I would do it and be unable to get out of that spot....Some times I would wear 10 bandaids from the self harm that I was doing. It was awful.
For some reason that just stopped...
I don't do that anymore and can't point my finger as to why it stopped but it did. One psychiatrist diagnosed/labeled me borderline.
So now am I cured of this...?

I think that I need to reframe how I view my mental health.
NAMI focuses us on being ill...sick...
I don't think that I am ill....I think that I am well!:)

bizi

positive psychology
 

Dear Bizi and Minymo,
My sis and I used to do the picking thing. A doc put her on an SSRI and she got worse so she stopped the med. I gradually stopped the behavior -- mostly around the time I met hubby but maybe my anti-anxiety meds helped too.

You might be interested in Positive Psychology:

http://www.authentichappiness.sas.up...u/Default.aspx
I just registered and took the the Brief Strengths Test.
I came out high on Integrity, Kindness, Fairness.

This kind of psychology focuses on what we are good at and gets us to focus on that.

http://www.authentichappiness.sas.up...ter.aspx?id=52
Another arrow in the quiver

Positive Psychology is not remotely intended as a replacement for psychology-as-usual. Clinical psychology and biological psychiatry have amply demonstrated that they can make the lives of suffering people less unhappy.

Fourteen of the major mental illnesses are relievable today and two are curable; none were treatable fifty years ago. This work must and surely will go on. The severely depressed, single mother is one of its many beneficiaries. But she is also concerned with integrity, meaning, kindness, and being a good parent and citizen.

We overcome our suffering not only by healing damage and repairing what is broken within ourselves.
More commonly we overcome troubles by doing end-runs around them, by deploying our highest strengths as buffers against the setbacks of life.

And these domains-buffering, strength, pleasure, and meaning--long neglected by psychology-as-usual, are the subject matter of Positive Psychology.

So Positive Psychology seeks not to replace, but to add another arrow into the quiver of clinical psychology, biological psychiatry, psychiatric social work, marriage and family counseling, and coaching.

In the last five years, Positive Psychology has discovered interventions that build more happiness by nurturing the Pleasant Life, the Good Life, and the Meaningful Life.



Also,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychology


The web has lots of links for positive psychology.
Here is another one:
http://www.positivepsychology.net/


Mari

Around here, some hospitals are practising positive psychology, I think. They give recovering patients, like after surgery, heaps of Laurel and Hardy movies and similar to watch. It seems they have established by now, that this makes them recover faster and with less complications.

If you are interested...
 

in personality types/styles... you must get this book.

It has a long test (cannot fudge it) based on the MMPI which will
reveal your style, with stronger to weaker influences.

It is based on DMS criteria, and written for the layman, easy to understand
with many REAL life examples.

http://www.amazon.com/New-Personalit...0685345&sr=8-1

This is the best book EVER on the subject.

I think we certainly do NOT understand ourselves... and this should be a first stop for anyone in difficulty. After reading this book you will understand
your relatives, spouse, children and coworkers/neighbors in a totally new way.

Please check it out....not expensive, and I guarantee you will reread it over and over the years. I go back to it for refreshers all the time!

I have to state if I'm getting the things said on OCD, that it makes sense.

My son was considered OCD, till he was diagnosed with anxiety along of
course with his. Seizure disorder/epilepsy, he was having hallucinations
at the time though. And he was having some problems with depression.

But as we got the anxiety under controll with seroquel/and zoloft we
lost the OCD symptoms pretty much. There was no reason really
and his psychiatrist said, she honestly felt it was because his anxiety
was just that strong. And once we had it under control the need
to do the hiding of the wrappers. And the other hoarding of weird things
which he was doing, that didn't make since just was his way of handling
his anxiety.

As he becomes anxious he will show me these things. And I know that
we need to get this back under control. So we put the seroquel back
in place not too long ago, and we wont be taking it away.

So it looks very much like its true.


Another case of this, is my own. The one time I ran out of my cymbalta,
I knew I was and I tapered down. But I wasn't making it well after a
week so I chose to go to my primary and request some samples and
sent in for my mail in. Its the only time that I've completely ran out.

It caused some real problems.

Donna