Disorders are Good

The article that I will be responding to is the first article that we were assigned to read, Carl Elliott's "A New Way to Be Mad." I choose this article because I wanted to go back to the "spark that started it all" (so to speak). This article addresses everything that is human--choices, thoughts, ideas, the idea of semantic contagion. It allows us to ask the "life" questions.

That being said, I think that the it is ethical to say that a person has the right to his or her body. Like Elliot says, "a man who says he is not himself unless he is on Prozac; a woman who gets breast-reduction because she is not the large breasted type, or transsexuals who are trapped in the wrong body" (Elliot 3) these people do not feel like themselves in their current human body, and thus far we have enabled them to change their image to one that was more suited to them. But where do we draw the line?

I guess the thing that I (and probably a lot of you) am having trouble with is the question of "what is human?" How do we define ourselves? WHO THE HELL TELLS US WHAT WE THINK? If apotemnophilia is not a psychological disorder, but a neurological one, is everything that we every think and desire already inscribed in our genes? I am sure Steven Pinker would be fast to agree with that. But considering the shear complexity of neurological disorders, one can at least agree that apotemnophilia COULD be considered neurological.

MY WORLD IS SPINNING from trying to comprehend such complex issues and ideas! If everything that we do in life could be written off as easy to say, "Well its not my fault, its my genes" where does the sense of identity go? We have already proved that alcoholism and drug addiction can run in the family, but is this due to nature or nurture. (Side note: an interesting case study could be conducted on a child who grew up completely independent of his or her biological parents and see the chances that they become and alcoholic or drug addict). But could apotemnophilia possible run in the family or be in ones genes? The study by David Brang would certainly agree with that. And, as we discussed in class, just the thought of it being in our genes puts as at ease a allows to breath a sigh of relief. As if reading about this phenomenon would spread it into our desires.

Sorry I got a little side tracked there, back to Elliot. Like people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, maybe apotemnophilia can be healed by therapy. Elliot states that some of the people that he talked to with the disorder "were obsessive, driven, and consumed by the disorder" (Elliot 6). Maybe this disorder is just like other body image disorders...anorexia, bulimia, wanting plastic surgery, etc. All these things, others would classify as not normal, can be treated with psychiatric help and therapy. It seems as though apotemnophiliacs are so hidden, that the idea of therapy is out of the question because they are deemed as "not normal."

Which leads us to the question of who constitutes what normality means? What is Normal and accepted today certainly is not the same as Normal 100 years ago. Or perceptions change with the times. For example, although it may not be considered "normal to be homosexual," it is certainly more accepted today than it was is the past. Times and beliefs change, and maybe in the future we will come to accept people who want their limbs cut off.

The main thing that I am still questioning is society's effects on disorders. I think that once a disorder is in fact classified as a disorder, then everyone with said "disorder" can breath a sigh of relief because they know that there are others like them. I think that to classify something as a disorder actually helps those affected because "people are conscious of the way that they are classified, and they alter their behavior and self conceptions in response to their classification" (Elliot 9). This allows people with disorders and other thoughts to associate with others that are like them. It allows them to talk about their feelings instead of holding everything in. When people are able to talk about their pasts, possible solutions to the problem could arise. Then again, the spread of the disorder may come too, but that is for human nature to decide.