Self-mastery in regards to mental illness or disorders means that we no longer suffer from our 'disorders' and our able to live and function with our ability to experience life in a wide range of experiences. There is no cure for our illnesses and according to The Washington Post: Psychiatry's Failed Paradigm- there has not been empirical evidence in our genes that pinpoint likelihood of psychiatric illnesses. Perhaps they may one day find those genes but as of right now there is no agreed upon genetic evidence that our genes are involved. Whether or not we find it in our genes the point is the current psychiatric paradigm of treatment is not working. There is something missing.
I recently came upon some videos from Bipolar Advantage that explain we can live with a mental disorder, function, and as shocking and presumptuous as this sounds enjoy our "illness" and use it to our advantage. Many of you I know will have resistance to this idea, perhaps it brings anger to you, but I ask you to listen for just a moment. Let me start by using their diagram so you can get a visual of what I am proposing.
The crisis area on the left shows spikes. These spikes from a bipolar perspective (can be interpreted to any illness but for the sake of a point I will refer to bipolar for now) show the highest highs and the lowest lows. They represent the flow of information and experience and the red area means we are uncomfortable and in a crisis mode, "I am freaking Out!"
The current psychiatric paradigm's treatment goal is to get you and keep you in the recovery and managed zones. In the recovery zone you see that the spikes are level and stable within the blue zone. If we travel outside this blue comfort zone to the managed zone it's time to re-adjust our medications and use tools to get us back to the recovery zone. However, as the presenter Tom Wooten explained in the managed and recovery zones we are ,"One bad nights sleep away from an episode." I have been here in this reality most of my life! Elaborating on this, when we live in the recovery zone we are living life very carefully. We are not permitting ourselves to experiencing life fully. Life is dull and boring.
On the right side of the diagram we have a person with bipolar who has started expanding their comfort zone. Through trial and error and with resources and tools they move one step into the yellow zone and step back. The idea is the more you consciously and mindfully challenge your comfort zones you will soon realize you grow comfortable functioning in that level of experience and the flow of information. So a bipolar person can grow comfortable to be in a full blown mania or a deep depression. That is why they labeled it the freedom, stability, self-mastery zones.
“Beyond Recovery, we enter the Freedom Stage where we begin to break free of the cycle of Crisis and Recovery. From there we graduate to Stability Stage and eventually achieve Self-Mastery. It will take slow and careful work with some set backs, but we will find ourselves comfortable and in control while experiencing increased flow of energy and information. States that previously created great disturbance and needed some form of intervention in the Managed Stage are now within our comfort zone.
Real Stability means to maintain control in an ever wider range of experience. Some of us can even achieve stability across the entire range of the bipolar condition and live an extraordinary life.
Self-Mastery is when we choose how to react to every stimulus. The stimulus can be internal or external, real or not, but the important thing is that we can make a conscious choice about how to act.” -Tom Wooten Bipolar Advantage
Real Stability means to maintain control in an ever wider range of experience. Some of us can even achieve stability across the entire range of the bipolar condition and live an extraordinary life.
Self-Mastery is when we choose how to react to every stimulus. The stimulus can be internal or external, real or not, but the important thing is that we can make a conscious choice about how to act.” -Tom Wooten Bipolar Advantage
I am not promoting their system or selling anything. I haven't been through their program. However, I have achieved exactly what they teach others, self-mastery. I have hallucinations, obsessive thinking, depression, mania, psychosis, anxiety, and I am still functioning, I laugh every single day and enjoy the range of energy and experience my illnesses have to offer. I still don't enjoy the anxiety though, but I am working on that! However, our current system of treating illness, the stigma, our perceptions, need to be challenged. It needs to change. If we start with ourselves, if we adapt to our minds way of dealing with stimuli then the future for mental health and well-being looks very promising!
You must perceive your “disorder”
as an advantage and an assets rather than a limitation like I
previously talked about which you can find here in part 1 and part 2. Perhaps this is contradictory. However, like
my previous post I state that yes, having a mental illness can have
limitations but you can learn to accommodate them. When you begin
accommodating your limitations you start to expand your comfort zone.
You train your mind to see the positive in a once negative experience.
Think of this, your being treated by a
psychiatrist and the goal is to reduce or eliminate your symptoms. No
matter what medication you take (at least in most cases I have seen
or in my experience) there is always going to be a relapse of
symptoms, some unresolved symptoms in which the current action is to adjust
medication. What happens when you are trying to eliminate symptoms
and you start having a symptom? Say you start feeling depressed, you
become uncomfortable, you want that feeling to Go AWAY! That just
makes it that much more uncomfortable and debilitating.
What if say your schizophrenic you have
learned the difference between hallucinations and reality. You see a
person sitting at the dinner table with you and you ask your
spouse,”Hey, do you see someone sitting there?” The spouse
responds, “No.” You know then that is a hallucination, you can
shrug your shoulders and ignore it or you can actually interact with
it knowing it is just your mind. You are comfortable with it. It
doesn't bother you. How absolutely free that must feel!
In an interview with Lloyd Ross, PhD, he explained that recovery from schizophrenia is possible without medication. Mr. Ross gives an example of a case where his patients main complaint was of hearing voices. He did not anticipate what would happen next. His patient heard over and over again,"Kill, kill, kill," and explained she lived with her mother. He was curious to have a session with the mother alone and then bring the daughter in afterwards. Mr. Ross upon meeting his patients mother was immediately put off. She was difficult and nasty. Mr. Ross brought the daughter back and and made the comment,"I am sorry but I must be honest, I do not like her and I kept picturing strangling the women!" The patient looked at him a bit shocked and a realization came to her, "I get why I hear kill, kill, kill, I realize it's my mother I want to kill!" Mr. Ross was surprised and they focused the proceeding sessions on understanding the patients difficulties with the mother. The voices went away. Mr. Ross was very surprised at the unexpected outcome.
Let's say you have horrid social
anxiety, how would you accommodate going grocery shopping? Avoid it
would be the first instinct but that is not feasible for most of us.
My accommodation for bad days is I make a list and me and the list
are all that exist in the store, weird I know. I feel comfort with
the piece of paper, it's like a map in my hand! Another accommodation would be to go with a friend on small social ventures and focus only
on keeping up a good conversation, something that draws your
attention away from your fear of social situations. Or music. Put
headphones on and blast music and keep to the beat.
Taking small steps and trying to do
things differently actually broadens your comfort zone. If you found
a method or accommodation that works to ease your discomfort or
stress the more you utilize it and manage it to still accomplish your
tasks the more it will not bother you. Again, social anxiety for me
and shopping I will be honest, I talk to myself. Not loud but I
mumble to myself. I don't care! I do it to keep myself focused and I
actually say really funny things that lighten my mood. The task is to
shop. I am not there to impress others or make friends so I really
don't care what others think of me.
 |
| From Flickr by Heathre |
Finding Value In Your Experiences
Those of us with mental illness interpret the flow of life's experiences differently than others. It doesn't need to be a bad thing. It takes a lot of self awareness and honesty to understand how our minds work and interpret our environment in a manageable and meaningful way. It is possible. One way is to find value in our experiences. Like the women who heard angry voices telling her to 'kill' she found value when she understood why. She needed to realize her mother was driving her nuts! Her solutions could have been to express her distress to her mother, talk to someone else and learn new ways of coping with her mothers nasty behavior, or like I have done with quiet a few people in my life get away from them!
We all wish we could handle life like everyone else. The truth is we can't. Our brains are not hardwired that way. Society doesn't make it alright either. Medication can help but therapy and self-awareness are the only ways to bring lasting changes. Imagine a world where hallucinations were appropriate and valuable ways of interpreting the environment. Like Tom Wooten explained in his video he loves his hallucinations because they are valuable. He explained that his mother went through a major health crisis and he had a hallucination of himself jumping in front of a bus, dying and transporting into his wife who was beside him. While inside her he had a realization of an important emotional aspect of his mothers health crisis and close death that he hadn't realized. Since he found value in his experience he found he was better able to cope with his mothers health.
The key to be able to find meaning from our experiences is to become comfortable with them in the first place. If Tom Wooten was not comfortable with having a hallucination he would of panicked and found the experience as scary, bad, and overwhelming. Just like many people find meaningful information in their dreams, our experiences can also bring us value.
I don't want to be ashamed of having a 'bipolar' or 'schizophrenic' label. I don't want to be embarrassed or less of a valuable honorable human being. I don't want my interpretation of the world around me to be invalid and insane. I want to enjoy the spectrum of experiences I can have having these illnesses. I have. I also haven't. However, the more I master myself and my mind and accept that which I cannot change the happier I am. The more freedom I feel and experience. The more I contribute and give to the world.
Resources:
- Washington Post: Psychiatry's failed Paradigm http://voices.washingtonpost.com/shortstack/2010/01/rcent_decades_have_seen_dramat.html
- Bipolar Advantage: The Shocking Truth About Recovery From Bipolar Disorder http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe1SFteLGDI (note: there are several videos that cover the entire concept; search under Bipolar Advantage)
- Bipolar Advantage main website http://www.bipolaradvantage.com/index.php
- Daniel Mackler's interview with Lloyd Ross, PhD Recovery from Schizophrenia Without Medication http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyL0jjI93OI
No comments:
Post a Comment