Tag Archives: recovery

Non-Prescritption Drugs and Mental Illness

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write into the light facebook

I wrote in my last post about how I was going to wean off of caffeine and nicotine. So far, I have significantly reduced my caffeine intake. I am down to a half a cup of tea per day. Not bad! Very excited that I haven’t triggered any migraines as well.

I have been cigarette free for 4 days now. Using the gum and smokeless device, so not completely nicotine free yet, but feel so much “cleaner” than when I smoked the real things (due to the taste, smell, etc.)

Feeling calm and encouraged. More to come…

In the meantime, I invite you to Like Write into the Light on Facebook…it is a whole nother world over there.

Co-occurring Disorders

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juggle

I found this helpful article on causes and solutions of having dual diagnoses (substance abuse AND mental illness.) I wanted to bring to you some interesting facts and highlights. To view the handout in its entirety click here to download the Hazelden Foundation’s pdf.

Factors involved in the development of psychiatric disorders:

1. Vulnerability (determined by genetics and early life experiences)
2. Stress (challenges faced in life)

Factors that can help reduce symptoms and relapses:

1. Abstaining from alcohol and drug use

“Avoiding alcohol and drug use can reduce biological vulnerability in two ways. First, because substances affect the brain, using alcohol or drugs can directly worsen those vulnerable parts of the brain associated with psychiatric disorders. Second, using substances can interfere with the corrective effects of medication on vulnerability. This means that somebody who is using alcohol or drugs will not get the full benefit of any prescribed medications for his or her disorder, leading to worse symptoms and a greater chance of relapses.”

2. Take prescription medications according to your doctor’s orders
3. Learn to use positive coping skills
4. Develop social support systems
5. Engage in meaningful activities

Which factors are you incorporating into your life to help reduce symptoms and prevent relapses? Which factors do you need to add?

Keep Moving, Keep Changing – a poem

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Who knew that clouds pass over
only to return so frequently -
a constant state of motion
only when the wind blows?

Who knew that scum gathers
in pond water; its slime slippery,
spotted with rot on both
dark and sunny days?

Who knew that inertia
holds the key to living,
and dying,
in the utmost subtle way?

I didn’t know, but
now I do. Do you?

photo credit

How Positive Thinking Can Be a Crock

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On a path to clearer views, I find myself looking up and realizing that life is nothing more than an illusion of what my mind (ego) tells me it is.

I am baffled by people who are always up-beat and positive; who love life even when things are tough; who see the good in even the most painful events.

I am writing this post and my husband, who is in the other room, just started taping up some boxes he needs to mail. Now, all I can pay attention to is the god-awful screeching sound of the tape being pulled from the tape-gun as he wraps it around the damn boxes! Like nails on a chalk board, I tell ya!

ok, I think he is finished. Like I was saying, my reality is nothing more than what my mind tells me it is. Let’s look at my outburst about the tape-gun just seconds ago. My thoughts went something like this: “Well, that made you lose your concentration which is extremely annoying! When is he going to stop doing that? I want to write and cannot with all of that racket going on!”

*uck – he’s at it again. I’ll be back…

ok, now I know he is finished because this time when the silence returned, instead of continuing to write this post I asked him nicely if he was done using the tape-gun and he said, yes. Now, I don’t have to worry about being interrupted and startled by that horribly loud sound.

One of the disadvantages of being a highly sensitive person is that what may be an average stimulus to most people is an overpowering stimulus to me. I am particular sensitive to noises. My sensory system gets overloaded if I am around too many people for too long, if the TV is too loud, if the kids have friends over playing, when car commercials come on the radio (I have to keep from going ballistic until I can turn it off), when people come in and out of the house repeatedly, when kids are outside playing loudly or a dog continuously barks… I just can’t seem to filter these things into the periphery of my awareness. Instead they dance obnoxiously in front of my face until I feel like I am going mad. Can anyone relate to that?

I am also extremely sensitive to temperature changes, bright lights, and odd smells, like when the dog needs a bath or the hamster cage needs to be cleaned. Maybe the smells are just a mom-thing, but while these noises, tactile sensations, sights, and smells are noxious to me, no one else seems to even notice them. And by noxious I mean that I get highly agitated and sometimes feel physically ill because of them.

Well, this post turned from how my mind decides what my reality is to how my sensory system is highly sensitive.

There is a fine line between what we can and cannot control. In my experience, mental illness is a biochemical phenomenon that cannot be entirely relieved by positive thinking because a large part of the illness involves the inability to control my thoughts.

Thus, “thinking positive,” “being grateful,” “pulling myself up by my bootstraps,” “getting over myself,” and other such platitudes are often ineffective. For me, until medication rearranges my brain chemicals, cognitive behavior techniques are useless. Honestly, for me, they don’t even work that well when I am properly medicated.

What works for me is getting out of my head completely. Excessive thinking is like poison for me which is why I have cut way back on my blog posts. I love reading other people’s writings, listening to positive speakers share their experiences, and creating fine art because the voices in my own head go away during these times – times in which I am completely in the present moment, not thinking about the past or wondering about the future, but experiencing exactly what is going on in the moment – as it is with no judgment of it being “good” or “bad” or otherwise, but just noticing and experiencing.

I did this with the tape-gun incident the second time around. I stopped writing, closed my eyes, stopped thinking and just listened to the sound. To my surprise, my agitation subsided.

Acceptance is the key to relieving most, if not all, of my suffering. Acceptance is the key that unlocks the door to inner peace within me no matter what is going on around me.

Now, if the TV was on, the kids were fighting, and the dirty dog was lying at my feet at the same time my husband started taping up those boxes, I am sure I would not have been able to do this. But, I believe with practice, someday I will be capable of it.

How’s that for positive thinking? ;)


photo source

Choosing Balance

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I choose balance, and then I choose to sleep too much or not enough; work on too many projects at one time or none at all; over-book my social calendar or isolate. I choose balance, but choosing it once is not enough. It is a choice I have to make over and over and over again, because the western world in which I live is constantly bombarding me with demands that, if I go along with, throw me off-balance.

Choosing balance is a test in endurance and perseverance - two qualities which are weak within me.  I succumb so easily to the pressures of this world to be “productive,” stay busy, move in fast forward just to keep up with the pace of modern-day living.  I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: At times, I believe I was made to live in solitary…maybe as a nun, definitely not as a prisoner, but most likely as a hermit…in the woods – my sanctuary – blanketed under the safety and serenity of the earth’s trees…like a mother enveloping her child in protective, warm, and loving embraces.

Sigh…re-reading what I just wrote makes me feel at peace. I wonder if this is because my mother did not provide me with loving and protective embraces, neither physically nor emotionally. Yet, the woods do, whether I am in them or merely thinking about them.

When I was very young, I would lay in bed and stare out the open window.  My view of starry summer skies was always partially blocked by the lush-leaved branches of a very tall, large oak tree in our front yard -  an umbrella of green God-goodness under which I felt safe, sometimes the only time I felt safe, laying there in my bed, while mom and dad sat on the front porch, not fighting for once, but listening to major league baseball games on am radio, together. I felt safe, I felt secure, I felt happy, I felt at peace, in my bed, under the tree, surrounded by the sweet smell of a summer breeze and the soothing voices of baseball announcers. And I slept without dreaming – something I rarely do anymore.

I have added Zazen Life – Develop Your Conscious Awareness to my blogroll because of this article on Equilibrium which inspired this post.  I recommend this website to any one trying to achieve balance in their life. Aren’t we all? But, what are you willing to let go of in order to receive what you think you want?? And once you receive it, are you willing to give it away to keep it???

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 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?

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?

I Hate You – don’t leave me Book Review

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“Am I losing my mind?”  is the question in large, bold-red letters on the back of the first edition of Jerold J. Kreisman and Hal Straus’s I Hate You – don’t leave me, a non-fiction book about borderline personality disorder (BPD.)  Kreismnan, a medical doctor, and Straus, a “health writer,” “offer much-needed advice, helping victims and their families to understand and cope” with this disorder.

          The book was published (copyright 1989) when BPD was not yet well-understood.  Therefore, more recent and effective management techniques for families and those with BPD are not available in this edition as they may be in the second edition which was released in 2010. 

         However, the symptoms and theories behind the causes and/or correlations of the disorder remain similar to what they were twenty years ago.  I Hate You- don’t leave me delves into these issues in both an objective and subjective way.

          The authors provide statistical facts as well as many case-study examples of the similarities that those with BPD share.  Those with the disorder will probably be able to identify with the first three chapters which are:

1.       The World of the Borderline

2.      Chaos and Emptiness

3.      Roots of the Borderline Symptoms

          In chapter four, The Borderline Society, many theories attempting to explain the shifts in our culture as possible causes for this disorder are explored with particular attention given to the authors’ own biases, including the breakdown of the nuclear family, an increase in two-wage earning households, and geographical instability.  Moreover, the authors state:

“Like the world of the borderline, ours in many ways is a world of massive contradictions.  We presume to believe in peace yet our streets, movies, television, and sports are filled with aggression and violence.”

“Ideally we, as individuals and as a society – attempt to achieve a balance between nurturing the body and the mind, between work and leisure, between altruism and self-interest.  But in an increasingly materialistic society, it is a small step from assertiveness to aggressiveness, from individualism to alienation, from self-preservation to self-absorption.”

[And finally,] “The price tag of social change has come in the form of stress and stress-related physical disorders, such as heart attacks, strokes, and hypertension.  We must now confront the possibility that mental illness has become part of the psychological price.”

          The last half of the book addresses those who have contact with individuals with BPD, including family members, friends, and therapists.  While these chapters give practical suggestions on ways to communicate with people who have BPD and also, how to cope with their anger explosions, rapid moods swings, suspiciousness, impulsive actions, and inconsistent communications, if someone with BPD were to read these chapters, they may – due to the very nature of their disorder – be offended.

          In summary, the authors, by their own admission, try to cover issues affecting both the individual with BPD and those whose lives are affected by someone with BPD, which leaves us with one book that has two halves; the first half being useful to those with the disorder and the second half being useful to families and others.  I think two separate books would have been more ideal.

          Do you or someone you know have borderline personality disorder?  Have you ever read I Hate You – don’t leave me?   If you did, was it helpful to you?