LWolf
LWolf's JournalI have to call bullshit.
Yes, various conditions can be over-diagnosed and mistreated.
But Oppositional Defiant Disorder is REAL.
I know. My grandson was diagnosed, once we got him away from his very troubled mother and got him the physical and mental health treatment he needed.
We're not talking about people who question authority, who think independently, who resist conformity. I do all of those things myself; hence my screen name on DU and the consistent attacks here for not being a good enough Democrat. So does my son, his father, who is even more so than I. Neither of us, though, is ODD.
ODD is an extreme. It has several causes. In my grandson's case, neglect, abuse, lack of supervision, inconsistent and harsh discipline through the age of 4...definitely.
The person with ODD has control issues, and takes those issues beyond the edge of extreme. Even at the age of 3 or 4. They will do ANYTHING to "win," including endangering and hurting themselves and others. They don't respond to the ways most kids learn civility or how to make appropriate choices. Adults in their family have to be trained to go outside their own experiences to make any progress at all.
They don't need medication, unless it's addressing a related condition. They do need intensive therapy and training in self-management and choice making, and their families need training in how to interact with them to help move things in positive directions, rather than feeding the problem.
This blog was written by an anonymous person referencing an article written by someone only identified as "Andrew," with no last name, no qualifications given for the statements made. When "Andrew" has had to put a 4 yo into a restraining hold to keep him from extreme violence to himself and others around him; when he's stood under a very tall tree, terrified that the 4 yo will fall after he scrambled up faster than adults could reach him, afraid to climb after him for fear he would throw himself onto the rocks below, hoping that if he fell he could be caught, and knowing that no "coaxing" in the world would get him down; when he's had to chase a 4 yo over a fence and into miles of public forest that he could be lost in for way too long, with that 4 yo looking back at him with a feral grin because he was "winning;" when he's had to find a way to get a 4 yo to eat when he's made up his mind not to...for 2 days...when he's had a 4 yo unlatch his seatbelt and launch his arms around the driver's neck on the highway, only to take off across that highway in the midst of traffic when the car was pulled over for safety...
When he's had to give up his job so that he can show up at school at any given moment to remove his child; when his entire adult life is given to therapy, counseling, a special school for children with these kinds of problems, and all trips into the public arena are determined by whether or not the child is in a good enough place that day to do so safely...when it takes 8 years of all of that therapy and retraining to get to a point that the child can interact, privately and publicly, with civility and reasonable behavior, but STILL has control issues which he struggles to manage every day...
When he wants to give his full name and his qualifications to speak authoritatively about mental illness...
then "Andrew" can make pronouncements about whether or not ODD is real. Until then, I'll stick with my grandson's team of doctors and other acknowledged authorities whose credentials can be checked.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/oppositional-defiant-disorder/DS00630
http://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Resource_Centers/Oppositional_Defiant_Disorder_Resource_Center/FAQ.aspx
http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/qf/behaviorprob_qt/ODD.pdf
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/healthlibrary/conditions/mental_health_disorders/oppositional_defiant_disorder_90,P02573/
Interestingly enough, when an ODD student enters our school, I'm the one called to assist the assigned teacher, or, if the child is in my grade level, he or she will be placed in my class. Why? Because there are specific strategies for working with these kids, and I've already been trained.
"Women are life support systems for pussy."
Yes. It's a shocking statement. Where did I hear it? From my ex-husband, who passed it on as a "joke" he and "the boys" heard at the local pub. This was about 20 years ago.
Just last week, I had a conversation with my class of 8th graders about how to express disagreement or anger without put-downs. It was partly in response to a major temper-tantrum thrown by a student who didn't like what someone had to say about her choice in boyfriends (too young,) and partly because we were preparing for a classroom debate, and discussing rules of order.
We talked about how, in modern politics, put-downs are the norm. About how adults on both sides of the party lines generally discuss politics by calling names and putting the other side down, rather than by presenting facts and logic about issues. They all agreed that "that's what my dad/mom/etc. does." I told them that one "persuasive" propaganda technique is to push emotional buttons, because when emotion is engaged, logic and reason flee. That, when trying to convince masses of people with differing povs to vote a certain way, it's the norm in politics to paint the "other" as "enemy" using emotional buttons. That they couldn't do this in a classroom debate; that they needed to recognize it when they see it, but that we'd be using facts, logic, and rules of order.
In other words, the adolescents in my classroom would have to be more mature than the average adult debating politics.
What does that have to do with the thread title? This:
Women come with background experience. When we have been treated as sexual objects valued primarily for our sexual attractiveness or services enough times, by enough males, we tend to perceive looks, stares, leers, and comments as predatory. This IS reality.
It might be that background culture and experience play a big part in our perception of male attention. My mother, in her 70s, was raised in a time when a woman's place was to serve men, be subservient, and take care of herself. Her value was in her attractiveness and her service. If a man looked and made comments, she was complimented, because she knew she was doing what a woman was supposed to. She knew her place.
Of course, she also excused physical abuse, which I witnessed and experienced my entire life growing up with her. I was smart. Smarter than many of the boys, who didn't like that. They did like that I was physically precocious. I didn't have boyfriends as a teen, because they didn't want me to open my mouth, except in one circumstance. I was a tomboy. I didn't decorate myself to attract them. I didn't have to. Slender, long legs, narrow waist, trim hips, and over-sized breasts were enough, no matter what I did or didn't wear. This worried my mother, who was constantly trying to dress me up and make me "pretty." To this day, she carefully says nothing about my appearance unless I wear something she likes, or do something with my hair she likes, and then she lights up and gushes about how "pretty" I look. I've been somewhat of a disappointment, having spent most of my adult life successfully grooming myself to be unnoticeable one way or the other. It's a conditioned response to the behaviors some men have been defending here at DU.
I've been married twice. In both instances, my husbands liked my physical appearance, but not my brains. Which is why I gave up trying to be married or in a relationship after the second marriage ended. I couldn't find men who liked me for myself. Unless they were gay. When I wasn't offering "eye candy," I was invisible, which I found preferable.
I watch my female students being groomed by their mothers to be the flower attracting the bees; I watch my girls obsessing over fashion and hair and makeup and I worry about them. I worry whether or not they will find boys that like THEM. I see that they do; while there are still predators, and teenage boys still gawk, I see most of my boys treating my girls like people rather than "life support systems for pussy." I see that we have slowly evolved. I see hope for the future.
I'm a grandmother. I learned the art of camouflage and have used it well, and now I'm past the age men are interested in leering at. It's been a long time since I had to worry about men evaluating me for sexual potential. I haven't forgotten, though, and when I read all of the "debate" about how men think it's okay to stare at and make comments to and about women they've never met, and how about "militant feminists" are the problem, the politically correct surface layer is cracked, exposing the corruption of a group that supposedly supports social justice.
Men, I have no problem with those of you who like to look at women. It's how you go about it that is at issue.
I'm off to run last minute errands; I'll be back in a few hours to see what DUers have to say about my input.
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