Does our over use of the anxiety label take away from the real trauma sufferers?
Throughout our course, with the examples of patients and others, whose stories have been shared, you can’t help but feel deep sympathy for their difficult struggles. As we have learned through the readings trauma creates a plethora of symptoms and hole body effects, that can be treated with a number of conventional and unconventional methods. No one reaction to a traumatic event is the same, and diagnosing the symptoms and marrying them to the proper treatments can be daunting. “This description suggests a clear story line: A person is suddenly and unexpectedly devastated by an atrocious event and is never the same again. The trauma may be over, but it keeps being replayed in continually recycling memories and in a reorganized nervous system.” (Van Der Kolk, 2014, p. 159). Therapists and researchers have devoted themselves just to get PTSD and other diagnoses published and accepted by the medical field, yet so many times we continue to see those suffering debased and shrunken down to descriptions like, “crazy” or “nuts”.
Why is it then that as a society, we continue to embrace with open arms the over arching diagnosis of anxiety, and allow people to hide behind it in one form or another? Does this use of the word, that gets thrown around all too often, take away from those really suffering? “Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older, or 18/1% of the population every year.” (Anxiety and Depression Association of America) How do we accept anxiety disorders as an ever increasing and acceptable explanation for everything under the sun, yet debase those with significant trauma to crazy? Not to take anything away from those with serious anxiety, as I know it is a legitimate diagnosis for some, but in my line of work I have become a skeptic. As a police officer I to often run into people 18 and older who consistently tell me they don’t work because they collect disability and would rather collect from the system. When you ask what their disability is they are quick and proud to say “anxiety”.
What really made me more skeptical, annoyed and a bit angry is when I saw the headline, “Report: US Therapists See Increase in Patients With ‘Trump Anxiety Disorder’” (Fox News, 2018). In no way do I wish to make any political stance or point, the part that made me more upset is that people, Therapists and leaders in the mental health world, are putting time and value into issues like this, over important efforts of PTSD and significant trauma’s that effect people in real ways. “Elisabeth LaMotte, founder of the D.C. Counseling and Psychotherapy Center in Washington, D.C., said that some of her patients feel “on edge” about Trump’s decisions. “It’s very disorienting and constantly unsettling,” LaMotte said.” (Fox News, 2018). How are people’s lives allowed to be consumed and overwhelmed by the decisions and words of another person, so significantly? We take the time to diagnose and offer explanation for those who do not agree with political decisions yet do not take the time to understand those with greater underlying issues of trauma that might make a person seem “crazy”, only because they are so different from us. Do we make diagnoses like “Trump Anxiety Order” because there are so many people that are similar and because it plays better to the media and the general public, when in actuality PTSD is still never at the forefront of the discussion?
“How can doctors, police officers, or social workers recognize that someone is suffering from traumatic stress as long as he reenacts rather than remembers? How can patients themselves identify the source of their behavior? If their history is not known, they are likely to be labeled as crazy or punished as criminals rather than helped to integrate the past.” (Van Der Kolk, 2014, p. 184). Those suffering from PTSD or other horrific traumas are at such a disadvantage because they are unable to talk about the underlying issues and have a hard time themselves indentifying the source of their behavior. For these reasons we as an instant gratification society are quick to label them as “crazy” instead of taking the time to try and better understand. Yet we are quick to label someone with anxiety and offer them disability, encouraging them for quickly diagnosing themselves, without trying to help them. “According to an essay written by psychologist Jennifer Panning, the symptoms of “Trump Anxiety Disorder” include “feeling a loss of control and helplessness, and fretting about what’s happening in the country and spending excessive time on social media.” (Fox News). While I admittedly do not know enough about all anxiety disorders or the diagnosis of anxiety, working as a police officer and seeing the numbers of people collecting disability for anxiety, and hearing about psychologists and other mental health professionals lend time and effort to a diagnosis such as “Trump Anxiety Disorder” with symptoms such as excessive social media use, make me more mad and sympathetic for those suffering from real issues of trauma. What will it take to make PTSD come to the forefront, and make people stop and question underlying issues that make someone “nuts” or “crazy”? If you ask me the people suffering from a diagnosis of excessive social media, are more “crazy” then anyone with real issues of trauma and abuse. We need to stop using these overarching descriptors or diagnoses of anxiety or ADHD and focus mental health efforts on what really matters, the unexplainable complicated issues of trauma.
-Pete
References:
Anxiety and Depression Association of America. (2018). Understanding The Facts. From https://adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics. retrieved on July 29, 2018.
Fox News Insider. (July 29th, 2018). Report: US Therapists See Increase in Patients With ‘Trump Anxiety Disorder’. From http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/07/29/us-therapists-see-increase-patients-trump-anxiety-disorder retrieved on July 29, 2018.
Van Der Kolk, B. M.D. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score. Brain, Mind, and Body In the Healing of Trauma. New York, NY. Penguin Books.