(no subject)
Its interesting to read through my psych reading and have an entire different interpretation on them now then when I did as an undergraduate. I have had more experience and worked somewhat on the sidelines of the field and have done a lot of different readings. I always list books I’m currently reading and yes I got into Facebooks Virtual Library pretty hardcore, but I never list articles that I read for fun. I remember when I lost PsycInfo when I graduated and when one of my coworkers at the health center gave me 2 months access where I printed off 23 articles in those two months.
Its interesting that my three years outside of school actually did me good despite my feelings that I didn’t have that much experience. I’m a more grounded person that some of my classmates and have seen more in just three years. For many of the “I’m came straight from undergrad” students I find they have less practice of knowledge and everything is still theory to them and the speculations that are discussed in class can go all over the place where it is on a thought process and not on rationality.
But that is a whole nother story. What I was really surprised about was that I’m currently reading about Anxiety Disorders. It was reading about the clinical diagnosis of panic attacks that it finally hit me. This isn’t me anymore. I’ll admit that I have had a few panic attacks in recent history, but I think I only had 2 in the past year. That’s tight 2 in 365 days, well last year was a leap year so 366 days. This is a whole lot better that one to three a week when I was beginning college or the agoraphobic behavior that I displayed in high school.
This isn’t to say that I’m not anxious, but I’m handling my pressures better than what I used to. I have better coping mechanisms and I learned to move past the anxieties. But mostly I’m just pleased that the DSM has no power of me anymore. Which brings in a whole other discussion, but I’ll leave that out. What I’m trying to say is that when I was in undergrad and reading anxiety disorders I was trying categorize myself, now I can’t categorize myself within these spectrums. But also I’m not categorizing others with the symptoms of disorders. Not that I knew people with those particular disorders, but just a symptom here and there. Oddly its being able to recognize the impairment of these symptoms verses having similar symptoms that may actually work for someone.
I’m not articulating myself well on this, but eh, its all a new look on readings
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Currently Reading: Wyrd Sisters
by Terry Pratchett