There once was a girl named Mariah Lucas-Bateman. She was always a happy child who loved to play outside with her friends or with her pets. She lived her childhood to the fullest without any thought of what may have been affecting her the whole time.
As Mariah grew older she began to be more self-aware of what has happened to her in her life to shape her into who she is today. She focuses on three main concepts: Id – ego – superego, mood disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder.
Id can be described as psychic structure, present at birth that represents psychological drives and is fully unconscious.
Ego can be described as a second psychic structure to develop, characterized by self-awareness, planning, and delay of gratification.
Superego can be described as a third psychic structure, which functions as a moral guardian and sets fourth high standards for behaviour.
Rathus, S. A., Maheu, S. J., & Veenvliet, S. G. (2017).
Mood disorder (PTSD) can be described as a disorder that follows a distressing event outside the range of a normal human experience and that is characterized by features such as intense fear, avoidance of stimuli associated with the event, and reliving the event.
Rathus, S. A., Maheu, S. J., & Veenvliet, S. G. (2017).
Generalized anxiety disorder can be described as feelings of dread and foreboding and sympathetic arousal for at least six months duration.
Rathus, S. A., Maheu, S. J., & Veenvliet, S. G. (2017).
As Mariah entered grade 6 she began using more social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. At face value, these platforms were fun and entertaining. But, as Mariah became more self aware she realized that these platforms had connections to her Id, ego, and superego.
She becomes aware that it is her Id that makes her desire to use the social media platforms. At the same time, she notices that her moral which has to do with her superego makes her feel as if she should do homework instead so that she could obtain good grades in school. Her ego then made her aware of all of the good decisions that she made at that time.
After becoming more aware of all of these things she had to come up with a plan to balance both the enjoyment of social media and having good grades in school. Her solution was to limit her social media time after school to 3 hours a day and she decided to keep track of this by using the new “Track my screen time” Iphone feature. This is so she can follow her moral of completing homework on time.
Mariah then begins to notice that she has negative memories that make her react to certain things a certain way in the present day. She realizes that this is connected to her mood disorder (PTSD). As a child, Mariah experienced traumatic events such as a loss of a very important loved one at a very young age. She realizes that she is not very in control of her feelings or actions as she grew older and this prevents her from living a ‘normal’ life without any triggers because her brain triggers a warning of anxiety.
After thinking about how her brain triggers anxiety this brought her to thinking about how generalized anxiety affects her life. The anxiety that she feels on a daily basis affects the way that she completes tasks in her every day routine. This causes everything to feel harder to complete than it actually is to Mariah so she therefore puts it off. She tends to leave things to the last minute because she feels as if she will complete it incorrectly.
Overall, Mariah is who she is today because of everything that has happened to her throughout her childhood and during her lifetime in general. She identifies how Psychology is connected to her life through her Id, ego, superego, PTSD, and generalized anxiety. All of these concepts affect her in different ways but make her who she is as a person. Mariah finds ways to cope with these concepts and disorders and continues to live her life to the fullest everyday and hope that you do too!
References
Rathus, S. A., Maheu, S. J., & Veenvliet, S. G. (2017). PSYCH
(4thth ed., pp.259-323).Toronto, Canada: NELSON.
Psych In My Life 