Belief and Mental Health

[Muslimwoman]

Wow Francis and Brian, hats off to you for honesty. Thank you both your posts they were wonderful to read.

It does leave me rather worried though, I shall explain. To be honest I would never have mentioned this if the 2 of you hadn't been so honest. Looking at the people that have posted on this thread it seems (forgive me if I am wrong) that the people with the strongest faith in G-d also appear to be those that have or had issues with mental health - myself included.

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder many years ago and it was believed that I suffered with this disorder since about 8 years old. Nothing like your experience Francis, just uncontrollable mood swings (huge ones, from suicidal to 5 star, isn't the world great, spending spree's). I popped 2 pills every day and functioned almost normally (although with virtually no emotion). I had a brilliant career, blah, blah, blah. I then started looking into Islam and decided, within a week, to throw my meds in the bin. Okay big no-no, you have to come off them slowly right? Well I just chucked them away and dealt with the fallout. I wrote myself notes and stuck them all over the house, things like "you feel this way today but tomorrow you will feel better" and "if you kill yourself today then you'll miss the up of tomorrow". Wow what a way to live but now I don't even need the notes.

As you can see I made it through, almost unscathed. I have been off the meds now for almost 6 years and to be honest my faith has replaced the drugs. Yes I still get 'woe is me days' but now I can recognise them for what they are and I still get manic days where spending is a must but the guilt of living among such poor people stops that dead in it's tracks. Basically I suppose I have found a replacement drug. I have never actually felt more sane or 'together' in my life, than I do now and I know I am a much better human being because of my faith. I have never had what you may call a religious experience.

So the questions I am left with are:

Do I believe in G-d because I have a mental illness?

If that is true is there any harm in it?

Sometimes my illness does affect my ability to reason, so why doesn't my faith go up and down with my mood swings? My faith remains constant.

If faith and mental illness go hand in hand then have billions of people gone nuts?


Any thoughts Earl? You see now I am really worried, I am actually doubting my faith (although makes a change from doubting my sanity ).

[dauer]

Muslimwoman,

your story is inspirational for me. I too was diagnosed bipolar, in my case when I was very young -- I've been medicated since about the age of 13 -- and a couple months ago I stopped taking my medication. It was never really helpful and had significant side effects. Instead I returned to spiritual practices I'd neglected that have helped me in the past (significantly more than medication), changed my diet, am developing more structure in my lifestyle, and have been more avidly reading books on inner growth and personal development by different spiritual teachers.

I don't leave notes for myself. I'm pretty good at being aware of changes in my mood. When I start to feel a bit off I'll pick up my biofeedback system and do a meditation that focuses on fully expierencing the feeling without forcing it, just sitting with it, and then letting it pass of its own accord. In the past two months I've been more stable than I was the two months prior on the medication. I think my biggest struggle right now is that my mind is much busier. It's probably a little evident in the amount I've been posting here and to my blog.

Do I believe in G-d because I have a mental illness?

If that is true is there any harm in it?

I think equating ways of thinking and feeling that don't fit into the current definition of normal with illness is dangerous and devaluing. To me there's no harm in thinking differently and some mentalities often considered more normal are to me very negative like the stoic male who won't be openly emotional.

Sometimes my illness does affect my ability to reason, so why doesn't my faith go up and down with my mood swings? My faith remains constant.

For me the ways I relate to G!d vary depending on my mood. When I'm depressed there's a lot more yearning. Sometimes I'll just recite tehillim or sing a slow niggun and weep. When I'm more manic I feel more love and joy in G!d's presence and I tend to sing happy and ecstatic songs. I discovered the value of reciting tehillim for me at those times a number of years ago. It brings my feelings into focus.

Dauer

[Tao_Equus]

MuslimWoman and Dauer,

My hat of to you both for sharing this. One of my closest friends of many years has Bi-polar and has been hospitalised on at least 2 occasions because of it. About 3 years ago he too decided to stop the meds, and the 'self-prescribed meds' of illegal drugs he was taking. He still has difficult times but is so much more even-mooded than ever. In spite of his condition he has a very successful career and travels the world providing encryption services for big business. He has never mentioned religion to me however. I must ask him about it next time I see him.
I wish you both well in your chosen paths and applaud your bravery in not delegating your problems to doctors who in this field are little more than quacks.

TE

[dauer]

Tao,

I do believe in the value of "talk therapy" for, well, everyone really. And I think psychiatry does have its applications but not as a first line of defense. My sense based on talking to spiritual teachers and to various types of therapists about my struggles is that spiritual direction is a very important part of the process for me because of my focus on G!d and my tendency to frame my experiences in the language of religion. Most therapists I might go to see, they shy away from talk about G!d and there really isn't a part of my life that I feel is untouched by the Divine. Based on the reactions I've had in therapy to talking about my relationship with G!d or my spiritual practice I tend to hesitate bringing it up at all and yet that denies such a fundamental part of how I experience the world. I end up talking vaguely and avoiding any G!dtalk, and then when something slips and I say for example, "Everything happens for a reason" before I have a chance to go on to demonstrate the depth and meaningfulness this has for me, and the positive way I then interpret it, I'm questioned as to why I would think that.

It saddens me. I complain a lot about the enlightenment not because I'm anti-rational but because so much of the world denies everything else. A drash just came to me. The binding of Isaac, it's like Abraham is about to kill his inner child. And then G!d stops him. It was important for him to learn that he could restrain and control his inner child, that's a part of growing up, but the last thing he should do is destroy it. I think a lot of the world is sacrificing Isaac instead of binding him.

Dauer

[Francis king]

tao- u should jump in when u like- I do it! throw my daftness into the orthodox camp, watch them all bristle, its great fun...

there is a lot of debate in psychiatry as to the causes of specific mental illnesses... in schizophrenia it is found that, post mortem, there is a lot of neurological differences between the schizophrenic and the normal brain-

there is some hypo- and hypertrophy of the amydgalae, which effects emotionality, yet its also a region of the brain which is also found atrophied in those who as children suffer from a lot of stress- apparently high levels of cortisol effect the amygdalae's development, and also causes what they call dendritic pruning- the fibres from the neurons become spindly, fewer...

...there is sulcal widening, where the sulcii, the gaps between the brain, appear to widen,

... and "the most common abnormality is enlarged ventricles, implying a loss of subcortical brain cells, which has been demonstrated both in postmortem studies (Dwork, 1997) and in PET scans (Nopoulos, Flaum and Andreasen, 1997). This enlargement is often striking enough that discordant twins can be discriminated by comparing the sizes of the ventricles in PET studies (Suddath et al, 1990). Furthermore, the enlargement is usually more marked in the part of the ventricular system that lies within the temporal lobe and particularly on the left side of the brain. (Crow et al, 1989)."

..."The prefrontal cortex (PFC), known to play a role in behaviours such as speech, decision-making and willed action, which are often disrupted in schizophrenia, has also been implicated in the disorder. MRI studies have found a reduction in grey matter in the PFC (Buchanan et al, 1998), and glucose metabolism imaging has shown that patients with schizophrenia have lower metabolic rates in this area (Buchsbaum et al, 1984). It has also been demonstrated that while performing neuropsychological tests of PFC functioning, such as the Wisconsin Card Sort Test, patients with schizophrenia do worse on the tests and fail to show normal activation in the prefrontal region (Fletcher et al, 1998)".

yet- all of these neurological changes which we discover post mortem may in fact be the result of the medication and not implicated in the disorder at all...

there is also a proposed genetic link in schizophrenia, yet again, we do not know if this is a true hereditable condition or it appears that people inherit it because they grow up around schizophrenics or are born into families with schizotypal traits...

and then we have the dopamine hypothesis, which states that in schizophrenia there is a lack of dopamine within the limbic system, or the D2 receptors become over-sensitive, which causes the hallucinations, etc...

..."There are, however, serious problems with dopamine dysfunction as a main cause of schizophrenia. It takes several weeks for antipsychotics to have an effect on symptoms, although they block the dopamine receptors straight away, which suggests that other neurotransmitters, perhaps serotonin or glutamate are also involved in schizophrenia".

... "Also, the dopamine theory predicts that lowering the level of dopamine in the brain to normal would alleviate symptoms, but in reality they have to be lowered to the levels found in Parkinson's disease in order to have any effect. Dopamine alone can, therefore, only play a small role in the aetiology of schizophrenia, and we must look to other causes to explain the disorder more completely".

"Current theories are, therefore, attempting to interlink these diverse aetiologies, and it is likely that a genetically determined neurodevelopmental cause underlies both the observed brain abnormalities and the dysfunctional dopamine systems so characteristic of schizophrenia".

please see the link for references listed above-

GOOD BRAIN - they're mental

so, in truth, we don't really know what causes schizophrenia... there's a few theories, but no real facts... it's too expensive to give everyone who might have a mental illness an MRI or a PET scan, so instead we rely on rating scales and medication...

of course, earl, sometimes ppl need more than a therapeutic community- and sometimes medication seems like the only path to take, yet I feel it should only be used when ppl are in an acute phase, and that once the positive symptoms have abated and ppl are stabilized they should have the medication reduced, tapered to a minimum dose, and hopefully, eventually, be weaned off this, rather than be prescribed it indefinately...

...but look at it the other way... if you told me that you were taking me to a mental health facility, and I didn't want to go, it would take six ppl to drag me there, too... if someone was going to lock you up, deprive you of your civil liberties, stick you in a dangerous, high stress enviroment, patronise and belittle you, and then forcibly strap you down and medicate you to the extent you dribbled like a baby, couldn't walk ten metres without falling over or gave you drugs that meant you had no bladder control, would you happily submit?

...yet we look at our young man, and we say- hey, he's violent and maybe dangerous! he's non-compliant! he won't do as he's told! he must be sick!
and slap the handcuffs on him, when maybe his behaviour is actually quite healthy...

muslimwoman- "Do u believe in G-d because u have a mental illness?"- no! u have Islam-itis! its a different kettle of fish!

dauer- you'll have to explain what tehillim and niggums are....

[wil]

Interesting discussion and I'm wondering why the idea that spirit, faith, G-d, love of G-d, devotion, prayer, chanting....could replace meds, assist in healing mental disorders..why that seems contradictory?

It seems to me not all of us have mental disorders. It also seems to me that most of us believe that faith and prayer of some sort and G-d may be involved in healing of physical and mental issues.

It also doesn't seem out of the ordinary that when troubled we rely on spirit/faith.

Now another always interesting thing to me is the savants that are connected thoroughly on one plane yet lack social skills or something else that we decide to deem them less than worthy somehow.

Many a time I've contemplated who is in the asylum....is it the one wondering free and talking to the unseen? Or is it the one marching to everyone elses drum to satisfy a manmade construct of normalcy?

[Paladin]

This is a facinating thread, and so much information as well. Having read Stanislov Grof's work on spiritual emergency I find the interconnections very revealing. I wonder sometimes if it isn't our very languange and symbols we use to describe the human experience of spiritual, emotional, and somatic problems the very thing that slows our progress in understanding more. In twelve step work, the idea of spiritual solutions is key to staying away from addictions, and healing from the things that pushed us toward such unhealthy self medication in the first place.
Many addicts ( and in some ways we are all addicts) seem to harbor the idea of an exterior locus of control. In moving away from an unhealthy cognitive framework toward a healthy one, we transplant the idea of being controlled by forces outside ourselves to that of being guided by a higher power. While under the protection and guidance of this power we begin to heal, supposedly now to assume responsibility for our life conditions, realizing it is our own state of consciousness that attracts and repels experiences, or at least, perhaps, gives us our one freedom, that which is able to choose how we shall respond to external circumstances within which we find ourselves.

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by dauer

Tao,

I do believe in the value of "talk therapy" for, well, everyone really. And I think psychiatry does have its applications but not as a first line of defense. My sense based on talking to spiritual teachers and to various types of therapists about my struggles is that spiritual direction is a very important part of the process for me because of my focus on G!d and my tendency to frame my experiences in the language of religion. Most therapists I might go to see, they shy away from talk about G!d and there really isn't a part of my life that I feel is untouched by the Divine. Based on the reactions I've had in therapy to talking about my relationship with G!d or my spiritual practice I tend to hesitate bringing it up at all and yet that denies such a fundamental part of how I experience the world. I end up talking vaguely and avoiding any G!dtalk, and then when something slips and I say for example, "Everything happens for a reason" before I have a chance to go on to demonstrate the depth and meaningfulness this has for me, and the positive way I then interpret it, I'm questioned as to why I would think that.

It saddens me. I complain a lot about the enlightenment not because I'm anti-rational but because so much of the world denies everything else. A drash just came to me. The binding of Isaac, it's like Abraham is about to kill his inner child. And then G!d stops him. It was important for him to learn that he could restrain and control his inner child, that's a part of growing up, but the last thing he should do is destroy it. I think a lot of the world is sacrificing Isaac instead of binding him.

Dauer

Dauer, thanks for your words

Your sense of religious connection and your depth of knowledge on it is something that, with the best will in the world in trying to understand, remains alien to me. It is analogous to you describing a country you know well but I have never visited. Despite that I have seen on so many of your posts that you are able to draw from it to bring a perspective to a discussion that has made me think down routes I never considered. I was amazed to see on the other thread that you polled very low in your certainty of Gods existence.... below mine in fact!! Given your extensive knowledge and your much evident ability to draw from so many sources to bring a unique perspective to so many discussions, your polling really really surprised me. From that I am beginning to see that certainty is less important to you than the usefulness of the metaphor.
This analogy of describing a foreign country to someone who has never visited it is also a good one for the topic at hand. The language you want to use is not understood by the doctors because of their ignorance, not because it is not a valid language. Call me crazy, but all my favourite people live out there on the edge. They speak of things I struggle to comprehend, reveal ideas that are sometimes confused to me, but sometimes jumps into sheer genius. I find these people all tend to be highly creative, artists, writers or independent in business. They have difficulty conforming to the norms of schedules, work routines etc and so struggle to hold down normal jobs. But they are the most talented. There are exceptions tho. Those that have been hospitalised and given EST or depixel injections. They now walk around like barely functioning zombies. Struggle to hold a conversation and drool like they are...... mad.
One guy I know was just a lazy dope-head. He had no discernible illness that I nor any of his friends ever detected. So that the social security would stop pestering him to get off benefits and find a job he read up on and feigned schizophrenia. In return for his increase in state hand-outs he got fortnightly injections and daily medications that have left him a drooling mess that cannot follow a simple conversation. He is often incontinent. This guy is like a 6 foot tall Robert DeNiro to look at, walking with him almost every woman would turn their heads to check him out. But for his laziness he is more like a baby in nappies than a man and any woman that talks to him walks away after a minute at most. So I have seen what these drugs can do to a healthy individual. It's crazy to me to imagine that these substances can have any long term benefit for a sick person.
I also had the dubious pleasure to get to know a doctor of psychiatry at Edinburgh's Andrew Duncan Clinic, our mental health institution here. I use institution as opposed to hospital as a hospital is expected to heal some of its patients. I rented a flat from his girlfreind who was a nurse at the same hospital. This guy was psychotically jealous and would follow his girlfreind around, spy on her, monitor her phone etc. The point is who are these doctors that have even more power than a Judge to deny people their liberty and compel them to take substances that will render them walking vegetables? They can be crazy themselves.
As has been pointed out earlier there is a dire need of some alternative thinking in regard to the range of human behaviour that society deems normal. I do in large part blame big business, to which our governments ultimately dance the tune of trying to make everybody effectively identical thoughtless drugged up happy workers and consumers. Seems the only alternative is as Francis, i think, suggested and to run to the hills.


TE

[earl]

Originally Posted by Francis king

tao- u should jump in when u like- I do it! throw my daftness into the orthodox camp, watch them all bristle, its great fun...

there is a lot of debate in psychiatry as to the causes of specific mental illnesses... in schizophrenia it is found that, post mortem, there is a lot of neurological differences between the schizophrenic and the normal brain-

there is some hypo- and hypertrophy of the amydgalae, which effects emotionality, yet its also a region of the brain which is also found atrophied in those who as children suffer from a lot of stress- apparently high levels of cortisol effect the amygdalae's development, and also causes what they call dendritic pruning- the fibres from the neurons become spindly, fewer...

...there is sulcal widening, where the sulcii, the gaps between the brain, appear to widen,

... and "the most common abnormality is enlarged ventricles, implying a loss of subcortical brain cells, which has been demonstrated both in postmortem studies (Dwork, 1997) and in PET scans (Nopoulos, Flaum and Andreasen, 1997). This enlargement is often striking enough that discordant twins can be discriminated by comparing the sizes of the ventricles in PET studies (Suddath et al, 1990). Furthermore, the enlargement is usually more marked in the part of the ventricular system that lies within the temporal lobe and particularly on the left side of the brain. (Crow et al, 1989)."

..."The prefrontal cortex (PFC), known to play a role in behaviours such as speech, decision-making and willed action, which are often disrupted in schizophrenia, has also been implicated in the disorder. MRI studies have found a reduction in grey matter in the PFC (Buchanan et al, 1998), and glucose metabolism imaging has shown that patients with schizophrenia have lower metabolic rates in this area (Buchsbaum et al, 1984). It has also been demonstrated that while performing neuropsychological tests of PFC functioning, such as the Wisconsin Card Sort Test, patients with schizophrenia do worse on the tests and fail to show normal activation in the prefrontal region (Fletcher et al, 1998)".

yet- all of these neurological changes which we discover post mortem may in fact be the result of the medication and not implicated in the disorder at all...

there is also a proposed genetic link in schizophrenia, yet again, we do not know if this is a true hereditable condition or it appears that people inherit it because they grow up around schizophrenics or are born into families with schizotypal traits...

and then we have the dopamine hypothesis, which states that in schizophrenia there is a lack of dopamine within the limbic system, or the D2 receptors become over-sensitive, which causes the hallucinations, etc...

..."There are, however, serious problems with dopamine dysfunction as a main cause of schizophrenia. It takes several weeks for antipsychotics to have an effect on symptoms, although they block the dopamine receptors straight away, which suggests that other neurotransmitters, perhaps serotonin or glutamate are also involved in schizophrenia".

... "Also, the dopamine theory predicts that lowering the level of dopamine in the brain to normal would alleviate symptoms, but in reality they have to be lowered to the levels found in Parkinson's disease in order to have any effect. Dopamine alone can, therefore, only play a small role in the aetiology of schizophrenia, and we must look to other causes to explain the disorder more completely".

"Current theories are, therefore, attempting to interlink these diverse aetiologies, and it is likely that a genetically determined neurodevelopmental cause underlies both the observed brain abnormalities and the dysfunctional dopamine systems so characteristic of schizophrenia".

please see the link for references listed above-

GOOD BRAIN - they're mental

so, in truth, we don't really know what causes schizophrenia... there's a few theories, but no real facts... it's too expensive to give everyone who might have a mental illness an MRI or a PET scan, so instead we rely on rating scales and medication...

of course, earl, sometimes ppl need more than a therapeutic community- and sometimes medication seems like the only path to take, yet I feel it should only be used when ppl are in an acute phase, and that once the positive symptoms have abated and ppl are stabilized they should have the medication reduced, tapered to a minimum dose, and hopefully, eventually, be weaned off this, rather than be prescribed it indefinately...

...but look at it the other way... if you told me that you were taking me to a mental health facility, and I didn't want to go, it would take six ppl to drag me there, too... if someone was going to lock you up, deprive you of your civil liberties, stick you in a dangerous, high stress enviroment, patronise and belittle you, and then forcibly strap you down and medicate you to the extent you dribbled like a baby, couldn't walk ten metres without falling over or gave you drugs that meant you had no bladder control, would you happily submit?

...yet we look at our young man, and we say- hey, he's violent and maybe dangerous! he's non-compliant! he won't do as he's told! he must be sick!
and slap the handcuffs on him, when maybe his behaviour is actually quite healthy...

muslimwoman- "Do u believe in G-d because u have a mental illness?"- no! u have Islam-itis! its a different kettle of fish!

dauer- you'll have to explain what tehillim and niggums are....

Well, Francis, the decision to transport that young man for mental evaluation became a necessity when in a floridly psychotic state in broke into gun cases @ our local WalMart and attempted to jam ammo into a gun there in the store while shouting he was going to kill self and others. earl

[Prober]

Originally Posted by Snoopy

I see what you mean. An atheist and a theist may both think the other being “unreasonable”; it’s unreasonable to believe in God when you can present no proof / it’s unreasonable not to believe in God when the proof is all around us.

s.

Exactly! This frustrates me sometimes. I see the "proof" all around and still can't prove it to anyone else.

Open secret?

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by Caimanson

I don't know about being happier, looking back at all the churches I've been to, I don't think so (but maybe I've been mostly to the wrong ones).

For the sake of argument, take the last one I attended, if 85% said they were very satisfied with life then I'd say its a lie, either a hypocritical lie or a lie in blindness.

I am getting more and more convinced that religious peolple aren't as nice as non religious ones, and I don't mean nice in a superficial level, I mean better human beings. By contrast I also think that a lot of the most exceptional people are spiritual ones, but these tend to be exceptional.

Maybe the danger of:
Ego + Righteousness = Self-righteousness ?


s.

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by dauer

When you think about it, the clergy used to be the therapists. If you're struggling with something you go to your rabbi or minister. You make confession to a priest, do yechidus with your rebbe. What's the perscription? Do 3 hail marys, recite psalms, chew on this koan, do more charity work, go up to that person you wronged and apologize, give back the chicken you stole, focus your study on some particular passages about why it's wrong to slander other people.

I'd like to think that the clergy can still fulfil this role of "therapist", a spiritual guide to our lives. Of course it depends on the individual circumstances but I believe so-called "talking therapies" have a lot to offer.

s.

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

The links between 'brain disorders' and religious fervour also exist such as in those with certain types of epilepsy.....

This is a Pandora's box of an issue to be sure.

TE

The brain is certainly one mysterious place Tao! I suppose any “malfunction” of the brain, chemical or electrical, could cause all many of strange phenomena such as visual or auditory hallucinations and given the brain is considered to be the “seat” of our minds (?!) more profound experiences such as those cited. Interesting article indeed. I’ve had a couple of seizures but my supernatural being was wearing an ambulance technician’s outfit. The questions you ask show why, to me, this is such an interesting area; it’s the confluence of two major concerns of people everywhere; their mind and their understanding of their relationship with the world (sometimes expressed as “a religion”, but not always). I think there could be a whole sub-forum on it (starting with your questions!!)

s.

[Muslimwoman]

Hi everyone

I felt awful that I had posted about my difficulty so came on today to delete it but too late, half the world now knows I am a card carrying loon. I was really surprised and heartened that nobody was judgemental about it - thank you. I think it will be interesting to see if people now communicate differently now we loonies have outed ourselves. Sorry it's such a long post but what a fabulous thread.

Sorry I don't know how to quote more than one person in a post so will just waffle and you can find the relevant bit for you.

Dauer Thank you for your post, nice to know I am not the only one that struggles not only with this illness but with how my own beliefs actually fit in with the 'norm'. I didn't explain very well about my faith in G-d being constant. Yes when I am manic I pray less but am more thankful to G-d and see the beauty in G-d's creation more. When I am down I pray a great deal more and tend stay in the home reading about my religion. However, throughout these changes in mood my belief that G-d exists does not change.

Please be aware that even years later a mood will suddenly creep up on you, so we are not out of the woods but if we remain aware we can get by very well. Congratulation on taking an alternative path to meds and I hope you stay strong enough to remain that way.

What diet changes have you made? I have been taking Omega3 oil for 18 months and found that a great help. Also my belief is that sunshine helps (hence the decision to live over here).

I agree that Talk Therapy is very beneficial, however I can get just as much benefit from talking to a stranger in the street (or on this forum) as I can from a professional.

Please could you expand or give me a link to the Isaac and binding story. I constantly struggle to control my inner child - and usually lose the fight (and a 42 year old woman playing hopscotch looks a bit daft). Seriously though, my husband is 17 years my junior but is generally more 'mature' than I am - however I think that is why our marriage works with such an age gap.

TE. Please let me know what your friend says about his belief or lack of belief in G-d. I too was a workaholic, over achiever (took my A levels at 13 yrs, etc) and have met many people who are, that also suffer from this disorder - I have no proof but there must be a link just from the number of us there are. Could you please also ask him about his faith in his own ability - sounds wierd I know but people used to pay me bizarre amounts of money for consultation work and yet I always felt as though I was "playing post offices" and would be discovered as an idiot any moment. I would like to know if this is a common feeling with such people.

Re the issue of quacks & meds. To be honest I would be dead without the meds and for years they helped me to get on with my life but I also believe there is a point in life when many of us have to say no to them and find an alternative path. They have a place and a use but it is true nobody can understand how we feel, what we actually go through unless they suffer the same illness, so trying to explain it to a doctor is like trying to explain rocket science to an ice cream salesman. The other difficulty is that the meds do work - this causes a serious problem, because when the meds work you feel 'cured' so stop taking the meds, then the meds wear off and you are back to square one and no matter how many times you follow this pattern you always do the same thing.

Francis. Islam-itis oh no, not more meds?????

Wil. Great point about G-d healing, thank you for reminding me. I do not think G-d has cured me but He has given me a way to live a normal life whilst still having my illness.

Re savants - what a fascinating subject. Just look at the number of people in history classed as a 'genius' that have suffered from mental illness to one degree or another. Mathematicians that talk to imaginary people, artists that mutilate themselves, philosophers that walk around naked, etc, etc and where would the world and science be without these 'nutters' that think outside the box?

Paladin. Excellent point and I agree. That was my turning point, when I stopped looking outside myself for excuses/reasons/cures and realised that the problem is part of me and I had to find a way to accept this and get on with my life. Everyone could see my mood swings long before I could, so I started there and began recording my feelings each day, until I learnt to recognise the signs of a mood change. This does not mean my mood swings have ceased but once you become aware of them you become able to live with them.


Are there any websites on teach yourself meditation? I feel this might help me but can't get many non-religious books here.

Thank you so much everyone for allowing me to discuss this openly, not sure I feel comfortable with it but really appreciate the opportunity to explore this.

Salaam

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by dauer

A link of some relevance:
The Society for Laingian Studies
R.D. Laing was a psychologist who studied schyzophrenia and shamanism. One of his suggestions is that conditioning children to fit into the societal norm is reinforcing a type of delusion in itself and that by rejecting the conditioning the schyzophrenic may have greater access to truths that we suppress.
Edit: Wanted to add this link to a specific article by him on Transcendental Experience in Relation to Religion and Psychosis: SLS · Bibliography · Transcendental Experience in Relation to Religion and Psychosis

Not heard of Laing so also read about him on wiki. My first impression is that a lot of what he says chimes with my own views.

I think this fundamental point underlies a lot of the problems:

"But as Laing was, moreover, a critic of psychiatric diagnosis, he argued that diagnosis of a mental disorder contradicted accepted medical procedure: diagnosis was made on the basis of behavior or conduct, and examination and ancillary tests that traditionally precede diagnosis of viable pathologies like broken bones or pneumonia occurred after (if at all) the diagnosis of mental disorder. Hence, psychiatry was founded on a false epistemology: illness diagnosed by conduct but treated biologically.
The fact that medical doctors had annexed mental disorders did not mean they were practicing medicine; hence, the popular term "medical model of mental illness" is oxymoronic, since, according to Laing, diagnosis of mental illness did not follow the traditional medical model. The notion that biological psychiatry is a real science or a genuine branch of medicine has been challenged by other critics as well."

- Ronald David Laing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thanks for this Dauer, I'll read more...

s.