depression

theres a right and a wrong in my honest opinion. sometimes ppl do need medication. but aways go for the alternate ways of healing first.

low seratonin? get some sunlight
thyroid problems can cause depression and anxiety
blood sugar
talking to someone , just letting it out helps.
meditation , calm yourself.. help you find yourself again
writing , express your feelings in private and then read it. what does it tell you?
etc.

anti-depressants can be helpful, but they have horrible side-effects, and can make you feel even worse. (more suicidal even). do some research on meds, http://www.crazymeds.us is a good site. and if you go to a doctor. ask questions like crazy, dont let them tell you what you need. they tend to do that.

just dont keep yourself from doing anything. if you feel suicidal. you need to do something about it, by getting help or helping yourself. whatever feels like the right thing FOR YOU.

hope im a bit helpful. and i hope you feel better soon. get some sun and excercise!

 

I do not disregard that utilization of an external substance can radically aid in the sorting out of problems. Where I disagree with you is in your notion that you NEED the substance because your brain is LACKING it by its own natural means.

Psychiatric medications are a NEW substance being introduced, it is not the "correcting" or an "innately existing chemical imbalance". It is a new substance, synthetic substance, altering one from the state of "innately naturally existing". And again I do not disregard that the introduction of new substance can radically aid someone.

But I have to hold a strong resentment to how you insinuate the root of the problem is your lack of this newly synthesized substance. I mean, psychological problems are rising across the board in people. The problem is NOT that we haven't pressed enough pills and distributed them into enough kids hands. The root of the problem is most certainly not the lack of some newly synthesized chemical. Such a chemical is a transitionary fix, at best. Arguably not even the best transitionary fix, but nonetheless it is one for some.

Repeating the psychiatric marketing jargon from the brochures of these chemicals does nothing but distract someone from the root of the problem. The problem is much more complex than psychiatric meds, the problem is much more complex than simple energy healing.

When you say "you have a chemical imbalance" you are not saying that you have just a chemical imbalance. What you are saying is "your intuitions are wrong and mine are right". Psychiatric medications are an easy solution for you at the expense of the experiencer learning to sort out their own intuitions.

Yes chemicals can perhaps aid, but ultimately what it comes down to is the person learning to utilize, figure out and becoming capable of purposefully routing their own intuitions. The problem is not chemical imbalance, the problem is one needing to learn how to operate their own being. Saying it is a chemical imbalance distracts them from what they really need to be paying attention to.

And why is it that you say a teenage girl is fucked because she finds herself disagreeable to the environment you agree with? You are not the omnipotent one which decides what environment is perfect for all other human beings. It is entirely possible that there is some component among you and your friends that would send someone off the deep end.

You know the civilized structure we have constructed is not exactly in agreement with the earth herself. Is it really any surprise that the younger generations, fresh off the divine grid of creation, hold a stronger abbheration to the current civilized structures and the thoughts forms which exist in them? I believe there is alot of validity in the intuition to want to destroy, deconstruct, what is currently here, even doing so to oneself. I mean, your 55? Your role should not be telling kids to IGNORE their intuitions, telling kids to label the intuitions as some maldeveloped fluke, you should be helping them better route such intuitions to a necessary end means. I mean you've come to 55 and all you do is sit up there to say "ignore your intuitions, pay attention to mine." Perhaps you missed something that they are not.

 

Rygoody...

When my daughter first came to me talking about her voices and visions, I didn't shout her down or force her to eat my worldview. I asked her questions - LOTS of questions. I was very, very slow to plug her into the mental-health professional establisment, because I have major problems with that paradigm myself. I tried to ascertain the nature of my daughter's experience, and I tried to help her feel free to open up about her experience.

But when she said she was going to take her life, that was a different story. That was not constructive. She needed help, and reluctant as I was to interrupt the flow of her experience, I knew the time had come to pull her back from the brink of disaster, so that she could continue on her journey and eventually make more progress.

This is not a strong soul, rygoody. This is a soul who used to ask her mom and dad at the age of two: "What would happen to us if you and Mom died?" This is a fragile soul that needs some nurturing.

Psychological problems aren't a new thing - they have always been with us. That's why Bedlam was created.

It's a very complicated issue, and it's not all one way or the other. I'm sorry if I've come off as hard-assed - maybe I went too far in one direction, but try to understand what I've been through. If you had to live with someone who was bent on destroying herself and you, how saintly could you be about it? You can't truly know until you're actually forced to live in such a situation. No, I'm not the omnipotent one who decides reality for everyone else - however when someone mentally and emotionally abuses my children, whatever experience they're experiencing must be moved to another venue.

I'm not perfect, I admit it. But being 55 years old has nothing to do with anything. And being young has nothing to do with anything. I was young once, and it doesn't seem all that far away in my memories - I was no closer to source then - I'm closer to source now.

You have no children. You can't know what it's like. And I daresay you've never had to actually live through anything like I have. You may have some ideals, but you don't truly know yourself until you've actually been put in the situation and forced to live with it and make your decisions and actions in response to it.

If you want to judge me, wait until you've experienced something like what I have. Then you'll have a legitimate basis for your judgments.

 

your right, I really don't know exactly what I would do in such a situation

I just get the feeling that, it shouldn't even be like that in the first place and the only way to get it fixed is to dig down and figure out the core of the thing. Not just for an individual, but for humanity as a whole. That you need to sit and fester in the feeling until it's real nature is presented to you.

 

I looked after some very mentally unhealthy adults with challenging behaviour for several years and the drugs we administered to them were the usual pharmaceutical kind ...from antispasmodics to the strongest antipsychotics. A few had killed people and most had spent years or decades even in psychiatric wards and on the streets where they were generally abusing alcohol and non pharmaceutical recreational drugs ... there was nothing these people hadn't done. The alternative from being in our care (small care homes, lots of activities and interaction with staff and public) was simply back to the wards or the streets. You just have to work with what is which is never ideal, and if pharmaceuticals can stop someone killing or harming themselves or another or stop someone from living a perpetual nightmare, then that is what is needed until it is needed no longer where other therapys can be more useful and benificial, but that's not to say we didn't use more alternative therapys alongside their drug regime which of course is always monitered closely, always aiming at a minimum dose.
It's a sad thing. A holistic/alternative (non drug) approach with people who are this disturbed and unwell is a waste of time. Given enough time and the right medications improvement was most often the case and a few lucky ones would eventually leave our care to live a normal public life, either self medicating or even drug free in rare cases.
Quality of life and relief from the symptoms of their illness is the most important thing for these people.

 

smoke a blunt haze in your case

 

This was very touching, zen. I really know what you mean, especially from the point of view of a parent. We do the best we can in the moment and when a highly challenging situation comes up that's really when the rubber meets the road and we employ whatever methods are necessary. We can all talk about what we'd do in theory, and what is possible to do idealistically, but until we've actually DONE that... until we've walked in those shoes and lived that reality... then it's really empty words.

I'm glad people share what's possible outside the conventional methods, to help open our minds and consider a different way. I've utilized many a nonconventional approach with excellent results. But because I've been in those highly stressful live-or-die type situations I feel a high degree of empathy for those who also find themselves there. And as far as I'm concerned, it's no sign of failure that they turn to readily available conventional approaches. Perhaps in less stressful circumstances they may consider other alternatives. Although sometimes it's the highly stressful ones that serve as catalysts for transcendance. But that's a relatively rare occurence, I believe. A loving parent doesn't want to gamble with the lives of their children.

 

zengizmo-

that was really a great post. i think it opened alot of ppls eyes that read it and understand more.

 

And in a way, that's not far from what the psychiatrist R. D. Laing said about schizophrenia in his book called The Politics of Experience. I read that book when I was around 20 years old or so, and having had no experience at all with real-life psychosis at that point, I thought it was a very interesting approach and maybe true. At this point, after all I've experienced - I just don't know. Maybe it's true for some people. Maybe for others they just need chemical restraint - see liquidlight's post for elaboration on that.

Another book I recommend to people who are interested in psychosis (I know this is off the subject, but not too far off) is The Eden Express, by Mark Vonnegut. In this book he tells the story of his descent into psychosis, in great detail. He finally recovered - with the aid of medicine. Now he's a doctor himself, and he was quoted once as saying something derogatory about R. D. Laing.

I guess for me it boils down to this: Many people, many paths. It's great that there are so many options, and so much to explore!

 

BINGO.

 

Thx - and nice to see you again, GhostLyric - it's been a while.

 

This is just a self-perpetuating cycle. We as a society relegate the "mentally ill" to fringe status by assuming that they require intensive, westernized treatment of the type you describe above. And of course, when we invest energy into a paradigm that is based on the assumption that these people are somehow "different" from us in a fundamental way, we achieve results that reflect that investment. In this case, we get people who are encouraged to settle for lives of anesthetized pain. We don't actually believe that it's possible for someone to transform from a state of psychosis and severe debilitation to a state of prosperity and contentment.

The cycle has to be broken. Only when we begin to recognize that those suffering from mental illness are simply microcosms of various facets of the human condition will we begin to establish a functional paradigm that has the capacity to truly help people, not just dehumanize them by reducing them to a mere conglomeration of symptoms.

What is a schizophrenic but someone who is immersed in the projection and illusion that characterize ego-identification? Anyone who has ever projected a latent undesirable quality onto another or imagined themselves being judged by their peers in a moment of narcissism is suffering from what schizophrenia is at its essence. Hearing voices is one of the classic symptoms of schizophrenia, but is not the incessant internal dialogue of the dualistic mind simply a smaller-scale version?

What is obsessive-compulsive disorder but a microcosm of the ego's tendency to derive a sense of well-being from an array of external conditions conforming to a familiar pattern? And what is depression but an individual that has come to a point in their own personal development that enables their ego to see the futility of its own existence?

We relegate the mentally ill to a status verging upon "aberration" because we fear what they represent in ourselves. It is only through compassion that anyone truly thrives in this life -- and the treacherous and often uncharted terrain being traversed by those suffering from mental illness is not the end of compassion, but its true beginning.

Travis

 

radareyes...

I've been watching the movie The Matrix over and over lately, and typing down some of my favorite lines. I like this exchange:

Do not try and bend the spoon - that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth.
What truth?
There is no spoon.
There is no spoon?
Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends - it is only yourself.

This is so Zen... So radareyes, do you see that it is not the spoon that bends? I'm not there yet...but I'm far enough along that I can grasp this as a possibility...

The thing is, "possibilities" don't cut it. Absolute faith is what cuts it. As Jesus said, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, 'Rise up and be cast into the sea,' and it would come to pass as you have said."

And as Jesus also said, "One rotten apple ruins the whole barrel."

We know these things intellectually...

But as Morpheus said: "I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one who has to walk through it."

To walk through requires complete faith. Complete faith is a product of lifetimes of experience.

Therefore let's show compassion to those who have not yet attained this degree of faith - including me, and I'm intuiting, including you.

 

Yep, I'm with ya there.

True.

Now let's not get presumptuous. Though my post no doubt had an intellectual tone, much of the knowledge I was attempting to convey was derived through direct perception. Not faith -- perception. As the bible also says, "faith is the evidence of things unknown and the substance of things unseen". Let's just say, faith has its place up until a point, but when you have seen that which was previously unseen and known that which was previously unknown, faith becomes somewhat inconsequential.

Ya lost me. My post wasn't about crossing some internal threshold, but about broadening perceptual horizons. Many contributers to this thread are still being partially influenced by outmoded and dysfunctional modalities associated with the psychiatric industry. Some have allowed their personal experience to cloud their judgement. I'm simply offering some of the granules of objectivity regarding this subject that I have access to -- no more and no less. If you simply take my post for what it is, you may find that it offers more insight than you previously assumed.

Or not.

Travis

 

What is your fantasy?

 

I have many. But I suppose the most frequently reoccurring one involves my metamorphosis into some type of megalomaniacal, genius, prophet-type figure -- and is not something I prefer to dwell upon. Why, what's yours?

Travis

 

I meant the OP. But let's play:

I fantasize going to war.
I fantasize about ships and the sea day and night.
I fantasize about industrial landscapes.
I fantasize about women who are taller and stronger than me.
I fantasize about pain, violence, death, and humiliation.
I fantasize about marriage and children and day-to-day work routine.
I fantasize about Los Angeles.
I fantasize about the sun and the heat every day.

 

Most of those are too brutal for me. When I fantasize about war, or pain, or violence, I feel consumed by the imagery, even to the point of experiencing physical manifestations. I even have a fear of stopping my heartbeat with visualization alone.

Travis

 

I have that fear too. But then I welcome the darkest night and find comfort. I'm also very afraid of madness.

 

Ditto. But I've also found the old adage that there's a fine line between genius and insanity to be true. So far, I'm still teetering on the brink.

Travis