Happy are they who are blessed with the power of making happy. Many people, instead of getting upset about trauma and abuse, tend to numb out the pain. However, the consequences of numbing is that teachers, friends, and others are not like to notice that the individual is upset; he may not even register it himself. By numbing out, one no longer reacts to distress the way they should. Lacking friends makes a crucial difference. Today, we are aware how cruel people can be. It is a complex and rocky social life because friends can suddenly turn on one another and alliances dissolve in exclusions and betrayals. However, through the journey of life, people began to master a whole set of social skills, including being able to identify what they feel, negotiating relationships with others, pretending to like people they do not, and so on. And many have built a fairly steady support group who becomes their stress-debriefing team. As one gradually enters the World of communicating and dating, these relationships provide reflection, storytelling, and discussion of the social construction of reality. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 8

Nonetheless, people who have been abused have an entirely different developmental pathway. They do not have friends of either gender because they cannot trust; they hate themselves, and their biology is against them, leading them to overact or numb out. They cannot keep up in the normal envy-driven inclusion/exclusion games, in which players have to stay cool under stress, because they are authentic and do not like to deal with people who are pumping them for information, plotting, or trying to use them for other purposes. They usually do not want much to do with people because others are acting and not being real.  Many of these people articulate what they want, need, and know how to protect themselves in the face of danger. They know you do not smoke dope, nor run away, nor get into a car with people you do not truly know. People who are recovering from trauma know what is going on with them, but sometimes cannot find the words to express that or do not want to. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 8

People who are healing like to plan things out, and are good at protecting themselves and their loved ones. However, they can sense when people are not being authentic and this makes them feel uneasy and like they are testifying in court. And because many diseases are caused by bacteria that is not visible to the unassisted eye, many people who are in recovery many abstain or become celibate. Diagnostic reliability is not an abstract issue: If doctors cannot agree on what ails their patents, there is no way they can provide proper treatment. When there is no relationship between diagnosis and care, a mislabeled patient is bound to be a mistreated patient. You would not want to have your appendix removed when you are suffering from a kidney stone, and you would not want somebody labeled as “oppositional” when, in fact, his behavior is rooted in an attempt to protect himself against real danger. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 8

In a statement recently released, the British Psychological Society complained to the American Psychiatric Association (APA) that sources of psychological suffering in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5 (DSM-V) were identified as “located within individuals” and overlooked the “undeniable social causation of many such problems.” This was in addition to a flood of protest from American professionals, including leaders of the American Psychological Association and the American Counseling Association. Why are relationships or social conditions left out? If you pay attention only to faulty biology and defective genes as the cause of mental problems and ignore abandonment, abuse, and deprivation, you are likely to run into as many dead ends as a bleach blonde, who gets a permanent, and goes swimming, and does not deep condition afterwards, and as previous generation did blaming it all on terrible mothers. There is nothing so slipperily alluring as sadness; we become sad in the first place by having nothing stirring to do; we continue in it, because we have found a sung sofa at last. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 8

Could the fact that the American Psychological Association (APA) had earned $100 million on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4 (DSM-IV) and is slated to take in a similar amount with the DSM-V (because all mental health practitioners, many lawyers, and other professionals will be obligated to purchase the latest edition) be the reason we have this new diagnostic system? The most stunning rejection of the DSM-V came from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), which funds most psychiatric research in America. In April of 2013, a few weeks before DSM-V was formally released, NIMH director Thomas Insel announced that his agency could no longer support DSM’s “symptom-based diagnosis.” Instead the institute would focus its finding on what are called Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) to create a framework for studies that would cut across current diagnostic categories. For example, one of the NIMH domains is “arousal/Modulatory Systems (Arousal, Circadian Rhythm, Sleep and Wakefulness),” which are disturbed to varying degree in many patients. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 8

Like the DSM-V, the RDoC framework conceptualizes mental illnesses solely as brain disorders. This means that future research funding will explore the brain circuits and other neurobiological measures what underlie mental problems. This is the first step toward the sort of precision medicine that has transformed cancer diagnosis and treatment. Mental illness, however, is not at all like cancer: Humans are social beings, and mental problems involve not being able to get along with other people, not fitting in, not belonging, and in general not being able to get on the same wavelength. Enforcement of the laws and the United States Constitution would drastically reduce the number of mental health problems in society because many are not caused by a brain disorder, but the symptoms are caused by the way people treat others. For instance, someone that is bullied constantly, for a long period of times might be labeled as having a mental issue for speaking up for their rights because the law is not around to protect them. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 8

Also, many people use mental health terms as a way to belittle people, or make them feel isolated. If you tell everyone someone is crazy, and many others agree, even though you have never met this person, no one will want to hire them. The crazy term is not something employers are willing to take a risk on. What I think is mentally ill is when a lot of working professional gang up on one person and physically assault him and slander him for a decade without seeing that something is wrong with their behavior. “It is a well-known fact in the community that he is mentally ill.” “Well, how do you know, have you ever met him or talked to his doctor?” “No, but that is what all these reporters tell me.” Everything about us—our brains, our minds, and our bodies—is geared toward collaboration in social systems. This is our most powerful survival strategy, the key to our success as a species, and it is precisely this that breaks down in most forms of mental suffering. The neural connections in brain and body are vitally important for understanding human suffering, but it is important not to ignore the foundations of our humanity: relationships and interactions that shape our minds and brains when we are young and that give substance and meaning to our entire lives. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 8

People with histories of abuse, neglect, or severe deprivation will remain mysterious and largely untreated unless we heed this admonition: To fully understand how we become the persons we are—the complex, step-by-step evolution of our orientations, capacities, and behavior over time—requires an understanding of the process of development, how all of these factor work together in an ongoing way over time. Frontline mental health workers—overwhelmed and underpaid social workers and therapists alike—seem to agree that the way people evaluate mental health can be very sneaky and deceptive. And many people who run around calling others crazy and setting them up and harassing them problem have deeply rooted mental illnesses that they need to analyze in themselves and seek help for and learn to leave others alone. I do not want to get political BUT, it seems likely that underpaid workers might be willing to cook the books on mental health for a boost in their paychecks and label someone incorrectly for financial gain. One can be very happy with much less trouble, than very wise. (www.thedeedle.com) #RyanPhillippe 8 of 8