Week 5.4.15

This is a short video that discusses my time at my mentorship and in the class.

Week 4.27.15

Going into this year, I wanted a mentorship in my passion, psychology. I had hoped to be with a psychologist or counselor, but that wasn’t possible due to confidentiality problems. I was disappointed, and I had no clue what other options there were that had anything to do with psychology. Then I remembered from my psychology class how interesting all the stages of child development were. I went on to find Kids Cove Weekday, a preschool within Lakewood Baptist Church. I have been an intern/teacher in the one-year-olds class all year, and I couldn’t love it more.

            At the beginning of the year, most of the kids in my class weren’t walking or talking, but now they are all playing together and talking non-stop. It’s been an amazing experience to see these kids grow up and go through different stages of development. This mentorship has taught me the usual, responsibility and punctuality, but it’s been more serious this year. I have been responsible for these kids and I have had to make sure that they don’t get hurt. Young children are very impressionable too, so I’ve had to be a good example. I also learned some basics of babies: changing diapers, feeding, etc. Before this year I never would’ve imagined going into anything with young children, but now I’ve realized that I love these kids. I still want to major in psychology next year at UGA, but now I might want to go into the human development aspect.

            My advice for future HMP students would be to really care about what you’re doing/learning at your mentorship. If you realize you don’t care at all, change your mentorship! It’s not always set in stone. Things you learn now will be so helpful in the future, and they will help you make major decisions about your career. Don’t just try to learn aspects of the career field either. Your mentor is older and probably much, much wiser than you are- so try to absorb some of that wisdom! And always make sure you’re enjoying what you do. Be passionate!

This is me buckling in one of the kids when he came in from carpool.

This is me and two of the one-year-olds in my class.

This is me and one the kids in my class on Halloween.

Week 3.16.15

     This week I watched a video that teaches you how to become a more confident pubic speaker. There were three major steps to delivering a great speech to an audience. Step one is to prepare- a lot. Knowing the material like the back of your hand is important, especially if people are going to ask questions afterwards. Step two is good posture and body language. Maintaining a comfortable standing position without being too stiff is key. The last step is pander to you audience. This means to keep them paying attention by telling stories and jokes and not reading straight from your cards.
     I will use all of this in my presentation to my small group. I will probably be presenting to a class of about 20-30 students, so it won't be too intimidating, but I won't be completely comfortable either. This video was very helpful because I know that it's important to follow all three steps the video explained. I think for me personally, my biggest problem when I speak to a crowd is forgetting to mention some of the material until it's all over. I will make sure I practice and prepare extensively to keep this from happening again. The only other thing I struggle with is swaying when I speak. I think I'll try to fix this by walking around a few times (not too much) during my presentation, instead of swaying at the podium.
     Overall the video was very helpful, and I think it will help me during my presentation!

Week 3.2.15

1. Career Path: I intern at a preschool, but I don't necessarily want to become a preschool teacher. I hope to go into something with human development and family science or psychology in general. Lately I've been thinking about being a psychology professor, because then I would get to research new theories and teach. In order to do that I'd need to go to college and get a masters in psychology. Then I would really need to get a doctorate as well. This all depends, but it would probably take at least 7 years of schooling to complete (of course that could change depending on my course loads).
2. Tasks: Everyday at my internship I come to work and start by helping get the kids out of their cars in carpool. Then we take them back and while the kids are looking at the fish in the fish tank, I organize their bags. When I do this I get out 3 diapers for the day, prepare their snack and lunch, put their coats in their bags, and get out their folders. In their folders is a daily sheet that shows how they did, if they ate all their food, and how many diaper changes they needed. I get these sheets ready for the teachers to use all day. Then the kids come back and usually have playtime. Here I make sure all the kids share toys and I get to see them interact with each other. This is my favorite time because over the course of the year I've watched them go from crawling and screaming to walking and speaking. Then I help with snack time, feeding the kids and sometimes reading them books while they eat. At that point I have to go back to school. Some tasks like playtime where I see the kids grow and mature, I love. However, there are less enthusiastic tasks like organizing bags, but it all comes with the territory. I love my internship and the kids I work with either way!

Week 2.23.15

This week I simply updated my website for my final project...

http://hmpptsdgracebrown.webs.com/

Week 2.2.15

     This week I worked on researching for new articles since I have narrowed down my topic. At the start of the year my essential question was focused on how religious beliefs could affect the brain, but now I've changed it to post traumatic stress disorder and it's affects on the brain. I did three annotated bibliographies for my topic, but only one of them was on PTSD. That's why I found a few possible academic journals on Galileo (a reliable search engine), and I plan to use them on my final project, specifically on the website I'll be making. I'm excited to dive deeper into the school year, and my final project!

Week 1.12.15

     This week I did an interview with Mr. Carey Whitlow, the AP Psychology teacher at CHS, for my final project. I went to talk to Coach Whitlow before the interview to give him feel for what kind of questions I might ask. We got to talking, and in the end I decided to make my topic a little more specific, so now I'll be researching Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, rather than mental illnesses in general. So- my updated essential question for my final project is...

How does post traumatic stress disorder create conflict within patients and their families, and how can I determine if this disorder goes undiagnosed in most cases?

The Interview with Mr. Carey Whitlow

Questions are underlined

His answers are italicized

My reflections are in blue

1.    What do you know about PTSD?

It’s all based on trauma. In today’s society PTSD tends to be associated with war trauma, but it can be from other experiences. Any traumatizing event can cause PTSD. For instance, rape, abuse, a bad car accident, war, etc… Think about it like this- when little kids watch scary movies right before they go to bed, what will happen? They wont be able to fall asleep, or if they can, they will have bad dreams. As an adult who can see things rationally, you will try to explain to the child that the movie wasn’t real, but they wont see it that way, because they aren’t thinking rationally. That’s like PTSD.

That’s a great analogy… the child and the scary movie. I’ve never thought about PTSD that way. I’ll definitely use that when I’m presenting my final project to people in the community, because it makes understanding PTSD pretty simple.

2.   In who is PTSD common?

People like war veterans, children who’ve been abused, rape victims… Really, anyone who has been through a traumatic event. Maybe someone who was in a really bad car accident.

Makes sense… I guess it could also be someone who has witnessed a murder… or even seen a bad car accident, not just been in one.

3.   What are the symptoms of PTSD?

Withdrawal, hallucinations- well not necessarily hallucinations, but flashbacks… These can be caused by “triggers” which may be, say, a smell that they smelled during the traumatic event. Other symptoms could be erratic behavior, or sometimes phantom limbs if there were lost limbs during war. For example, say there’s someone who was in war and was passing by a lamppost when a landmine went off and blew off their legs. When they have recovered and are back home, they may be driving down the road and see a lamppost that looks just like the one where they lost their legs. This lamppost could be a trigger that causes them to feel pain in their legs, that aren’t actually there anymore- this is called phantom limbs. People with PTSD could also experience depression, and a lot of times they are know for “not playing well with others”. Like if a child was abused, they usually don’t work well in groups at school. People with PTSD also can’t rationalize and may have attachment issues. The biggest thing about PTSD is that you can’t differentiate reality and possible reality.

This is really cool, because last year I did my final project on strokes and stroke rehabilitation. I came upon the concept of phantom limbs, and now it’s also incorporated with my project this year… pretty weird. Also- Coach Whitlow was a great person to interview because he kept giving examples like the lamppost one from this question! I’ll have to remember that giving examples makes it easier for your audience to relate and understand.

4.   Do you believe PTSD is genetic or an acquired illness?

I’m not really sure… that’s something that could start up a lot of big debates. Experiments could be done to test this, but obviously, PTSD doesn’t have to be genetic, because it is caused by a traumatic event.

I’ll have to research this more… I’m pretty sure it’s not genetic, but I want to keep looking into it. And it would be cool if I could do an experiment, but it wouldn’t really be possible with confidentiality of patients and all…. But maybe I could create one and create pretend results…. We’ll see!

5.   Do you consider it a mental illness, or simply a mental weakness?

Again, trying to answer this could make a lot of people mad… but I believe that PTSD can be a legitimate disability that some people play to make it a weakness. There are some people who have the right to claim it as a disability but don’t… and there’s some who claim it, but won’t try to move on. There’s no doubt, traumatic experiences affect people, but how we learn and deal with them is what makes the difference. Look at WWII vets for example- They all went through a lot of traumatic experiences, but once they got home from war, they got right back to work. There was work to be done, so they came back and did it. Now, there are many who sit back and get everything handed to them, just because they have a disability. Like I said, PTSD is a legitimate disorder, but some people use it to their advantage unfairly.

Yeah… I definitely wouldn’t want to come off as insensitive, because PTSD is a real disorder that people struggle with, but I think Coach Whitlow is right in that some people in this generation just deal with things differently because times have changed.

6.   Have you or do you know anyone personally with PTSD?

Yeah…. I’m not giving any names or anything, but I knew some. PTSD is a real concern… I know people who don’t just sit back and let their disorder rule their lives. They admit, “yeah, I’m messed up, but I wont let it hold me down.”

I think that’s a really positive way to look at things. Really, in any mental illness or struggle, it’s all about attitude and frame of mind. If you let yourself dwell on the bad, you will only see the bad, but if you stay focused on the good, you may be happier. And obviously, that’s what makes mental illnesses so rough, is that they can control the way you think. So it’s all pretty complicated…. Nothing’s ever as simple as it seems.

7.   I know you’re a war veteran, have you ever been through something similar to PTSD?

Yeah… I’ve never been “diagnosed”, but I’ve had some bad dreams… You could call them night terrors. I’ve got lots of friends that have trouble sleeping for the same reasons. But has it affected my life? I don’t know. This is the only life I’ve lived, so I wouldn’t know if it would’ve been any different.

That’s a cool thought… Has “_____” affected my life? I guess we’ll never know, like he said, because we only have one life. But maybe you could say that yes, “_____” affected my life, because every experience I have or lesson I learn or disorder I struggle with makes me who I am, therefore affecting the course of my life greatly.

8.   Do you think that majority of people who have PTSD are getting the treatments they need, or do they even need treatment?

I think that real PTSD from war goes undiagnosed and untreated way more often than not. But I also think there are probably more war veterans that are diagnosed than civilians… Think about a 17 year old girl who is rescued from sex trafficking and thrown back into a normal life. Do you think once she starts getting into relationships with boys or even getting married she’s going to have trouble with intimacy? Yeah. That’s the kind of thing that probably goes undiagnosed/ untreated all the time.

I’ll have to research more and make that a big part of my project- whether people with PTSD get the treatments they need or not… It’s a big concern because PTSD can take over your life if you’re not careful. Some people can’t afford or aren’t educated on how to be treated, and those are the people I want to help. I want to go to school to learn about mental illnesses like PTSD, so I can help those who don’t understand them.

9.   What are your thoughts on treatments for mental illness (PTSD included)?

I think there are three types of people with PTSD:

1.     People who are undiagnosed and untreated- they need help

2.    People who are diagnosed and working on treatment- getting better

3.    People who are diagnosed, but are overplaying their illness. They need to move on and try to grow up.

This is really true, I think. Some people need to be educated and understand their disorder, but some are poaching off of others far longer than is necessary. I believe treatment itself can only go so far, and then attitude needs to step in. Without a positive attitude, PTSD can control one’s life.

10.  Some people with PTSD claim that since PTSD is a stress disorder, medical marijuana is a beneficial treatment. What are your thoughts on that?

Do you want to hear my honest opinion? … I think people in society- all of us- are naturally bad. But people are just looking for an excuse to sin. They are just seeking a worldly solution to a godly problem. If medical marijuana is alright, then why don’t we just start handing out morphine to everyone? Then no one will be able to feel anything at all. I think PTSD is a mental thing that can affect physiology. But I can take a drug and physically affect my thinking. The point of medical marijuana is relief. We’re all just looking for some kind of relief, but some are looking in the wrong places.

I agree with this opinion on medical marijuana. This question/answered strayed a little from the rest of the interview, focusing specifically on PTSD, but I think it’s a cool thing to look at. There are people out there who need help, with or without PTSD, but some are finding it in the wrong places.