Posts filed under 'Psychology'
I used to write a lot about seasonal affective disorder. I used to use this blog as a way to explore a mysterious exhaustion turned depression that continued to overpower my winters, and found it served as a release for me but also that others with similar issues found the blog through google searches for things like “hypersomnia” or “S.A.D.” *see what the Canadian Mental Health Association has to say about SAD here.
I haven’t written much about it anymore, because I have, effectively, not dealt with it this year. Or perhaps a more appropriate thing to say might be that I finally did deal with it. And so this post is less a release for me, and more for any people who might stumble across through google still suffering every year as the days get shorter.
First of all, it is true that just about everyone feels a little bit slower, and a little bit less energized in the wintertime–and that’s perfectly normal. What’s not normal is not being able to get out of bed, sleeping 10 to 12 to 14 hours a night, every night, and still finding it necessary to nap, eventually becoming so overwhelmed and depressed that you don’t get out of bed to make food….those things are not okay.
As I wrote about in previous posts, light therapy can be extremely helpful. Traditional Western doctors and psychiatrists can help set you up with light therapy to manage SAD. For me, though, light therapy was not enough. My psychiatrist wanted to see me on anti-depressants, and while there are times when they are necessary, I was convinced that there was an underlying cause to my illness which was not being addressed, and as it turns out I was right.
So what can I suggest that worked?
1. Get on Vitamin D. If you live in Canada you need it for 6 months of the year, whether you suffer from symptoms or not. Vitamin D is something our body gets from exposure to the sun, which we simply can’t get enough of this far north this time of year. Also, sunscreen/block stops the absorption of Vitamin D soooo if you’re as white as I am, and need sunblock then you should probably take Vitamin D in the summer as well: it’s very important for regulating your melatonin system, which helps you to have a natural sleep schedule. Melatonin also works in conjunction with the seratonin system, and symptoms of depression are related to decreased levels of seratonin.
2. Get on a Vitamin B complex of some kind.
3. Consider going to see a Naturopathic Doctor.
With my naturopath I uncovered a number of food sensitivities that I never knew I had. I started as someone ostensibly with no allergies whatsoever, only to discover that gluten, corn, egg and citrus all powerfully affect my skin, digestive system, and most significantly (for me) my moods. A lot of my friends have expressed that they could not give up foods like that, and would rather stay blissfully ignorant of sensitivities. I have to say, I don’t see a single problem in the world with that: as long as you are blissfully ignorant, I was not. I was miserable and committed to finding a solution, so giving up those foods has not really been a big deal.
We (my naturopath and I) combined this with the use of a homeopathic remedy and acupuncture. Each of these were tailored to my specific symptoms for a very individualized treatment. To those skeptics reading: I feel you, 100%. BUT the diet alone was not enough, in November symptoms were starting to show and somehow they went away. I can only describe it as feeling like my body has achieved an important kind of internal balance (which is, quite precisely, the goal of naturopathic medicine). At the end of the day its the effectiveness of any kind of treatment that counts. Which is to say, I don’t know if I understand how these treatments worked, but even if has just been some kind of placebo affect, I’ll take that over seasonal depression.
In my case, I could not afford to see a practicing naturopath but instead saw a 4th year intern at the Canadian College for Naturopathic Medicine. She has been incredible, compassionate and helpful, and every visit is overseen by a registered ND.
Right, well that’s it. May your winters get warmer and more wonderful. I, for one, can’t even express how great it feels to be able to really enjoy the beauty of Canadian winters wholeheartedly again.
February 8th, 2008
I just finished Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate. I had high expectations, I’ll admit. It was recommended to me, in my second year of university, during a heated debate. A few people were trying to dash my naive hopes for progress in humanity by flouting about ideas to do with self-interest and greed etc. etc. and I was grasping at trying to communicate that while I could appreciate those aspects of our humanity I felt that we had evolved the ability to understand these parts of ourselves, their pros and cons, and the possibility of growing away from the damaging ones…or something. And the one individual present who was sympathetic to my underdeveloped ideas pointed me toward this book as a place where these ideas were explored.
Sure enough The Blank Slate is a powerful argument for the reality of Human Nature, and the role it plays in the dark side of what people are capable of, but Pinker makes it clear that he points these things out not to justify them but to encourage us to learn about them so that we can better prevent crime and inhumane acts etc. It’s good. It just often left me with a bad taste in my mouth. It was almost as if while Pinker kept claiming to feel that the exposition of his ideas would mean progress, the connections couldn’t be followed through in his writing. Perhaps because despite all the work he pulled together he was working exclusively through a Western philosophical framework and that seemed to limit his ability to build on human universals he was uncovering.*
All-in-all worth the read though. Another thing I read was The Embodied Mind and it was really wonderful. It was difficult to get through at times, simply because of the density of the material, but left me with a fantastic taste in my mouth. It too was deeply concerned with elements of human nature but was more invested in the experience of rising above it (through Buddhist-esque* meditation etc). Which brings me to a quotation I found in the Blank Slate from The African Queen in which Katherine Hepburn says to Humphrey Bogart, “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.”
*There are rough allusions here to something which could be taken as simply deferring to Eastern philosophy with no justification aside from its being ‘exotic’, but that is not what I mean to be doing. There is a sense in which I feel like incorporating some Eastern philosophy will be necessary to dig us out of the moralistic and spiritual hole that secular science has been digging us into. Particularly research in Human Nature is revealing more and more about the impermanence of human life and that our notion of a ’self’ emerges from activity in the body. While someone like Pinker may not mean this as a spiritually defeating idea, for alot of Westerners it has to be–Judaeo-Christianity simply hasn’t prepared us for anything like it. In order to deal with it looking to traditions like Buddhism which deal actively with the impermanence and illusion of the self may be deeply helpful.
January 9th, 2008
I heard a rumour today that the main reason the University of Toronto converted their full-year introduction to psychology course to a half-year course was that students were doing too well in the second year psychology courses. That’s right. They were simply too well-prepared, thus why not take the (apparently well-performing) foundational course and condense it so that people do worse.
Now, I don’t really know if it’s true. But I know it’s not impossible. After all that’s what bell-curving tests is all about isn’t it? — about maintaining that bell-curve distribution.
And the friend who was telling me this today said, “I mean I know they need to do this kinda thing because you want your mark for UofT to mean something”…and I know what he meant…but I got to thinking…
What if all the foundational courses were brilliant? What if all the intelligent people who were accepted into the University of Toronto were presented with what they needed to achieve at the greatest potential possible? Then maybe sure, everyone who went here would get good marks, but that would just mean that everyone went to a school that was so dedicated to the development of knowledge and education that everyone performed outstandingly.
Instead of what high marks from this kind of place mean now, which is something like: you’ve done well despite our attempts to hold you back; you are one of the elite few on the top end of the bell curve. Well done.
November 8th, 2007
Tonight I am studying for a test in my course on the Psychology of Language, and I’m not convinced it will go well, but what can ya do.
The text book is really bad. It contains information about studies that demonstrate the types of sentences that are most difficult for people to read (convoluted with usage of the passive voice), and uses them everywhere. It’s also full of false claims, bad assumptions, and has the odd spelling error.
I also have complaints about Chomsky. Which is odd, cause generally when I interact with him it’s in books on American policy etc., and I love him. But from time to time I have to deal with his linguistics and I just get all irritated and frustrated and ranty. Yes you beat Skinner and the behaviourists–and for that I love you…but goddamn, what’s the use of a linguistic model with no basis in psychological reality? How can you not even aspire to have your model be tested, potentially falsified and built on? Are you really content just building big towers of hypothetical linguistic theories that depend on everyone going “shhhhhh…don’t listen to the psychologists….they just don’t understand..”???? ARGH! I would love linguistics to be a science, I would. But it’s not anywhere close right now.
My textbook juxtaposes linguistics and psychology by saying that linguistics comes from the tradition of rationalism, while psychology is rooted in the tradition of empiricism and that this is at the root of their disagreements. …as if psychology could really get by without philosophical frameworks (not that it doesn’t try sometimes), and as if anything (including linguistics) can aspire to being a science if it doesn’t function empirically.
Other things that are atrocious:
1. This whole thing about waterboarding…It’s everywhere I look right now. Protesters in the states. Matt Good is writing about it. Jon Stewart is talking about it. The CBC is reporting on it. Seriously people (read: certain American politicians) there’s nothing to debate. There’s no semantic ambiguity. Waterboarding is torture and you are actively using it. That is disgusting. Seriously, it makes me feel rotten and disgusting in the pit of my stomach. Liberty? Human Rights? …fucking hell. BESIDES WHICH, it has been proven that torture does not yeild accurate information. It just yeilds whatever it takes to get the torture to stop. So do you just do it for the kicks? My god we can be sick, sick animals.
2. Canada now allows Drug companies to advertise. Lovely eh? Isn’t that just what you want? We don’t have enough commercialization as it stands, I think it would be fantastic to have drugs advertising directly to people. Cause really you want people to choose their own drugs. Med school doesn’t really make you any more aware of how the body works and how illnesses ought to be remedied. Besides it’s important that a large portion of the income drug companies have get directed into marketing and advertising (over 50% for some companies in the US), because, after all–you wouldn’t want them to redirect that money into research and development….
So, while I’m linguistically ticked off at him, in the spirit of my last two complaints I’d like to direct you to Chomsky’s new book: Failed States. It’s really brilliant. The main premise is that using the standards that America uses to assess states to declare them “failed” and thus justify their involvement in their administration, America itself is a failed state. Well written. Lots of interesting information–like did you know that of all the countries which sent doctors to the region affected by the Tsunami Cuba sent the most government sponsered ones? And that of those something like 47.9% were female? …anyway. I think it’s his strength.
November 7th, 2007
I like to think that in today’s day and age the stigma surrounding mental illness is a thing of the past. I was lucky (in some ways) to be raised in a house that dealed openly and honestly with mental illness. My father sufferred from it and from a very young age (too young to fully understand, even) my brother and I were aware of it. When I was five years old and my mother found that she could not answer all my questions she took me to see my father’s psychiatrist so that I could really understand the situation to the best of my little brain’s ability.
But the truth is that the stigma is not gone. Matthew Good, has chronicalled his struggle with discovering he suffered from bipolar on his blog throughout this past year, and apparently recieved loads of emails and comments regarding the positivity surrounding someone so open. The stigma survives and people like Good are the exception.
I even had a coworker when I worked at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health who was afraid to admit to us that they suffered from a mental illness. We were all psychologists, psychiatrists and/or students of psychology working in a psychiatric hospital and they were afraid of being judged, or misunderstood.
How is it that this is still the case? Mental illnesses are a reality that can only be made worse by ignoring them. By being open, and dealing with them, they become easier to understand and may even be curable.
Please if there is someone in your family who suffers from a mental illness do what you can to see if they are recieving the help they need. If you feel that their condition is affecting you directly seek out support groups for the families of people with mental illness. If they are going to be in continual contact with children, teach the children as much as you can about the problems.
Don’t stigmatize these people. Their problems are real, and they exist for powerful reasons. Accept them, and help them to the best of your ability.
Read what CAMH has to say about stigmas regarding mental health
August 30th, 2007
So what do you do when you wake up from a depression to discover that you are in fact rather unhappy with your life?
You wake up and you realize that you are out of shape, underachieving academically, without employment and have a life absolutely devoid of extra-curricular activity.
What happened to the little girl who showed so much promise? What happened to the precocious teen who had dreams of making a positive difference in the world?
Every good idea, or exciting job, or interesting volunteer work I have become involved in I have given up on, quit, or abandonned. I have lost track of all the interesting academic ideas I swear I use to have. I could not even add 2.50 to a pizza bill of 18.96 tonight because my brain is actually melting from a lack of use.
I try yoga but my body cannot handle that kind of honesty with itself right now. I try prayer but I am stuck in the athiest vaccuum of the secular west where I cannot get my mind invested in a deity but cannot commit my heart to a religious tradition without one.
Last year when I started getting sick I knew something was wrong because everything in my life was right so I should not have been feeling so sick. A year and a half later I am starting to understand how this illness must have gradually morphed itself into a chronic depression for my mother. You try losing 4 months of every year. Watch what happens. Have the same sad tear-filled conversations with your friends over and over again and watch them lose the ability to listen anymore. (Or worse yet sit on the recieving end of their stories without the ability to process them.) Watch what that does to you. Watch your faith in yourself disappear.
Or worse yet wake up and discover that it slipped away in the night.
And then cry.
For the first time in months real tears. Real big sobs not just the hollow moans of depression.
March 28th, 2007
I just finished the most difficult essay of my academic career thus far. It wasn’t really that hard. It was just a second year paper on a Celtic myth. In fact the prof even gave us a list of questions we could choose from to answer–and as a cognitive science student I haven’t had it that ‘easy’ as long as I can remember. But it was not something I could deal with.
I never understood myths. When I was very young I could never understand the parables in the Bible. I learned in Sunday school that one of the most amazing things about Jesus was that he spoke to the people in a way they could understand—but that always confused me, because he seemed impossible to understand: “Why did he not just say what he meant?” I used to wonder. All this about seeds on paths and in thorns and in good soil, why not just talk about people who were or were not open to hearing and accepting the word of God? The Trinity was not a difficult concept for me even as a child, but Jesus’ sermons were impossible.
Then as I got older my mother used to try to share her love for Roman and Greek mythology with my brother and I. Again I was baffled. All these stories about all these people doing all these different things and I just could not understand what any of it was supposed to mean. Addition, subtraction, eventually algebra, biology and physics I could do, even philosophy and philosophy of religion—but myths, and legends no way.
Last year I took a psychology course in personality that opened my mind to a whole new world of understanding. Relatively unconventionally Jordan Peterson taught us personality from a historical perspective. In a field where many have stopped actively teaching the thoughts of Freud and Jung, Peterson took us even further back. He showed us slides of artifacts from Egypt and medieval Europe exposing us to fundamental notions underlying the religions and myths of various cultures and how they could be related to Freud and Jung and modern personality theory. He made us watch Pinocchio analytically, pausing it every few minutes to discuss archetypal characters. Peterson helped us to understand that evolutionarily speaking the mind has not changed much in the past 250,000 years—and that we have a lot more in common with the ancients or those living in the middle ages than we may have previously thought. We began to look at myths as people’s attempts to explain their experiences in life. Just like the art of today, we began to understand myths as people’s insistence to struggle to put the ineffable into words. He uncovered for us the wealth of information myths communicated to people within the societies they became popular in, as well as the wealth of information they have the potential of communicating to us if we look deep enough into them.
And it got me all intersted and stuff. So I’m trying–my damndest. And I’m learning alot. But I think Peterson’s courses on the psychology of all of this will always remain my strong suit.
January 10th, 2007
One thing I will never understand is the societal choice we have made to begin medicating our children.
The individual choice as a parent? –I get that. It’s what is done now. It’s what teachers and doctors tell you is necessary. You want your child to do well and succeed–and in today’s day and age, this is the accepted way to make that happen.
But as a people what are we doing? We are deeming it necessary to medicate children who are active and curious (aka ADHD “sufferers”) into being able to sit still for hours while teachers drone on at them. We are allowing a growing number of our children to take very powerful (in some case even life-threatening) medication which effects their brain while their brains are still developing. Whether or not they were actually fucked up in the first place is debatable, but they’re sure as hell likely to be when the process is over…
Can we please stop? Seriously. These are children. Whether you believe in God or evolution, or both: they have been designed exactly the way they are for a reason. Leave them alone. Let them be. Teach them. Work with the people they are and the people they are becoming. Embrace their moods, both positive and negative. Teach them to deal with their anger, or their excessive energy, or their depression. Learn how to deal with those things yourself if that’s what it takes to teach them.
We can do this. As a people we can raise the next generation without anti-psychotic medication. I swear we can.
“i’m not crazy cause i take the right pills ever day” –jimmy eat world.
November 23rd, 2006
There is a vast disconnect between the type of thinking that we are trained for in the public school system and the type of thinking that is expected of us in real life. In problem solving research in psychology the distinction is explained by the terms ‘well-defined problems’ and ‘ill-defined problems’.
In school we are given very well defined problems. Even the most complicated question about a train departing Chicago at 6am travelling at 80km per hour while another train departs New York at….(you get the idea), is very well defined. It may be difficult, but you have all the information you need, and once you’ve gone through the relevant math course you know the steps you need to apply. The difficult part is staying focused, and applying the steps without making any mistakes.
Real life is full of a differant kind of problem. Real life is full of very ill defined problems. “Get a good job”. “Find a life partner”. “Be a good person”. “Put together a report on XYZ”. These are problems we haven’t been trained for. They are problems that don’t have prescribable answers. They are the big real, important kinds of problems.
And yet when we sat down in class for problem solving, over and over again, what did we do?
“Class Susie has 5 oranges, and she gives 3 oranges to Sam. How many…”
I have encountered these ideas repeatedly in my courses with Dr. John Vervaeke. John is the academic director at a private highschool where he’s trying to apply knowledge gained in psychology research in teaching methods
September 21st, 2006
i was thinking today about finding a balance between worrying unnecessarily about events too far in the future to change, and planning ahead because you truly care.
i was thinking about how getting too wrapped up in worries distract you from what’s sitting right in front of you.
i was remembering how with just one guitar, one book, a tupperware container full of freezies, a pair of scissors and a patch of grass we could feel completely fullfilled and inspired and excited and i realized that sometimes i’m just downright silly.
i was thinking about how at work i soon learned, and discovered that most new parents were aware, that 9 times out of 10 if a baby is crying it is in some way related to sleep, and that 7 times out of 10 if it’s not about sleep it’s about food–and i was wondering why we (people who have gotten bigger than babies) think we’re any differant?
i was thinking how bizarre it is that angst can wrap itself around your body and then turn inward and weave inside until every inch of you can feel questioning and on edge and that sometimes this feeling isn’t even actively directed at anything.
July 6th, 2006
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