Comments on: Everyone gets a diagnosis and a prescription http://halfmd.wordpress.com/2008/02/12/everyone-gets-a-diagnosis-and-a-prescription/ At the halfway point in medical education Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:44:09 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: anonymous http://halfmd.wordpress.com/2008/02/12/everyone-gets-a-diagnosis-and-a-prescription/#comment-965 anonymous Sat, 16 Feb 2008 02:08:42 +0000 http://halfmd.wordpress.com/2008/02/12/everyone-gets-a-diagnosis-and-a-prescription/#comment-965 My grandmother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I was nine and wanted to help her and I decided that she was hearing some type of noise (if I concentrated I could hear things too, but they were things like the heater going off, low sounds that I didn't hear very often) and that she needed to re-program what she was hearing. My parents were concerened at the conversations I was hearing and they wanted me to see Granma's doctor. He ah, just wanted to meet me. He had me in his office and we ate cookies and then he started asking me about the voices and I told him, "Oh! I'm helping you!" The effort for him to keep a straight face must have been Herculean as I explained that I thought that Granma was hearing things and was misinterpreting them and instead of arguing with her, "How can you say she isn't hearing something? If she says she is, then she is and she is 60 years old so you can't say that she isn't!" that I was just agreeing but disagreeing with the content. He would wind up telling me that I had a future in psychology and psychiatry but that they were not ready for my theories yet, bu until they were, I had to stop my own brand of therapy with my grandmother. I remember him shaking my parent's hands and telling them that there would be no charge for my visit and he looked down at me and said, "You will remember this visit when you grow up. A lot will happen between now and then but until you are 25, leave the saving of your grandmother to the doctors, OK?" I look at the advances now and I am amazed. I don't know if my grandmother could be cured. I fear it cropping up in me. I'm not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but I still think we could have changed what the voices were saying to my grandmother. My grandmother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I was nine and wanted to help her and I decided that she was hearing some type of noise (if I concentrated I could hear things too, but they were things like the heater going off, low sounds that I didn’t hear very often) and that she needed to re-program what she was hearing. My parents were concerened at the conversations I was hearing and they wanted me to see Granma’s doctor. He ah, just wanted to meet me. He had me in his office and we ate cookies and then he started asking me about the voices and I told him, “Oh! I’m helping you!” The effort for him to keep a straight face must have been Herculean as I explained that I thought that Granma was hearing things and was misinterpreting them and instead of arguing with her, “How can you say she isn’t hearing something? If she says she is, then she is and she is 60 years old so you can’t say that she isn’t!” that I was just agreeing but disagreeing with the content.

He would wind up telling me that I had a future in psychology and psychiatry but that they were not ready for my theories yet, bu until they were, I had to stop my own brand of therapy with my grandmother. I remember him shaking my parent’s hands and telling them that there would be no charge for my visit and he looked down at me and said, “You will remember this visit when you grow up. A lot will happen between now and then but until you are 25, leave the saving of your grandmother to the doctors, OK?” I look at the advances now and I am amazed. I don’t know if my grandmother could be cured. I fear it cropping up in me.

I’m not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but I still think we could have changed what the voices were saying to my grandmother.

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