Re: I am at peace now with my own so-called mental illness

[Guest guest]

((()))

This is a brave and honest post--and I commend you for sharing your

perspective with us.

I need to think it over before I can adequately respond,as you have

touched on so many very interesting points and my brain is frankly too tired

right now to do them any kind of justice

But I wanted to offer a big high five to you and to your

liberation--I think you're awesome!

>

> I've kept a bit of a secret here on this list. I guess I was afraid of stigma,

so I don't think I have talked much about my own so-called mental illness. Funny

thing is, down deep I never really believed I had one, though there was no doubt

in my mind about what I had experienced and that I was powerless over it. As a

person who has had her own transient psychoses, I am grateful to find out that I

did the right thing for myself and insisting I taper off my medications. It was

hard being alone in room with a psychiatric doctor who I had to convince I did

not have manic-depression. He thought he was doing me a favor by changing my

diagnosis to schizophrenia. Thank God my husband stuck by me while I followed

my fear and anger to find out the truth for myself. Today it is HE that insists

I have no illness, he calls it a vulnerability. I am very very blessed.

>

> I was going to devote myself to writing a book about my experience and share

how to recover and come off medications....(Such hubris?) Now I wonder if it

is necessary to do this work. I feel strangely liberated now.

>

> For you see, for schizophrenia ...the most cunning, baffling and powerful

illness the psychiatric profession has encountered.... the officials finally are

admitting that fifty years of a pharmaceutical treatment has not bee proven

effectual. I knew the first time I was given a medication that something was

wrong. You feel so weird that if you are a strong person you fight like an

animal because it perturbs brain chemistry even more than a brief psychosis

could ever do by itself. But of course, they blamed the victims for years, for

objecting to medications... and forced people to consent to experimental

treatments....

>

> Here is the announcement on a blog at the National Institute of Mental Health.

I fought the good fight and I am free. And now, others will hopefully be advised

by their doctors that it is time, high time, to reconsider their medicine

regimins. I say Hallelujah! I do so want to sing!

>

>

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2010/from-cognition-to-genomics-progress-\

in-schizophrenia-research.shtml

>

> I thought this would be of interest to others here. If I read it correctly,

one of the key breakthroughs is that we might be able to prevent our heal mental

health problems by doing the painstaking work of changing our thinking.

Cognitive thinking, not medicines may be the way we actually work with our

genetic predispositions for " malfunction " . I am in danger of speaking too

generally, moving from schizophrenia to " all other mental illnesses. " But

because borderline can have just the same kind of transient psychoses I

experience, and my brother for a long time thought our mom was schizophrenic, I

think I can make this more personal.

>

> So let me finish by saying that I have nearly given hope for my nada, because

of her advanced condition......For me the article validates my humble experience

in walking away from the fleas of the BPD environment I was raised in. Those

fleas, along with the brain altering effects of perimenopause, nearly took my

sanity when my son was 4. It took me 2 years to believe in myself enough to

question my own diagnosis... and assert myself with the " shrink " . I was

terrified of authority figures, but actually I suspected that psychiatry was a

sham just like the wizard of oz. I thought I was going to have to do battle

with psychiatry if my son also had a vulnerable brain, like I did. Now, maybe

I can just trust that I have already made a difference for my son. I am a

person who did the hard work of looking at my demons, insisting on doing so,

when the medical model told me that the best hope was to prevent my psychosis

with drugs that the establishment will finally admit were damaging the brain.

They denied it for years, telling us that the drugs were like insulin for

diabetes. One time when I questioned, my doctor suggested I had control issues.

>

> I feel so redeemed. I am glad I did my fight. Finally, I realize I was enough

..... all along.... I am enough and I am becoming freer and freer but I did not

do it alone. No. I think I have a lot of people to thank ... all the

coincidences and my trusting in the hope that held those coincidences together

.... led me to this place.

>

> And then there was the day that I finally read Stop Walking on Eggshells. When

I was finally ready to read it, I was medication free, trusting myself more and

more. I'd earned the trust of my husband, my brother, and my son, and so when I

read the book, I was a lot less likely to undermine my own recovery. When I

read the book, I saw how much work I had done.

>

> There is a lot of work ahead, and the medication model won't be abandoned

right away. One can hope and pray that it is a gentle metamorphosis. My heart

also hurts for those for whom it will be a huge challenge to come away from a

broken mental health system...

>

[Guest guest]

((()))

This is a brave and honest post--and I commend you for sharing your

perspective with us.

I need to think it over before I can adequately respond,as you have

touched on so many very interesting points and my brain is frankly too tired

right now to do them any kind of justice

But I wanted to offer a big high five to you and to your

liberation--I think you're awesome!

>

> I've kept a bit of a secret here on this list. I guess I was afraid of stigma,

so I don't think I have talked much about my own so-called mental illness. Funny

thing is, down deep I never really believed I had one, though there was no doubt

in my mind about what I had experienced and that I was powerless over it. As a

person who has had her own transient psychoses, I am grateful to find out that I

did the right thing for myself and insisting I taper off my medications. It was

hard being alone in room with a psychiatric doctor who I had to convince I did

not have manic-depression. He thought he was doing me a favor by changing my

diagnosis to schizophrenia. Thank God my husband stuck by me while I followed

my fear and anger to find out the truth for myself. Today it is HE that insists

I have no illness, he calls it a vulnerability. I am very very blessed.

>

> I was going to devote myself to writing a book about my experience and share

how to recover and come off medications....(Such hubris?) Now I wonder if it

is necessary to do this work. I feel strangely liberated now.

>

> For you see, for schizophrenia ...the most cunning, baffling and powerful

illness the psychiatric profession has encountered.... the officials finally are

admitting that fifty years of a pharmaceutical treatment has not bee proven

effectual. I knew the first time I was given a medication that something was

wrong. You feel so weird that if you are a strong person you fight like an

animal because it perturbs brain chemistry even more than a brief psychosis

could ever do by itself. But of course, they blamed the victims for years, for

objecting to medications... and forced people to consent to experimental

treatments....

>

> Here is the announcement on a blog at the National Institute of Mental Health.

I fought the good fight and I am free. And now, others will hopefully be advised

by their doctors that it is time, high time, to reconsider their medicine

regimins. I say Hallelujah! I do so want to sing!

>

>

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2010/from-cognition-to-genomics-progress-\

in-schizophrenia-research.shtml

>

> I thought this would be of interest to others here. If I read it correctly,

one of the key breakthroughs is that we might be able to prevent our heal mental

health problems by doing the painstaking work of changing our thinking.

Cognitive thinking, not medicines may be the way we actually work with our

genetic predispositions for " malfunction " . I am in danger of speaking too

generally, moving from schizophrenia to " all other mental illnesses. " But

because borderline can have just the same kind of transient psychoses I

experience, and my brother for a long time thought our mom was schizophrenic, I

think I can make this more personal.

>

> So let me finish by saying that I have nearly given hope for my nada, because

of her advanced condition......For me the article validates my humble experience

in walking away from the fleas of the BPD environment I was raised in. Those

fleas, along with the brain altering effects of perimenopause, nearly took my

sanity when my son was 4. It took me 2 years to believe in myself enough to

question my own diagnosis... and assert myself with the " shrink " . I was

terrified of authority figures, but actually I suspected that psychiatry was a

sham just like the wizard of oz. I thought I was going to have to do battle

with psychiatry if my son also had a vulnerable brain, like I did. Now, maybe

I can just trust that I have already made a difference for my son. I am a

person who did the hard work of looking at my demons, insisting on doing so,

when the medical model told me that the best hope was to prevent my psychosis

with drugs that the establishment will finally admit were damaging the brain.

They denied it for years, telling us that the drugs were like insulin for

diabetes. One time when I questioned, my doctor suggested I had control issues.

>

> I feel so redeemed. I am glad I did my fight. Finally, I realize I was enough

..... all along.... I am enough and I am becoming freer and freer but I did not

do it alone. No. I think I have a lot of people to thank ... all the

coincidences and my trusting in the hope that held those coincidences together

.... led me to this place.

>

> And then there was the day that I finally read Stop Walking on Eggshells. When

I was finally ready to read it, I was medication free, trusting myself more and

more. I'd earned the trust of my husband, my brother, and my son, and so when I

read the book, I was a lot less likely to undermine my own recovery. When I

read the book, I saw how much work I had done.

>

> There is a lot of work ahead, and the medication model won't be abandoned

right away. One can hope and pray that it is a gentle metamorphosis. My heart

also hurts for those for whom it will be a huge challenge to come away from a

broken mental health system...

>

[Guest guest]

This is really significant and wonderful, I'm so happy for you. How horrible to

be misdiagnosed and have to be on meds that you didn't actually need that made

you feel even worse. I'm glad for you that whatever your condition is, you've

discovered a method of dealing with your symptoms that works for you.

That must feel very gratifying that NIMH now agrees that the current med

protocol for schizophrenia isn't really very effective; that truly must be very

validating for you!

And I too find it fascinating RE how hormones impact us women. Several friends

of mine began evidencing or admitting to extreme and uncharacteristic mood

swings, distress, and negative, upsetting feelings and behaviors when

approaching menopause. Those hormone fluctuations really do have a

significantly negative impact on the emotions/moods of some individuals, it

would appear; who knows why some of us go relatively unfazed by the hormonal

fluctuations of the menstruation cycle or the hormonal fluctuations of

menopause, while others are *highly* impacted? The question is worth more and

better scientific studies, sez I.

Thanks for sharing this with us, its very inspiring!

-Annie

>

> I've kept a bit of a secret here on this list. I guess I was afraid of stigma,

so I don't think I have talked much about my own so-called mental illness. Funny

thing is, down deep I never really believed I had one, though there was no doubt

in my mind about what I had experienced and that I was powerless over it. As a

person who has had her own transient psychoses, I am grateful to find out that I

did the right thing for myself and insisting I taper off my medications. It was

hard being alone in room with a psychiatric doctor who I had to convince I did

not have manic-depression. He thought he was doing me a favor by changing my

diagnosis to schizophrenia. Thank God my husband stuck by me while I followed

my fear and anger to find out the truth for myself. Today it is HE that insists

I have no illness, he calls it a vulnerability. I am very very blessed.

>

> I was going to devote myself to writing a book about my experience and share

how to recover and come off medications....(Such hubris?) Now I wonder if it

is necessary to do this work. I feel strangely liberated now.

>

> For you see, for schizophrenia ...the most cunning, baffling and powerful

illness the psychiatric profession has encountered.... the officials finally are

admitting that fifty years of a pharmaceutical treatment has not bee proven

effectual. I knew the first time I was given a medication that something was

wrong. You feel so weird that if you are a strong person you fight like an

animal because it perturbs brain chemistry even more than a brief psychosis

could ever do by itself. But of course, they blamed the victims for years, for

objecting to medications... and forced people to consent to experimental

treatments....

>

> Here is the announcement on a blog at the National Institute of Mental Health.

I fought the good fight and I am free. And now, others will hopefully be advised

by their doctors that it is time, high time, to reconsider their medicine

regimins. I say Hallelujah! I do so want to sing!

>

>

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2010/from-cognition-to-genomics-progress-\

in-schizophrenia-research.shtml

>

> I thought this would be of interest to others here. If I read it correctly,

one of the key breakthroughs is that we might be able to prevent our heal mental

health problems by doing the painstaking work of changing our thinking.

Cognitive thinking, not medicines may be the way we actually work with our

genetic predispositions for " malfunction " . I am in danger of speaking too

generally, moving from schizophrenia to " all other mental illnesses. " But

because borderline can have just the same kind of transient psychoses I

experience, and my brother for a long time thought our mom was schizophrenic, I

think I can make this more personal.

>

> So let me finish by saying that I have nearly given hope for my nada, because

of her advanced condition......For me the article validates my humble experience

in walking away from the fleas of the BPD environment I was raised in. Those

fleas, along with the brain altering effects of perimenopause, nearly took my

sanity when my son was 4. It took me 2 years to believe in myself enough to

question my own diagnosis... and assert myself with the " shrink " . I was

terrified of authority figures, but actually I suspected that psychiatry was a

sham just like the wizard of oz. I thought I was going to have to do battle

with psychiatry if my son also had a vulnerable brain, like I did. Now, maybe

I can just trust that I have already made a difference for my son. I am a

person who did the hard work of looking at my demons, insisting on doing so,

when the medical model told me that the best hope was to prevent my psychosis

with drugs that the establishment will finally admit were damaging the brain.

They denied it for years, telling us that the drugs were like insulin for

diabetes. One time when I questioned, my doctor suggested I had control issues.

>

> I feel so redeemed. I am glad I did my fight. Finally, I realize I was enough

..... all along.... I am enough and I am becoming freer and freer but I did not

do it alone. No. I think I have a lot of people to thank ... all the

coincidences and my trusting in the hope that held those coincidences together

.... led me to this place.

>

> And then there was the day that I finally read Stop Walking on Eggshells. When

I was finally ready to read it, I was medication free, trusting myself more and

more. I'd earned the trust of my husband, my brother, and my son, and so when I

read the book, I was a lot less likely to undermine my own recovery. When I

read the book, I saw how much work I had done.

>

> There is a lot of work ahead, and the medication model won't be abandoned

right away. One can hope and pray that it is a gentle metamorphosis. My heart

also hurts for those for whom it will be a huge challenge to come away from a

broken mental health system...

>

[Guest guest]

This is really significant and wonderful, I'm so happy for you. How horrible to

be misdiagnosed and have to be on meds that you didn't actually need that made

you feel even worse. I'm glad for you that whatever your condition is, you've

discovered a method of dealing with your symptoms that works for you.

That must feel very gratifying that NIMH now agrees that the current med

protocol for schizophrenia isn't really very effective; that truly must be very

validating for you!

And I too find it fascinating RE how hormones impact us women. Several friends

of mine began evidencing or admitting to extreme and uncharacteristic mood

swings, distress, and negative, upsetting feelings and behaviors when

approaching menopause. Those hormone fluctuations really do have a

significantly negative impact on the emotions/moods of some individuals, it

would appear; who knows why some of us go relatively unfazed by the hormonal

fluctuations of the menstruation cycle or the hormonal fluctuations of

menopause, while others are *highly* impacted? The question is worth more and

better scientific studies, sez I.

Thanks for sharing this with us, its very inspiring!

-Annie

>

> I've kept a bit of a secret here on this list. I guess I was afraid of stigma,

so I don't think I have talked much about my own so-called mental illness. Funny

thing is, down deep I never really believed I had one, though there was no doubt

in my mind about what I had experienced and that I was powerless over it. As a

person who has had her own transient psychoses, I am grateful to find out that I

did the right thing for myself and insisting I taper off my medications. It was

hard being alone in room with a psychiatric doctor who I had to convince I did

not have manic-depression. He thought he was doing me a favor by changing my

diagnosis to schizophrenia. Thank God my husband stuck by me while I followed

my fear and anger to find out the truth for myself. Today it is HE that insists

I have no illness, he calls it a vulnerability. I am very very blessed.

>

> I was going to devote myself to writing a book about my experience and share

how to recover and come off medications....(Such hubris?) Now I wonder if it

is necessary to do this work. I feel strangely liberated now.

>

> For you see, for schizophrenia ...the most cunning, baffling and powerful

illness the psychiatric profession has encountered.... the officials finally are

admitting that fifty years of a pharmaceutical treatment has not bee proven

effectual. I knew the first time I was given a medication that something was

wrong. You feel so weird that if you are a strong person you fight like an

animal because it perturbs brain chemistry even more than a brief psychosis

could ever do by itself. But of course, they blamed the victims for years, for

objecting to medications... and forced people to consent to experimental

treatments....

>

> Here is the announcement on a blog at the National Institute of Mental Health.

I fought the good fight and I am free. And now, others will hopefully be advised

by their doctors that it is time, high time, to reconsider their medicine

regimins. I say Hallelujah! I do so want to sing!

>

>

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2010/from-cognition-to-genomics-progress-\

in-schizophrenia-research.shtml

>

> I thought this would be of interest to others here. If I read it correctly,

one of the key breakthroughs is that we might be able to prevent our heal mental

health problems by doing the painstaking work of changing our thinking.

Cognitive thinking, not medicines may be the way we actually work with our

genetic predispositions for " malfunction " . I am in danger of speaking too

generally, moving from schizophrenia to " all other mental illnesses. " But

because borderline can have just the same kind of transient psychoses I

experience, and my brother for a long time thought our mom was schizophrenic, I

think I can make this more personal.

>

> So let me finish by saying that I have nearly given hope for my nada, because

of her advanced condition......For me the article validates my humble experience

in walking away from the fleas of the BPD environment I was raised in. Those

fleas, along with the brain altering effects of perimenopause, nearly took my

sanity when my son was 4. It took me 2 years to believe in myself enough to

question my own diagnosis... and assert myself with the " shrink " . I was

terrified of authority figures, but actually I suspected that psychiatry was a

sham just like the wizard of oz. I thought I was going to have to do battle

with psychiatry if my son also had a vulnerable brain, like I did. Now, maybe

I can just trust that I have already made a difference for my son. I am a

person who did the hard work of looking at my demons, insisting on doing so,

when the medical model told me that the best hope was to prevent my psychosis

with drugs that the establishment will finally admit were damaging the brain.

They denied it for years, telling us that the drugs were like insulin for

diabetes. One time when I questioned, my doctor suggested I had control issues.

>

> I feel so redeemed. I am glad I did my fight. Finally, I realize I was enough

..... all along.... I am enough and I am becoming freer and freer but I did not

do it alone. No. I think I have a lot of people to thank ... all the

coincidences and my trusting in the hope that held those coincidences together

.... led me to this place.

>

> And then there was the day that I finally read Stop Walking on Eggshells. When

I was finally ready to read it, I was medication free, trusting myself more and

more. I'd earned the trust of my husband, my brother, and my son, and so when I

read the book, I was a lot less likely to undermine my own recovery. When I

read the book, I saw how much work I had done.

>

> There is a lot of work ahead, and the medication model won't be abandoned

right away. One can hope and pray that it is a gentle metamorphosis. My heart

also hurts for those for whom it will be a huge challenge to come away from a

broken mental health system...

>

[Guest guest]

Thanks all for listening. I am both elated and in a state of sorrow actually. I

have built my last seven years around mental illness. The system just looked at

me blankly when I brought up possible causes for my psychoses.

The hospital has forms they fill out for you that are supposed to help when you

are allowed to go home. There is a blank in which they list your strengths for

you. Mine was filled out with just one strength, " patient is married. "

Two weeks in the hospital and the only tools that I came away with 1) anger that

was much more well informed and saw clearly all the dysfunction of our health

system. And 2) medications that left me constipated almost to the point of

bowel impaction. I was involuntary so when I objected to the doctor's words,

that we were correcting dopamine levels, which I already knew was a highly

questionable theory, she accused me of not thinking of my family. A lie. She

told me I would feel so much better when the medications kicked in. Yeah right.

When I asked for another doctor, I was not given one.

My anger served me better, but first I had to master it. Founding a twelve step

group for emotional recovery in my home town, upped the ante on my healing and

has kept me honest. Still, it has not been an easy path. I am just glad that I

was not born a century ago, when the mentally ill were even more abused and

marginalized!

Thanks guys for your support. I do hope you see the BPD connection, and why I

have bent over backwards to have empathy for my mom? But now, thanks again to

you all, and Annie in particular, I am learning boundaries.

Much love and may we all dance our way to happiness.

In gratitude,

[Guest guest]

,

What I found most interesting in the article you shared is the idea

that a " cognitive retraining regimen " could be developed to help people control

their own psychotic episodes,which from the sounds of it would be like a DBT

style therapy for conditions such as schizophrenia...and I appreciated the

optimistic prediction that such a therapy could perhaps save lives by

safeguarding cognition similar to how heart disease prevention measures teach

people how to keep their hearts healthy.

And wow,telling patients that the drugs are like insulin for diabetes

is pretty ironic--isn't diabetes one of the potential side effects of

Olanzapine/Zyprexa?!

It's also interesting to me that a precise genetic marker can't be

located for schizophrenia; that the cause appears to be a complex interplay of

multiple factors.I know that for years now the anti-psychotic drugs have been

touted as the next best thing to a cure but if these drugs perturb brain

chemistry so radically,how curative are they really?

I also wonder if some schizophrenic states aren't so much genetically

based as environmental,an hypothesis that fell out of favor with the advent of

genetic testing techniques and the development of the atypical antipsychotic

medications,but that I think shouldn't be entirely discounted in all

cases.Perhaps such a condition with an environmental etiology also shouldn't

even be termed " schizophrenia " but is something analogous to trauma based

conditions like Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,that is,a psychiatric

injury rather than an organic illness.I think it's awesome that you have been

able to fight for your right not to be force fed medication and to do the hard

work of looking at your demons--that you did this and can now say that you are

becoming freer and freer is very inspiring.

Thanks again for sharing!

>

> I've kept a bit of a secret here on this list. I guess I was afraid of stigma,

so I don't think I have talked much about my own so-called mental illness. Funny

thing is, down deep I never really believed I had one, though there was no doubt

in my mind about what I had experienced and that I was powerless over it. As a

person who has had her own transient psychoses, I am grateful to find out that I

did the right thing for myself and insisting I taper off my medications. It was

hard being alone in room with a psychiatric doctor who I had to convince I did

not have manic-depression. He thought he was doing me a favor by changing my

diagnosis to schizophrenia. Thank God my husband stuck by me while I followed

my fear and anger to find out the truth for myself. Today it is HE that insists

I have no illness, he calls it a vulnerability. I am very very blessed.

>

> I was going to devote myself to writing a book about my experience and share

how to recover and come off medications....(Such hubris?) Now I wonder if it

is necessary to do this work. I feel strangely liberated now.

>

> For you see, for schizophrenia ...the most cunning, baffling and powerful

illness the psychiatric profession has encountered.... the officials finally are

admitting that fifty years of a pharmaceutical treatment has not bee proven

effectual. I knew the first time I was given a medication that something was

wrong. You feel so weird that if you are a strong person you fight like an

animal because it perturbs brain chemistry even more than a brief psychosis

could ever do by itself. But of course, they blamed the victims for years, for

objecting to medications... and forced people to consent to experimental

treatments....

>

> Here is the announcement on a blog at the National Institute of Mental Health.

I fought the good fight and I am free. And now, others will hopefully be advised

by their doctors that it is time, high time, to reconsider their medicine

regimins. I say Hallelujah! I do so want to sing!

>

>

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2010/from-cognition-to-genomics-progress-\

in-schizophrenia-research.shtml

>

> I thought this would be of interest to others here. If I read it correctly,

one of the key breakthroughs is that we might be able to prevent our heal mental

health problems by doing the painstaking work of changing our thinking.

Cognitive thinking, not medicines may be the way we actually work with our

genetic predispositions for " malfunction " . I am in danger of speaking too

generally, moving from schizophrenia to " all other mental illnesses. " But

because borderline can have just the same kind of transient psychoses I

experience, and my brother for a long time thought our mom was schizophrenic, I

think I can make this more personal.

>

> So let me finish by saying that I have nearly given hope for my nada, because

of her advanced condition......For me the article validates my humble experience

in walking away from the fleas of the BPD environment I was raised in. Those

fleas, along with the brain altering effects of perimenopause, nearly took my

sanity when my son was 4. It took me 2 years to believe in myself enough to

question my own diagnosis... and assert myself with the " shrink " . I was

terrified of authority figures, but actually I suspected that psychiatry was a

sham just like the wizard of oz. I thought I was going to have to do battle

with psychiatry if my son also had a vulnerable brain, like I did. Now, maybe

I can just trust that I have already made a difference for my son. I am a

person who did the hard work of looking at my demons, insisting on doing so,

when the medical model told me that the best hope was to prevent my psychosis

with drugs that the establishment will finally admit were damaging the brain.

They denied it for years, telling us that the drugs were like insulin for

diabetes. One time when I questioned, my doctor suggested I had control issues.

>

> I feel so redeemed. I am glad I did my fight. Finally, I realize I was enough

..... all along.... I am enough and I am becoming freer and freer but I did not

do it alone. No. I think I have a lot of people to thank ... all the

coincidences and my trusting in the hope that held those coincidences together

.... led me to this place.

>

> And then there was the day that I finally read Stop Walking on Eggshells. When

I was finally ready to read it, I was medication free, trusting myself more and

more. I'd earned the trust of my husband, my brother, and my son, and so when I

read the book, I was a lot less likely to undermine my own recovery. When I

read the book, I saw how much work I had done.

>

> There is a lot of work ahead, and the medication model won't be abandoned

right away. One can hope and pray that it is a gentle metamorphosis. My heart

also hurts for those for whom it will be a huge challenge to come away from a

broken mental health system...

>

[Guest guest]

Hugs sweetie, very proud of you.

On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 11:07 AM, christine.depizan <

christine.depizan@...> wrote:

>

>

> ,

>

> What I found most interesting in the article you shared is the idea that a

> " cognitive retraining regimen " could be developed to help people control

> their own psychotic episodes,which from the sounds of it would be like a DBT

> style therapy for conditions such as schizophrenia...and I appreciated the

> optimistic prediction that such a therapy could perhaps save lives by

> safeguarding cognition similar to how heart disease prevention measures

> teach people how to keep their hearts healthy.

>

> And wow,telling patients that the drugs are like insulin for diabetes is

> pretty ironic--isn't diabetes one of the potential side effects of

> Olanzapine/Zyprexa?!

>

> It's also interesting to me that a precise genetic marker can't be located

> for schizophrenia; that the cause appears to be a complex interplay of

> multiple factors.I know that for years now the anti-psychotic drugs have

> been touted as the next best thing to a cure but if these drugs perturb

> brain chemistry so radically,how curative are they really?

>

> I also wonder if some schizophrenic states aren't so much genetically based

> as environmental,an hypothesis that fell out of favor with the advent of

> genetic testing techniques and the development of the atypical antipsychotic

> medications,but that I think shouldn't be entirely discounted in all

> cases.Perhaps such a condition with an environmental etiology also shouldn't

> even be termed " schizophrenia " but is something analogous to trauma based

> conditions like Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,that is,a psychiatric

> injury rather than an organic illness.I think it's awesome that you have

> been able to fight for your right not to be force fed medication and to do

> the hard work of looking at your demons--that you did this and can now say

> that you are becoming freer and freer is very inspiring.

>

> Thanks again for sharing!

>

>

>

>

>

> >

> > I've kept a bit of a secret here on this list. I guess I was afraid of

> stigma, so I don't think I have talked much about my own so-called mental

> illness. Funny thing is, down deep I never really believed I had one, though

> there was no doubt in my mind about what I had experienced and that I was

> powerless over it. As a person who has had her own transient psychoses, I am

> grateful to find out that I did the right thing for myself and insisting I

> taper off my medications. It was hard being alone in room with a psychiatric

> doctor who I had to convince I did not have manic-depression. He thought he

> was doing me a favor by changing my diagnosis to schizophrenia. Thank God my

> husband stuck by me while I followed my fear and anger to find out the truth

> for myself. Today it is HE that insists I have no illness, he calls it a

> vulnerability. I am very very blessed.

> >

> > I was going to devote myself to writing a book about my experience and

> share how to recover and come off medications....(Such hubris?) Now I wonder

> if it is necessary to do this work. I feel strangely liberated now.

> >

> > For you see, for schizophrenia ...the most cunning, baffling and powerful

> illness the psychiatric profession has encountered.... the officials finally

> are admitting that fifty years of a pharmaceutical treatment has not bee

> proven effectual. I knew the first time I was given a medication that

> something was wrong. You feel so weird that if you are a strong person you

> fight like an animal because it perturbs brain chemistry even more than a

> brief psychosis could ever do by itself. But of course, they blamed the

> victims for years, for objecting to medications... and forced people to

> consent to experimental treatments....

> >

> > Here is the announcement on a blog at the National Institute of Mental

> Health. I fought the good fight and I am free. And now, others will

> hopefully be advised by their doctors that it is time, high time, to

> reconsider their medicine regimins. I say Hallelujah! I do so want to sing!

> >

> >

>

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2010/from-cognition-to-genomics-progress-\

in-schizophrenia-research.shtml

> >

> > I thought this would be of interest to others here. If I read it

> correctly, one of the key breakthroughs is that we might be able to prevent

> our heal mental health problems by doing the painstaking work of changing

> our thinking. Cognitive thinking, not medicines may be the way we actually

> work with our genetic predispositions for " malfunction " . I am in danger of

> speaking too generally, moving from schizophrenia to " all other mental

> illnesses. " But because borderline can have just the same kind of transient

> psychoses I experience, and my brother for a long time thought our mom was

> schizophrenic, I think I can make this more personal.

> >

> > So let me finish by saying that I have nearly given hope for my nada,

> because of her advanced condition......For me the article validates my

> humble experience in walking away from the fleas of the BPD environment I

> was raised in. Those fleas, along with the brain altering effects of

> perimenopause, nearly took my sanity when my son was 4. It took me 2 years

> to believe in myself enough to question my own diagnosis... and assert

> myself with the " shrink " . I was terrified of authority figures, but actually

> I suspected that psychiatry was a sham just like the wizard of oz. I thought

> I was going to have to do battle with psychiatry if my son also had a

> vulnerable brain, like I did. Now, maybe I can just trust that I have

> already made a difference for my son. I am a person who did the hard work of

> looking at my demons, insisting on doing so, when the medical model told me

> that the best hope was to prevent my psychosis with drugs that the

> establishment will finally admit were damaging the brain. They denied it for

> years, telling us that the drugs were like insulin for diabetes. One time

> when I questioned, my doctor suggested I had control issues.

> >

> > I feel so redeemed. I am glad I did my fight. Finally, I realize I was

> enough .... all along.... I am enough and I am becoming freer and freer but

> I did not do it alone. No. I think I have a lot of people to thank ... all

> the coincidences and my trusting in the hope that held those coincidences

> together ... led me to this place.

> >

> > And then there was the day that I finally read Stop Walking on Eggshells.

> When I was finally ready to read it, I was medication free, trusting myself

> more and more. I'd earned the trust of my husband, my brother, and my son,

> and so when I read the book, I was a lot less likely to undermine my own

> recovery. When I read the book, I saw how much work I had done.

> >

> > There is a lot of work ahead, and the medication model won't be abandoned

> right away. One can hope and pray that it is a gentle metamorphosis. My

> heart also hurts for those for whom it will be a huge challenge to come away

> from a broken mental health system...

> >

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Hugs sweetie, very proud of you.

On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 11:07 AM, christine.depizan <

christine.depizan@...> wrote:

>

>

> ,

>

> What I found most interesting in the article you shared is the idea that a

> " cognitive retraining regimen " could be developed to help people control

> their own psychotic episodes,which from the sounds of it would be like a DBT

> style therapy for conditions such as schizophrenia...and I appreciated the

> optimistic prediction that such a therapy could perhaps save lives by

> safeguarding cognition similar to how heart disease prevention measures

> teach people how to keep their hearts healthy.

>

> And wow,telling patients that the drugs are like insulin for diabetes is

> pretty ironic--isn't diabetes one of the potential side effects of

> Olanzapine/Zyprexa?!

>

> It's also interesting to me that a precise genetic marker can't be located

> for schizophrenia; that the cause appears to be a complex interplay of

> multiple factors.I know that for years now the anti-psychotic drugs have

> been touted as the next best thing to a cure but if these drugs perturb

> brain chemistry so radically,how curative are they really?

>

> I also wonder if some schizophrenic states aren't so much genetically based

> as environmental,an hypothesis that fell out of favor with the advent of

> genetic testing techniques and the development of the atypical antipsychotic

> medications,but that I think shouldn't be entirely discounted in all

> cases.Perhaps such a condition with an environmental etiology also shouldn't

> even be termed " schizophrenia " but is something analogous to trauma based

> conditions like Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,that is,a psychiatric

> injury rather than an organic illness.I think it's awesome that you have

> been able to fight for your right not to be force fed medication and to do

> the hard work of looking at your demons--that you did this and can now say

> that you are becoming freer and freer is very inspiring.

>

> Thanks again for sharing!

>

>

>

>

>

> >

> > I've kept a bit of a secret here on this list. I guess I was afraid of

> stigma, so I don't think I have talked much about my own so-called mental

> illness. Funny thing is, down deep I never really believed I had one, though

> there was no doubt in my mind about what I had experienced and that I was

> powerless over it. As a person who has had her own transient psychoses, I am

> grateful to find out that I did the right thing for myself and insisting I

> taper off my medications. It was hard being alone in room with a psychiatric

> doctor who I had to convince I did not have manic-depression. He thought he

> was doing me a favor by changing my diagnosis to schizophrenia. Thank God my

> husband stuck by me while I followed my fear and anger to find out the truth

> for myself. Today it is HE that insists I have no illness, he calls it a

> vulnerability. I am very very blessed.

> >

> > I was going to devote myself to writing a book about my experience and

> share how to recover and come off medications....(Such hubris?) Now I wonder

> if it is necessary to do this work. I feel strangely liberated now.

> >

> > For you see, for schizophrenia ...the most cunning, baffling and powerful

> illness the psychiatric profession has encountered.... the officials finally

> are admitting that fifty years of a pharmaceutical treatment has not bee

> proven effectual. I knew the first time I was given a medication that

> something was wrong. You feel so weird that if you are a strong person you

> fight like an animal because it perturbs brain chemistry even more than a

> brief psychosis could ever do by itself. But of course, they blamed the

> victims for years, for objecting to medications... and forced people to

> consent to experimental treatments....

> >

> > Here is the announcement on a blog at the National Institute of Mental

> Health. I fought the good fight and I am free. And now, others will

> hopefully be advised by their doctors that it is time, high time, to

> reconsider their medicine regimins. I say Hallelujah! I do so want to sing!

> >

> >

>

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2010/from-cognition-to-genomics-progress-\

in-schizophrenia-research.shtml

> >

> > I thought this would be of interest to others here. If I read it

> correctly, one of the key breakthroughs is that we might be able to prevent

> our heal mental health problems by doing the painstaking work of changing

> our thinking. Cognitive thinking, not medicines may be the way we actually

> work with our genetic predispositions for " malfunction " . I am in danger of

> speaking too generally, moving from schizophrenia to " all other mental

> illnesses. " But because borderline can have just the same kind of transient

> psychoses I experience, and my brother for a long time thought our mom was

> schizophrenic, I think I can make this more personal.

> >

> > So let me finish by saying that I have nearly given hope for my nada,

> because of her advanced condition......For me the article validates my

> humble experience in walking away from the fleas of the BPD environment I

> was raised in. Those fleas, along with the brain altering effects of

> perimenopause, nearly took my sanity when my son was 4. It took me 2 years

> to believe in myself enough to question my own diagnosis... and assert

> myself with the " shrink " . I was terrified of authority figures, but actually

> I suspected that psychiatry was a sham just like the wizard of oz. I thought

> I was going to have to do battle with psychiatry if my son also had a

> vulnerable brain, like I did. Now, maybe I can just trust that I have

> already made a difference for my son. I am a person who did the hard work of

> looking at my demons, insisting on doing so, when the medical model told me

> that the best hope was to prevent my psychosis with drugs that the

> establishment will finally admit were damaging the brain. They denied it for

> years, telling us that the drugs were like insulin for diabetes. One time

> when I questioned, my doctor suggested I had control issues.

> >

> > I feel so redeemed. I am glad I did my fight. Finally, I realize I was

> enough .... all along.... I am enough and I am becoming freer and freer but

> I did not do it alone. No. I think I have a lot of people to thank ... all

> the coincidences and my trusting in the hope that held those coincidences

> together ... led me to this place.

> >

> > And then there was the day that I finally read Stop Walking on Eggshells.

> When I was finally ready to read it, I was medication free, trusting myself

> more and more. I'd earned the trust of my husband, my brother, and my son,

> and so when I read the book, I was a lot less likely to undermine my own

> recovery. When I read the book, I saw how much work I had done.

> >

> > There is a lot of work ahead, and the medication model won't be abandoned

> right away. One can hope and pray that it is a gentle metamorphosis. My

> heart also hurts for those for whom it will be a huge challenge to come away

> from a broken mental health system...

> >

>

>

>