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Oct. 24th, 2005 02:32 pmso i was in my psych class this morning and thinking about something that ive noticed before, especially with this intructor. he seems to be rather nagative, bordering on rude, in the way he talks about people with mental illness. i find this rather unsettling knowing he has been a therapist in many different capacities for the last 30 years, and a teacher for a while as well. he seems to make the assumption that not only is no one in the class mentally ill, but also that non of them have anyone in their life that they care about that is, and if they do they think as badly of them as his lectures indicate he does.
he also tends to ramble on about unimportant stuff but take like an hour out of the whole class term to talk about depression, or personality issues. he also doesnt really cover the issue of cause, as far as biological vs environment, in things like depression, personality disorders, ect. its like ok these people are like this and doesnt give any examples of why and then says basically these ones are hopeless, these ones arent, but it wont be good, ect. and says things like why put much money into helping personality disorders who are basically hopeless when it could go towards treating depression with drugs. *sigh* he paints a really grim picture of the lives that mentally ill people have ahead of them. he also uses the word normal a lot in reference to everyone besides the mentally ill people he is teaching about. im honestly getting rather offended by some of the parts of his lectures.
i was recently talking to dodger. ill be refering to two different conversations we had. one today where i was talking about what we learned about the stats on recurrence of clinical depression in people who develope it in their teens. and he said well you just have to decide not to be depressed. well thats lovely. but chemical depression as opposed to situational depression doesnt really work like that. he also talked to me recently about controling behaviors to change things. like it was a concept i needed introducing to. its not. its something ive built the most recent part of my life around. i dont think people realize how hard i work. ive been struggling to change my behaviors for the last 5 years. i believe that behaviors can be changed but not the emotions and symptoms of (insert mental illness here). and as a result there are some behaviors that will be more resistant to change because of the symptoms that they result from. i try really fucking hard. i was a lot worse off at 17-18. hell, i was a lot worse off at 20. ive done a lot to get where i am. it seems no ones really known me long enough to see that.
another thing that disturbs me is thinking about the career path and the college major i am diving into. the fear of being who i am with the issues i have, and be in the psychiatric community not as a patient. its not that i dont think i can do it. it is the additude of the other psychology proffessionals that disgusts me, the way they seem to look down on and not even really like the population that they are supposed to be helping. the thought of being shunned by the people who are supposed to be becomming my peers. it makes me wonder who my real peers will be. i think i will prolly always relate better to the patients than to the other people in my field. and i worry about not being respected. but it has to matter more that this is where my heart is and that i want to try, and hopefully succeed at helping people, and that is more valuable than fitting in or being respected by people who dont respect and treat the people they are working to help as equals.
ive always been rather disillusioned with the mental health system. and i think that for the most part it doesnt work. but i want to help, to do what i can from within a faulty system, bad enough to wade through the bullshit ill have to be swimming in to do the work i want to do. i guess i just get more and more discouraged.
he also tends to ramble on about unimportant stuff but take like an hour out of the whole class term to talk about depression, or personality issues. he also doesnt really cover the issue of cause, as far as biological vs environment, in things like depression, personality disorders, ect. its like ok these people are like this and doesnt give any examples of why and then says basically these ones are hopeless, these ones arent, but it wont be good, ect. and says things like why put much money into helping personality disorders who are basically hopeless when it could go towards treating depression with drugs. *sigh* he paints a really grim picture of the lives that mentally ill people have ahead of them. he also uses the word normal a lot in reference to everyone besides the mentally ill people he is teaching about. im honestly getting rather offended by some of the parts of his lectures.
i was recently talking to dodger. ill be refering to two different conversations we had. one today where i was talking about what we learned about the stats on recurrence of clinical depression in people who develope it in their teens. and he said well you just have to decide not to be depressed. well thats lovely. but chemical depression as opposed to situational depression doesnt really work like that. he also talked to me recently about controling behaviors to change things. like it was a concept i needed introducing to. its not. its something ive built the most recent part of my life around. i dont think people realize how hard i work. ive been struggling to change my behaviors for the last 5 years. i believe that behaviors can be changed but not the emotions and symptoms of (insert mental illness here). and as a result there are some behaviors that will be more resistant to change because of the symptoms that they result from. i try really fucking hard. i was a lot worse off at 17-18. hell, i was a lot worse off at 20. ive done a lot to get where i am. it seems no ones really known me long enough to see that.
another thing that disturbs me is thinking about the career path and the college major i am diving into. the fear of being who i am with the issues i have, and be in the psychiatric community not as a patient. its not that i dont think i can do it. it is the additude of the other psychology proffessionals that disgusts me, the way they seem to look down on and not even really like the population that they are supposed to be helping. the thought of being shunned by the people who are supposed to be becomming my peers. it makes me wonder who my real peers will be. i think i will prolly always relate better to the patients than to the other people in my field. and i worry about not being respected. but it has to matter more that this is where my heart is and that i want to try, and hopefully succeed at helping people, and that is more valuable than fitting in or being respected by people who dont respect and treat the people they are working to help as equals.
ive always been rather disillusioned with the mental health system. and i think that for the most part it doesnt work. but i want to help, to do what i can from within a faulty system, bad enough to wade through the bullshit ill have to be swimming in to do the work i want to do. i guess i just get more and more discouraged.
