Maybe we should rethink the medical model of Psychology and mental health.
I am interested in thinking about how we pathologize the average human being that is experiencing Anxiety, Panic disorder. OCD, PTSD, Social anxiety. Phobias. Each of these so-called disorders are experienced as we navigate what has happened to us.
It makes sense to me that due to being labeled as Learning Disabled in 4th grade in the 1970’s, I felt not good enough in school. Which then impacted my self-esteem, and then feelings of sadness and depression patterned out over the next few decades. I did not come out of my mother’s Womb feeling not enough. It came form an educational system that did not understand the complexities of learning or different intelligences.
At that time there were no resources in our educational systems or the knowledge that we now have to support kids with different learning styles. This is what happened to me as a child, this is part of my trauma narrative.
I was 35 years old before I began to understand the complex patterns that evolved from those childhood experiences.
So perhaps Mental Illness is not an illness at all, maybe our childhood adaptive, which then typically becomes maladaptive beliefs and behaviors, are simply because of what has happened in our lives.
So from this knowing we can shift our beliefs/fears of not being enough, to the belief, that we are all unique manifestations of what has been, and then take the empowered step to challenge the negative narratives about ourselves as human beings. We are all doing the best we can in any given moment.
When we truly know that we are not our thinking minds, or our bodies, we can better practice the wisdom that we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
I can now see my 10 year old self with compassion and understanding.
She was enough at 10, 20, 40 and into the now. I just had a different way of learning.
