Psychological Disorders Exist and People can Function with Them

It's not uncommon knowledge that people think psychological disorders are too common and are over-diagnosed. I fell victim to hearing people say how fake ADD/ADHD was and how doctors are just pushing pills.

My outlook on psychological disorders is that they do exist. The thing is that so many people have them now that they are more normalized. So many people have these disorders that it is just a common everyday thing. They don't even necessarily needed to be stopped.

Let me tell you about the time I thought that ADD/ADHD was fake.

My mom used to talk about how doctors were just pushing pills and ADD/ADHD was over-diagnosed. My mom would also say that ADHD was a result of poor parenting. Nope. I doubt this to high hell, especially now that I am a psych major.
 
Sure, some people have ADHD a lot stronger than others. Okay. Everybody experiences their disorder differently from someone else who has the same disorder.

When did I realized ADHD was really a thing? When I was peer tutoring in high school I helped this one girl in particular. I became aware of her ADHD when the teacher showed me everyone's IEPs (individualized education plans, given to people with special requirements for learning). I was skeptical, which is a good thing. But I really noticed her ADHD when I worked with her one-on-one. When I was working in a group with her I just figured it was her being bubbly and social with the group and the whole group getting off task. I was alone with her while she was writing a test and she literally just stopped writing and stared off into the distance. She started playing with her belly-button ring and just stopped focusing.

I talked to her more about her ADHD and she basically used it as an excuse to not do work. Nope. Just nope. That was not okay with me. I told her that so many people with ADHD and other learning disorders are highly successful. I taught her how to love school. This isn't my point.

My point was I soon learned that ADHD is real. Even pills don't help too much.

I think that the major thing with all disorders is not curing them but ensuring that people get treatment if they want it or require it but also showing them how people are successful in life with that disability.

I am sure the internet is filled with highly successful individuals that have learning and other psychological disabilities.

So many people do have them. I think it is fine to be skeptical about certain diagnoses. There is a high comorbidity of anxiety and depression as a diagnosis. I think this is something to be skeptical of. But maybe not being skeptical of the disorder being diagnosed at a high rate, but being skeptical of the society in which people are being diagnosed. If so many people are being diagnosed with this, maybe we need to look at the environmental factors to see why. I doubt that it is purely biological for most people.

Anxiety and depression, as an example, can be caused by stress, hormones... basically the entire time people are in middle school until university/college graduation.

Why is this on my mind? I have a friend who has a diagnosis and her "friend" was basically disbelieving her. It was just frustrating her more.

It is also on my mind because I was just diagnosed with dysthymia. Don't worry about me though. Dysthymia is a moderate form of depression that is long-lasting, perhaps life-long. I am not being treated for it at all. Why? Well. The psychiatrist and I traced dysthymia back to grade 10. I have had it for 3 years already and the diagnoses is to have had it for 2+ years. I have lived successfully. Certainly, dysthymia definitely gives me a unique perspective on things. I am negative. I am skeptical. I don't see this as a disadvantage though. Besides my university files being marked with having a "permanent disability", I feel the same I was before the diagnosis. I don't know anything different.

The only thing I hate about dysthymia is that I do have pointless crying bouts about stupid things or even absolutely nothing. I don't even personally hate it too much. I just hate how it affects relationships with people around me. I am more depressed. People call me out on it. I cry sometimes and bring down the people around me. I don't like how it does this to other people. It's also not good to keep it in.

Although I am choosing not to start treatments.

This is besides the point. My point of even sharing that I have a disorder is to show you that I am a functioning individual. I have a job, I go to school, I have a boyfriend and an apartment with him. My life is heading in society's dictated direction. Bleh. I hate that it is though.

So, I don't have a learning disability.

Last year I noticed something different a few months after I started my first year of university. I was having trouble concentrating on material, in lectures and while studying and writing assignments. I was pretty sure I had ADD. Most others around me also thought I had ADD when I described my symptoms to them. Thus, the journey began.

I approached my family doctor about my concerns and she referred me to my school to be tested for learning disabilities because she wouldn't prescribe me anything without a diagnosis. So I went to my school. They did some preliminary testing and told me that I am above average in my intellectual ability but I might be on the borderline of ADD. This was all found out around November, 3 months after I started university.

Today I finally had my appointment with the testing centre. My results? I don't have ADD. I don't have any learning disabilities. Again: I am above average in my intellectual ability.

I literally stumped the psychologist. My grades have dropped 20% since high school. Something is different, something has had to have changed.

Inevitably, grades do drop in university from high school but things just feel harder here. Or easier. I am bored. The material I am learning is not what I want to be learning. I find it boring. I love my majors (psychology and philosophy) but my profs are not doing it justice.

I explained all of this to the psychologist and he has decided to try to piece things together. Essentially, he thinks my inability to focus on my work has to do with my motivation, despite me having very high goals in my future. I have amazing goals it is just the tasks I have to accomplish to get to my goal (school) is not my cup of tea. I am stressed all of the time. I am bored. I am unengaged. I do not care about what I am learning. Even if I transferred schools it would still be the same format of learning.

So what do I do? The psychologist I saw informed me he was going to dwell on me a little longer and then contact the learning strategist I have been working with at my school and the three of us will work together. 

I wish I had a learning disability. I wish my problems could be solved with strategies or medication. But my problems are bigger than this because they cannot be fixed. My problems are my choices to face because of the goals I want to accomplish. 

This is the biggest rut of my life. I am sad. I am depressed. School depresses me. But I want to attain my BA in Psych and BA in Philosophy and then my Bachelor of Education, perhaps my masters in Education. Why? Well, I want to teach high school. I was fed up with the high school educational system and I wanted to help fix it from within but also teach high school as well to fulfill my passion for educating and being a leader. I am now leaning towards wanting to work in university education just because of how much it takes out of me. 

The system does not work for me. It does not work for most people. Human purpose is to live. A part of living is sleeping. University students do not get enough sleep. People should be able to live the life they choose but instead we pick the unhappy route so we can conform to society. This has been troubling me for a couple of years now and I still am conforming to all of this bullshit and it is maddening me. It is depressing me. It is pushing me deeper and deeper down into my own despair.

I shouldn't care this much about the university and education system in general but I am the type of person that likes to take charge and fix things and that is what I have been inspired to do. 

But for now, I am going to keep conforming to depression. Also, I can't do anything without a degree because of credentialism. I also cannot do anything because ageism (I am 18). 

Although, I did just get a good job (FINALLY). Readers may remember getting a job was one of my goals for this year. I am a Blog Editor and Marketing coordinator, it is an executive position with my university. I don't know too much about it because I was just hired and I have not started yet, but I find out tomorrow. I am looking forward to it. I am fairly lucky, job wise, compared to other people my age. I am not working a part-time shitty stressed job with some fast food or chain store. Someday I will probably have to again, before I have my degree, but for now, I look forward to having a job that I can actually do something effectively in. I am not putting down workers of chain stores or fast food stores, I am just judging the work of those places to have higher stress than my job and I am just thankful that I will (hopefully) not have to deal with it.

So at least that is good.

But I don't have a learning disability. I probably just have the psychological disorder called "conformity".