From apotemnophilia to ADHD: The authority of labeling

There were many units during this semester that intrigued me and really got me thinking, so it is hard for me to just pick one part. I learned a lot this semester and acquired many new ways of thinking and seeing the world around me. One section that really seemed to interest me, and I still reflect on, was way back at the beginning when we were discussing apotemnophilia.

I think apotemnophilia intrigued me because I have always been interested in strange psychological disorders (if we even call this a disorder) and how it relates to and affects society. The first thing that caught my eye was just the idea that people wanted to cut off limbs from their body and would go to extreme lengths to do so. Why would anyone possibly want to lose a leg if they didn't have to? It's just so interesting to figure out people's reasoning behind this. Just this one thing, apotemnophilia, then opens all these doors to problems and discussions. Should this be considered a disorder? If it is a disorder, how should it be handled? Who gets the say as to whether surgery should be performed or not? What are the costs to society? etc.

The main things that I will be taking away from this class, and mainly this discussion, are who exactly has the authority to make decisions like as to what is normal or not (and what constitutes "normal" anyways?) for instance, and the whole idea of labeling and categorizing everyone and everything. Even though I may not have a definite decision on these problems, this class has gotten me to really think deeper about certain areas and topics. Who gets the right to make decisions? Society does. But really what does that even mean? This argument with authority also got brought up when we were discussing sexuality and hermaphroditism. I find it very interesting as to who gets to make the decisions about the gender of a baby, whether it is the doctor, parents or the individual. I am still deciding on this. I sometimes think that it is the individual, but other times it might seem impractical to wait until an individual is of age. The other idea that I will take away and continue to ponder is the topic of labeling. In society we feel the need to label and categorize everything. It adds order and makes things more understandable and stereotyped. Why is this necessarily a good thing? I do not think that it is necessarily the best idea to label everything in society, because it just sets things apart and degrades people. This not only gets brought up with apotemnophilia, with labeling people as having a disorder or having a psychological problem, but also with the poster project on ADHD. Society feels the need to find answers and solve everything. "Oh, your child is hyper and can't focus? He has ADHD. You should drug him." It seems crazy to me. Why do we have to always turn to medicine or names to fix everything? Overall though, I will take away this idea of society and how certain people are said to have the authority to make decisions, and also how we need everything to have a label. Is this really how we want to live? I don't know, but what I do know is that I still have a lot of thinking to do and this class sparked many arguments for me.