Mordantly Comorbid: MoCo

Mood disorders are not a disease of the mind but are in fact maladaptive coping mechanisms no longer appropriate to current conditons.  They served a purpose but need to evolve. ACE Questionnaire: Adverse Childhood Experience Questionnaire.  Ten questions, but could have easily have been hundreds of questions. Grab a notebook and pen and start taking notes.  Particularly take note of things that "click off" in your head.  Writing promotes introspection. Grand total of yes answers: Beth - Seven, Daniel - Six. The implications of a high score on the ACE Questionnaire have profound implications.  A high score can in some sense provide validation for understanding the challenges encountered in adult life.  Keep in mind that adverse childhood experiences can also be the source of unique talents and capacities. The hosts of MoCo are responsible for what they say and how they say, not for how it is heard and how it makes the listener feel. "Eat the meat and spit out the bones." The management of care during an emergency room mental health admit (call it "the acute phase") should be significantly different than the management of long term mental health care (or the "chronic phase"). Inner child work: addressing the childhood experiences that carry on through adulthood.  Daniel proposes that inner child work is more like inner adult work. "Blaming and shaming" is dis-empowering...and annoying. A child cannot cognitively choose their coping skills.  An adult can and must! Inner child work is becoming the parent to yourself.

The basic philosophy of Mordantly Comorbid is that mood disorders are not a mental illness. Being Human Is not a Disease! Bethany and Daniel, the "MoCo Sibs", believe that the conditions resulting from those diagnosed with a mood disorder can be modulated by many factors, including those that do not require the use of pharmacology. It is our belief that mood disorders are the result of trauma, or more accurately, maladaptive coping mechanisms used to deal with trauma.  Coping mechanisms - behaviors - that no longer work and are often counterproductive. When these coping mechanisms fail, sometimes suicide can result.  When Daniel's coping mechanisms failed, he attempted suicide and then spent the following decade acquiring new, more effective skills and coping mechanisms. http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/mood-disorders/basics/definition/con-20035907 When discussing SAD vs. SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder versus Social Anxiety Disorder), Daniel quotes a line from the film "Lone Survivor": "We're all shot, bro..."  This is to say, everybody is fighting a personal fight and all of us get injured. There is a peculiar comfort in having a label.  It provides a ready and convenient handle by which to grasp behavior. Adulting is hard. Perception is reality and a label is just a label. A new pride in ignorance.  There is a perverse pride taken by some, if not many, in their lack of knowledge and a limited vocabulary. Reading is a method of self-improvement.  It can also be a survival mechanism. What is the true nature of compassion?  Is it compassionate to validate emotional states as a medical disease?  Sometimes hard truths are best stated bluntly. If you are vested in perceiving your emotional well-being, or lack of well-being, as a mood disorder and a disease, then you are unlikely to hear or be receptive to MoCo's message. What is your narrative?  This is a vital question.  If you don't control your narrative, somebody else will. Everyone's pain is particular. Controlling your behavior is part of controlling your narrative.  And the first step is taking accountability. Both Bethany and Daniel accept their roles in the dysfunction they have experienced in the past, continue to experience in the present and may experience in the future. Extreme ownership...acknowledging that it is your fault is to realize that you are capable of finding or providing the solution.  At the very least, it provides a valuable learning experience. The moment of clarity for those diagnosed with a mood disorder is this: "What I am doing, and have been doing, is not working.  There must be another way.  Something else must work." There is a redemptive power in making a decision.

Two middle-aged siblings, Bethany and Daniel, discuss having both physical and mental health diagnoses.  Comorbidity, according to the dictionary, is "the simultaneous presence of two or more conditions or diseases in a patient."  For the purposes of MoCo this means having at least one physical diagnosis and one mental health diagnosis. There is no tangible, biological tests for mental health conditions, particularly mood disorders. To be clear: "simple" is not synonymous with "easy."  A problem should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler...and a solution should be made as complex as necessary, but no more complex than necessary. Those who take offense at the term "mood disorder fucko" should be aware that Daniel does not exempt himself from that monicker; in fact, he considers himself a "mood disorder fucko" in recovery. The ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) questionaire.  Ten questions that determine whether or not you have suffered from a childhood plagued by adverse experiences.  A significant score on this evaluation suggests a multitude of correlating unhealthy conditions.  The ACE is more closely examined in following episodes. Bethany and Daniel are proposing that mood disorders are not so much mental illnesses but the product of unresolved trauma and maladaptive coping mechanisms resulting from those traumas. Neither Bethany or Daniel are proponents of the "cathartic experience."  Understanding the root source of your trauma can be valuable, but catharsis will not resolve the problems resulting from that trauma.  Abreaction: "...fooling your brain to re-experience the trauma..." The goal is to become healthy, adaptive and functional...abandoning failed coping mechanisms that often compound problems. The mental health industry treats symptoms, not the actual condition.  It should be noted that an argument can be made that part of the problem is that mood disorders are not actually medical conditions. Existential crisis is real.  When a person begins to question the fundamental and foundational reasons for living (existing), failing to answer those questions can take on profound, sometimes life threatening, implications. You have to want to... "There is a redemptive power in making a decision." - Will Smith