Posted on 12/25/2004 6:48:14 AM PST by shrinkermd
Looking back, Denise Watkins is convinced a sore throat disabled her son one year ago. His bizarre obsessions emerged not long after, first the constant nightmares about snakes and alligators, then the relentless hand washing that left his skin raw and chapped.
Mrs. Watkins, who lives in Lakeland, Fla., was told that her son, Will, had obsessive-compulsive disorder. But it seemed odd, Ms. Watkins thought. Will was only 5 years old, and his illness seemed to burst out of nowhere.
"In a matter of weeks," she said, "this was a totally different child."
Then one day, buried on a Web site about mental illness, her husband noticed a small "blip" on children who develop a sudden, severe form of obsessive-compulsive disorder after a bout of strep throat.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
If actual brain damage is involved, can there be a treatment?
After that I was never the same again, and anxiety and depression, accompanied by obsessive compulsiveness which is not too crippling now, has worsened throughout my life, to the point now that there are very few psychiatric meds I can even tolerate without disastrous and extremely painful effects.
I don't think there is one and simple answer. Depression and suicide run down one side of my family.
My opinion is that people are predisposed to it genetically and environment and the way you are raised play their part as well.
I've also given much consideration to the "sins of the fathers" of the bible, but people would scoff at that approach, but I'm not willing to dismiss it totally.
I saw something on PBS about how they are running studies on embryos to identify the defective gene and either replace it or possibly abort. They showed microscopic replacements on magnified embryos which I believe were human. These may have been destined to be implanted into someone's womb so they could have a "perfect" child. It's been awhile since I saw that program so I may not remember correctly but I found it somewhat chilling.
That's something else that is coming down the pike.
He's been pretty sick with this stuff. I pray that everything works out for him.
I think it makes sense that the sins of the fathers are visited on the children in certain ways--not a matter of shared guilt, but a matter of suffering the results. Thus, if the father is an alcoholic, the children will suffer, and perhaps their children too; if the parents spend all their money, the children are impoverished; if the parents are abusive, the children are hurt and damaged.
But I also think that God gives us all free will aided and enabled by His grace, and that these various kinds of suffering caused by others can be put to good use. The children can overcome their handicaps with God's help and be all the stronger for their difficulties. They may develop strengths they would never have had with easier childhoods.
I suffered from a loss of affect (feelings) after chemotherapy some 15 years ago. Most of it has come back, but mainly you just have to determine not to let something like that change you or control you. Illness can mess with our minds and our feelings, but it can't really change the will, as long as we seek for the necessary grace to back it up.
St. Augustine says, rightly I think, that love is in the will as well as the feelings. Primarily it's a matter of will.
Yes there is 'treatment' and that is the individual must start denying the obsession, no not deny as in I don't have it, but deny in not complying with it. Studies have shown that each time an obsession is not 'obeyed' new neuropathways begin to form and will begin to reverse the imbalance that brought the obsession on. I am living proof that this is a better way to beat such a problem versus taking drugs for it.
And yes, they often happen after Strep. They think that anorexia nervosa may also begin with Strep.
In May 1995, I think, in the Reader's Digest, there was an article about this. How can knowledge be lost? It helped me then.
That one-tenth of one percent.
That's a lot.
The thyroid disintegration is a big problem. He should look it up so he knows what to expect.
It's going to come down to people who contract serious injuries from people who wantonly spread their illnesses, will sue. A sick co-worker has sick days, but they insist on spreading their germs to the detriment of others.
Not unlike people who cause car accidents and don't have insurance.
One of my daughters had that horrible affliction. I do not recollect whether or not there was a strep infection involved. I had serial strep infections in college and was plagued with the most horrible nightmares. I can't help but wonder as I read this whether there was a connection.
On my father's side, they seemed like decent, hardworking people overall, but my great grandfather (who I think might have been irreligious but decent otherwise) married his first cousin. In that generation, one daughter committed suicide and one was evidently unable to have children. One had multiple divorces. Another never married. Another descendant committed suicide. There was another first cousin marriage one more generation back on my paternal grandmother's side of the fmaily. So it makes one wonder if it does come down to us in the form of punishment(s).
Or more likely, it is all random genetically.
I'm also descended from the Salem witchcraft generation, and most of my life I have felt a cloud hanging over me. My direct ancestor in that was one who helped put a stop to it, but his sister-in-law suffered imprisonment and it affected her the rest of her life. One generation down another line died out almost completely on the male side. I just wonder about things like that. The male line in my paternal line has only a few left. In my mother's direct ancestry, most of the men died before they were 60 and tended to be tall and very heavy.. I suspect the male due to alcoholism.
It's just a matter of curiosity with me. That's all.
It really comes down to playing the hand you are dealt. One can always hope and pray for healing or alleviation from whatever the person happenes to suffer from. Some ailments don't yield to prayer very readily, mental illness and cancer, for example. Nor is medical treatment in its current state of development all that satisfactory either, although some people get their lives extended, sometimes for better and sometimes involving more suffering.
It's best to live with whatever it is as best you can. And try to never lose hope.
Many, many people have heavy crosses to carry. It is curious to me that if they don't manifest in early childhood or from birth, they become evident in young adulthood. After that, the normal aging process causes other maladies which don't particularly fit this discussion.
It is more likely that he had a head injury that may have helped along his mental illness. His symptoms did not really appear until until after a plan crash he was involved in.
I'd consider fish oil. Do research on fish oil and brain disorders.
Very interesting. A moral theologian or a classical philosopher would say that virtue is a habit. The more you practice a particularly virtue, the more habitual it becomes, until the effort becomes easier than it was at first. Your explanation about developing new neural pathways fits into what I have read about recent brain research, and it would help explain why this ancient wisdom should be true.
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