Just as birch trees thrive in a community, we believe the same is true for people.
Greenwood Village/Centennial @ 6881 S. Holly Cir Ste 205
Though I’ve gotten a lot better at it, I still sometimes have to catch myself when I find that I am judging someone at first glance. As a psychology major in college, part of why I love psychology so much is because I feel like in no other field do you really get the opportunity to look at other people and deep dive into what makes them unique. People, in my experience, often have a lot more going on in their lives than is outwardly apparent.
A number of weeks ago we covered seasonal affective disorder (SAD), often called seasonal depression. Often, when people think of seasonal depression, they think of winter, with its lack of hours of daylight and the cold keeping us inside. You might imagine that, regardless of whether or not someone has SAD, that spring is a time for growing as a person and “spring cleaning” your mind. Both of these can be true, however, it’s important to recognize the pressure that putting those expectations on yourself and others can lead to.
There is something inherently unique to each and every one of us: our identity. Or, is it our identities? The idea of intersectionality is one that has started to pick up more eyes and ears as time goes on, and is one that is such an inherently cool concept. Think about it: we all have different aspects of ourselves that we share with others, perhaps it is your gender or your age or your race. We all have multiple different identities as well, like being a 40-year-old woman, or a non-binary individual whose religious identity is important to them. Put these two facts together along with our own experiences, and we are our own unique and inimitable selves.
It often feels like, to me, that most people have heard of and have a general understanding of ADHD, but that they don’t necessarily know what ADHD is or what it is like to have. William Dodson, MD, a psychiatrist and author posits that children who have ADHD will, by the age of 12, “receive 20,000 more negative messages from parents, teachers, and other adults than their friends and siblings who do not have ADHD.” Being one of the most common mental disorders that affects children, one would think that we would have an easier and more effective time treating individuals with ADHD. This, however, as noted by William Dodson, is often far from the truth.
When certain, potentially traumatizing events occur between the ages of 0-17, the effect they can have on that individual's life is massive; these events are often referred to as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). A prevalence of ACEs in someone’s childhood can lead to a number of different issues later in life, including physical health issues such as heart disease and diabetes; mental health issues such as being at a higher risk of suicide, depression and bipolar disorder, and other issues such as pregnancy complications, difficulty forming healthy relationships, and struggling to create a stable work history as an adult.