psychology – Page 99

Writing Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar Disorder is an extremely taxing mental disorder that is believed to affect about 1% of the population at any given time. Most commonly affecting people in their mid to late 20s, the condition affects men and women in roughly equal numbers. This article looks at how to write believable and realistic characters with Bipolar Disorder.

As the name suggests, bipolar disorder refers to two distinct poles, one corresponding to ‘up’, the other ‘down’. These relate to mood and behaviour; Bipolar Disorder was once known as “manic depression”. The stereotypical course of Bipolar Disorder is for someone to feel extremely low and depressed, and then suddenly feel high-energy and manic, only to fall back into depression, in a cycle that never ends (important to note here that the cycle is not predictable, like a pendulum, but chaotic).

Although the idea of mania can sound appealing to those with no experience of the condition, and although it is generally much less unpleasant than depression, Bipolar Disorder causes problems at either pole. It contrasts with healthy, natural changes in mood in the sense that people with the condition are seldom in an average, moderate state inbetween the two poles, as mentally healthy people are.

When a person in this condition is in a depressed phase, they are at risk for all of the suicidal behaviours that accompany Major Depressive Disorder. Self-harm is common among people with Bipolar Disorder, a function of the deep self-hatred that occurs in depressive phases. However, when a person is in a manic phase, they are also at risk of harming themselves.

Manic periods have to last for at least a week to really count, as an elevated mood could occur for any number of reasons. The manic phase of Bipolar Disorder can, at its most extreme, present much like a methamphetamine bender. A character undergoing one will tend to talk fast, sometimes stammering, and will have difficulty following a conversation, being easily distracted. Also like a methamphetamine bender, manic episodes tend to result in very little sleep. At worst, they can cause a person to become psychotic.

The combination of these factors can result in some extremely risky behaviour, which could be dynamite for your creative fiction. Hypersexuality, gambling, drug-taking and speeding in motor vehicles are all common behaviours for a person with Bipolar Disorder while they are in their manic phase. Someone behaving like this might seem like they’ve been given a week to live and want to make the most of it.

A character with Bipolar Disorder might not be easy for other characters to deal with. The erratic moods of bipolar sufferers means that other characters seldom feel comfortable around them. People with bipolar can be unpredictable. They are also very high suicide risks, because of the combination of impulsiveness arising from the mania and the self-hatred arising from the depression.

Sometimes a character with Bipolar Disorder will come across as full of energy and life and enthusiasm, making them seem very charismatic to another character. Other times they were be low in energy and miserable, which makes them seem very different. Someone who meets a Bipolar character while they are at one pole, and then meets them again while they are at the other, might have difficulty believing they’re the same person.

If the protagonist of your story has Bipolar Disorder, they might find themselves facing a considerable degree of social stigma. As mentioned above, their condition might make other characters feel uncomfortable. The protagonist might find themselves getting overlooked for parties and for social occasions on account of that other characters are afraid they will be in too crazy of a mood.

If the protagonist encounters another character with Bipolar Disorder, things might not be much easier. It’s common to meet a person with Bipolar Disorder during one of their manic phases, because this tends to cause them to become more extraverted. During this time, they might strike others as dynamic, engaging and enthusiastic. However, if a friendship is formed, it may not survive the depressive phase.

There are two kinds of Bipolar Disorder, known as Bipolar I and Bipolar II. The essential difference lies in the severity of the manic symptoms. The more powerful the manic symptoms, the more likely the sufferer will get a diagnosis of Bipolar I. This is not to downplay the difficulty of living with Bipolar II, but some of the hypomanic episodes in the latter case can actually be useful for getting things done.

Bipolar Disorder is distinct from Borderline Personality Disorder, although the behaviour of people with the condition can appear similar. For instance, people with either condition are capable of changing their attitude towards another person very quickly, but the Bipolar sufferer tends to have more self-awareness than the Borderline and maybe aware that their change in perception is not fully rational.

This article is an excerpt from Writing With The DSM-V (Writing With Psychology Book 5), edited by Vince McLeod and due for release by VJM Publishing in the summer of 2018/19.

When You’re Not Allowed to Talk, It’s Time to Pick Up a Rifle

American President John F Kennedy once said “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.” Peaceful revolution is dependent on free speech, because we have to be able to talk about what’s going wrong in our society before we can change anything. Absent that free speech, as this essay will examine, we might as well pick up rifles and get ready to fight.

When things are going wrong in your society, you have to talk about the problems if you’re going to fix them. This is why the principle of free speech was enshrined as the first amendment to the American Constitution. In order for people to be aware that there is a problem, it needs to be discussed reasonably, so that people can change their opinions when presented with new information, and thereby arrive at more accurate perceptions.

Once you’re no longer able to talk about your society’s problems openly, people will still talk about them (of course) only privately. Instead of being hopeful and confident, they will become bitter and suspicious. Resentment at not being able to speak openly will creep in, and this will turn to anger directed at those considered responsible. Eventually this anger turns to hate, which can only find expression in violence.

The West has made a massive strategic error over the past 40 years, in opening themselves up to mass Muslim and African immigration. The logic appears to have been that, because employers don’t want to pay fair wages for work in the West, we can simply open the borders to the poor countries of the world, whose members will be so grateful for the opportunity to come here that they won’t ask for the same wages that a Westerner would.

However, the example of real life showed that this logic doesn’t hold. Gratitude is not a universal human value. Muslims didn’t come to integrate and to contribute; they came to conquer, as directed by their holy scripture. Africans mostly came for the welfare – the unemployment rate among Africans in the West is well over 50%. The total cost to Western societies for letting these people in has been tremendous, in both financial and social terms.

Far from leading to a successful multicultural paradise, this mass immigration has caused the social fabric of Europe to disintegrate. Paris, which was once known as the City of Lights and Love, is now so shockingly decrepit that it’s responsible for a new mental disorder, called Paris Syndrome. This refers to the sense of derealisation that tourists feel when they come to Paris and, instead of finding what they expected, discover an almost Third-World environment with soldiers on the streets.

New Zealand has recently discovered that you’re not allowed to talk about such things. Auckland Mayor Phil Goff recently banned speakers Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux from giving a talk at the Auckland Town Hall, and the corporate media supported him by calling the duo “far-right”, “white supremacists” and “extremists”.

Southern and Molyneux wanted to talk about such taboo subjects as the consequences of mass Muslim and African immigration to the West on social cohesion and trust, and the correlations between race and IQ. Goff calculated that, as a globalist, such discussion didn’t serve his political agenda so he shut the talk down. This has had the effect of sending the entire discussion underground – where it is discussed, as mentioned above, with resentment and hate.

Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to the problem of a tyrannical government that is cracking down on freedom of expression. The historical record tells us what will happen: we will get pushed further and further into a state of subjugation as the Government takes ever more aggressive steps to repress discussion of its failures, until the resentment and anger reaches a critical mass. Beyond this point, people will look for revenge first and foremost, and potential future harm to themselves will not weigh as heavily.

In such a case, the only reasonable action is to pick up a rifle. Once you’re not allowed to talk, you’re a slave. You’re a slave to those who set the agenda and the talking points (in this case, the globalist corporatist media). With a rifle, however, you can still assert the right to speak and to be heard. If the government and media are colluding to take your right to speak away, then it’s the only way to assert a right to be heard.

If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis).

The Government Needs to Draw Up A List of Opinions We’re Allowed to Express

The Western World risks falling into confusion. Most of us have lived our lives under the impression that we were free people, at liberty to pursue happiness and to discuss ways of achieving it. As we’re now finding out, we don’t actually have the rights that we thought we had. This essay suggests a way out of the predicament.

New Zealanders have, in recent weeks, been surprised to learn that we don’t actually have the rights to free assembly and free speech. This has been demonstrated by the example of controversial speakers Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux, who were forbidden from using a public hall by Auckland Mayor Phil Goff. Stating that he doesn’t believe that the political opinions of the two should be permitted to be spoken, Goff banned them from using the Auckland Town Hall.

Southern and Molyneux, whose talks frequently criticise the suicidal policy of mass immigration, have come in for a savaging from the banker-owned New Zealand media. Because the banks are the ones that profit the most from the bloated house prices and rents that come with opening the borders, they are the biggest cheerleaders for it. Consequently, their peons in the New Zealand media whipped up a mob which threatened violence to get the speakers banned.

This imbroglio has raised an important question: what are we actually allowed to talk about?

One potential solution lies in Peter Dunne’s Psychoactive Substances Act. The logic behind introducing this piece of legislation was that synthetic drug manufacturers were coming up with novel, dangerous substances so quickly that the authorities were unable to ban them all fast enough to keep the public safe. So instead of banning specific drugs that were known to cause harm, the Act simply bans all psychoactive substances.

This was a breakthrough in jurisprudence. Anyone wishing to use any psychoactive substance, no matter what it is, even if they just invented it themselves, is automatically a criminal unless they have Government permission to use that substance specifically. An entire class of actions are thereby criminalised, without any proof that actions within this class are harmful to people. They could even be helpful, but they’re still criminal.

We could apply this same logic to free speech and assembly. New ideas come and go in an ever-mutating memescape, and the Government can’t keep up with all the new ideas and opinions that people have and which might be dangerous. The spread of the Internet means that New Zealanders are frequently exposed to opinions that have been formed overseas and brought into the country by way of underground networks, such as 4chan. These new opinions have not had time to be dissected and discussed.

Why not simply ban them all?

The Government could pass a law that bans expression of all political ideas and opinions apart from those that are on a pre-approved list. This list would contain all of the speech that the Government believes is not harmful to anyone else. It could be called the Dangerous Opinions Act. It would then become illegal to express any political opinion that didn’t have an exemption under the Act.

Because talking about the effects of mass immigration on European society risks stirring up ethnic tensions and hatreds, we could simply ban all such talk in advance, thereby precluding anyone like Southern and Molyneux from ever speaking. Discussing racial differences in IQ would then be illegal. Questioning the mainstream media would be illegal. Questioning the Government would be illegal.

Perhaps the Government could create some kind of central authority that can be tasked with determining what opinions may be freely expressed and what opinions have to be criminalised and repressed for the greater good. This Ministry would be concerned with the truth and the promulgation of same, so naturally it should be called the Ministry of Truth.

All of this might sound fairly draconian, but the people would still have the right to petition the Government to allow certain opinions to be expressed. If enough people wanted to express a certain opinion, they would merely need to petition the current Minister of Truth, and perhaps get enough signatures for a referendum on that opinion. Over time, good opinions would become legal while the bad ones stayed illegal.

Writing Panic Disorder

Panic Disorder (PD) is a kind of anxiety disorder that is characterised by reoccurring, sudden attacks of intense fear without any obvious cause. These attacks, called panic attacks, involve a number of unpleasant psychological and physical sensations, including shortness of breath, dizziness, heart palpitations and sweaty hands. This article looks at how to believably portray Panic Disorder in your creative fiction.

A panic attack usually lasts for about ten minutes. The first sign is usually a wave of adrenaline and noradrenaline that surges through the bloodstream in preparation for the fight or flight response. It’s common for sufferers to feel a panic attack even in their bowels. Despite the absence of an obvious threat, the panic can be equally as intense as if one was confronted with a terrorist mass shooter.

One unpleasant feature of these attacks is that they can stir many different kinds of fears. Some panic attacks make the victim afraid of dying, whereas others make them afraid that they will lose control and become a screaming mess (even though this is extremely rare). In some ways the experience is like a tour de force of terror.

Perhaps the most difficult thing about this condition is that panic attacks are so unpleasant that they can be traumatising, and this creates fear of future panic attacks, which is often enough to itself cause a panic attack. So a person with the condition can end up learning to fear situations which may cause panic, and this can lead to social isolation in a similar fashion to agoraphobia.

If the protagonist of your story has panic disorder, it is likely that they have to live a life somewhat on the outside. Panic Disorder makes it difficult to socialise, especially when a person starts to become afraid of future panic attacks. This can lead to an everyday experience of constant misery, as the protagonist starts to twist themselves up in knots of over-thinking and anxiety.

An interesting story can be told about a normal life that starts to break down because of Panic Disorder. It’s common for a sufferer of the condition, at least in the initial stages, to be unaware that they are suffering from a recognised psychiatric condition. The panic attacks can be embarrassing, on account of that they have no obvious cause, and it’s easy for a person who suffers them to consider themselves mentally weak rather than sick. They can seem to come out of the blue.

People with Panic Disorder tend to develop a fear of the places in which they have had panic attacks, by way of association. This is one of things that makes the condition so disruptive. Even something as simple as going shopping can become an ordeal if a person is afraid that the experience will trigger a panic attack. Because much of the suffering of the condition is caused by fear of the next attack, certain places can themselves become intimidating.

If a character in your story encounters another character with Panic Disorder, how the first character reacts will tell the reader a great deal about their level of compassion. Because panic attacks can be set off without any obvious cause, the suffering is in the mind. This means that people who need help and reassurance from others can usually only get it from especially empathetic people. A character who helps out another one suffering a panic attack might demonstrate their nature to the reader.

A character with Panic Disorder might have a very complicated relationship with drugs. Many people with the condition have found that alcohol, cannabis, tobacco etc. has a short-term, immediate effect of quelling the panic, but have also found that using these substances makes a panic attack more likely once they have worn off. A character taking drugs to treat their anxiety might not have figured the second point out yet.

In contrast with Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Panic Disorder tends to come in sharp spikes or groups of attacks. GAD is an ever-present background hum of anxiety, whereas people with Panic Disorder can often live entirely normal lives until the panic kicks in. When people with Panic Disorder are anxious, it is usually because of a particular fear of another panic attack rather than anything general.

Mass Panic Disorder is not a condition in the DSM, but the author might still like to use the phenomenon in their creative fiction. A contagious panic attack might be the event that leads to mass destruction of part of your story world, leading to the disruption of the life of one of your characters. An explosion might cause a mob reaction that a character gets caught up in.