My guess is once your past 30 that's pretty well it. your brain is hard wired, good or bad.
I could be wrong though. Of course I'm talking non-pharmacological solutions here like cognitive restructuring, etc. The drugs certainly work if you are basically looking to lobotomize yourself.
Posted 1/6/2012 9:20 am
Are you talking about mental defect caused by childhood trauma? If so, it is never too late. An inpatient or intensive cognitive outpatient program (usually 3-5 hours a day, every day, for 90 days) can help get you on track. Many adult survivors of childhood abuse suffer from PTSD, and do well with short-term pharma, but the real work is done in therapy. A good therapist is a godsend. Mine saved me, well past 30. Good luck, my friend.
What basically happens is that your childhood starts bumping up against reality, and you crash hard.
usually 30 is around the time when toxic relationships, spusal child abuse, drug/alcohol problems, legal troubles, job troubles, etc take their toll and people begin therapy - sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not.
Posted 1/6/2012 9:52 am
What happens when you know what happened, you recognise the effects, they may be unacceptable to the rest of society, but you can live with them?
Let's say you had an experience at a very young age that left you with some kind of sexual proclivity - for example a fascination with voyerism. You know why - it was an abusive situation that caused it, you know it might cause you to act illegally, but you enjoy it.
What should that person do? Leave it there, or get help?
DBT works well for PTSD if it is accompanied by DID, Borderline Personality D/O...there are inpatient programs which are also valuable, particularly at onset.
Menninger, Loma Linda, Shepard-Pratt and McLean all have good programs for this.
a "healthy" person will find an acceptable outlet to act out the fantasy - pron, a willing pertner, etc.
a dysfunctional person will take it to the extreme, reenacting their childhood trauma, until he crosses enough boundaries that intervention is required.
healthy people have "forbidden" fantasies; they have empathy, a moral compass and the self control to either not act on them or to channel them into appropriate outlets (like fantasy porn).
Abused people can lack self control, empathy, or self esteem - they have much less concern for the consequences of their actions, which are often motivated by deep seated childhood anger.
In other words, a "healthy" guy might see a hot girl, go home and jerk off to a "rape" fantasy which usually involves her liking it.
a very dysfunctional person might actually stalk, harrass, and/or assault her, with little concern for her safety, feelings or rights - because that's how they were treated as children.
getting in touch with their feelings in therapy is usually the first step towrds ficxing the problem
Posted 1/6/2012 10:57 am
I think the person must first recongize the trama, that it WAS NOT normal. Only then can the person be helped. It is never to late to lead a quaility life with healthy relationships.
Posted 1/6/2012 10:08 pm
Never too late. People become lazy and unwilling as they age though but it is technically possible to change completely at any given time.
Posted 1/6/2012 10:09 pm
If I could institutionalize myself, I would. Looks like it will take a non-trivial incidence of my schizotypal disorder to get the gears in motion.
Too expensive. I want society to realize that I'm dangerous if left unsupervised, and that the best thing to do is to feed me three decent institutional meals daily for which I would leave my Internet-connected room.
