A question regarding being left handed.

[DarkSeraphim02]

Recently I was lurking on here using my PS3's web browser and I noticed someone, sadly I can't recall the name, mention that being left handed was a mental disorder. I took mild offense to this, but it left me more curious than upset.

How exactly is being a southpaw a mental disorder? I'm left handed, yet I've never heard anyone, including doctors, refer to left handedness as a mental disorder until now.
I know it's not as common as being right handed, and that in the past some left handed people would be "discouraged" from using their left hands for things like writing, such as my brother, who's teacher would slap his hand with a ruler, force him to use his right hand, then criticize his handwriting for being sloppy, but still, saying someone has a mental disorder simply because they are wired to favor the left hand over the right seems really strange to me.

 

[madwarper]

So, let me get this straight... Some guy, somewhere said something about some people? THE OUTRAGE! (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

 

[Kolby Jack]

Surely it was meant as a joke. Context and sarcasm are somewhat difficult to determine through text. Lefties are not abnormal or deficient in any capacity save for a select few things that are not designed with them in mind like some guns.

 

[Angelowl]

Check some research regarding it. Even though it's bit limited it's still pretty interesting. It's not just that the left hand is dominant, the brain wiring is more linked between the halves. Which on average makes us less logical but more creative. The statistics are fascinating, lefthanded people are over-representated in academical and creative areas. We tend to be more open to unconventional sex, relationships.

Historically that would just been called eccentric, novadays we use the term disorder as it's an unusual inborn trait. Compare it to the autistic spectrum, where most individuals are fairly functional in the eyes of society. I've heard from people diagnosed with it that they can't be disordered, after all they're capable of having an ordinary discussion. They can't possibly be "disordered", as only freaks and undesirables are "disordered" right?

TL DR: Yes, medically and neurologically speaking it's unusual enough to qualify as a disorder. But it isn't due the heavy stigma with the term, as the most common use of the term is as an insult.

Just my two cents, take with a few grains of salt.

 

[Caiphus]

Being left handed makes you better at cricket.

Being Australian also makes you better at cricket.

Being Australian is a mental disorder.

Ergo...?

Salutations from New Zealand to our wonderful older brothers, by the way.

 

[Colour Scientist]

It has about the same validity as someone saying that ginger people have no souls.

 

[DarkSeraphim02]

Check some research regarding it. Even though it's bit limited it's still pretty interesting. It's not just that the left hand is dominant, the brain wiring is more linked between the halves. Which on average makes us less logical but more creative. The statistics are fascinating, lefthanded people are over-representated in academical and creative areas. We tend to be more open to unconventional sex, relationships.

Historically that would just been called eccentric, novadays we use the term disorder as it's an unusual inborn trait. Compare it to the autistic spectrum, where most individuals are fairly functional in the eyes of society. I've heard from people diagnosed with it that they can't be disordered, after all they're capable of having an ordinary discussion. They can't possibly be "disordered", as only freaks and undesirables are "disordered" right?

TL DR: Yes, medically and neurologically speaking it's unusual enough to qualify as a disorder. But it isn't due the heavy stigma with the term, as the most common use of the term is as an insult.

Just my two cents, take with a few grains of salt.

*moves mouse to quote, computer locks up, gives blue screen of death, reboots, signs back into Escapist, hits quote button*
Fucking Vista.

So it's a disorder because it's uncommon? Heh I wonder if being uncommon would also classify my horseshoe kidney as a mutation or something?
I'll probably take your suggestion and look into it some time, but calling it a disorder seems weird to me, but that could just be because I'm not used to hearing it being called such.

Sadly I can't comment much on your remarks regarding us southpaws being more creative and such as I don't have a creative bone in my body, either that or I haven't found something that really caught my interest yet. I can't comment on the part regarding relationships or sex either because, well, no real experience there, which at my age could be problematic.

 

[silverhawk100]

Short answer: Technically, it's only a disorder or an illness if it's called one.

Long answer: There is a razor-thin line between psychological/genetic variance and a disorder. The Autism spectrum is the most recognizable thing that straddles it. Historically, being left-handed has been treated as... while not a disorder, a bad habit to be corrected, as socially improper. It's only a disorder if it either causes harm to yourself, causes harm to others, or causes distress or otherwise a socially debilitating fault within yourself. Since society is not set up in such a way to cause south-paws distress or allow them not to be able to function, it is not a disorder.

 

[Angelowl]

Check some research regarding it. Even though it's bit limited it's still pretty interesting. It's not just that the left hand is dominant, the brain wiring is more linked between the halves. Which on average makes us less logical but more creative. The statistics are fascinating, lefthanded people are over-representated in academical and creative areas. We tend to be more open to unconventional sex, relationships.

Historically that would just been called eccentric, novadays we use the term disorder as it's an unusual inborn trait. Compare it to the autistic spectrum, where most individuals are fairly functional in the eyes of society. I've heard from people diagnosed with it that they can't be disordered, after all they're capable of having an ordinary discussion. They can't possibly be "disordered", as only freaks and undesirables are "disordered" right?

TL DR: Yes, medically and neurologically speaking it's unusual enough to qualify as a disorder. But it isn't due the heavy stigma with the term, as the most common use of the term is as an insult.

Just my two cents, take with a few grains of salt.

*moves mouse to quote, computer locks up, gives blue screen of death, reboots, signs back into Escapist, hits quote button*
Fucking Vista.

So it's a disorder because it's uncommon? Heh I wonder if being uncommon would also classify my horseshoe kidney as a mutation or something?
I'll probably take your suggestion and look into it some time, but calling it a disorder seems weird to me, but that could just be because I'm not used to hearing it being called such.

Sadly I can't comment much on your remarks regarding us southpaws being more creative and such as I don't have a creative bone in my body, either that or I haven't found something that really caught my interest yet. I can't comment on the part regarding relationships or sex either because, well, no real experience there, which at my age could be problematic.

Pretty much. Everything not neurotypical would be classified as disorders, mutations etc if the medical community felt like it. Technically for things to be classified as disorders novadays it has to impede in your life and ability to function in society. But that could just as well be caused by external factors making it very iffy and unprecise. Kind of like being kinky is not a paraphilia unless your friends and family rejects you.

Hm, well I said on average. The amount were pretty much doubled perecentage-wise if I recall correctly, meaning it would usually still only refer to a minority.

Anyways, silverhawk100 explained it way better than I can.

Ps. Historically, I would think being left-handed would create big problems back when we fought wars in tight uniform formations. Hoplites would be quite useless if they were left-handed, unless of course they trained the off-hand enough.

 

[Evonisia]

Well, it's time to tell everybody I've got a mental disorder then.

In all seriousness the person is either joking or has a mental disorder himself to genuinely believe that being left handed is a flaw (see also: Left Handed people confirmed to die several years earlier than Right Handed people).

 

[silverhawk100]

Modern weapons training stresses both hands. Handling weapons with your subdominant hand is perfectly okay, speaking from someone who learned fencing with both hands easily.

Interestingly enough, in case you were curious (and I really don't want to go to bed apparently), we have dominant hands, dominant legs/feet, and dominant brain hemispheres and people can be a mix of the three. People just naturally notice handedness because that is how we primarily interact with the world. The hemisphere dominance is what people think of when they think that right handed people are more quantitatively aligned and left handed people are more instinctually aligned. First of all, that's pretty bunk. Secondly, interestingly enough, with the way the brain is wired, being left-handed means that your right-hemisphere motor cortex is what's dominant. See, the right half of your brain controls and senses the left side of your body and vice-versa. So, if anything, by lay-people's logic, left-handed people are actually more inclined towards right-brained activities. But that's all bunk science. Being left-handed simply means your brain isn't organized perfectly in line with the majority of the population's brains and that'll incline you towards lines of thinking and patterns of thought that aren't perfectly in line with the majority of the population.

 

[akai]

A mental disorder? Haha. That's a new one to me. I am left-handed and no one ever looked down on me for that. Most people, when they find out about it, say either: 'that's pretty cool' or 'I hear left-handed people are more intelligent than right-handed people.' No one ever thought of me as messed up, and I really don't see there's anything wrong with me. So whoever thinks a person has a mental disorder just because they are slightly different from the majority of the population needs to have their own brain checked first.

 

[Me55enger]

My first primary school attempted to make me right handed by tying my left hand behind my back.

The Headteacher got done for fraud.

Ain't nothing wrong with lefties.

 

[OneCatch]

How exactly is being a southpaw a mental disorder?

As above posters have said, it's crap.
If it were true I dread to think how 'disordered' I'd be - I write strongly right-handed, but for everything else (sports, using a mouse, even holding cutlery) I'm a lefty or ambidextrous.

 

[EeveeElectro]

It was on the Internet, it's probably true.
Ambidextrous people must only be mental for half the week.

If you're going to take notice of everything you see online, you're gonna have a bad time.

My first primary school attempted to make me right handed by tying my left hand behind my back.

The Headteacher got done for fraud.

Ain't nothing wrong with lefties.

What the chuff? Who does that!? Did they think lefties are witches that need burning?

I hope that teacher got sorted out and you got compensated somehow.

 

[Hoplon]

nah being a lefty is better. also there was that whole problem with latin for left being sinistra, the root of sinister. so we have had bad press from the start.

 

[MetalMagpie]

My first primary school attempted to make me right handed by tying my left hand behind my back.

The Headteacher got done for fraud.

Ain't nothing wrong with lefties.

What the chuff? Who does that!? Did they think lefties are witches that need burning?

I hope that teacher got sorted out and you got compensated somehow.

When my grandfather was a child, it was a common practice in British schools to force left-handed children to write with their right hands (caning them if they used the "wrong" hand). It was thought that being left-handed would hold them back in life. This at least had a little more currency back in the days when being able to handwrite neatly with an ink-pen was important.

Left-handed people often have distinctive handwriting, simply because they need to put their hand in a strange position in order to use a pen without smudging the ink as they write. This problem is greatly reduced when teachers stop pointlessly insisting that children keep the paper facing towards them when they write. Many left-handed people find it easier to turn the paper sideways and write vertically up the page.

There was still a lot of belief that left-handedness was bad for children when my dad was at school. As a left-handed child he suffered numerous attempts by teachers to make him write with his right hand but, unlike in my grandfather's case, eventually they just gave up. He's recently retired from a career in law, so it clearly didn't hold him back too badly.

 

[MagunBFP]

It has about the same validity as someone saying that ginger people have no souls.

If you say that to an Atheist that's actually an agreement. A soul is a religious/spiritual concept, and as there is no God and no true religion/spiritualism no one has a soul... especially not gingers.

OT: If there's evidence that shows that being a leftie also means that your brain is wired differently and it occurs in a significant minority of the population then it is by difference "abnormal" and seeing how we like it when everyone is wired the same way it's a "disorder" because an "ordered" brain is wired in the same way as the majority.

So yeah, being a leftie is a disorder, but that's only a bad thing if you read into the connotations of the word, otherwise it's just a statement of fact.

Also all the best people are crazy.

 

[ascorbius]

Watch this - Saw it last night.

http://www.stufftoblowyourmind.com/video/clips/lefties-video/

From a fellow leftie