Episode 8: How childhood neurodevelopment turns into road rage, or becomes rewired completely. You decide. (This one will save loss, pain, and lives.) Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED) is an official diagnosis for an anger control problem. It is characterized by impulsive, unexpected anger and aggression that is disproportionate to the situation. The diagnosis code is F63.81 in the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision. From the outside, the world sees an angry person, but they are often riddled with guilt about their behavior. If unable to modify the personality and self-care to accommodate for IED, these people burn all their bridges and wind up totally alone. They need to Mindshift. https://vimeo.com/1054709890 Download the Ambassador Slides HANDOUT to share. Trileptal and My 2-Minute Speech "When a threat is perceived, adrenaline triggers an uncontrollable reaction. Intermittent explosive disorder is a hard-wired anger reaction, almost always originating from PTSD. This is why traditional cognitive approaches to anger management are often inadequate. It is exactly the opposite of a trained operator or martial artist. However, if the brain is exposed to enough toxicity, a veteran will slowly lose their brain's ability to inhibit. A mood-stabilizer is a "10 second fuse". It will let you notice the feeling without impulsively acting on it. Walk away from the anger-provoking situation the first 5 times you get mad, so you can learn how the medication will help you go calm yourself down. Then, practice talking through your problems knowing you can now walk away if you need to, so eventually you won't have to live in fear of your anger or be made to feel like a doormat." Trying to overcome IED without help is like dancing stoned on the edge of cliff. By definition, not taking life-threatening behavior seriously is absolutely the most irresponsible decision for mental health. Afterall, mental health equals self-care. Why won't this work on children? From the outside, children and adults look the same emotionally with temper tantrums. The adult with IED, however, is overreacting in anger despite a previous decision to keep anger under control. Children haven't yet made decisions on the kind of person they want to be (superego), they are running into a nonstop series of life lessons and reflexively react based upon their hardwired subconscious programming. It's not the kid's fault. By that same logic, it's also technically not the adult's "fault", but it is their responsibility. Adults in the heat-of-the-moment react violently without a conscious choice - the prefrontal cortex is not involved in a decision until after the action has begun. Trying to stop yourself once your anger has progressed to screaming and violence is literally trying to overcome all of your life's pains and griefs that have come to bear, and in the most dangerous and unhealthy way possible. You need to Mindshift. Notice the division between Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) in children and Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED) in Adults in Figure 1: Psychotherapy mirrors neurodevelopment across the lifespan. This means that the different psychotherapies that helps these psychiatric diagnoses as we age support our understanding of brain health and its misuse: ADHD: primarily medication ODD: primarily behavioral therapy on the part of the guardians IED: the patient can begin to rewrite their neural wiring by repetitive behavioral change and extinguishing unhealthy dopamine-raising behaviors. Anxiety, panic, depression: all have great research for cognitive behavioral therapy Clinical dementia: and we're back to behavioral therapy only again. Medications slow the progression of memory loss, at best, but don't restore cognitive function once it's lost. Detox does! Check out the supporting End of Alzheimer's research by Dale Bredesen, M.D. Both groups,
