Advertisement
Related to last week’s post of the Newsweek happiness article is an essay by Charles Barber in the Feb. 10 issue of the Washington Post entitled “Message (Not) In a Bottle: Healing a Troubled Mind Takes More Than a Pill.”
Again, just like I respect Sharon Begley for raising some concerns in her Newsweek article, I applaud Barber for addressing problems in today’s psychiatric world—that too many people are overmedicated, and that a large number of patients rely solely on pills to cure them, putting their doctors in charge of their health. I have been there—with Dr. R. who prescribed 14 different medications in three months, in whom I placed all of my trust because HE WAS THE PROFESSIONAL.
HOWEVER, it has been my experience and many others—including Kay Redfield Jamison’s—that you can’t begin to start the cognitive behavioral work, or the meditation, or the yoga, or any other aspect to your recovery until you have reached a stable place that comes with meds.
Barber debunks this theory with research from Larry Davidson, a Yale researcher of recovery from severe mental illness. Writes Barber:
As I’ve learned, both professionally and personally, social context is critical to recovery. In other words, there’s invariably a social reason to get better. This is what has been largely overlooked by the “medical model” of treatment, which proposes that you must stabilize a person with treatment (typically drugs) before they can be put back in their social roles or environment.
Larry Davidson, a Yale researcher on recovery from severe mental illness, has examined the data and found that this model is flawed, at least in the field of mental health. “In the medical model, you take a person with a mental illness, you provide treatment in the hopes of reducing symptoms, and then they’re supposed to approximate some notion of normality,” he told me. “Our research shows the opposite. You take a person with a mental illness, you then reduce the discrimination and stigma against them, increase their social roles and participation, which provides them a reason to get better in the first place, and then you provide treatment and support. The issue is not so much making them normal but helping them get their lives back.”
Davidson’s contention is supported by the provocative finding by a number of researchers that schizophrenia outcomes are better in developing countries, where, generally speaking, patients get more support from family and society, and where ill people are less likely to be excised from their natural communities.
I agree with Barber that the extra support from a family goes a very long way in treating a mentally ill person. The psychiatric nurses gave me the same sermon when I told them that I didn’t have anyone else who could help me take care of the kids when I was so ill. Had I lived in another country, I would have had a better chance of being able to rest and recover, instead of trying to do so while caretaking for kids.
But I’m pretty confident hanging out in bed or with my family would have been a waste of energy without the drugs. In that five months that I tried any and all alternative therapies to replace my pharmaceuticals—from acupuncture to massage therapy to Chinese herbs—I could not stop shaking and averaged about three different suicidal plans a minute. Without the right combination of Lithium and Zoloft, I couldn’t meditate, count my blessings, or work on cognitive-behavioral worksheets. Because I couldn’t stop shaking, I literally had trouble feeding myself.
I guess Barber and I hang around different crowds, because I vehemently disagree with him here:
In 2006, an astonishing 227 million prescriptions for antidepressants were dispensed in the United States — up 30 million from 2002. Altogether the United States accounts for about two-thirds of the global market for antidepressants. Other proven and practical approaches to managing milder forms of depression, such as diet changes, exercise or cognitive behavioral therapy, haven’t gotten the attention they deserve in our high-tech zeal for the drugs.
Everyone who I ran into the year of my nervous breakdown preached another alternative therapy that should replace my meds. I was sick of hearing about yoga, craniosacral therapy, fish oil, flower remedies, homeopathic concoctions. No one but my guardian angel, Ann, and a older few friends told me that I might try to use what little energy I had to finding a better doctor.
I disagree with him here, too:
Antidepressants can be highly effective, particularly for the more severe forms of depression. But when you speak to people with severe mental illness who have gotten better, you learn about the reality of the recovery process, which is rarely about a pill — even if that pill is effective. When you interview patients about how they got better, they hardly ever cite Prozac or Zyprexa or lithium. For that matter, they rarely cite a particular doctor or therapist or treatment program. Rather, they talk about a person who was kind to them when they were really down; they talk about the child they wanted to be a good parent to; they talk about God and spirituality; they talk about something that brought them pleasure even when they were cloaked in pain. Many of these reasons to live — the reasons to seek treatment in the first place — are highly personal and idiosyncratic, as was mine.
Because the three people in my life who had been through their own very severe depression—my friend Michelle, my aunt Gigi Gigi, and my guardian angel, Ann—preached a message similar to my doctors: find the right drug combination, and the rest will follow.
Maybe my experience is unique, but my doctor has never, ever told me that pills will cure me. She exhausts the help of cognitive-behavioral therapy, talk therapy, and every other kind of help that will buttress my recovery, like a HappyLite and the right kind of Omega-3 supplement. She applauds my exercise program and the energy I’ve invested into forming a thriving support network online.
Barber articulates an important message in the following paragraphs, but I’ve never, ever considered myself “cured.” Like any other chronic illness, my depression can go into remission–and I might be able to enjoy months or years without symptoms–but I don’t expect it to disappear forever. Writes Barber:
Another thing patients will tell you is that recovery exists, or can exist, within the context of illness. In other words, recovery doesn’t mean cure. It means living with the illness, managing it and getting better within certain limitations. “I define recovery as the development of new meaning and purpose as one grows beyond the catastrophe of mental illness,” says William Anthony, director of Boston University’s Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation. “My feeling is you can have episodic symptoms and still believe and feel you’re recovering. It is a matter of moving beyond the debilitating phases of the illness.”
The idea that recovery doesn’t usually mean the removal of all symptoms is a novel and distinctly un-American way of looking at psychiatric illness, and illness in general. The fact remains, however, that most major psychiatric illnesses are episodic but chronic. Recovery involves both coming to terms with symptoms — one hopes in the context of their gradual moderation, but that’s not always the case — and finding a meaningful life in their midst.
I guess my main beef with Barber is that he’s too quick to dismiss medicine as a depressive’s ally in getting closer to sanity. His introductory paragraphs bother me, again, probably because I live in a community that, like Tom Cruise’s neighborhood, shuns those who use medication to treat certain maladies, and especially mood disorders, which, in most cases, are born from a lack of gratitude in one’s attitude. In my circles, people are afraid to confess their diabetes (because they must have caused it with bad thoughts) let alone their depression:
Feeling depressed? No problem, pop a pill.
That’s what more and more Americans are doing these days to quell what ails their troubled souls. The use of antidepressants in the United States has exploded in the past couple of decades, and drugs such as Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft, which didn’t even exist 20 years ago, are household names, almost household staples.
And why not? The television ads make it seem so easy: An agonized man or woman stares listlessly into space or slumps on a bed or couch, holding their head in their hands. Then they take a pill and suddenly morph into a happily engaged and joyous being, back on the job or walking in a park, awash in sunshine, surrounded by grandchildren, a golden retriever nipping at their heels, while lush music plays in the background.
But recovering from mental illness is rarely that simple. I know.
As an optimistic 18-year-old freshman at Harvard in the 1980s, I found myself afflicted by indescribably disturbing and intrusive thoughts that involved repetitious words and irrational fears that I had harmed others. This assault on my mind — diagnosed a few years later as obsessive-compulsive disorder — led me to drop out of two colleges in as many years and made it difficult to hold down a job as a busboy.
That was the low point. After that, I began the long, arduous and at times confused process of emotional recovery. Medication was helpful — as was cognitive behavioral therapy, particularly early on — but what ultimately made the difference, what really made me want to get well, was finding a sense of purpose in my new life, a life that had been reconfigured by illness.
The critical moment in my own recovery was my decision — very unpopular at the time — to work full-time in a group home for people with severe developmental disabilities, young men my age who could not talk. Having been given all the choices, I gravitated toward a place where there were few options. But I intuitively sensed that I would find a new path there. Indeed, I found I was good at the work, and it was therapeutic for me to “get out of my own head” and serve others.
Like Barber, the path to mental health has disrupted and redirected every single part of my life. I do what I do today—write Beyond Blue, and devote all of my energy towards the education of mental illness—because of what I’ve been through. There is immense satisfaction in that, and yes, it’s kept me out of the Black Hole many days.
But this line in his story—“The critical moment in my own recovery was my decision (very unpopular at the time) to work full-time in a group home for people with severe developmental disabilities, young men my age who could not talk”—is dangerous for the person just diagnosed with major depression or bipolar disorder because it reads to me like the false promise of that bestseller “Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow?” I have no doubt wealth followed for the author, Marsha Sinetar. But that’s about it.
Maybe Barber’s depression was more situational than mine. Maybe finding the right course was all he really needed. All I know is that I couldn’t stop thinking of ways to kill myself for a very long time. And when I got on the right combination (number 23), I was finally able to get something out of therapy, to concentrate enough to pray, and to be focused enough to write a sentence. Before Lithium, all of that was impossible.
I know that there are doctors out there that push pharmaceuticals and little else. I stayed with one such “professional” for three months until my body was totally toxic. But there are also ones like Dr. Smith who exhaust any and all forms of alternative therapy alongside meds and tell you upfront that drugs won’t do all the work.
I guess I just hate to see one more anti-drug article when those of us who are fighting for their lives have to use any and all help we can find: therapy, exercise, Chinese herbs, Omega-3 capsules, HappyLites, gratitude journals, fulfilling volunteer work, and, yes, pills. Give them to me. Because FOR ME, Charles, they make all the rest possible.
|
Previous Posts
How Do You Heal Loneliness?
posted 6:33:10am Feb. 16, 2012 | read full post »
Rewire Your Brain For Love: An Interview with Marsha Lucas, Ph.D.
posted 6:00:56am Feb. 14, 2012 | read full post »
Love Deeply ...
posted 6:00:28am Feb. 13, 2012 | read full post »
Therapy Thursday: Sweat
posted 6:01:57am Feb. 09, 2012 | read full post »
Scrupulosity: What It Is and Why It's Dangerous
posted 6:17:35am Feb. 07, 2012 | read full post » |
|
||
|
|
||
| click here to see all of our uplifting newsletters» |
Meet others on the journey in
Therese’s community group
Ask Therese to be your friend
Therese J. Borchard writes the daily blog, Beyond Blue, on Beliefnet and is a regular contributor to the award-winning blog, World of Psychology, on Psych Central. Therese is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes and The Pocket Therapist: An Emotional Survival Kit. Subscribe to Beyond Blue, visit her website, or follow her on Twitter @thereseborchard.
Meet others on the journey in
Therese’s community group
Ask Therese to be your friend
Therese J. Borchard writes the daily blog, Beyond Blue, on Beliefnet and is a regular contributor to the award-winning blog, World of Psychology, on Psych Central. Therese is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes and The Pocket Therapist: An Emotional Survival Kit. Subscribe to Beyond Blue, visit her website, or follow her on Twitter @thereseborchard.
posted February 21, 2008 at 11:08 am
Great post! I agree – medication saved my life 6 years ago, and has made everything else possible. As you said, it takes more than the medication. For me, too, depression is something I manage everyday now. I monitor and react to my emotional, mental, and physical status every minute of everyday, because if I don’t I’m likely to slide right into that hole without even realizing it.
Medication was the first step. For me, therapy has been important, too, and has brought me to a state of well-being now that makes managing the depression much easier. Diet matters, and social contact matters. Lots of things play into that well-being and I pay close attention to them all. Therapy has taught me the need for and given me the means to accomplish constant awareness of what’s going on in body and mind.
Therapy has changed my life; but Prozac saved it. None of the wonderful things I’m experiencing now would have been possible if I had chosen to end my life instead of trying one last thing after 25 years of suffering – medication. That choice has made all the difference and I thank God everyday for the ability to make the choice then to pick up the phone and call the doc, instead of a picking up a razor blade or bottle of sleeping pills.
Different things work for different people, and I was lucky to get on the right drug the first time out, and that it helped. In my experience an “all or nothing” approach to anything is a mistake. To my mind, all weapons must be employed to fight this thing, and that includes medication.
Thanks for such a great thought-provoking and affirming post for those of us who know that medication works, even though that’s not really a popular opinion these days. To be honest, I couldn’t care less what anyone thinks about it anymore. It’s my lifeline, and I’m hanging on to it.
posted February 21, 2008 at 11:08 am
From Keb’ Mo’, “More Than One Way Home,” 1996:
“Well, there’s more than one way home; ain’t no right way, ain’t no wrong.
“Whatever road you might be on, you find your own way, ’cause there’s more than one way home.”
Here’s to all the methods, medical and otherwise, that help us on our daily journey.
posted February 21, 2008 at 11:45 am
Therese:
You can certainly guess I read Barber’s article closely in the WaPo and had grave concerns about it.
Still, I am (slightly) more sympathetic to his argument than to Eric Wilson’s for a couple of reasons.
First, he admits (unlike Wilson) that’s he’s “been there” — not denying his mental illness as “melancholia,” but admitting it as the real honest to goodness thing. And that he had to get drugs to get better.
Second, I’m a little more sanguine than you, Therese, about Barber’s whole idea (here’s a pun) that gestalt is important to recovery from depression. Because I’ve lived it (though it took me a lot longer than it did Barber).
I don’t think working with the developmentally disabled to realize “you’re lucky” is the answer, no. (Although realizing there’s always someone better than you and always someone worse than you is certainly part of it, of course.)
But embracing — not just “sensing,” as I did very early on, but fully EMBRACING, which took me the better part of a decade — the idea that you will never be the same person again after a severe depressive episode, and that you need to find new goals and new purposes in life after such a shattering experience — is indeed a key part to recovery. That has been the process in which I have been heavily engaged the last year. And I also think there are important (though not exact) parallels between living with depression “in recovery” and the recovery movements for alcohol and drug addiction in the AA tradition.
That said, I think none of this would have been half as effective if I hadn’t started taking Lamictal, which has been a g-dsend for me. (Quite literally.)
And Barber is, if not outright hateful like Wilson, at least far too dismissive of psychiatric medication (especially for someone who, by his own admission, takes or at least took it). Interesting that both claim they are not “romanticizing” depression. Hmmm.
For the record, Barber held his ground on his harder-edged positions during an animated online discussion he had with Washington Post readers: (HTTP://)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/02/08/DI2008020802985.html
Interesting how when someone finally, seriously challenged him (most of those in the discussion were Barber fans), he threw his toys out of the pram and shut down the discussion.
And there was also an angry op-ed in the WaPo in response to Barber’s: (HTTP://)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/12/AR2008021201028.html
Finally, an important PS –
I’ve read the abstracts of the studies Larry Sullivan cites on schizophrenia in India. They’re buncombe.
Notice I didn’t say they’re not TRUE. Apparently many schizophrenics in India with a non-stigmatizing extended family caring for them (i.e., taking turns) can still be moderately functional without medication.
But it’s still buncombe, because you can’t magically teleport India’s society to America. Forget America’s endemic Tom Cruise stigma — how many extended families are left that would be able, LET ALONE WILLING given that Tom Cruise stigma, to care for someone with severe mental illness?
We’re basically on our own. Which, ironically, is a message of personal responsibility you’d think Barber would endorse …
posted February 21, 2008 at 11:59 am
Just found your website yesterday . It’s very helpful on giving good advice on how to fight off this dreadful illness called depression. I have suffered with this illness for over 33 years. I was in remision for the last 10 years and from nowhere it has attacked like it has never attacked before. The last 5 weeks have been the hardest of my entire life. What has helped me in the past has been jogging. When my head would feel like it was ready to explode I would run and run and till I couldn’t run any more. There would be times I wouldn’t no where I was and I would have to find a phone somewhere so I could call my wife to come and pick me up. But now that I am older I can’t jog like I use to. Keep giving the good advice. With your advice and the medication I’m on and the thearpy I am getting I know I will beat my severe depression again. So for all of us that suffer with this dreadful mental illness keep fighting even when you don’t feel like it. because one day in the future it will be worth it. Thank-you for caring because their are somany that don’t understand what goes on when we have our attacks with this dreadful illness. God Bless and keep putting out the good advice because it gives hope and courage to me and probably alot of others. Be strong and thank-you again.
posted February 21, 2008 at 12:39 pm
This is your very best blog article you have ever written. I agree with you one hundred percent. There is so much ignorance in that article you are critiquing is that I am just flabbergasted. I also tend to think that guy is in denial, as in an alcoholic who thinks he can drink. Mental illness does not disappear with volunteer work. In fact, in very sensitive folks, the desperate plight of others can lend further credence to one’s false belief that life is impossible and worthless and thus pushing one toward suicide.
Drugs are essential. I don’t think people are overmedicated. I have never met a person on meds that once I got to know them, I saw that they needed the meds. I have met people who need meds but disdain to have them. There are most likely very logical reasons why Americans are more susceptible to depression and those reasons could very well be biological. I tend to think a high percentage of our ancestors suffered from mental disorders. My state began as a debtor’s prison colony. All kinds of psyc disorders could be the root of that kind of debt. Also, early in our history, crossing over to this nation was a life-threatening proposition and it could very well have appealed to impulsive, manic depressives or those at the brink of suicide. We could, simply have more ancestors that were ill.
Who is to say that another person should not be on drugs? Who has that right? We don’t know everyone. We don’t know the circumstances that brought every person to medication. The numbers are irrelevant. Behind the multitude, there are individuals–most likely people in dire pain. For many of us, meds will be always be a necessity of life.
The fact is few victims completely recover from mental illness. I have a terrible history of depression and while I do not suffer today as I did in the past, I still need occasional maintenance therapy. I always will. Like a diabetic. I am stable because I know when to go in and get a prescription to keep me that way. I have family members who believe that they do not need medication. My life is infinitely superior to theirs. The difference is the treatment and medication that I have had and they have not. I have reached stability–a place my mother, and two brothers never have.
posted February 21, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Wow WOW! Great blog entry and Great feed back.
posted February 21, 2008 at 2:23 pm
This has been a good read for today in St. Louis, where the sleet is adding up in inches. In my best days, I always found a reason not to venture out in dangerous weather.
Now is this ironic reasoning for a potential suicide candidate??
I have allowed myself, (so for 2) days off to slump around and not take on household projects.
I will get some things done, but I am really glad I took the time to read this blog.
To Infinity And Beyond!!!!!
posted February 21, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Imagine having to rationalize better reasons to off myself just because I live in Florida. No bad weather excuses here…maybe the occasional tornado watch to break up the monotony. Seriously, though, good article. I think remission is a good enough reason to hang in there. The fact that people can find relief is encouraging. It does’nt matter to me whether or not it comes in crunchy or creamy…whatever helps us not go nuts is a very good thing!
posted February 21, 2008 at 4:45 pm
i think that in spite of all the apparent progress around us in every scientific area we’re still not far removed from the dark ages regarding mental illness or just depression. While some people are still fearful of those afflicted with a terminal illness, many more are terrified of anything that smucks of a mental disease or unease.
Years ago while doing work for my M.A. I took a class in “Death and dying” to this day that class has got to be the most illuminating and constructive class I’ve ever taken. It not just helped me understand things it illuminated me on so many things and on so many ignored prejudices some of us carry. I think we need some classes to teach people that a mental condition or illness is no different than something affecting any part of our bodies. The mind can also get the flu or a ‘cold’.
posted February 21, 2008 at 5:57 pm
This is a difficult topic because we are all individuals. Nothing should be dismissed and nothing should be considered the be all and end all in tresatment. man times it is a combination of kindnesses extended towards someone suffering with drug therapy. Both will go a long way for individuals who have a medical chemical imbalance which requires handling of the phyical causes and having a caring person to listen and be there is the key motivating factor to getting the right meidications. It is not just one correct procedure but a combination that works.
posted February 21, 2008 at 6:32 pm
I agree-use all the tools you have at your disposal. I think there is no universal combination-whatever works best for each person is what THAT person should use.
posted February 21, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Reaching a therapeutic level of medication is necessary in pretty much all mental disorders. I have, in my lifetime, tried to believe that
recovery meant cure. It does not, it means respite from the disease, but it also requires maintenance, the same as any diet or nutritional program to control weight or diabetes requires. Maintenance of a mental disorder is therapeutic level medication, with some form of change in mind set. When you have reached a therapeutic level of medication, begin then to apply a mind set for recovery, while your mind is stable. Trying to recover, without reaching that level, will in most cases set one up for defeat. Unfortunately, the method to stay in recovery, is different for everyone. What works for one may not work for another. It takes more people like you, to get that message across, and you are doing one bang up job off it.
We should all remember, giving up is NEVER AN OPTION.
Thank you for your insightful and proactive inspiration.
posted February 22, 2008 at 7:17 am
THERESE: YOU ARE A VERY, VERY LUCKY AND BLESSED WOMAN.
YOU OBVIOUSLY HAVE A HUSBAN AND CHILDREN AND IT SOUNDS LIKE NOT TOO BAD OF A LIFE.
A LOT OF US ARE TOTALLY ALONE. WORST THAN NOBODY. HAVING A DAUGHTER AND NOT BEING ABLE TO COUNT ON HER.
YES, I KNOW OF ALL OF THE RIGHT THINGS TO DO, BUT WHEN YOU HAVE NO ONE TO COME AROUND AND HELP YOU WHEN YOU ARE DOWN YOU ONLY GO ONE WAY FURTHER DOWN.
posted February 22, 2008 at 8:32 am
I think there is a problem with the diagnosis here. Barber states he was/is recovering from OCD, which is a very, very different mental illness then clinical depression or bi-polar.
I can only speak from my experience with clinical/uni-polar. Went to the hospital where I recieved the right meds, diet, exercise and therapy and went back to a functioning role in society. Kept up everything, except the meds, became suicidal, went back to meds, functional, off, suicidal.
I’ve stayed on the meds for the last 2 years (with all the meditation, yoga, vitamins, etc.), and have been leading a healthy, productive life. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that the meds are the most important part of the equation concerning my mental health.
posted February 22, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Maria, the happiest people that I’ve ever known, lived alone. No exceptions. They didn’t count on anyone to help them when they were down.
The mistake many of us make is in placing our woes outside ourselves and counting on others to lift us. Everything comes from the inside out, if we don’t take care of our ‘insides’ then nobody can come to lift us when we are down, unless we’ve physically fallen down and can’t get up on our own.
posted February 22, 2008 at 1:39 pm
lap:
As always, MUCH wisdom.
posted February 22, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Thank you so much for your post. Medication has help to extricate me of my symptoms which as you implored has kept me alive. Due to recent press, I began to fear my medication. “Will I end up like Ledger, Spears, or the Illinois shooter?” I wondered. My pdoc addressed my concerns. Your site is wonderful. Keep it up!
posted February 23, 2008 at 2:58 am
Medication puts me in a stupor. I take care of my ill mother. I need all of my awareness to function. Do I have bad days. Yes. Do I want to kill myself. Yes sometimes. But I don’t know anything else but to put one foot in front of the other and walk through it. Am I messed up. Yes. Does my mind think crazy thoughts. Yes. But I can’t take the pills and take care of her. She is my responsibility right know. She needs me. I don’t know how I am doing this. I don’t know what the answer is. I wish I could help everyone one. And when she dies I know that I will shut down. I’m just preparing for that day. My orbituary is written. I have a power of attorney to disberse my things that are left. Trying to get rid of as much as I can. I am tired. The desire to get well is no longer a thought in my mind.
posted February 24, 2008 at 12:29 am
Joanna:
You are to be applauded for your insight into yourself! One thing disturbs me, however in light of having nursed my own mother and lived through (however miserably) her death twenty years agp next week. Although there will indeed be a huge void in your life and in your case, you very purpose with your mother’s death, it doesn’t have to be (nor should it, IMHO) the beginning of your own end. While it is wise,(again IMHO and based upon my own personal experience for EACH of us to make preparations dor our own deaths, to do so with a specific event as the caralyst to me snacks of fatalism and giving up. Only G-d knows the appointed time for each of us, and He may well have another purpose in mind for your own unique talents once your mother no longer needs you. Don’t close yourself off from that opportunity!You might be denying yourself some of the most rewarding and fulfilling experiences of your enrire life! As your mother’s current caregiver, she may totally define your life NOW, but as difficult and painful as her death will undoubtedly be, it needn’t be the death of the person inside of you who has made the decision to BE her caretaker. Believe it or not, there are many daughters who don’t assume that responsibility; just visit your local nursing home. The fact that you HAVE stepped up to the plate indicates a loving, empathetic, nurtuting woman lives inside your soul, a woman who may still have a lot to offer the world after your mother is gone. Additionally, with the change in your circumstances you might BE ABLE to take the medication you feel you must deny yourself in the present and they may make a tremendous difference in your outlook. PLEASE allow yourself a space of time in which to turn your nurturing skills towards your own well being and discover what life still has to offer you (and need from you as well.) I understand the dibilitation of being tired and losing even the desire to get well; it’s not a good place to live! At least give yourself enough slack to “find your second wind”; any runner can tell you it’s often even more energizing than the first one! Blessings and prayers to you AND your mother
Margaret
posted February 24, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Thank you so much, Therese, for once again doing the research and analyzing articles like this. Thank you also for always sharing your pain and growth with honesty and courage.
I totally relate to your point of view – without medication, it’s hard to be still enough to do yoga, be calm enough to remember which vitamins to take, and have the energy to get out the door to walk, let alone run.
posted February 24, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I thank my new,right, integrative pdoc as well as all 5 of my medications for my continued recovery. He listens, I listen. I take ressponsibility for keeping him fully informed for every little change that takes place in my body eventhose seemingly insignificant and he takes it all in and doesn’t discount me knowing myself. I also thank the stability of the right, integrative therapist who keeps each little bump and divit from throwing me way off. I doubt I would be here today without all three, because it sure wasn’t my parents or my exhusband or my kids which has helped me make it to today. Faith, therapy and medicine…Thank God for those “pills” who take my ills and make them my wells.
posted February 24, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I was treated for 17 years by a psychiatrist who was very much “medical model”, perhaps too much, at times he didn’t require me to be in therapy. Then is 05 I was forced to change psychiatric providers (long story). I ended up with a nurse practitioner who decided I was fine, I just needed to get off these drugs, get my life together and I’d be fine. I was taken off a mood stabilizer, anti psychotic, antidepressant, anti anxiety all cut at least in half. I then proceeded to have 2 1/2 of the worst years of my life. Eratic behavior, mood swings, anxiety, depression, delusions, voices. She changed my diagnosis from schizoaffective disorder to personality disorder, told me i just wanted to take a pill to make everything better. I lost my business didn’t work for nearly a year, i was lost in delusions and alternating depression and anxiety. I was finally able to get a ful time job, did well for a while with all sorts of positive thinking strategies and exerciseBut the stress got to me and I literally became terrified to work, constant anxiety all day, depressed all evening and afraid to go to sleep. I was threatened with dismissal at work, cut back to part time, she conscented to increase the antianxiety a bit. I finally changed providers, to a psychiatrist who almost immediately increased the antidepressant, changed to a better antipsychotic and eventually added a supplemental antidepressant. Today I am generally anxiety free, delusion free, still struggle with depression but it is managable. Most of all I am functioning well, may go to full time with a significant raise at work.
My current provider could barely hide her disgust when she read personality disorder in my chart history. I retained the same counselor who went along with all this stuff(can’t afford to change), but recently had a breakthrough when we were speaking of my difficult period. A light seemed to come on for him and he and he said in amazement “That sounds psychotic.”
mark