Peter Lewis’ Portfolio

I’ve got my claws on a book called Abnormal Psychology, 3rd Edition. I must admit, I’ve only read the first chapter and it’s very interesting already. It deals, as the title suggests, with the psychocology behind “abnormal” people, why they are labelled as such and their motivation that drives such behaviour.

It starts by defining the word abnormal and makes it perfectly clear that it does not intend it to be a derogatory term. It then suggests that there are 7 ways of classifying “abnormality”, but it’s important to note that none of these reasons are necessary reasons: if there are one or more signs of abnormality present, that person is deemed so, but there is no consistent connection between all cases of abnormality. This is indeed very true.

Being at University, not to mention living in Middlesbrough, I have come to know a few “abnormal” people. From people that I know (whether they are at University or not), I have noticed a strong corellation between depressives and those that would be considered “abnormal”. Obviously, those with depression would automatically be considered abnormal (even though statistically, being depressed is quite normal). One could classify “normal” as the baseline for all subconscious attraction, or as what is deemed “socially acceptible” by any individual’s standards. Depression is neither of these.

I am referring to other signs of abnormality brought about by depression. For example, I know a chap that was depressed because he thought that he would never have a girlfriend when all his friends were quite successful. He was quiet, somewhat overweight and generally teased at school. He eventually started dressing in the hallmark “goth” clothing that’s associated with depressed teens; he also moaned about everything, and rarely escaped from his room. He eventually began to betray confidences of the people close to him, possibly seeing this as a way to leverage himself socially.

He then discovered the world of alcohol. During one of his drunken outings, he grafittied his best friend’s house. He also started having an internet relationship with a 14-year old girl over the Internet. When they eventually met, she immediately had nothing to do with him. This cut him deeply, but soon after he started persuing a girl that was dating his best friend. Now they both despise him.

In the final few months that I knew him, his life became a mess. I personally wanted nothing to do with him, he failed his exams, his mother started keeping an eye on him to the point where he couldn’t cope, he lost more and more friends and those that I know that do talk to him regard him with pity tainted with disgust. Obviously, because his actions are detrimental to his lifestyle and wellbeing, he is deemed “abnormal” by others.

If you’d allow me to branch off for a moment: my personal theory for the above case is that the depression he experienced is a very odd form: it is invented by the person to mask their true worries. Any observer can see that his case doesn’t seem quite normal. I personally believe that he was using that as a kind of mental skapegoat. I feel his true worries lay elsewhere but he was possibly in denial about them, consciously or otherwise.

From this theory I have been testing a method to bring myself out of a “low spot”. When I feel down or upset about something but I am never sure why, I try and find the root of the problem in my mind. Usually, I am simply not admitting to something that I know is true but refuse to consider (simply because it is not convenient to do so). I’m sure that when a wife finds lipstick on her husband’s shirt she thinks to herself, “no, no, it must be mine,” even when she knows that it is not. The brain locks down any thoughts that could be potentially harmful to the mind, which we refer to as denial. When I consent myself to facts that I am reluctant to admit, I instantly feel that I have more options open to me and I am able to deal or rectify the problem, even if life has been made potentially more difficult.

In the book I mentioned above it states that every action that a being takes is based on its “rules of survival”. I absolutely agree and I have concluded that each action is either designed to protect it from harm (psychological, such as denial, or phsyical, such as the fear of skydiving). These “rules”, or bases for judgment are accumulated during a being’s lifetime from the usual sources: parents, family, peers, TV, etc. If a father is in the army and is killed, any child that he has would probably develop a fear of firearms as the child would associate them with injury or death. Conversely, if he lives, the child would have no such aversion to firearms.

I know someone that copes with stress by sleeping. My conclusion is that when this person feels stressed, overworked or is reliving any past trauma, her mind tells her to sleep because in sleep the thoughts cannot harm her. This isn’t strictly true as she have the occasional nightmare, but her subconscious possibly deems this better than the alternative.

I think the trick here is that she needs to find a way of “reprogramming” her subconscious: she needs to instruct it that when she is finding it difficult to cope, sleeping is not an acceptible way of dealing with the problem. Instead, she needs to tell it to respond in a more positive and more helpful way, such as thinking calmly and logically about her negative experiences, to work through them and accept them as past. I could be talking utter nonsense, as I’m not a qualified psychologist, but these theories work for me at least.

If you’re ever feeling low, I’d like you to try an experiment. When you have a feeling that will not leave you alone no matter what possible reasons you blame for it, try searching inside yourself. And when you do it, make sure that you are honest with yourself: you will know when you are denying yourself the truth. If you are in serious debt but you’re sure you’ll run into some money soon, admit it to yourself: you’re probably not. If you’re with a man or woman that does not make you happy, admit it to yourself. If you find yourself attracted to someone of the same sex, admit it to yourself. Then try and fix it if you can. You’ll feel better for it in the end. If you find it trialing, remember the golden rule: believe in yourself. If you really can’t fix it, you’ll find that you can probably ignore it more easily.

If only this advice was infallible, though. If you are coping with a traumatic event, well, that’s something that is probably the hardest to deal with. Maybe, one day, I’ll discover the General-Purpose-Answer-To-Dealing-With-Life, and when I do, I will post it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 17th, 2005 at 1:27 am and is filed under Observations, Unrelated. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.