Random psych thoughts
Feb. 16th, 2009 07:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnpalmerIt seems to me like there might someday be a different set of ways of describing mental illness, and one of the things I've been thinking of is types of symptoms.
e.g.: sometimes, my brain is pressured. Thoughts jumping all too and fro. It's hard to rein them in and do what I want to do with them.
Sometimes, it's stagnant... not enough pressure. Nothing flows without forcing it.
And sometimes, it's grounded - no excess energy that I'm not using, no heavy pushing to make the thoughts move.
That's one dimension, and, obviously, it's a moving target, so don't think I'm imagining it's any magic bullet, but I think it's something that could become a useful tool to describe a type of bothersome state or set of states.
Another dimension is something like "realistic positivity/negativity".
Some days, I can think of something bad about myself, and it just fits. And I can say it's not true (assuming it's not), and I can acknowledge that it's not true, but that's all it is. It's like saying "lemons are sour" if you don't know what a lemon tastes like, but do know it from reading descriptions.
It's also possible to suffer from unrealistic positivity, to think that you're totally ruling at the poker table a few hands before you (re)learn the old rule about suckers ("there's always a sucker at every poker table. If you don't know who it is after a few hands, it's you. Leave. Now[1].")
I think there's some subtleties here, of course. A person who keeps playing roulette thinking s/he's going to win back some money could be unrealistically positive, or could be desperate.
(Which brings up another set of issues. I think there are also thinking fallacies that a person might need to unlearn, but I think these are different from these two dimensions I described. They might be influenced by them, though.)
Anyway... this has been your daily dose of hypothetical psychobabble.
[1] Yes, even if you're ahead. Do the words "buildup winnings" mean anything to you? No? Really? You've never heard them before? Wanna play poker? I have to warn you, I'm not very good....[2]
[2] Of course I'm not going to shark[3] anyone. I'm not good enough, even if I would. But it's still a good joke.
[3] Using Google, I only see "unusually skilled" as a definition of "shark" Doesn't "shark" refer, specifically, to someone who hides their ability, until they sucker someone into betting big against them? Or am I misremembering the term?
e.g.: sometimes, my brain is pressured. Thoughts jumping all too and fro. It's hard to rein them in and do what I want to do with them.
Sometimes, it's stagnant... not enough pressure. Nothing flows without forcing it.
And sometimes, it's grounded - no excess energy that I'm not using, no heavy pushing to make the thoughts move.
That's one dimension, and, obviously, it's a moving target, so don't think I'm imagining it's any magic bullet, but I think it's something that could become a useful tool to describe a type of bothersome state or set of states.
Another dimension is something like "realistic positivity/negativity".
Some days, I can think of something bad about myself, and it just fits. And I can say it's not true (assuming it's not), and I can acknowledge that it's not true, but that's all it is. It's like saying "lemons are sour" if you don't know what a lemon tastes like, but do know it from reading descriptions.
It's also possible to suffer from unrealistic positivity, to think that you're totally ruling at the poker table a few hands before you (re)learn the old rule about suckers ("there's always a sucker at every poker table. If you don't know who it is after a few hands, it's you. Leave. Now[1].")
I think there's some subtleties here, of course. A person who keeps playing roulette thinking s/he's going to win back some money could be unrealistically positive, or could be desperate.
(Which brings up another set of issues. I think there are also thinking fallacies that a person might need to unlearn, but I think these are different from these two dimensions I described. They might be influenced by them, though.)
Anyway... this has been your daily dose of hypothetical psychobabble.
[1] Yes, even if you're ahead. Do the words "buildup winnings" mean anything to you? No? Really? You've never heard them before? Wanna play poker? I have to warn you, I'm not very good....[2]
[2] Of course I'm not going to shark[3] anyone. I'm not good enough, even if I would. But it's still a good joke.
[3] Using Google, I only see "unusually skilled" as a definition of "shark" Doesn't "shark" refer, specifically, to someone who hides their ability, until they sucker someone into betting big against them? Or am I misremembering the term?
