Sunday, May 23, 2010

Eh? Things I don't understand

Coldplay (pictured). Until I researched today’s Farmdoc’s Blog post I’d never heard of them. (I’m sure darling Emily, who’s a music aficionado, has. I hope she doesn’t think any the worse of me for not.) Wikipedia says Coldplay’s a world-famous English alternative rock band formed in 1997 [1]. One of their songs is ‘Things I Don’t Understand’ [2, 3]. Me? I think what I do understand’s miniscule compared with what I don’t. Here are two examples:

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD]. Wikipedia defines it as ‘a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma’ [4]. The Mayo Clinic’s definition’s similar: ‘a type of anxiety disorder that’s triggered by a traumatic event. You can develop post-traumatic stress disorder when you experience or witness an event that causes intense fear, helplessness or horror [5]’. Yet I’ve seen PTSD diagnosed in people who’ve no memory of an event and its antecedents and aftermath – due to loss of consciousness, retrograde amnesia and post-traumatic amnesia respectively. Eh? How can this be?

Last Wednesday’s Age carried this story [6]. It’s a horrid tale of lesbian paedophilia. But my main interest is that the 33-year-old reportedly cannot read or write, yet it’s alleged she met the 14-year-old over the internet. Eh? How can this be?

I don’t understand. I just don’t.

No comments: