wanderingfrog
Sitting For The Arnolds
Official BSC Archivist
Posts: 2,552
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Post by wanderingfrog on May 22, 2008 20:31:23 GMT -5
Bipolar Disorder is really becoming over diagnosed as well, in my opinion. I actually prefer the term "manic depressive" when it comes to myself, because most people don't really understand what bipolar really means. Many think it's just up and down between happy and sad moods but it's really much more severe than that, at least to the people that truly have it. Yeah, I prefer the term "manic depression" as well. Anyone who's ever been in a mixed state knows that the idea of depression and mania being two discrete opposite states, and never the twain shall meet, is completely ridiculous. I don't necessarily think that bipolar disorder is massively overdiagnosed; I think one of the biggest problems is that people with mild bipolar disorder are being sledgehammered with the same medications at the same dosages that people with severe bipolar disorder are. And even those of us who do have severe manic depression don't need to be heavily medicated all the time. For instance, I think that for most people, it's a bad idea to be on antipsychotics long term. I've had really bad psychotic episodes, with paranoia and auditory hallucinations and all that jazz, and at the time, antipsychotics were helpful in making that stuff stop. But I haven't been on them for a couple of years, and I haven't been having psychotic episodes. Yeah, I'll probably have another one at some point in the future, and I'll probably need to take antipsychotics short term again, but I'm certainly not going to be on them fore my entire life. I definitely agree about shyness not being a disorder. I've had a health professional try to tell me that I had social anxiety disorder because I was shy. Um, no. There are a lot of things wrong with me, but social anxiety disorder isn't one of them. I'm just plain old shy, as a personality trait. I'm not saying that social anxiety disorder doesn't exist, just that not everyone who is shy has it. Sorry, mental health is one of the subjects I tend to babble incessantly about. I could go on all night, but I won't.
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courtky10
Sitting For The Johanssens
Posts: 1,125
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Post by courtky10 on Jun 10, 2008 11:55:46 GMT -5
I don't think MA has social phoba or selective mutism or anything. I was diagnosed with that before and our personalities are way different. I went through school every single until 10th grade without saying a word to anyone unless a teacher called on me. Then, I would just say what I had to say and nothing more. Plus, I would skip lunch and go to the library because I was scared to be in such a large crowd. I could literally count everyone I would voluntarily talk to on one hand. MA didn't seem to be anywhere near this shy to me.
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Post by sillybillygoogoo on Oct 29, 2008 16:08:39 GMT -5
Kristy seems kind of obsessive compulsive, and also, in "Little Sister", with her interactions with Karen, it seems like she had some jealousy/anger issues. At least that is the vibe I got. Her family life was screwed up because of her parents seperation, and she has to deal with Karen's perfect divorced life. That's gotta be tough. Especially in "Karen's Birthday."
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Post by otempora541 on Nov 18, 2008 12:23:03 GMT -5
Claudia defenitly has some issues about school. ADD is defenitly up there.
MA I think is more depressed? She did go to a psychatrist, but we don't really now why.
Shannon would crumble eventually under all the stress, and it won't be pretty when she falls apart. Kristy could fall prey to that also.
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Post by booboobrewer on Nov 18, 2008 20:42:40 GMT -5
I agree with you about Shannon and Kristy. Along with Mary Anne, I think they all hold some repressed feelings. And Mal has some inferiority issues, but I think that's pretty typical of someone her age.
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Lauren
Sitting For The Newtons
Posts: 2,026
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Post by Lauren on Nov 18, 2008 22:28:22 GMT -5
No, why do you ask?
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fluffycakes
Junior Sitter
A silken-haired beauty with a laugh like pealing bells
Posts: 868
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Post by fluffycakes on Nov 19, 2008 0:43:02 GMT -5
I'm convinced that Claudia has a learning disorder. I'm not an expert, but I'm taking a psychology of education class, and we studied learning disorders not long ago. She fits the diagnostic criteria perfectly: 1. Impairments in processes related to learning, despite have average or above average intelligence (how many times have we been told that she's actually "really smart"?) 2. Unexpectedly low academic achievement/sufficient achievement that involved unrealistic effort or help from another person (such as Janine helping her study all the time) 3. No other impairment/diagnosed disability. My guess is that she has dyslexia and possibly dyscalculia (math disability), though there seems to be more evidence for dyslexia. Claudia could also have ADHD (predominantly inattentive type). I should point out that from a diagnostic standpoint, ADD doesn't really exist anymore. Instead, there are now three types of ADHD: predominantly inattentive, predominantly hyperactive/impulsive, and combined. (Sorry to sound so "know it all"-y about it, but I just learned about this, so it's in my brain I think Claud's a candidate for ADHD, because out of the nine diagnostic criterions for the inattentive type, she exhibits at least seven (to be diagnosed, you need to show at least six, among other things.): failing to give close attention to detail/making careless mistakes (definitely the latter for Claud!), trouble sustaining attention, not appearing to listen, struggling to follow through on instructions, difficulty with organization (this is never explicitly stated, but I never saw Claudia as the organized type), avoiding/disliking activities that require sustained mental effort and being easily distracted. I have to say, I thought of Claud when we were talking about ADHD in class. Poor Claudia, I feel like I'm picking on her. But given her problems in school, and her general dumbassery in life (especially in the later books), there's no way she's "just lazy."
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Lauren
Sitting For The Newtons
Posts: 2,026
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Post by Lauren on Nov 19, 2008 22:08:22 GMT -5
People with Asperger's generally can express themselves well in writing, but have poor social skills, which none of the sitters strike me as having problems with.
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Lauren
Sitting For The Newtons
Posts: 2,026
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Post by Lauren on Nov 20, 2008 10:21:43 GMT -5
No, I think Mal's just going through an awkward phase.
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Post by otempora541 on Nov 20, 2008 15:42:30 GMT -5
No one in the BSC land has really poor social skills, at least the way asberger's exhibit. Sean Addison possibily could, but he is more of a hell raiser.
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Post by bscfan24 on Nov 20, 2008 20:00:15 GMT -5
^^ wasn't a lot of Charlotte's problems with interacting with the other children at school fixed (or at least helped greatly) by her moving up a grade? I mean, Charlotte's shy, but she seems like a social butterfly at school, although that might be the fact that she's around her friends. It might be totally different when she's around a lot of children in general.
Heh. I love psychoanalyzing the BSC characters. Next semester when I have abnormal psych should be really fun. Maybe I'll have better insight for this thread after that.
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Lila
Sitter-In-Training
Posts: 293
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Post by Lila on Jan 16, 2009 17:12:39 GMT -5
I think Karen Brewer has ADHD. If you stop to compare her to everyone else in her class, she's the one who is bouncing off the walls, has to be reminded constantly to calm down, quiet down, etc. she's very headless and reckless, does things without thinking, Sometimes she does have trouble paying attention, as she's always mentioned daydreaming or thinking of other things other than the task she has at hand and she's always mentioning "I quickly finished my homework and then...." I think she has the hyperactive/impulsive bit of the ADHD just like I had as a kid. She's a very good kid and really doesn't mean to get into her little misunderstandings. Most of Karen's behavior is simular to mine as a kid, overactive, hyper, couldn't sit still, blurted out things, excitable, noisy, being told constantly to cool it/stop shouting/etc.
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Post by greer on Jan 16, 2009 18:44:24 GMT -5
I don't think being obnoxious is a psychiatric disorder. I think she is just smart and finds school easy, and hence the daydreaming.
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Lila
Sitter-In-Training
Posts: 293
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Post by Lila on Jan 27, 2009 2:43:22 GMT -5
i never thought Karen was obnoxious though.
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Post by sugarandspicexx on Jun 24, 2009 5:09:06 GMT -5
Having had depression for years, PTS once and a complete psychotic episode. (Putting it out like that makes me think my brain is a war-zone.) I'm no expert on different psychiatric conditions, but I've spent a bit of time looking into different ones between wanting knowledge for my own self, but as part of my studies for work.
I honestly don't think any of them have a psychiatric condition, except Claudia displays what would make sense to be some sort of learning disorder, and or dislexia.
Actually, to me Janine seems to have some Aspergers type traits as far as what I know of Aspergers, or she could just be a super genious who hasn't got great social skills.
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