I Missed ADHD Awareness Week [Unfinished]

Last week was ADHD awareness week, and I completely missed it. I regret missing a whole month where I could've actually helped raise awareness about my own condition and help others who are in the same boat as me. I guess the least I could do now is to try to talk [write] about ADHD.
...
I have almost no memories from my early childhood. It's all one big blur. Other people have childhood friends. I have people who walk up to me on the street and start telling me how much they've missed me or they start talking about some event in grade school or something but I don't remember. I don't remember them. I remember somebody like them, a blurry faceless silhouette of a person in the background while I daydreamed my days away.
...
I got into fights a lot as a kid. I had a temper. I'd be sitting down in my seat getting playfully teased by some little boy, then before I know what's happening I'm standing in the middle of the classroom with my fist raised and the little boy holding his mouth where I had apparently punched him. I have no memories of the punching incident. Only anger. I remember being angry. But I don't remember getting up, grappling with my opponent, punching him repeatedly, and receiving a few punches myself in return. I don't have a continuous sequence of events outlined in my head; only a before and after picture in my head. This lead to more fighting incidents; the little boy had a lot of friends after all, I mostly only had my drawings and doodles in my notebook.
...
I draw. I draw to pass the time because I'm so bored most of the time. I draw because there are stories in my head that I want to translate into paper but I'm too young to write or read novels. The television doesn't interest me a lot because the stories are just so predictable now. I only watch TV shows until the middle and then start playing with my toys or drawing when the ending become oh so obvious. Eventually I barely watch TV at all, I concentrate on my toys and my art materials.
...
My classmates in grade school are talking about how exciting a particular TV show was last night. They talk about specific scenes and how cool it was that the character punched him like this and how the enemy was thrown away like that. But I don't remember any of that. I have a general summary of the TV show episode in my head. It went like this: The good guy fought the bad guy. Boring. I wanted something more.
...
I started loving basketball because there were just so many things you could do. You could be a point guard. You could be a Center. You all had specific roles. You all had a job to do. There was strategy. There was enough to keep me interested. I wasn't bored when I thought of basketball. I eventually became team captain because I like strategizing, even though I wasn't the best player. But my plans were never followed by my team mates during actual games. They praised our star player because he was fast. They praised him because he could hit impossible shots. Even though he strayed from the game plan. I eventually quit basketball when I was introduced to books.
...
I love books. I love plots. I love wondering about how books would end. Eventually, even if I knew how a book would end, I loved wondering on how it would reach that ending. What would the characters do? What would happen to make things fall into place? I devoured all of the Hardy Boys Mystery books. I loved them. Their plots just seemed more complex and interesting than what I saw in TV shows. My classmates loved Scooby Doo. I hated it because it was so predictable. My classmates in I didn't get along very well. I grew closer and closer to books.
...
My teachers don't like me. They say I misbehave. All I do is draw in my notebooks when she's lecturing. What's so bad about that? And I make faces now and then. At least I don't makes farting noises or tease the girls like my other boy classmates. And  I get the questions right when they ask me. I also get good grades; I would eventually make it into the honor's section. So why don't they like me? Why am I standing in a corner? All I did was draw. I didn't do anything.
...
When I don't have books I walk. I walk around campus. It gave me time to think and see new things. The regular lunch time routine inside the class room bored me; "Guess who has a crush on blah blah blah." "Ooohhh secret!!!" "Hey can I copy your homework?" Boring. I apparently made a lot of friends during my grade school walking time, they're the ones I told you about; approaching me when I visit my home town, or telling my parents about me when they see them at the hospital. "I was classmates with your son!", or "We were friends in Grade school!". But I don't remember any of them.
...
In highschool I started remembering things more concretely. I sort of started being aware. But I always felt like I was at a disadvantage, socially. People had cemented ties and alliances during grade school, and I felt left behind. Also, people were starting to see me as weird, I was the boy who would day dream or draw most of the time. Some people also remembered me as the boy who got into fights a lot. It's weird how the people I saw everyday thought of me as weird, but the people I only met occasionally thought of me as a fun guy.
...

This Essay Would Rate a 4/5 on the Glasgow Coma Scale [Unfinished?]

Art is subjective. Science is objective. And that's that... right?

I wonder what happens when we put Psychiatry into that equation; it's the objective study of the Subjective way a person perceives the world and how it translate into objective and observable patterns of behavior. I know, right? Mindfuck.

In relation to my previous post, I guess that's why it's so hard for people to integrate Psychiatry and the rest of Medicine in their minds, leading to the labels of people with Psychiatric disorders as "Abnormal", as opposed to just "Normal people with Psychiatric Disorders".

I often wonder about art. What's considered as art? When is something or someone "artistic"? Is it art just because the "artist" calls it art? Is there such as thing as bad art? We could go on and on about art techniques and the level of difficulty and amount of effort it took to create a piece of art in order to objectively evaluate it, but come on- we live in a world where people can just throw paint at a canvass and have it sell for hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars.

People with Psychiatric disorders, more often than not, are artistic. They're bloggers, notebook doodlers, sidewalk musicians, and etc. (end of thinking capacity) Their freedom from the objectiveness of the world lets them create subjective beauty; I think it's easier to create something beautiful when you're not analyzing everything in the world the whole time. I guess that's why so few critics are actually good at whatever it is they're critiquing.

Here's a thought: Do artists deserve to be paid more than doctors? Do artists deserve to be richer than people who save lives everyday? If you answer no to that, then why don't we extend the scope of that question? Does anyone deserve to be paid more than doctors? Does Lebron James, with his (seemingly) steroid-enhanced muscles and basketball skill, deserve to make more money than a neurosurgeon?

Would it have been better for that neurosurgeon, with his near infinite level of hand-eye coordination, to have become an artist instead? Would he have made the world a better place? What would happen to all the people he saved as a surgeon? Oh, but what would happen to all the people he would have inspired with his art if he had chosen the path of Medicine instead?

It doesn't seem fair. Hell, it doesn't seem objective. And I guess things will forever be unfair as long as we live in a non-Utilitarian world. Things don't have to be useful to be of any value in this world; things just have to be valuable because we say they're valuable. We create our own realities, and I guess we're all a little bit insane that way.

The objective utility of an object does not necessarily correspond to the subjective value it has in our hearts. I love the Phantom of the Opera, but instead of watching it on my Laptop I could've studied the entire chapter on the Human Appendix from my Surgery book. I just wasted my time, I know- but it made me happy. It made me happy enough so that I wouldn't become depressed (a slippery slope, I know), so I could finish medical school so that I can finally become a doctor and be an object of objective utility to the world- but I could only do that because subjectively, I felt happy and content with my life as a Medical Intern/ Art Appreciator/ Amateur Artist.

Without subjectivity, there would be no love of the arts. Heck- there would be no love. Admit it- objectively speaking there is nothing special about the members of our family, our friends, or our crush, but we still love them because of how they subjectively make us feel. A totally objective world would be emotionless and I wouldn't want to live there. So let's all be a little bit insane, and be subjectively objective.

Normally Abnormal

This is my reflection paper for my Psychiatry Rotation, and I originally wrote this on September 27, 2011. This is one of the first times I've been asked to write a reflection paper for anything that I actually took seriously. DISCLAIMER: My writing style may suck; I may sound stiff and circumstantial a lot of times, so don't judge me too much haha. Have fun reading this. I hope. :)

During our one week stay at MetroPsych Facility (MPF) for our Psychiatry Rotation, we were asked to observe a session of GROW, or group therapy session. During the GROW session, the patients were asked to share important thoughts or feelings regarding their illness, and how it has affected their relationships, or any issues they have regarding their treatment and path to wellness.

I was happy to hear from the patients who had success stories regarding their recovery, and I was surprised to find out that most of the employees at MPF were former patients, pointing to how well they were able to adapt to their condition and find purpose in their lives. However, it saddened me to see that JL, the patient assigned to me was crying a lot during her sharing. She said that she really missed her family and wanted to go home already, but she also expressed her concern that despite being with her family at home, she did not get the support she wanted and needed; especially emotional support from her mother, who according to the one of the psychiatrists at the facility was an undiagnosed, therefore untreated individual with Bipolar mood disorder.

It really is strange how we perceive Psychiatry. If a doctor were to see a person beside him on the train who was coughing uncontrollably, he could recommend that the individual see a doctor, or he could give some medical advice and that person would most probably be thankful for the free medical consult. However, if a psychiatrist were to see a person on a train with an obvious personality or mood disorder and she were to try to intervene, he or she would most probably be seen as rude and acting out of place.

I don't see why there should be such a big divide on how medical and psychiatric illnesses are treated and regarded not just in our society, but even in the medical world. I dislike the fact that referrals to Psychiatry must have a special term, like Consultation Liaison (CL). I know that this is because CL can involve not just the condition of the patient but also relationships within the medical team, but I think that this helps further enlarge the gap that exists between “normal” Medicine and Psychiatry, which perpetuates the stigma associated with psychiatry.

We don't see people with other chronic medical conditions like Coronary Artery Disease (CAD), asthma, chronic kidney disease (CKD), or Diabetes as abnormal, so why must things be different for Psychiatric patients? Why can't Psychiatry be unified with the rest of Medicine? Like all other conditions, Psychiatric conditions are mostly about genetic predisposition, and physiologic abnormalities, so what’s the big difference?

Maybe it's because Psychiatric conditions are so abstract. The impairment/injury is not clearly visible, like when a person breaks an arm or gets a laceration somewhere on their body. In psychiatric conditions, the disability is what is more prevalent, and I think that's what people are really adverse to; they can't relate to Psychiatric patients because they can’t “see” their condition on a physical level. What's worse is that sometimes the condition is completely unified with the person. For example, people stop seeing a patient as a person with schizophrenia, all they see is a schizophrenic. They somehow start seeing the person as the disorder, and I think that shouldn't be the case.

Going back to my assigned patient and her mother with undiagnosed/untreated Bipolar Mood Disorder, I wonder what would have happened had the psychiatrist recommended that the mother also seek Psychiatric help. She would probably have been rebuked/verbally assaulted. Heck, she may even have been sued. Maybe one of the things that we could do to help integrate the idea of Psychiatric conditions and/or interventions into the general scheme of Medicine is to standardize Psychiatric evaluations, or to make them mandatory. In the same way that medical check-ups are mandatory in most institutions, Psychiatric check-ups should be too. But they should be part of the standard Medical check-up so as to not separate it from all the other examinations. After all, Psychiatry is just another branch of Medicine. It is nothing special, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Psychiatry should be normal, despite the fact that it tackles what people see as inherently “abnormal.”

Hesitation

Hey. It's me. Let me in...
... or at least open the door?
Let's give it a shot...
I hate missed connections.

[But how can I hate them if I never knew?]

El Scorcho got it right-
but maybe I'm the one that's scared
... or maybe El Scorcho got it wrong,
and maybe I'm being stupid and you-
- you just don't care

I'm writing teenage style poetry
You're under my skin,
but I'd rather that you be on top of it.

Infatuation confused with love.
Scars waiting for wounds.

Wounds waiting for...
For what? Liquid bravery, or Serendipity?
The fates have not been kind for a while.
Don't hold your breath.

But maybe El Scorcho got it right.
Maybe you're my great perhaps.
Perhaps.

Trying to Answer Astigirl's Questions [Unfinished]

Questions taken from the first Chapter of Tweet Sering's Astigirl: What do I want? What do I dream of? What do I care about? What are my sterling qualities? What are my miserable traits? What can't I stand? What do I stand for? What will I die for? What will I live for?

I don't have an answer for all of those questions right now, but here are some random thoughts that were effected into being when I read those lines: What do I want? Well, I want to be happy. What does that mean? Well that means that I want to have a happy family. What is a happy family? A happy family is one that loves each other and has no financial or health problems. How will I make sure that happens? by become a successful surgeon; a pediatric surgeon in fact. Or a psychiatrist. I'll get to more on that later.

Whoa that was chaotic. And just from one question. Let's skip to my answer for the last question: What do I live for? Well, I live for my family. Is that a bad thing? Does this mean that aside from my family, my life is empty? Another important question: How can I be empty when I'm so full of myself. Side comment: I'm a genius. Or almost a genius. Or slightly above above average. Oh well. :(

According to Astigirl: "In our culture, personal independence- or any form of focus or reliance on the self= seems to be regarded as unnecessary, if not altogether arrogant."

My thoughts: When should we stop thinking about the greater good? When is it okay to start being "selfish"? Is it selfish to want to be an artist instead of a doctor? (Or a professional DotA players instead of a doctor?) Am I selfless because I want to be a doctor, or just arrogant?

In the Philippines (a predominantly catholic country), it seems that self-awareness, which comes at the expense of being part of "the collective" is frowned upon, because it breeds heresy and agnosticism. and eventually atheism. It seems that faith is opposed to self-awareness; religion teaches us that it's okay not to understand the universe- and by extension, ourselves. That is just wrong. So wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.

Molecular Love and Other Rants [Unfinished]

"I like math... because it's the same in every country."

-Cady

They say that Math is the purest form of science, and next to math is Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and all the other applied sciences. Now... Let's talk about love. Let's talk about love from a Biological perspective. To go one step lower or more basic would be to talk about love from a chemical perspective, and I guess that would be too technical for most of us, aside from it being beyond my current scientific knowledge capacity/capabilities.

Why do we love? Or: Why do we live? Answer: To pass on our genes. A different yet still correct answer: to love. Here's a thought: What if they're the same thing?

"All this shit... just so we can pass on our genes."

-Miguel J. Villanueva

Think about it: Do animals have the same problems concerning love/romance as us? No. Why is that? It's because they don't have to think about it. When they want to breed, they just breed. Dogs just go around sniffing each others' butts, then if they like what they smell, then it's ON. Things aren't so simple for us humans. (Sadly)

I think the problem is that there are so many possible combinations of criteria that we have for choosing our future mates that it just becomes so overwhelming. And I'm just talking about having sex; I still haven't started considering having babies and eventually a family into this equation! But wait, you might say; aren't those two things, people we want to have sex with and people we eventually want to marry the same thing? Wouldn't their Venn diagram (oh yeah math terms) be that of a single circle?

Well... not necessarily; and I think this is because of the existence of numerous social constructs such as marriage and propriety which makes everything so complicated. That is the burden of being human, after all; being on top of the food chain gives us time to screw everything up just by over thinking things now that we've been freed from worrying about where our next meal will come from or if we're going to be something else's next meal. It's like ecology's version of the meme "First World Problems". As humans, we have "Top of the Food Chain Problems".

Dogs and other mammals just have to worry about finding somebody with a compatible smell, because as we all know (I hope), our scents carry sexual advertisements called pheromones which display our favorable genetic traits such as the strength of our immune system to potential mates, then they can just copulate then walk away and then that's that. Things are so, so hard with us humans because aside from genetic traits, there are social traits that we also have to consider, like career, family life, religious and philosophical views, and the whole gamut of human quirks and idiosyncrasies. 

Things become so hard and distorted because while we can be very sexually attracted to somebody because of their bodies or how we respond to their pheromones, we may not be attracted to them for the long run because of their personality. While an argument can be made about how our personalities are determines by our brain chemistry which is hard coded by our genes, the whole nurture versus nature thing comes in with its theories and postulates about epigenetics so in the end let's just all agree that not everything about our personality is based on our genes. Look at identical twins; they don't have identical personalities. And that's that.

"For you I'd wait, til kingdom come... Until my day, my day is done."

-Coldplay

The whole monogamy thing sometimes confuses me. Disclaimer: In my relationships I practice monogamy and I believe in monogamy, but on a Biological level, it confuses me. The steady rate of divorce rates throughout the entire world makes me sad. What happened to 'til death do us part? I guess it was much easier to stand by the commitment of eternal monogamy in the olden times when the average life expectancy was something like 30-40 even if by the age of 35 you wanted a divorce it would already be too late, coz' who would want you romantically now that you were just 5 years away from death? Why bother?

Well, now that we have life expectancies of 80 years old and above thanks to Medical Science, people have started bothering. I sometimes wonder if as the lifespans and lifestyles of human beings evolved, should it also follow that our ideas on what true commitments are also change? I know that there are a lot of couples that reach old age still married and in love with the sweethearts of their youth, but they seem to be the exceptions, not the rule. Have you ever stopped to think what would happen if Medical Science were to develop to the point that humans were practically immortal? What would 'til death do us part mean then?  What happens to when our days are never done, when we have unending life?    

The First Step

"Take the first step in faith. You may not see the entire staircase, just take the first step."

-Martin Luther King

                                                                                                   

Thirty-six hours ago, I began reading Tweet Sering's book Astigirl, and I am currently enjoying it, even if sometimes (maybe 50% of the time) I strongly disagree with what she says. When reading her book I'm either smiling from ear to ear and occasionally giggling, or I'm furrowing my eyebrows and frowning in a personal/public display of disapproval. Sometimes I praise her as a genius who put to words the brilliant thoughts that were always in my mind and the minds of all soon-to-be great thinkers of our generation (Sorry for the self ego boost), but could not commit to paper, but then there are times when I call her an idiot who knows nothing about the world, blabbering on and on about things beyond her ken.

To sum it all up, my thoughts on Astigirl are mixed. (When I say this, I mean that my thoughts on the THOUGHTS in Astigirl are mixed, but the writing is consistently brilliant) Tweet Sering's essays may drive me to cyclothymic mood swings and I alternate between wanting to frame her words of inspiration and setting the entire book aflame, but she did one thing that I really appreciate; she inspired me to start writing, which I believe was one of her goals; to inspire people to write. (She advocates writing in one of the later chapters of the book, as a means of organizing one's thoughts. You may note that I have a very disorganized writing style, and I have to ask forgiveness for that fact, I am a very amateurish writer)

I end this inaugural blog entry of mine by saying: Thank you Tweet Sering, for inspiring me to write, even if it's just on a blog. You have helped me bring order to the chaotic landscape that is my mind.