A very Ordered Disorder

[misterbean]

Hello All

This may be quite a long post as I want to chew over something that feels nigglingly important.

On the radio last Friday (Today prog, radio 4) there was a piece about Scots filling their tanks with petrol in preparation for the coming strike. After someone saying that this seemed quite a reasonable precaution, a psychotherapist gave her opinion that this was 'panic' buying due to humans having a 'herd' instinct. Well, thats plausible I suppose, but for me not particularly credible - we humans are more likely to share instincts with other omnivores, which tend not to herd. I also realised that there was something manipulative in such descriptions - when people do something as a group that others see as positive - getting slaughtered in a war for example, they might be described as lions, doing something as a group that is seen as negative they are described as cattle. In this way, the word instict may have been used pseudo-scientifically. I'm not sure.

I joined this site because I was experiencing physical things like trembling hands, flip-flop stomach, jelly legs with no feeling other than a mild curiosity about what this was. It has felt very good and safe being part of a group who shared something with me. It still is. But what is it that we share? I guess that is for each of us to decide in our own ways. Heres where I am with mine.

The only previous time in my life that I am aware of having the bodily sensations previously described is when I was rock climbing 25 years ago and had got myself stuck and very unsafe. Couldn't move up, couldn't move down, jelly legs meant I couldn't, for long, stay where I was. I was stuck and terrified and getting weaker by the moment. I thought I was going to die. I took a big chance and moved upwards and, well I'm still here.

Anyway, this experience has led me to wonder if anxiety is the correct word for me at the moment panic also. Disordered also.

Going back to my first point, that of labels that may or may not be accurate when tested, I think about the word 'disorder'. It would seem to me that rather than being disordered, many of us, myself included, have created very rigid orders for ourselves. I like to think that we create such orders to survive in terrible situations, yet the order that we create gets in the way afterwards and is hampering and distressing in itself when the situations that we face are not the terrible ones that such order was created to deal with. Because such orders are often viewed negatively, they might be called by others dis orders.

So, if I wanted to describe what I am experiencing right now, I would chose words like 'numbed terror order' which seems to me far more personally accurate. What I would like to know, if anyone has read this far, is how you would describe yourself, or if you think that the existing names used are accurate as they stand.

Martin

[bluebell68]

Hi Martin.... thats an interesting question.... doctors, pscychiatrists and sometimes even family and friends do label us.. i have been told im 'over sensitive, an anxiety sufferer, a worrier and a functioning depressive'.. which am i?? , am i all of the above or none of them......i don't think that i completely fit under any of those headings but i did like your description of numbed terror order, thats one i can relate to......by labelling us, they make assumptions about us, some of which are totally inaccurate and not at all helpful.........
How would i describe myself?....today i would say that i have 'fragile, sad, confused, exhusted' (dis) order but ask me tomoro and it will probably be different....
Take Care Martin
:bighug1:
Rachel

[misterbean]

Thanks Rachel
And thanks for reminding me that it changes - the moment I posted that I went into my what-if-they-think-me-a-freak-fright that only abated when you replied.
I like fragile-sad-confused-exhausted cos it tells me exactly where you are (not because I like you being that way).
Speak again soon
Martin

[bluebell68]

Hi Martin... i for one don't think you are a freak, and im sure nobody else does either... i think your posts are great and raise some very interesting questions that always get me thinking, its good to think....
I liked this post cos its so relevant to us all.... i haven't really questioned the labels attached to me by docs, i have just accepted what each one has said on the assumption that they are professionals and so must know what they are talking about .... i think i probably latched on to their labels slightly too, in a desperate attempt to understand my thoughts and feelings and whilst it has helped me put a name to the demon that is anxiety... i think im gonna need to come out from under that general heading of 'anxiety sufferer' if im gonna find the solutions and answers that are right for me.....
Keep posting Martin :yesyes:
Rachel

[pooh]

I like this question it's thought provoking!

How would I describe myself, or how would I describe what I feel? Different things, different answers.

I genuinely do not believe that I have experienced any feelings different to those of any other person. I believe its a matter of course that some feelings are more accutely felt by some than they are felt by others. Example: I may panic sometimes when driving on a motorway, my sister doesn't. My sister gets hysterical if birds go near her, I don't. I have been diagnosed with anxiety and panic disorder she hasn't. I need to take medication, again, she doesn't.

What am I trying to say?

Basically, I think it boils down to my perception of myself. I am unique and yet I am the same. The range of human emotion is open to all, it's just that each individual journey is unique.

I was once driven to want an EXACT diagnosis of what was wrong. Where did it come from, why was I like this? Then a couple of years ago I stepped back and realised.... everyone is to some degree or other experiencing the exact same as me.

I don't have an order or a disorder...... I have a range of words that might just explain how I feel at any given moment.

C'est la vie....its just part of the human condition!

Lynne x

[bluebell68]

Hi Pooh... wow i loved your reply,

"I don't have an order or a disorder...... I have a range of words that might just explain how I feel at any given moment".

"I am unique and yet I am the same. The range of human emotion is open to all, it's just that each individual journey is unique"

That is it excactly.............:yesyes:
xx Rach

[doodah]

misterbean, bluebell and pooh - wonderful posts and very thought provoking. I've got a lot of thinking to do here! Phew!!

[misterbean]

Yes, I think also that that was beautifully put, Pooh. It was only after I posted that I began to think 'do I see myself as either ordered or disordered or neither' and there you come along and nail it exactly.
I also very much liked 'I am unique and yet I am the same'.
Thank you
Martin

[misterbean]

Lynne, your motorway panic has stayed with me. I too have had times when I have felt panic on a motorway. Sometimes, especially if my children have been with me, I have felt hugely angry when some ... person ... has driven too close. At first I thought myself as being a scardeycat, felt ashamed, but it struck me that whizzing about in little metal boxes in such a way was actually quite a risky thing to be doing and I began to wonder if, rather than me being too sensitive, this whole driving malarky has a de-sensitising effect, that rather than me feeling inappopriate anger towards others, I was responding in a 'real' way to others who were putting me and mine to even greater risk.

Rachel, no, I trust that you do not think me a freak. I think that my feeling came from being ashamed (there's that word again) of saying something that might cause me to be rejected. It's all my stuff, I'm afraid.

Martin

[popsy]

Martin, i am so glad you brought up the motorway thing and us whizzing along in little boxes, as i have thought exactly the same thing!!! Surely it is a sensible reaction to see this as a dangerous thing to do if people arent sensible whilst doing it. The labels thing does my head in....
Thank you for bringing this up!
C xxxx

[Franz]

Hello All

This may be quite a long post as I want to chew over something that feels nigglingly important.

On the radio last Friday (Today prog, radio 4) there was a piece about Scots filling their tanks with petrol in preparation for the coming strike. After someone saying that this seemed quite a reasonable precaution, a psychotherapist gave her opinion that this was 'panic' buying due to humans having a 'herd' instinct. Well, thats plausible I suppose, but for me not particularly credible - we humans are more likely to share instincts with other omnivores, which tend not to herd.
Omnivores are not a zoological group though, and it depends what you mean by "herding". In common parlance "herding" just refers to the pattern of living in groups. Humans are social animals, as are gorillas and chimpanzees, and the latter IIRC are omnivores.

If something happens that appears threatening, and people have no direct instinct as to how to counter the threat, they will copy each other's behaviour. That in itself, though, is an instinct.



I also realised that there was something manipulative in such descriptions - when people do something as a group that others see as positive - getting slaughtered in a war for example, they might be described as lions, doing something as a group that is seen as negative they are described as cattle. In this way, the word instict may have been used pseudo-scientifically. I'm not sure.I'm not sure about that. What about the term "lambs to the slaughter" to describe the casualties of war?

I don't think scientists know exactly how instinct works anyway. Clearly an instinct is basically a subconscious influence on our behaviour, but we know so little about the boundary between the conscious and the subconsious that no theory of instinct can be entirely "scientific". We know it's got something to do with the interplay of genes and environment - that's about it.



The only previous time in my life that I am aware of having the bodily sensations previously described is when I was rock climbing 25 years ago and had got myself stuck and very unsafe. Couldn't move up, couldn't move down, jelly legs meant I couldn't, for long, stay where I was. I was stuck and terrified and getting weaker by the moment. I thought I was going to die. I took a big chance and moved upwards and, well I'm still here.Ah - isn't "cragfast" the term used by mountain rescuers for climbers who lose their nerve like that? I love that word!


Anyway, this experience has led me to wonder if anxiety is the correct word for me at the moment panic also. Disordered also.

Going back to my first point, that of labels that may or may not be accurate when tested, I think about the word 'disorder'. It would seem to me that rather than being disordered, many of us, myself included, have created very rigid orders for ourselves. I like to think that we create such orders to survive in terrible situations, yet the order that we create gets in the way afterwards and is hampering and distressing in itself when the situations that we face are not the terrible ones that such order was created to deal with. Because such orders are often viewed negatively, they might be called by others dis orders.I think "disorder" in the scientific term just refers to the fact that these behaviour deviate from the norm (the "order"). It doesn't mean that the individual's mind behaves in a chaotic way - although that may be the case.

Words often carry several meanings and this can lead to confusion sometimes; or make something seem a paradox when it isn't one!

[misterbean]

Hey Francis

Hope it's alright to take some of your observations out of order, this is how they have hit me -

Cragfast! absolutely brilliant!

Herding is not a word I would use at all. What interests me is to speculate why some use such words about others and how others might react to such words. Lions and lambs to the slaughter are both wording that, as far as I can see, are used by some to describe others. I cannot imagine Lloyd-Gerorge, for example, using the latter.

My grandfather came back from the Great War with a thigh to ankle shapnel wound and an utter disbelief as to the existence of any god, but no words. That is my loss. Hemingway came back with

I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it…. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene.

That is my gain. Though similar, It also means far more to me than 'lambs..' .Oh bum, I've turned blue. Right or wrong, they were his words about his experience and I value them because of that, and because they move me. So what about cragfast? It's a word used by some to describe others yet I do not reject it as I might others like herd. Is it because I choose to reject an invitation to, as you say, copy each others behaviour?
If so, am I acting against an instinct or obeying another, possibly defensive, one (or the same one in a different way)?

Lynne's words

'I don't have an order or a disorder...... I have a range of words that might just explain how I feel at any given moment'

mean more to me than scientific definitions of normality, ah, black again, because ... because ... because they do not appear to be steeped in some fake objectivity. I trust them and I trust her.

My head's spinning with all this. I think that this individual's mind is behaving in a chaotic way, and that feels quite alright.

Thanks for speaking, and especially for introducing me to a new word.

Martin

[dawny]

hi martin,

i totally agree with your post.
i often think that panic attack is the wrong word to describe the way i feel, the actual words 'panic attack' make me scared...lol....

the speaker on the radio wants to live in the hebrides like i do, then maybe she would have filled her tank, as my husbands job is a 60 mile round trip every day.......thats nothing to do with our gathering, hoarding instinct....more like being practical !!!!!! plus up here we rely on oil for our heating and water as we have no gas supply......ohhh, i am on my high horse.......

dawny

[misterbean]

Hi Dawny
Yes, I don't know whether I'm scared of a title that is given to me or the implication (that I am somehow faulty) that a title suggests. It may be also that certain titles are exact descriptions and that I am choosing to deny a 'truth'.

Yes, being practical is what I thought when I listened to the report. Can't imagine that there are many crammed ranks of black cabs in the hebrides.

Stay on your high horse Dawny, it might come in useful if the strike's repeated.

Martin

[dawny]

hi martin,

i think being labelled is what we fear, as we are taught and teach not to label others......im agrophobic, but i still go out within boundaries, agrophobia is a fear of open spaces.....thats not what i have or any suffferers i know.....open spaces i can deal with, lots of people in a shop....not so good...lol

black cabs, what are they....lol....taxi's in general what are they....lol....in fact what are buses......lol

love dawny

[misterbean]

Dawny,
Thanks for broadening my understanding of the word agrophobia, I had not appreciated the significance of people or crowds. Actually, that changes the whole thing for me, I can relate to it more.

Francis,
I can't get your word cragfast out of my head. I'd change my description of myself to Cragfast and Numb if it didn't sound so much like a solicitors practice.

[thevoicewithinme]

Agrophobia, I think is different in some respect to all of us.

To be perfectly honest, before I became agrophobic my view of a 'typical agrophobic' was someone who never set foot out of the house, but like mentioned above I think its because that is how agrophobics are labelled.

Yes, I am an agrophobic, but I can go out in the garden on my own, even walk up the road, no problem...but put me in a car on my own and tell me to drive around the block and I can guarantee I will panic. I have recently started going out more in the car, but not on my own...I just can't do it at the moment, but given time I am hoping that I can. A week ago, I couldn't drive the car, even with someone with me for a mile even...two days ago I did over 20 miles!! Public transport for me is another nightmare. I can honestly say, that I have not used public transport for way over 15 years...the fear of being trapped is too great for me.

Some people with agrophobia cannot face crowds, I don't think I personally fall into this class, as I love to mix with people, but I also think it depends on the situation involving crowds. A party or a pub I am fine with...although don't think I could handle, at the moment, a busy shopping centre or even a cinema.

Kaz

[misterbean]

Thank you Kaz,

I'm learning so much from your and everyone's contribution to this thread.

I started it, I think, with the idea of challenging labels, my labels, everyone's labels. But what I'm finding is that it is my personal view of labels and titles that is too narrow, that we can all be individuals and certain words or labels do not necessarily have to destroy that individuality.

I feel very humble at the moment. Cannot believe how much I value what you have all said of yourselves. Thank you.

Martin

[dawny]

martin,

i don't think that your view of labels is narrow, until we cross people with an illness, we cannot fully understand how the individual suffers or see's themselves.

kaz describes her agrophobia and i shudder at the thought of a crowded pub ! but i love to travel anywhere.......so i suppose the word agrophobia, means one thing to me and another to another sufferer

martin, thankyou...for having understanding of how others feel.

great post

dawny x

[Franz]

Francis,
I can't get your word cragfast out of my head. I'd change my description of myself to Cragfast and Numb if it didn't sound so much like a solicitors practice.
:) Personally I think Cragfast sounds like the name of some 1980s rock band from Glasgow.