Bamboozled, hornswoggled and hoodwinked?

The first time I tried a medication for a mental disorder occurred in the winter of 1967. Since then, I have tried many more. In addition, I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on therapy. Within the last ten years, I have been told I have a treatment resistant illness.

Frequently I was told there was not much wrong with me. With diligence, I would be cured of this malaise. When I continued to have problems it was because I did not listen, did not understand, was stubborn, intellectualized too much, did not follow the treatment plan, etc., etc. The continuation of symptoms was my fault.

Now that I have had to deal with a treatment resistant illness more or less on my own, I have been doing better. I have been doing better because I learned some things from the many therapists I saw and the hours spent in therapy. I did listen. Were the criticisms valid? I was not the easiest client to deal with. Even so, treatment is a joint venture. Maybe, the professionals could have done a better job too?

I write because I think it is very wrong for those who treat mental disorders to make promises they cannot keep, especially in view of the current understanding of the etiology of mental illnesses. I have had many diagnoses. In fact, less than two years ago I received my current one. I do not know if the professionals consider my latest diagnosis untreatable.

I also think the treaters and prescribers are too closely aligned to the pharmaceuticals. Pushing brain-altering drugs on someone is serious business, even when the effect is known. What a medication for a disorder does to abate a symptom is not well known.

I trusted those who treated me. Maybe I would of benefited from a disclosure telling me that a placebo may work as well or better than a prescribed medication; or that treating symptoms is not a cure; or that there are advantages for those who work closely with pharmaceuticals?

Of course, it also could be I received great treatment considering the knowledge available to those who treated me. Who knows?

What follows is some of what I have been reading if anyone cares:

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archive...ental-illness/
http://psychcentral.com/archives/top_myths.htm
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archive...of-depression/
http://www.dsm5.org/about/pages/faq.aspx#8
http://www.cchrflorida.org/article-dsm-debunk.html
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...p-correct-dsm5
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...dsm-v-response
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...g=content;col1
http://science.education.nih.gov/sup...o-mental-a.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-s..._b_347351.html
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archive...s-of-interest/
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archive...wont-tell-you/
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...ad.php?t=21149
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archive...nder-scrutiny/

Be well.

thanks (((Byz)))) you always come up wiht the most interesting information

IM sorry your journey has been so long and so bumpy and i hope for a smoother road ahead for you ..although somtiemes the bumps make the road a bit more interesting

I will read the articles tomorrow after my final but had to respond in the meantime.

I understand your perspective and completely agree. Similar situations and results: first treatment back in '76, since then promises, resistance, all my fault, (some fault yes, as I too have been a difficult patient but not all my fault.) Never occurred to some providers it was partly theirs: lack of knowledge, inability to see in depth, or think in other ways. For their lack of ability and frustration, we get blamed for not getting better and responding to treatment even if we are cooperative. However, it is the nature of the illnesses that no one knows for certain and no one should be placing blame, just working on how to help one another and ourselves.

The docs are closely aligned with pharmaceutical companies; it's how they use them that is the concern. My current pdoc relies on them for information and benefits from samples. A past pdoc was more impressionable and why I changed, was receiving other benefits from his reps for using their pills specifically in his treatments. Current one has prescribed a low dose of a med 40-80 mgs that normally is 120-180 for most with my disorder but I react just fine on this lower range. Pharmaceutical rep actually lectured him that it cannot be therapeutic and that it needed to be increased. Thank goodness he is responsible, did not listen, and told the rep to get the hell out of his office. He reminded me everyone reacts differently to meds, there is not one standard despite the studies because they are limited in scope and every illness is different, unique to that person. No one med or dose fits all. The companies are pushing their pills though and the more the better; it's their livelihood, their profits, and the bottom line. This has to be balanced.

I hear your frustration and understand the concern with the profession and treatments. Fortunately as time goes on, we all know more but too many things go unanswered and unaddressed. In the meantime, we need to make sure we educate and advocate for ourselves to try to balance out the rest where we can.

Your subject title: I love those technical terms!

I have a book called Psychotherapy with "Impossible" Cases. Yes, the quotation marks are part of the title.

So being treatment-resistant means resistant to the treatment that is offered. The way words are used makes a difference.

Yes, to view your life simply as a misadventure and waste of resources is painful, even if it is true an illness played a prominent role. One of my siblings frequently reminds me I have not lived. He cannot understand why I am unable it seems to "just get over it" - whatever that "it" is.

A therapist in a moment of jocularity suggested I could be useful talking to other sufferers of mental disorders about the choices I made that have caused me such distress. Once over the shock of this sentiment, I embraced the suggestion. Although I may not be able to put more meaning into my life, perhaps I could help others put more meaning in theirs?

Why did I make so many poor choices? More importantly, why has decades of treatment not been more effective? The professionals, I believe, could have tried harder to understand the dynamics of growing up for me. I had no one to talk to. I made choices that helped me survive. I did not know any other way. I now know I clung to what helped me survive for far too long after my circumstances changed. I was not clever enough to figure that out for myself.

pachyderm's comment got me thinking too. I suppose I will never know if my infirmities were of themselves treatment-resistant, or if they were resistant to the treatment I received, or if I resisted offered treatment that may have helped as some of my therapists have implied.

Again, I am not posting to point the finger of blame. I learned so much from treatment despite my frustrations. In fact, I expect I am able to put down my thoughts because of caring souls that moiled to help me.

Even so, I am very concerned about the state of the art for treatment of mental disorders. After slogging through many articles these last days, I feel betrayed by professionals who promised too much and knew too little. A large part of my frustration with treatment arose because of unrealized expectations. After awhile, I had great difficulty believing what I was told.

More discouraging was being told I did not understand. I repeatedly asked what I did not understand. After all, I was in therapy to help me understand. Upon being told I did not understand, I came to expect being asked by the therapist how he/she could help me. Next therapist, please.

The good news for me is seeing more professionals asking for more transparency and questioning how ties to the pharmaceuticals benefit the consumers. A new paradigm for what is meant by "recovery" is intriguing. Since by definition the recovery process must be self-directed by the individual, perhaps my brother is right? Maybe I need to define how I can just get over it?

More reading for those so inclined:

http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/librar...10.html#topper
http://www.storiedmind.com/2010/09/1...ental-illness/
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/librar...c1.html#topper
http://www.medhelp.org/lib/medicate.htm
http://psychservices.psychiatryonlin...ull/61/10/1042
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/sho...en_dramat.html
http://www.uth.tmc.edu/uth_orgs/hcpc..._illnesses.htm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/lif...cle6538213.ece
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depressive_disorder
http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/n...nt-depression/

I've heard that often! "I mean, I thought you were the expert..."

I took some time to read the articles and then took too long in considering this post; it booted me out and have taken even more time to think about this since then. There is just so much in these articles, where to begin but have to be briefer this time; and yes, this is briefer, heaven help us.

From all the years of treatment and research....

The DSM is a merely a collection of observations and a tool. It is not definitive and cannot be used categorically to diagnose. It is merely a guide. As our knoweledge grows and changes so does it but at too slow a pace. So any provider that I have that thinks of it as a Bible is not the provider for me. I know it is needed as billing tool but should only be used as a guide and only that. We are all too different and too many exceptions to categorized one way or another. Is also a two-fold reason not to take too much stock in a diagnosis, it is too general to apply specifically and they have to have some way to label us for billing (so the closest one will do, so the docs can get reimbursed of our insurance benefits.)

Our knowledge is growing and changing, but the field as a whole is not organized and there is not consensus, very fragmented. There is also that fact that the system is caring for humans with such varying issues and being run by humans who cannot always accept limitations in their knowledge and accept failures in care. We are limited in our knowledge of the mind. I have had one provider in all of my years actually say, "I can no longer help you, but will help find someone can further your care." I wish there was more of it. It is not easy to accept limitations and failures for either party but would make the world a better place. Some times it is just due to lack of acceptance or losing hope that prevents someone either patient or provider to move on; some times it is unfortunately not wanting to transfer the patient b/c they'll lose income (there is some of this, though less for this reason as it is not a get rich field in the first place.) Providers as a majority really do care and want to help, it just seems either that just can't either accept or can't see that they aren't helping, or carrying a false hope that what they have been doing will somehow change things even though it hasn't been working (when treatment has been going on for some time.) Not to say that patients are always the best helpers in their own treatment; they don't always follow everything that has been asked of them either.

On another note, I have had unbiased, anonymous genetic testing that found markers for inherited mental illness. I have had brain scans that show a chemical imbalance. When they say it is not real, even if one did not have these things verified, anyone who has lived it knows it to be real. It really pisses me off. Chemical therapy is vital in such cases. However therapy cannot be overlooked. We are not taught skills growing up in western countries to deal with the lives we currently lead. Now whether illness is triggered by these lives b/c the tendency was there or caused by it, I am not going to debate but definitely influences both the chemical and emotional instability with mental illness and we do not have coping skills to deal with life as it currently exists.

The more I read about the successes of the various therapies based in eastern and western schools of thought applied to current times, CBT and DBT seem to influence mental illness more than any other therapy even chemical. Chemical is required for some illnesses but not alone; it must be combined with therapy as well.

The influence pharmaceutical companies have over chemical therapies is significant but must be kept in check with the discretion of the providers and the education of the patients in their care. There is little regulation for their activities otherwise. We need their R&D for the medications to treat and they are the forerunners in this working with the docs; however influence beyond that must be monitored and unfortunately there is very little so we must pay attention.

Our treatment options are limited at this time but are better than they have ever been, yet still need to improve. The need is too great for mental health care and growing. Why is that I wonder, lifestyle and life choice or genetics or both? The system does need to get better organized to better help us and accept what it does and what it does not know, stop pretending and promising what it cannot deliver. I continue to have hope that a treatment will always help. Now I know that even if it doesn't, it does not mean that I failed or that the provider failed, (I know for what they know, they really believed and tried); it just wasn't the right one for me.

It is vital in this process, as difficult as this may be, to educate and advocate for ourselves in this somewhat warped system that doesn't always have our interest at heart but instead the dollar as the bottomline. Only we can speak for ourselves and what care seems to be the best for us. If it is not working, only you know that after giving it a chance and then have to try something else. You are your best advocate in this system, educate and advocate.

(((((((((((((Byz))))))))))))))))))))

I have always wondered how a person who does not understand you well enough to help will then know enough about what you need to be able to recommend someone who can. Why should I take that recommendation seriously?

I have only been able to skim this thread as my vision is off today... but I want to make sure it comes up on my list so I can read it later... sounds like a really good discussion!

It's not always in treatment that they do not know you well enough, though sometimes that is the case, sometimes they do not possess the knowledge or the skills themselves to help whether they know you or not. In this case, I had only been with him about 9 months and he began researching other treatments with my current issues that might be more beneficial. He actually recommended a new therapy at the time and turned out to be a lifesaver. I just others had taken on this approach sooner if they felt they couldn't have helped.

My learning excursion last week really brought home how little I know about so many aspects of mental illness and the perplexities of treating it. While I was already aware I knew little, I am humbled by just how little.

I am not alone in my bewilderment it seems. How does one get a better grasp of the role of science and the environment as the source of mental illness when confronted with these polarities:

For the people who blame their genes for their depression, they have lost scientific support for their belief that there’s nothing they can do because of their presumed genetic destiny.

Let’s face it directly: Depression is mostly a socialized phenomenon. We learn ways of thinking, coping, relating, being, that increase our vulnerability and put us at a higher level of risk. Depression has many causes, some of which are biological to be sure, but most of which are psychological and social. Consider these facts:

• Depression is striking people at younger and younger ages.
• As societies westernize, the rates of depression go up.
• As relationships decline in quantity and quality, depression increases.
• As people learn prevention skills, they show remarkable ability to prevent episodes from developing in the first place.
• As they go through psychotherapy to learn better coping skills as well as other mood management skills, they have fewer and less severe episodes and their brains change in measurable ways.
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/managi...he-heck-is-it/

Evidence from neuroscience, genetics, and clinical investigation demonstrate that depression is a disorder of the brain. Modern brain imaging technologies are revealing that in depression, neural circuits responsible for the regulation of moods, thinking, sleep, appetite, and behavior fail to function properly, and that critical neurotransmitters -- chemicals used by nerve cells to communicate -- are perhaps out of balance. Genetics research indicates that vulnerability to depression results from the influence of multiple genes acting together with environmental factors. Studies of brain chemistry and of mechanisms of action of antidepressant medications continue to inform the development of new and better medical and psychotherapy treatments.
http://psychcentral.com/disorders/de...onresearch.htm

Mr. Hunter in his article on research and depression further states:

Increasingly, the public as well as health care professionals are recognizing these disorders as real and treatable medical illnesses of the brain.

What health care professionals recognize too is the subject of debate:

While clinical psychology has to some extent leaped onto this same biological bandwagon driven by contemporary psychiatry, seeking prescription privileges, some psychologists and other non-medical mental health professionals have practically written off the relevance, value and importance of psychodiagnosis today--in part precisely due to its inherent medicalization, biological bias, dehumanizing labeling, and notorious inaccuracy. As a result, I suspect many psychologists and other psychotherapists may be less than enthusiastic about participating in improving the standardized diagnostic system they despise yet are nonetheless forced to use by the insurance companies and other third party payors. But this professional apathy is itself a big part of the problem. And such resigned passivity on the part of psychologists at the present moment would be a major mistake.

I believe it is time for the leadership of the American Psychological Association to take a far more active and public role in the revision and direction of the DSM-V. Clearly, the publication of this diagnostic manual should be a collaborative effort between the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association. Yet, one wonders exactly what, if anything, the American Psychological Association is doing about DSM-V. Or about the hypermedicalization of psychology. As Dr. Frances, former chair of the DSM-IV Task Force indicates, the next six months or so is a window of opportunity for both the American Psychological Association, clinical and forensic psychologists, and other mental health professionals to provide vitally needed feedback about the proposed DSM-V revisions. And, due to external criticism about the revision process thus far, the American Psychiatric Association is apparently more receptive than ever before to such feedback.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...dsm-v-response

Although older, this excerpt is critical also:

Clinical psychology at least has its roots in experimentation, but it is drifting away from science. Concerns about cost–benefit issues are growing, especially in the United States. According to a damning report published last week (T. B. Baker et al. Psychol. Sci. Public Interest 9, 67–103; 2008), an alarmingly high proportion of practitioners consider scientific evidence to be less important than their personal — that is, subjective — clinical experience.

The irony is that, during the past 20 years, science has made great strides in directions that could support clinical psychology — in neuroimaging, for example, as well as molecular and behavioural genetics, and cognitive neuroscience. Numerous psychological interventions have been proved to be both effective and relatively cheap. Yet many psychologists continue to use unproven therapies that have no clear outcome measures — including, in extreme cases, such highly suspect regimens as 'dolphin-assisted therapy'.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...l/461847a.html

The American Psychological Association's Preamble to its Ethical Principals of Psychologists and Code of Conduct provides:

Psychologists are committed to increasing scientific and professional knowledge of behavior and people's understanding of themselves and others and to the use of such knowledge to improve the condition of individuals, organizations, and society. Psychologists respect and protect civil and human rights and the central importance of freedom of inquiry and expression in research, teaching, and publication. They strive to help the public in developing informed judgments and choices concerning human behavior. In doing so, they perform many roles, such as researcher, educator, diagnostician, therapist, supervisor, consultant, administrator, social interventionist, and expert witness. This Ethics Code provides a common set of principles and standards upon which psychologists build their professional and scientific work.
http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx

Makes me wonder is this sentiment fits: If, of all words of tongue and pen, The saddest are, "It might have been," More sad are these we daily see: "It is, but hadn't ought to be." ~Bret Harte

More for those so inclined:

http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/cha...ve-counseling/
http://blog.beliefnet.com/beyondblue...s-your-th.html
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/therap...rapy-and-life/
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/therap...the-beautiful/
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/therap...e-sixth-sense/
http://www.psychologytoday.com/artic...your-therapist

I trusted those who treated me. Maybe I would of benefited from a disclosure telling me that a placebo may work as well or better than a prescribed medication; or that treating symptoms is not a cure; or that there are advantages for those who work closely with pharmaceuticals?

I have huge problem with "trust your doctor" thing. Many pdoca are like "here's your script, next!" Trust a person that sees me for a short time as opposed to trust myself, because I lived with myself the whole time? Why?

I want to learn to better understand myself... but will a "professional" give that to me? I am not sure. They don't know me. I am bad at expressing my thoughts and feelings. What if they misinterpret me? Where would that lead me?

One of the sad things is how politicized that the whole process has become. Because of the way that both private and public health providers are roped into the necessitiy of having to "prove" how relevant their treatment and our illnesses are, almost every illness and every treatment has to go through a gnereal PR campaign before it and it's treatment it even ok'd as a "real" illness or a real treatment. If it were just to sort out the charletains, I wouldn't be so upset, but it really has turned into a glut of "evidenced based" medicine that really isn't, but just looks that way for the media and the politicians who are pushing it. They don't really care how to read the studies, they don't really care that some studies are based on only 9 subjects, if it fits their political direction, then it's "scientific " and "evidence" based. 30 years of professional experience is not. we are seeing whole functioning psych units turned upside down and turned into production lines based on this, and yes, the pharm. companies play a role, but only one of them. The rest is the eternal search for the easy answer...

Hello, lonegael. Thanks for your input. The number of variables in treating an illness is overwhelming.

The number of variables in causing an illness are also overwhelming. How in the world any Therapy or med can pinpoint the cause is beyond me. When we aren't able to be in touch with the cause ourself so that we can lead them to help us, it's no wonder that there are so many treatment resistant mental illnesses.

For me life was good until I was 42 & lost my career......then wham.....I completely lost it......no one could even grasp that what I went through could possibly cause such an extreme reaction.....major anxiety & major depression reoccurant.....the final dx after several years & many hospital visits to try to determine how such an intelligent person who had their act so together could possibly be so messed up......ah, it was easy, but even I couldn't figure that out.....I could program a computer to do it's thing, but I could't figure out anything about myself.

Then when I finally thought I was getting my act together & "getting over it", I got smashed with another trauma that was even worse than loosing my career.

Don't get me started on meds.......I never understood how meds could possibly help someone who was dealing with depression caused my a situation.....it wasn't a chemical imballance that caused my depression, it was the situation.....so of course, my body rejected the meds......but managed to allow every possible side effect to have an effect on me. Reactions ran from low blood pressure to rigid joints, to the most common which was migraines that ended up in being 24/7 migraines that I am still on pain medication to control. Of course, there was the prozac that caused anorexia....lost so much weight, they thought I was going to die......& of course, they had to treat me for the anorexia & tell me just how my body image was the problem & that I had to get in touch with that inner child that never existed. I realized just how much guess work was involved in the treatment of mental health & how much trying to put people into neat little boxes was also a technique....only problem, I never fit into anyone's need little box.....I never fit into neat little box all my life, I wasn't about to when I was dealing with the mental illness.

You betcha, I was a difficult patient.....I wasn't about to just accept any crap they decided to tell me & then needed to have proof & some solid information to base their suggestions on......that's the way engineering works.....thats the way they had to approach me with this also.....only there wasn't one psychologist that was capable of approaching me in a way that I could relate. This makes sense as to why my depression was so treatment resistant.

It's interesting because it has only been within this last month that my psychologist here is realizing how much healing I have done over this last year.....after completely leaving my past life behind.....leaving my husband, bad marriage, the environment that continually triggered the trauma that I went through 6 years ago.....& all the headaches that my husband has caused in my life.....I am finally able to see some light & have never felt this free of stress for all the 35 years I was married. The interesting thing is that I have also come to a deeper relationship in my Christianity which has made the most amount of difference in my life. For the first time I no longer feel like I am treading water as I was just a year ago. I still have days when I can't function & days when the depersonalization hits when my mind wanders back to the trauma's I have gone through (including my truck being broken into just 3 years ago & having my flute & many other valuable things stolen along with my identity). My life is still full of fighting for what is right against those who have cheated me when I first moved here. I am more able to keep my mind from constantly focusing on the bad thing that have happened in my life & the anger that built up into explosion level toward my husband. Being able to keep my mind from focusing on the bad, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, but it's just not giving it the power over my life that it had before.

Interesting because none of this is anything that I learned in therapy....not sure I ever learned anything in therapy because all it was was my talking without getting any feedback. Ah yes, I remember the empty promises of the therapists when I first started to deal with the depression.....the promises to never quit seeing me until we got the depression under control......then the next week, it was impossible to even get ahold of the therapist again......& the many therapist one right after another what were just a complete waste of time.

Treating mental health illnesses is difficult.....each individual needs to be treated on an individual basis without trying to cram them into a box with all the others of the same DX. From my observation of my situation, it seems like I am able to dwell less & less on the trauma or a situation the more time that passes.....but it always seems like another situation is waiting around the corner to slam into me full force. Things that I couldn't possibly prepare myself for.

All I know is that mental illness is not simple to treat not is it simple to figure out......but it does seem like we need to be the ones that get in touch with what it is that is causing the problem...or at least be willing to open up enough for therapy to help us work through what ever the trauma or issues are, or help teach us how to deal with what we are experiencing & also there is the need for some mental illnesses to have the meds that help keep them stabilized.

The human mind is such a complex thing......we should really feel good at even the smallest of accomplishment in our healing process & we should NOT feel bad if what ever we are dealing with is treatment resistant. It doesn't mean that in the future we won't be able to even figure it out ourselves if we come across the right key, or we come across the right therapist who has dealt with a similar issues or knows just how to relate. It like debugging a computer program that is broken....one just has to take the program through piece at a time & systematically figure out what is going on where to narrow down closer & closer to where the problem exists. It takes a lot of patience & even more persistence & a will to NOT give up because there is always a solution or at least a way to control the outcome in the best possible way.

Don't get discouraged even though it may feel hopeless at the moment. The human mind is so very complex (when trying to program artificial intelligence, I couldn't even grasp the concept it was so complex). I alway had doubt that anyone else could figure out my mind if I couldn't figure it out myself......so you know how much faith I had in psychology.

Don't let the feeling of being overwhelmed discourage you in the long run....one never knows what healing the future holds....it can be a very pleasant surprise.

Fortunately, I am not easily deterred, even when the extent of what I do not know has expanded exponentially. Perhaps not knowing is not such a bad thing? Joseph Goldstein says:

“We don’t know a lot. We don’t know much more than we know. And it’s a relief to let go of our attachment to views, our attachment to opinions, especially about things we don’t know. A new mantra began to form in my mind: “Who knows?” This not-knowing is not a quality of bewilderment; it’s not a quality of confusion. It actually is like a breath of fresh air, an openness of mind. Not knowing is simply holding an open mind regarding these very interesting questions to which we might not yet have answers.” http://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindfu...n-not-knowing/

PC, however, is a place of support. I recognize not everyone who may be reading this thread may take anything worthwhile from it. We are unique. When it comes to mental health care, one size does not fit all. There are different levels of trust. Not everyone has the capacity to change. Wanting to change is good, but does not mean a good result will be achieved. Getting better is hard work. The perplexities of what we deal with make it so. Yet, we can try.

Managing bad stress is a goal of mine. In an interview, Dr. Robert Sapolsky of Stanford talked about the ability to detect evidence of a person being scarred by stress during fetal life, or early development. Sapolsky described it as, "molecular scar tissue of your adversities" This ability to detect may allow earlier diagnosis of potential health problems later on. Quite fascinating. http://www.nimh.nih.gov/media/video/sapolsky.shtml

Docjohn's article on stress is here: http://psychcentral.com/stress/
Another one I found helpful is here: http://www.helpguide.org/mental/stress_signs.htm Without careful management, stress can cause serious problems for us.

Lisa Firestone, Ph.D, talks about how to silence the inner voice that causes us to stress out:

Millions of Americans struggle with unhealthy levels of stress. Stress isn’t just destructive to our mental health but to our physical health as well. It weakens our immune systems and contributes to heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes, and other illnesses. These facts are important, but reading about them, or even relaying them, admittedly makes me feel a little, well... stressed. Too often reflecting on our stress just makes us feel worse. So rather than scare you straight when it comes to stress, I thought I would offer a real solution to those nagging (at times terrorizing) thoughts that lead to stress.

The mere mention of the word stress is enough to make our heads spin with thoughts of to-do lists, meetings, schedules, social calendars, kids, work, money. Whatever the trigger mechanism is, it’s always there to distract us from any potential sense of calm. When we allow our negative thoughts to take over, we spend precious energy handling the symptoms of stress instead of solving the problem or dealing with what’s really making us feel such pressure or worry.

These negative thoughts tell us when to worry and what to worry about, but never do they offer us a real solution to our problems. If we were to challenge these negative thoughts, we would soon realize that not only is this destructive thought process amplifying our stress levels but it is actually causing us much of our anxiety in the first place.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...essing-you-out

Stan Goldberg, Ph.D, talks about change here: http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/23530

Here is Dr. Sapolsky again, this time discussing a stress vaccine: http://military.rightpundits.com/201...cine-30-years/

Be well.

Fascinating thread

I have also found myself in a situation a bit like Byzantine's. About a year ago, I was dx with something that threw all previous dx in to question. So, for 16 something years, I was "treatment resistant" in certain respects because I did not FEEL what I actually UNDERSTANDING. The types of therapy were not beneficial for what I was actually dealing with. How it was missed, I put down to therapist fatigue, some mismanagement, not enough questions asked and treated according to my BEHAVIOUR and not what I was actually saying WHEN I had a voice.

There are simply too many people in the public system for them to treat properly. It took a very shrewd and fresh set of eyes 2 years ago to look out of the box and trust her instincts. The tricky part then, was to convince me of her findings. I am now getting some help with the symptoms even though, the Syndrome itself will never be "cured", and I don't need it to be. For without the wiring, I would be a different person, and none the wiser.

I also KNOW that a mental health professional can only get me part of the way to insight. For there is not just my mental health to consider. There is also my spiritual health. Forgiveness took me a lot of the way to spiritual health in many respects, and forgiveness can only come from me. Most of my intensive times of forgiveness had nothing to do with therapy, and a therapist cannot "teach" or help me to forgive, for then it would not be instinctive on my part, but part of a "therapeutic" plan, and therefore would have no meaning.

I remember saying to my step-mother recently...."I have had plenty of people work on me, but I have done little work on myself". And that involves practicing a whole bunch of stuff that seemed foreign and frightful and I did not have the maturity or insight for. Working on oneself in a non-confrontational and peaceful way requires much stamina, for it was not something I had done easily in the past.

And the one thing above all others is that a therapist cannot teach me, is how to "love thyself". That is an ongoing and painful process that I can discuss in therapy, but I am ultimately alone in that journey, and so it should be that way. I would not want their interference or anyone else's.

Take care everyone,

Michah

Fussbudget alert:

Stress is not the same as strain. It is strain that does us in, not stress. Strain occurs when stress goes beyond the point where the system can return reversibly to the pre-stressed state.

Hello Byz! paradox there...hello then byes teehee...sorry Byz my brain is hurting from all this reading...I thought speed reading was a good thing, used to partially treat dyslexia Goddess knows why though, the brain is tricked by the eye too many times. I think I was conned!

I just wanted to let you know that I love you and I am thinking of you. May your Yuletide be merry and bright, and may all your apples be ripe,

Rhiannon )O(

Whew! Just seeing this thread and I am excited about all the good reading that awaits me when I have more time Thanks!

About stress. Some is useful. Too much is not. But is it stress itself or our percetpion of it and our response to it that is important? This is something I struggle with now in my life and in therapy: do I need to learn to handle the stress, or is it healthier to move away from the stress? Or is that avoidance and missing opportunities to grow, which in turn can make the things that feel stressful not so much stressful...

I like this definition of support: help and kindness that you give to someone who is having a difficult time. "Support" has many senses. That administrators have to remind us about being supportive is indicative of the lack of a consensus about what support means.

Supporting for me is more an objective process than a subjective one. I attempt to subordinate my weltanschauung as a means to being less judgmental, critical or intolerant. Help and kindness suggest empathy and understanding. PsychCentral is meant to be a safe place to talk about troubling concerns. I say nothing if I am having trouble being supportive as I understand it.

Information: knowledge or facts about someone or something Again, the question becomes what knowledge or facts are appropriately shared? I have come back to this question frequently since becoming a member.

Providing phone numbers and links to state agencies or help organizations like NAMI and The Domestic Violence Hotline may help someone get assistance.

As a former lawyer, I have talked about legal matters in a general sense with the admonition to talk to a lawyer. There certainly is a problem if a member relies on anything stated here without first confirming with a licensed attorney the information given is current and correct.

Giving advice is the most problematical for me. Most of us are not trained professionals. I have had therapists tell me they cannot give me advice about what is best for me when decisions need to be made. One therapist explains:

Therapy is a process of exploration. It is unethical for a therapist to give you advice about what to do in your life. Therapy is about helping you come up with your own solutions. Practical suggestions about coping skills or referrals are provided in therapy. http://therapist4me.com/Boundaries%20of%20Therapy.htm

Others gave me advice and certainly tried to influence my decisions. The point is if professionals are reluctant to give advice, why would nonprofessionals venture too?

Also problematical is giving advice based solely upon our own life experiences. Each of us is not the final arbiter of what constitutes common sense or truth. Many of us will and have viewed the same facts differently. While I do and am talking about my own experience I understand and respect that others may disagree about my conclusions. Discussing options and alternatives might be more useful.

What do you think?

I think it's kind of sad when a health care professional blames their patient when their treatmeant doesnt work. In any other health-field this dynamic would seem odd.

Will a new vision help those burdened by mental illness?

In contrast to the Rehabilitation View of Recovery, people who have recovered from mental illness have an empowering view that full recovery is possible for everybody. According to this Empowerment Vision, people are labeled with mental illness through a combination of severe emotional distress and insufficient social supports/resources/coping skills to maintain the major social role expected of them during that phase in their life. The psychosocial nature of mental illness is highlighted by the common experience most consumer/survivors have gone through of having had a variety of diagnoses. In fact, the degree of interruption in a person's social role is more important in affixing the label mental illness to someone than their diagnosis. Recovery is possible through a combination of supports needed to (re)establish a major social role and the self-management skills needed to take control of the major decisions affecting one. This combination of social supports and self-management help the person regain membership in society and regain the sense of being a whole person. Self-help and peer support are fundamental elements in this journey of recovery because often the only people who can truly understand the feeling of exclusion are those who have also been labeled. http://www.power2u.org/articles/reco...ew_vision.html

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." http://www.mindlink.org/healing_a_troubled_mind.html

{{{{ Byz }}}} once again, your posts are so full of nutrition and sustanance~!



thank you,, thank you ~ did i say,, Thank YOU~!! ? Gus