Tag: mental illness

Personality Disorders 101: Paranoid PD

2 June 2018 / Sinead

The first in the series of personality disoders is Paranoid Personality Disorder (PPD). Although experiencing paranoia in a stressful situation is common, PPD refers to a much bigger idea; a permanent fear that someone or something is trying to cause you harm, and that you are in almost-constant danger.

A person with PPD will treat every experience, however neutral or friendly, as a personal attack and a sign of their “put-upon” status. They will feel like they always need to be on guard to defend themselves. Someone with PPD will struggle to trustanything, as they fear (or expect) that everything in their world could be revealed as a lie or trick at any moment. This uncertainty may drive someone with PPD towards anger and constant arguments with other people, who they assume are lying or hiding information. Alternately, the person may isolate themselves from the world and from others so they cannot be decieved.

To be diagnosed with PPD in the DSM-5, someone must meet 4 of these criteria;

Personality Disorders 101 : How are PDs diagnosed?

1 June 2018 / Sinead

The study of psychological differences and “abnormal” behaviour has received more public attention than many other branches of psychology, but this attention isn’t always beneficial. “Abnormal” behaviour is associated with sensationalist news headlines more than sensible conversation. As a result, people often know about psychological conditions through their portrayals in mass media, rather than from factual explanations.

Of the many psychological differences, the category of personality disorders is most frequently misunderstood. The individual personality disorders (PDs) are often mis-represented, while the idea of a “disordered personality” sparks criticism from anti-psychiatry groups and people diagnosed with PDs.

So what are PDs, and what do we mean by “personality” in this context?

Currently, personality disorders are defined as groups of traits, experiences and behaviours that are significantly different from the majority of people; that affect someone’s thinking, emotions and impulses; and are associated with personal distress and dysfunction. These general criteria needs to be met for any PD diagnosis.

So to be diagnosed with a PD, someone needs to have a collection of unusal behaviours and traits which affects a large portion of their everyday life. Those behaviours and traits must start before early adulthood. They need to cause negative consequences for the person, who should be upset by or annoyed at those behaviours. The name “personality disorder” attempts to represent how far-reaching and impactful those behaviours and experiences are upon almost every aspect of the person’s understanding of themselves and their ability to relate to others.

Review | Three Fourths Home

20 May 2018 / Sinead

Three Fourths Home is about that conversation you always wish you’d started, and that regret you might not be able to repair. More literally, it’s about talking, driving, and closure.

TFH is a piece of interactive fiction with a simple premise: protagonist Kelly is on her way home from visiting her grandparents’ now-empty house when a storm approaches. Kelly’s mum calls to locate her, and their struggle to communicate forces their complicated family dynamics to unravel there and then. The entire game is held within this one conversation; as Kelly, all you can do is keep driving and keep talking.

Mental Health, Common Sense, and the Unknown

28 January 2016 / Sinead

Everyone has a level of physical health which changes over time and as a result of circumstances.

A minority of people are at their peak of physical health, the healthiest they could possibly be.The majority of people are generally healthy: they don’t have to worry about their physical health as everything is working well enough to live their life.

Minor physical health issues such as colds or aches and pains, are common. They temporarily make life doable but more difficult. People with longer-term minor issues learn to adapt and accommodate around what is tougher for them- perhaps they can usually function at 95% of the generally healthy level .

Major physical health issues can make normal life very difficult, requiring someone to change how they live for a bit and often need a recovery time/ gradual return afterwards.

Then a small percentage of people have chronic, severe physical health issues that mean they either cannot function in a typical life at all, or they need to adapt almost everything about their life to live and function.

So, why did I just write that? Everything I’ve just said is common sense, and it doesn’t need saying.

But try it again, swapping physical for mental…

My Diagnosis (or lack of) Experience…

12 January 2016 / Sinead

I finally got a phonecall back from the CMS, but it wasn’t the phonecall I expected.

In the last appointment, C3 seemed like she understood what I meant and was happy to talk to her team about sorting out what I can do next. But the phonecall was a lot more negative.

Firstly, she said that she didn’t want to progress further as I only met some of the criteria and not others. Considering depersonalisation disorder (the closest thing I could see to my experiences, and what I wanted to focus on) is basically defined by experiencing depersonalisation that causes negative effects and isn’t caused by anything else – in other words, exactly what I experience, and what I tried to explain to her is probably the thing underlying everything else- I don’t really see how she could have reached that conclusion.

Does Photographic memory exist? Pt. 1

18 November 2011 / Sinead

Photographic memory is one of those concepts that is understood and shown by pop-psychology and the media a lot more than it is shown by academic psychology. Just think of how many films, books and TV shows you’ve seen featuring a character with perfect factual recall or full memory of almost every experience they’ve had.

But in real life, photographic memory cannot be easily found – scientists and researchers are still debating whether it actually exists. While people have often come forward saying they have an exceptional or photographic memory, they are found to be mistaken, and there are only a few cases where a person could genuinely have a photographic memory.

From my existing psychology education, I know of three reasons why someone can have a much better memory than average. For each of these, I have mini-theories of whether these could turn into photographic memory if it exists, and how they might work. The first condition, Hyperthymesia, is below the cut.