The list of the three good circles I want to happen for me tomorrow is to have better time management that will include an organized agenda every day for my daily tasks for the day. The second circle is managing my emotions by not letting my OCD, Anxiety, and ADHD hinder my day and ability to do my schoolwork efficiently. The third circle is getting back into my daily intensive cardio routine that I stopped doing due to a deep depressive episode. The one major negative thing I don’t want to happen in the upcoming days that will prevent the three circles I listed above from happening is not having the time to set a daily schedule because without that I will get overwhelmed and try to overcompensate by trying to do everything at once. If this would occur, I will spiral into me procrastinating because of my ADHD, then me becoming anxious because I feel like I am behind due to my inability to sit down and focus, and lastly leading to my obsession of me needing to be perfect and have perfect grades which I can’t get if I can’t stop procrastinating and focus.
The one thing I don’t want to happen when my time management circle is getting smaller is me getting anxious and panicking because I didn’t do or finish what I have listed to do for that day. Out of the three circles listed above, daily cardio is the least important one to me. It isn’t something I will stress over if I don’t get it done, but I will find another way to get some form of exercise done or I will schedule a block of time with 30-45 minutes for a cardio break throughout the day. But I must keep in mind that the circle would get smaller due to poor time management or not prioritizing something more important. I want to be able to let go of the idea of perfection and make everything I do a perfect piece of work. Once I let go of the concept of perfection then my stress and anxiety will go as well.
It is kind of hard for me to choose a second circle that is the least important since one circle will prevent me from achieving the second circle. But if I had to choose it would be time management and planning, I can plan everything to a tee, but life throws curve balls and I have to accept I can’t do everything I plan and it’s okay. I see myself getting my life back on track and fully taking control of my mental health and accomplishing everything I set my mind to doing. Tomorrow, I will write these two phrases on a sticky note “I will make the positive possible” and “I will choose how to focus my thoughts” Throughout the day, I will look over from my laptop and read those phrases to remind myself and one positive about OCD is that hopeful those phrases will just loop in my head for that day.
Psych 308 Journal 2
The time I asked for help was in December of 2021. I was really going through a deep depressive episode; it was one of the worst I ever experienced in my life. I usually get really depressed at Christmas time with the holiday season.It’s something that I found normal since the age of 11,but this episode wasn’t like the others. I was feeling numb, blue, hopeless, indifferent, and tired– both mentally and physically. I was having suicidal ideations and thoughts running rapid in my mind, and they looped on repeat for multiple days at a time. I was close to acting on those thoughts, but I knew at that moment I needed to get help before I do something I will regret. At first I struggled to ask for help because I was scared of how would people react when I say “yeah, I’m super depressed and I want to kill myself.” Will they look at me in terror and shock, or will they judge me and think I’m crazy and broken? That’s what I imagined at first because the hardest part is asking for help. If I asked for help, I would have viewed myself as brave and in a positive light, I’m finally receiving the help that I need for a long time.
Yes, I asked for help. I overcame it by just finding the courage to speak up to my mother and tell her how I am feeling and how I wanted to go to the hospital so I can receive help. My mother’s reaction was a mixture of panic, worry, anxious, and relief that I told her what was going on with me and my suicidal plans. The situation turned out good; but, at the same time I truly hated my time in the psych ward. It exposed, to me, the many flaws in psychiatric medicine as a whole. I only spoke to a therapist once and saw my inpatient psychiatrist three times. Other than that it’s just pills three times a day and waiting to find out when you will be discharged. Yes, I do think I can ask for help again in the future– for example, programs like intensive outpatient ones (IOP)are much better programs than inpatient psych care.
The last time I helped someone was three days ago at 3AM. My ex-girlfriend texted me a question and the question was “how do you get through a breakup?” It wasn’t our breakup she was referring to, but rather she had a quick relationship with one of her male classmates in medical school class. And from that question spiraled to her bringing up how she is feeling with life and how overwhelming medical school is. I knew she needed help due to her lack of ability to focus, especially her being far behind in the material they’re learning in this current bloc (the material in their semesters are divided up in blocs), along with her numbness and depression lasting for more than a month. I felt bad for her because she was always the stoic one in the relationship when we dated, and also she is a very practical person. For example, she planned everything to a tee, always in a list-format, ticking each box until she achieved it all. Therefore, it was surprising hearing her lose control and panic because she is now at the whims of life and the random curveballs it throws at us. I really didn’t have any thought of what other people would say considering my ex and I friends after our relationship ended. I viewed myself as a good person for helping my friend in need who reached out for help and advice.
When I offered help, we just talked and I talked about my past break up experiences with her and how with each break up the pain less and less went anyway. It was still there, but it wasn’t something I was pressed over. And I told her to loosen up on the practical approach and adopt going with the flow, because life is unpredictable and you don’t get everything you plan and wish for in life. She reacted pretty well, and understood the advice when it comes to adding a “go with the flow” mentality, but she still struggles with that concept because she is wired to think and act practical. For the guy in med school, she acknowledges that she “caught feelings” too fast and learns to not rush it. I felt the advice and help I gave was great, and she was happy and relieved that she got to talk about and get a different perspective when it comes to life and dating. And I will of course be there to help my ex in any way she needs help, because she is there for me.
From the goal list, I only have two goals. The first is academic and the second is psychological health and for the two I want to achieve the two goals alone. For my academic goal I am striving to earn a 4.0 again. Only I can achieve that because I am the one putting in the work to study and properly make sure I understand the material I am learning. For my psychological health I just want to reach a stage in life where I am at peace with myself. I know that the diagnoses I have aren’t curable, but I just want to be at a peace where I can coexist with it and have it under control where I have the power back in my life. The reason I want to do it alone is because I don’t want to become codependent on a person to keep me happy and or sane, –its my battle to take on and not others. Only I can do the work to better myself.
Psych 308 Journal 3
I would say the strengths that will most likely aid the participants would be perseverance, hope, gratitude, love of learning, creativity, curiosity, and perspective. Yes, we should measure happiness as a desired outcome. Happiness as a factor will definitely be associated with the participants’ level of success they achieve in academics. If the participant is doing well in academics, then that will reflect on their mood. Alternatively, if the participant isn’t doing well in their academics then it will be added to their other stressors which will result in their happiness being low. Happiness itself can play a role in the participants’ academic performance and their ability to retain information.
We should take into account the participants’ background, religion, and personal beliefs with regard to the measures we choose. Every participant isn’t going to have the same background and cultural beliefs; therefore, we need to make sure our measurements are broad enough to fit everyone, but not too broad to where it skews our results. Yes, we should accept the family origin influence. If we don’t, then we will be leaving out a very important variable in our study, because throughout the study, the influence from the family is ingrained in our participants’ value systems. It is not something that can’t be ignored or turned off. It’s a great variable to measure because we can see how much one’s family influence has on the participant’s academic behavior and outcomes.
It is important to avoid research bias as much as possible and remember that our participants come from different countries that have different values. So, we need to not phrase our survey questions in ways that would showcase bias and not fall into selection bias as well, by making sure our participants are the right fit for our study.
Teen Psych research paper
The purpose of this study for this exercise is to see where in the identity developmental stage using the Marcia’s theory to determine how practical Dr. Marcia’s theory is in everyday life with the responses that I recorded from my subjects. My hypothesis for my study was that I believed the subjects, I interviewed under the age of 16 will be more likely to identify with statement B, “I really don’t know what I want to do with my life, but I am trying to make up my mind about my options. I guess I am having an identity crisis.” (Morrow, 2022) than the subjects who are older. My theory to support my hypothesis is that the younger subjects have their minds all over the place when it comes to the idea of having your career and life planned out, so they truly don’t have their heart deadest on one career path since they’re still young and developing. They just transition into high school, they’re trying to find their self-identity, and the last thing on their mind is what college should I be looking into, should I choose this major, and should I do this career because it pays a lot of money? I also do believe that the female subjects will have experienced some sort of crisis and they reach the point of where they’re ready to make a commitment than their male counterparts.
Our class textbook notes Dr. Marcia theory concerning our identity development involves four different subgroups or statuses that contributes to our identity (Santrock, 2018). The Identity Status Theory involves to key things such as crisis and commitment, those two key terms are the driving force for our identity status. Now, I will give you the meaning behind those two terms. The textbook defines crisis as “A period of identity development during which the adolescent is choosing among meaningful alternatives.” (Santrock, 2018) and the textbook defines commitment as “The part of identity development in which adolescents show a personal investment in what they are going to do.” (Santrock, 2018). It is possible to never to experience having both a crisis and commitment and that is called Identity diffusion.
The way I went about recruiting my subjects for this study was by asking my mother best friend daughter, she is 18 and she has a lot of friends in that age range. Honestly, it’s not a good thing if an adult knows a lot of teenage, jokes aside let me continue. And when I went to go interview her 3 friends on their college campus, I really wanted to do it in person. Why? Because I wanted to study and read their face and body language when I read the statements to them. And for the remaining two females, my cousin and one of the clients’ hairs that she braids were willing to take part. For the male subjects they both happening to be 13, one is the brother of my ex-girlfriend and the other was my nephew. For the remaining males I needed, that same best friend daughter had 3 guys that she knew on that campus that were willing to take part. First question, I asked was “are you willing to take part in this study, and you will remain anonymous, I informed them that instead of using their name that I would they identified via using subject numbers.” After they gave their consent to participate, I then read them each the consent form one on one and had them signed the consent (at the time I didn’t know those 18 and up didn’t need to sign the consent form, but better safe than sorry.). Next I told the subjects that there is no right or wrong statement to choose from and it’s just a statement, so no pressure. After that I read them the 4 statements and I asked them if they wanted me to repeat any statements again? And repeated the same process for the two younger subjects that needed parental consent, I made sure to get verbal and written consent from the parent/guardian and verbal consent from the teen and then read to them the same for statements and repeated if needed.
I have an equal number of subjects, 5 females and 5 males. I couldn’t find a 13-year female to match my 13-year-old boy, so I just had to settle on the two 13-year-old boys. The average age for the females is 18.4 and the range was 2, for the males the average age is 16.8 and the range is 7. There are two demographic variables I noticed is the 9 out of 10 of my subjects are Black Americans and one is South Indian American. The other variable is that all of my subjects came from different financial backgrounds, I didn’t ask about their financial but based on their response when it camw to paying for college and also knowing 4 out of the 10 subjects helps to paint that narrative.
One of the great things about in-person interviews is seeing their face before they choose a statement, half of the subject paused and took a couple second to re-think their answer. For the females 60% choose A, 20% choose B, and 20% choose C. For the males 40% choose A, 20% choose B, 20% choose C, and 20% choose D. The results did surprise me, for the college students, I interviewed I came in with the mindset that they all will choose A. Considering where they’re current at now in life, helped shaped this thought process. But for 2 of the 3 females that choose A, had a different mindset, which also shown in their facial expression and the further conversions during the interview. I will explain this conversation in more detail later in this paper. For the males, I actually wasn’t surprised, except for the one of the two 13-year-olds. I wasn’t expecting him to give A as his response, I was surprised by his response since we talked in the past and he has his heart was dead set on being a doctor like both his mother and father. This kid is brilliant and definitely more intelligent than I was at his age, and he is also gifted with building things with his hands. He would be a perfect engineer, but it’s his life and I hope to be here to see him achieve his true dream.
The same number of females and males give the same response to statements C and B. Only one subject who is a male choose statement D. The females overshadowed the males by one when it came to statement A. The males had the lowest endorsed category, every statement besides A only have 1 subject. For the genders choosing their answers, I believe that it depends on where they are in life, and what are they currently doing. There is a lot of factors that come into play, and you can’t just pinpoint one and say this is the reason why this gender agrees more with this statement than the other gender. Out of the females that are 18 years-old, three choose A and one choose C. For the oldest female at 20, she choose B. For our males one of the youngest and the 19-year-old choose A, while the other males choose different responses. It’s interesting that the oldest female felt like she was having identity crisis compared to her juniors, and also that the highest chosen statement for both female and male was A and also that the youngest of the subjects for both genders choose it.
I have mixed opinions on when it comes to using Marcia’s four categories to identity an adolescent’s identity. Why is that? Two of the subjects that choose A, confessed to me after the interview that they don’t know what they’re going to do post college. Both are psychology majors, the first one wants to get her degree and then go to nursing school, from there get her BSN and then MSN and NP since she wants to attend medical school to become a psychiatrist. I told her that makes no sense because you’re spending total for 14 years in college, I informed her to either do one or the other, so she doesn’t waste most of your adult life in college and accumulate a lot of student loan debt. If she chooses to master and becomes a psychiatric nurse practitioner she will be on the same level as a PA or continue as a psychology major and just go to medical school post college. The other psychology major had self-doubt about becoming a therapist because of her history with mental health and asked if she should change majors. I told her no, nobody is perfect, and her life experience would make her a better therapist because she can sympathize and empathize with clients better she knows what it is like to be patient, instead of just being that therapist that reads from the DSM-V and giving out the generic mundane advice pushing yourself to be better. Another reason is that as humans, no matter what age we are we are afraid to admit that we don’t know what we want to do with our lives. We don’t, admit it because on the outside we view that other humans have their lives together and if we don’t, then we are worthless. Even while writing this paper, I don’t know what I want to do with my life and definitely don’t know now that my mentor is recently passed. So, the point is, a person can say one thing, but you don’t know how they truly feel in the inside. I believed its flawed in my opinion, if I were to screen a thousand people who come in and out the mall most of the responses would be A or C.
The majoring finding from this brief study is that females are likely to experience identity achievement compared to males. For the male’s subjects, their identities are scattered. For future research, I would expand the sample size and I would also ask adults. When asking adults, I would ask them what choose to do as teenagers and then have them to compare it to their current career, then we will see if there is real change in their identity. My late mentor once told me “What is an identity? It’s a social contrast that you develop yourself to give yourself character.” – Dr. Austin Wiles
References
Morrow, S. (2022). Identity exercise: Marcia’s statuses of identity. Psyc 322 psychology of adolescence.https://canvas.odu.edu/courses/120263/files/16127278?wrap=1
Santrock, J.W. (2018). The self, identity, emotion, and personality, Adolescence (17th ed., pp. 140-141). McGraw Hill.
Table 1
Gender Demographic
| Gender | n | % | |
| Male | 5 | 50 | |
| Female | 5 | 50 | |
Table 2
Descriptive table of variables
| Gender | Average age | Range | |
| Male | 16.8 | 7 | |
| Female | 18.4 | 2 |
Table 3
Frequency table of statement choices