Tag Archives: healing

The Stigma of Mental Illness

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“The challenge we all face is how to integrate after loss or conflict and return to a greater wholeness of self. This is accomplished through social supports, coping, and other resources. This we call the process of emotional healing…” – from People Can Recover From Mental Illness, an article by Daniel Fisher, M.D., Ph.D. and Laurie Ahern

When it comes to mental illness what can I say that has not already been said? Not that it matters. Maybe it does. I don’t know. All I know is that I have it and so do others – others like me, who are stigmatized by the ignorance of those who don’t have it; by those who have it but don’t know it; by those who have it but act like they don’t.

How can one understand an experience if they can’t experience it first hand? I don’t believe they can. Intellectually they may be able to comprehend the phenomenon, but bodily, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, they cannot.

In my experience, except for three people in my life (one being my therapist), others do not even want to understand. It is so far beyond their comprehension that they don’t even ask questions, research, or read about mental illness. Only one other in addition to the above three shows sincere concern for my symptoms and experiences with mental illness. I am grateful that I at least have four people who care. I probably have more but they either don’t know how to show it or don’t know enough to know they should show it.

I don’t think the stigma of mental illness will ever go away outside of those who actually have it. If people could only open their minds and their hearts to see beyond the craziness, the depression, the manic behaviors, the anger, the insecurities, the social anxiety, and the disssociation – all of which most people have to some degree or another, though they’d never admit it – then maybe they would see a soul; souls who just like them are doing the best they can within the physical limitations of their bodies and minds. Maybe then they would learn how to validate rather than ignore or worse, shun or even worse, judge. Maybe then they could become allies to our healing journeys rather than obstacles.

Writing Moment by Moment #27, 28, and 29

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On this last day of January 2012, I give you my
final three “Writing Moment by Moment” moments:

1.  Sunday, I was DEPRESSION-FREE for the entire day!  I can count on one hand the number of days that has happened in the last three years so, it’s truly amazing when it does!

2.  Yesterday, as I sat outside in the mild January weather, and kids were playing in the street, I reveled in the sound of their basketball pounding the concrete and their baseball smacking into their mitts.

3.  Today, I had a terrible migraine (are there any other kind?)  However, unlike a mere two months ago, I now have medicine to take that relieves the excruciating pain.  For that I am very grateful.

What moment are you grateful for today?

Writing Moment by Moment #23 and #24

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#23 – A beautiful person gave me permission to accept help without feeling guilty and to take extra-special care of myself because I am “going through a healing period” which I need not minimize.  A weight lifted from me in that moment.

 

#24 – I think that I finally get what “mindfulness” means versus distraction.  Here’s a fun fact:

“Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density…in brain regions involved in learning and memory processes, emotion regulation, self-referential processing, and perspective taking.”  ~Psychiatry Res. 2011 Jan 30;191(1):36-43. Epub  2010 Nov 10

Now, to practice it…

What moment are you grateful for today?  I had three wonderful “in the moment” moments today – the above two and a third which I posted here.

For more on “Writing Moment by Moment” click here.

Writing Moment by Moment #22

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Although the temperature was chilly today, the sun’s rays reached out and touched my cheek like the hands of God, Himself.  I melted in the warmth.

What moment are you grateful for today?

For more information on “Writing Moment by Moment” click here.

 

Writing Moment by Moment #20

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photo by Rantes

I stepped outside this morning and inhaled the clean, cold winter air – refreshment for my soul!  What moment are you grateful for today?

For more information on “Writing Moment by Moment” click here.

Writing Moment by Moment #1

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Each day for the month of January, I am going to write about one small moment for which I am grateful. If possible, I will also include photos. I am calling these posts, “Writing Moment by Moment.”

The objectives for this exercise are to increase my attention to the little things in life that I normally take for granted or might not notice otherwise. Some examples include, a small bird chirping outside of my window, my dog’s lazy yawn-and-stretch routine, the way my daughter’s hair sticks up in the morning, the smells from the kitchen when my husband is cooking a yummy dinner, and the list could go on ad infintum.

Would you like to join me and record one moment that you are grateful for each day? If a daily committment seems too overwhelming, how about once a week or month? I’ll be honest with you…I will probably miss a day here and there but I am going to do the best I can. Each day I write for a moment is better than not doing it at all.

Leave a comment and let me know what moment you are grateful for today or if you prefer, post it on your blog and then come back and leave the link to your post in the comment section so I can stop by and witness you “Writing Moment by Moment.”

 

Today, I spotted my journal (see photos above and below) on top of my bedside table and in that moment, I felt extremely grateful for the role writing has played in my healing process over the years.

 

What moment are you grateful for today?

Writing for the Key to Liberation

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photo by Patrick Q

We will find the key to our liberation only when we accept that what we once did to survive is now destroying us. ~ Laura van Dernoot Lipsky

I survived the chaotic events of my childhood by minimizing them. My instincts used minimization as a coping strategy to protect me from further emotionally pain and confusion (something my parents should have been doing instead.)

As time went by and the insanity of my home life increased, I learned how to ignore my emotions and eventually, how to fall into a state of complete shutdown. Because of this, I now have difficulty connecting to my feelings and naturally, this causes problems in my interpersonal relationships at home and work, with family and friends and well, everywhere with everyone. Why? Because my emotional development is still that of a ten-year-old – the age at which I began to detach from my emotions.

So, here I am in my late thirties, resuming my emotional development from where I left off at age ten. Although, I have the guidance of my DBT therapist, the pains of emotional development are greater than if they would have occurred in a “normal” fashion because…

The world assumes I am capable of doing what people my age – who have by now emotionally matured, mind you – are doing; things like work full time, raise children, volunteer, socialize, keep up on household responsibilities and the kids’ school and after-school activities, be neighborly, drive in rush hour traffic, deal with horrible bosses and crabby clients, cook, clean, shop, give baths, do laundry, invest the time needed with my husband to have a successful marriage, etc. – all while staying relatively sane.

So, let me ask you this:

Would anyone in their right mind expect a ten-year-old to do all of these things? Of course not! What about four or five of those things? No? What about two or three? Maybe? What about just one or two on a consistent basis?

Currently, one or two things are all I am capable of doing consistently. Therefore, expecting me to do them all, like I was trying to do up until my mental breakdown three years ago, would be ignorant (as in, not knowing that I was still a ten-year-old child on the inside.)

Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace. ~ Dalia Lama

For two years following the start of my disability, I continued to expect too much from myself which only perpetuated my suffering and despair. Now that I know how emotionally immature I am, it would be cruel to go on as I have been.

Knowing the true state of my emotional development enables me to have compassion for myself and when compassion is present there is little room for self-hate. Furthermore, as the self-hate dissipates so does the depression and the impulses to self-harm.

My therapist refers to this phenomenon as “radical acceptance” which is a DBT term. Radical acceptance doesn’t mean, “Well, this is the way I am and there is nothing I can do about it.” (I like to call this my “deal-with-it, I’m hopeless” attitude.)

No, radical acceptance says, “These are the facts…. This is who I am right now and it is possible that these are the reasons I am the way I am….” Radical acceptance is the realization that due to the events of my childhood, I could not have developed in any other way. Therefore, I need not be so hard on myself.

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive. ~ Dalai Lama

Tomorrow I will tell you about what happened to me after I started to radically accept myself.

Do you have difficulty accepting yourself, others and the situations in your life? How do you cope with these things?

Locking the Depression Door

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WARNING: The following information is very dry and to some might be considered extremely boring. Read on at your own risk. Also, note that I cited many resources because I am attempting to process all of this information for my own understanding as it relates to my experience with major depression. I am not trying to educate or teach any of you about it. Please refer to the referenced articles for the most accurate medical information. Don’t rely on my crazy brain and what I wrote here! Thanks!

 

I talked to a good friend about the struggles of going through recurrent episodes of clinical depression. Since we both are in the medical field, our discussion naturally gravitated toward the physiological aspects of and current research on the topic.

 

Structures in the brain, specifically the hypothalamus and pituitary gland, along with the adrenal glands, which are located on top of the kidneys, all play an important role in our response to stress, both physical (i.e., pain) and emotional (e.g., fear, sadness, anxiety, etc.) In response to negative emotional states the hypothalamus (emotion center) will stimulate the pituitary gland to produce hormones that stimulate the adrenal gland to produce stress hormones, which give our bodies the instinctual drive to either, defend ourselves or flee from a perceived threat (also referred to as the “fight or flight response.”) This hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal connection is referred to in the literature as the HPA axis.

 

We know that the brain with all its connections run by neurons, synapses (the space between neurons) and neurotransmitters (the chemicals that carry the messages from one neuron to another across the synapse) is not a static organ. The more frequently our neurons communicate the same message to other neurons the stronger their connections become while the less frequent communications between neurons are less influential on our thoughts, emotions and subsequent behaviors. The HPA axis plays an intricate role in neurotransmitter (NT) function.

 

Research indicates that if a person is exposed to prolonged periods of high stress (such as abuse, or lack of stability or abandonment), the physiological response of the HPA axis outlined above repeats often enough to strengthen neuro-connections in the brain to the point of actually changing NT levels permanently. Once this occurs, ANY type of stress will most likely elicit a response similar to that experienced during times of high stress. In other words, the person will “over-react!”

 

Wow, I over-react all of the time! Miss Sensitivity is my alias! Could it be that my HPA axis is hyperactive due to the chronic stress and instability of growing up in an alcoholic home? What if as an active alcoholic I continued to reinforce this process by my own crazy behaviors and self-created chaos? What if in sobriety I continue to perpetuate this physiological response by the stress I allow myself to be exposed to?

 

So, this got me thinking…if my antidepressants work around the clock to normalize my NT levels, but my hyperactive HPA axis (if I have one) reacts to any type of stress (e.g., work, large crowds of people or kids, unexpected changes in my routine, etc.) in a way that over-powers the antidepressant effects, will I find myself in yet another depressive episode? Counselors tell me to reduce my stress via lifestyle changes; my psychiatrist tells me to try a different medication; I say what about the HPA axis dysfunction? Apparently researchers are asking the same question resulting in inconsistent answers.

 

I hope they figure it out soon. In the meantime, I will keep on keeping on and I invite you to do the same.

 

Let me know if you have any more resources to add to the ones I reference below or any information to share in general on this topic.  Also, please let me know if the links are inactive or out of date.  Thanks!

 

 

Study of the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) Axis and Its Role in Major Depression

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00001479

 

Adrenocorticotropic hormone and cortisol plasma levels directly correlate with childhood neglect and depression measures in addicted patients.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18201294

 

Update on stress and depression: the role of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516-44462003000400010&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en

 

Depression, stress and the adrenal axis

http://www.neuroendo.org.uk/content/view/31/11/

 

Major depressive disorder and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity: results from a large cohort study.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19487626

 

DEPRESSION AND BRAIN CHEMISTRY

Brain structures, stress and mood

http://www.abpi.org.uk/publications/publication_details/targetDepression/dandbc2.asp

Codependent No More – Book Review

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Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself
Melody Beattie, author of Codependent No More, How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring For Yourself, defines a “codependent” as:

one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior

She details specific examples from her personal experiences and those of others to connect with her readers and offers practical solutions to those whose lives are affected by a loved one’s negative, often destructive behaviors.

The dominant theme across Beattie’s solutions is a therapeutic tool called detachment, which she describes as a separation of ourselves from a person or a problem in a loving way.  To disengage mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically from unhealthy people, from problems we cannot solve or ones that are not our responsibility to solve.  She goes on to say:

Detachment is based on the premises that each person is responsible for himself, that we can’t solve problems that aren’t ours to solve and that worrying doesn’t help.  We adopt a policy of keeping our hands off other people’s responsibilities and tend to our own instead.  If people have created some disasters for themselves, we allow them to face their own proverbial music.

Sounds like a tall order for a world that has its nose in everyone else’s business or a country, whose attitude is often one of pass the buck, point the finger at the other guy, and cover up or, worse, buy a way out of facing the consequences of one’s own actions.

So, does this mean we are to stop caring, helping, and loving?  Is this a barbaric, every-man-for-himself type of detachment?  Beattie says not:

(Detaching) means we learn to love, care, and be involved without going crazy.  We stop creating all this chaos in our minds and environments.  When we are not anxiously and compulsively thrashing about, we become able to make good decisions about how to love people, and how to solve our problems.  We become free to care and to love in ways that help others and don’t hurt ourselves.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? 
I thought so and my next thought was, “Where do I sign up?” 
Or better yet, “Where do I get a prescription for this detachment stuff?”
If only it was that easy…

Have you read this book?  If so, what did you think about it?

 

How to Meditate – Book Review

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         How to Meditate: A Guide to Self-Discovery by Lawrence LeShan is a best-selling classic with more than one million copies in print.  Although, LeShan wrote this book over thirty-five years ago (in 1974), the benefits of meditation are needed now more than ever in our fast-paced, multi-multi-multi-tasking, high stress, latte-consuming society. 

        There are many ways you can meditate.  LeShan divides these ways into four different “paths,” as he calls them, which can each help you to achieve the same goals – less anxiety, better health, and a greater joy in living to name a few.  The paths are as follows:

1.  intellect
2.  emotions
3.  body
4.  action

        How to Meditate is a “practical instruction for anyone seeking inner peace, relief from stress, and increased self-knowledge.” I became interested in meditation several years ago when stress and anxiety started to negatively affect many areas of my life, including my sleep, my relationships, and my work.       

        Now, I meditate almost everyday for periods of five to thirty minutes. Even that little bit makes a huge difference in my anxiety levels and ability to calmly handle life’s normal stressors and even some of the big ones. 

        Do you use meditation as a way to cope with anxiety and/or depression?  How does it work or not work for you?