Blog Post #12

A psychological disorder is an ongoing pattern of thoughts, feelings, and actions that are deviant, distressful, and/or dysfunctional. The book says that someone who acts abnormally has a psychological disorder. It says that someone who acts differently than people in their culture may have a psychological disorder. Disorders affect peoples lives greatly. The disorder has to impact the person by causing them distress in their everyday lives. If the person isn't distressed or emotionally affected, they probably don't have a psychological disorder. It all depends on the symptoms that the patient is showing and the distress being observed.

My grandfather had Alzheimer's disease and we believe he showed signs of schizophrenia. He was in his 80s when his Alzheimer's got worse. He started to hear voices and see people that clearly were non-existent. He had no clue what was going on in his surroundings. Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that makes it diffucult to tell the difference between real and unreal experiences, to think logically, to have normal emotional responses, and to behave normally in social situations. My grandpa showed all the signs of Schizophrenia. Symptoms include: flat emotions, catatonic behavior, delusions, hallucinations and disordered thinking. There are three types of Schizophrenia: catatonic, paranoid and disorganized. My grandpa had the disorganized type. I think my life would be extremely difficult and different if I was Schizophrenic. I cannot even imagine how tough I would have it. I would rather be dead than live with a disorder that causes you to lose all self-control and emotion.

The most interesting thing I have learned is that homosexuality was once classified as an illness. That is interesting because earlier in the semester we learned that homosexuality is actually a genetic disorder. The genetic makeup of homosexuals is different than heterosexuals. Society today has begun to accept homosexuality as an everyday lifestyle. It is not an illness; you are just born with it.