Tomorrow

Hey Kureha, I watched the movie The Aviator a few years back. It is about Howard Hugh and his life. He suffered from OCD. There was a second DVD with that came with the movie and there is an interview with the doctor that wrote this book. It is very interesting how the doctor uses mindfulness to help people over come their OCD. They actually did MRI's before and after treatment and could actually show the brain's neural circuitry change.

http://www.amazon.com/Brain-Lock-You...8978001&sr=1-1

mindfullness. I've done "dbt?" i guess. it is when we think of our mind as having three states; what i want to do, what i should do and a comprimise of the two. The comprimise is called the "wise mind" or mindfulness I guess.

that isn't exact but i think it will lead someone in the right direction, anyway.

Kurah, i wasn't trying to minimize your OCD. I'm sorry you need to cope with that during your day to day life. It seems it has caused you pain; lost boyfriend and trouble in college? I haven't finished college yet, I'm 43. I am a senior.

My voices and mood disorder caused me to lose the one woman I had openly professed my romantic love for. she professed hers to me. she saw my illness, she took off. never contacted me again. it hurt; a lot.

i only want to help.

if i am not helping, i will not respond unless you tell me what i can do to help you?

i'm guessing. I'm sorry if i offended you.

I like that movie.
In the UK the standard treatment is CBT, my psychologist helped me get it more manageable, but she said it would never totally go.
It was the OCD that started the psychosis.

Brookwest – It’s just people have always made fun of me, saying that I didn’t try hard enough, that I was stupid and should just get over it.
Not what I wanted to hear when I was scared everyday that I was going to get HIV or that I already had it.
Your message just reminded me of that

That must have been really painful. My son feels like he has to remind me a lot that he's trying as hard as he can and doing his best. I know he is, but sometimes he thinks I don't know.

The book The Brain That Changes Itself has a chapter on the use of CBT for OCD. DBT is a form of CBT which draws on Buddhist teachings of mindfulness, the middle way, etc.

It's amazing how much your brain can change, so it's possible the problem might go altogether. But if it doesn't go away, it doesn't mean you haven't tried hard enough. I think brookwest knows that. We all have our own issues. Most of us have found ways to improve our problems, or at least cope with them. But they tend to flair up under stress.

My psychologist only does CBT.

Well it's a lot better than it was - I just still don't do a lot of things, because I still a doubt about if it's ok or not.

Like is it ok to touch the door handle - probably not, so I'll use the sleeve of my jacket.

I didn't even get a chance to finish off dealing with the OCD and then the gang stalking started.
Everyone just sees the black and white, the grey is where I am and everyone just misses it slightly, like they are so close, but at the same time we seem worlds apart.

Your world seems terrifying.

I've never been diagnosed with those disorders.

I've been very scared before, about things I wasn't able to describe well to others.

Kurah, I'm at another computer miles and miles and states, maybe countries or continents away. I hope I don't scare you. Do I?

No - I'm just sensitive, I'm scared of sleeper cells.

I need to get proof of it - I need to be prepared and go and ask them (the sleeper cells) I need to stop being scared for just a couple of seconds enough to ask them questions and then present the proof.

I think its been about 2 weeks since I quit my meds, I think it did something to me because I feel kind of depressed and I've been thinking of suicide a lot, that's why I haven't been on here so much.

The thing is if I do that soon - no one will ever know I was right about things, so the thing that wants me dead - is the thing that is keeping me alive. Well apart from hurting my parents as well.

If things become scary and you feel you are going to do something wrong, even though your voices are telling you it is right, nibble some of your meds. I think it might help you to not do something wrong.

Is there anyone you trust, anywhere on Earth?

You have a plan for getting proof? Or a plan for suicide?

I read somewhere once that the only thing greater than fate is the courage to endure it. I think that M. Scott Peck starts out his book, The Road Less Traveled, with the sentence, Life is difficult. I think that he was studying Buddhism when he wrote that book. Buddhism has a lot of interesting things to say about dealing with suffering.
How we change the neural circuity of our brain is by focusing our attention. If you can focus on the present moment and external things that you are presently engaged in like washing the dishes, brushing your teeth or taking a shower your mind will be less likely to dwell on the past or worry about the future. When your mind wanders there just gently bring it back to what you intend to be your focus of attention.
I used to day dream a lot and worry about what people must think about me as I walk down the street. Now I try and just focus my attention on how the sidewalk feels on my feet and my breath and mainly keep my eyes focused on where I am walking. I notice by doing this I slowly lose my sense of self which is what you do when a person gets in the zone. My sense of self comes flooding back when I meet someone that I know or am set upon by a pack of roaming wild dogs. I carry a spray bottle half full of home made pepper spray in case of a dog attack.
Rick Hanson and his partner have some interesting things to say about our sense of self if you go to this link and then check out some of the talks under Not-Self Workshops.
http://www.wisebrain.org/tools/talks...os/neurodharma
Stan Groff wrote that sadly many people comment suicide when they really just want to commit ego-cide. It was really rough for me when I was in my 20's but the stormy weather eventually passed. Just look at it as a hero or heroin journey that you are on.

It's not voices - I just don't feel ok
I don't know who to trust - I can't talk to my parents about it, my psychologist thinks things are going well - so I can't disappoint her and I don't think the nurse will want to hear about that so soon after she lost someone.

Good heavens! Is dog attack so common where you live that you actually have to go around armed against it?!?!?

BTW, the only hallucination I've had in my life was of a pack of wild dogs. I was about 15 and standing outside my family's home. I looked up the hill to the back and saw a pack of dogs running over the top of the hill and straight down toward me. I turned and rushed into the back door of the house and slammed it shut. I looked through the window, and ... nary a dog in sight.

I agree. For some reason this calls to mind spiritual_emergency's post comparing psychosis to a tornado. It rips through your life and tears everything apart, but afterward you can reassess which parts of your life and yourself you wish to keep and which to let go of.

I think you can and do trust your psychologist, and I think you should talk to her. If you're worried about disappointing her, I suspect she'll be more distressed by your suicide than if you just go and lay your cards on the table.

That is a great metaphor. What creates a tornado is opposing forces like when warm air and cool air collide. It is opposing forces deep inside of us that creates the psychosis also. We need to hold tight and weather the storm so that we can rebuild. If I would have pulled the plug when I was in my 20's there would of been so much of life that I would have missed out of. I was able to go back to school and get my degree, have a profession, get married, build a house, have a couple of kids and help them grow up, get divorced, and now at 60 years of age get married again.

Here's s_e's thread on this: http://forums.psychcentral.com/showthread.php?t=179266

I really think it's worth looking at again. It's a long post, but there's this at the end:

It sounds like you have gone to school for that knowledge. The opposeing forces creating a mess in people is reasonable to see as true. The reality, from my experience, was more than that. I mean I was being pulled in, at least, two different directions. One was toward the military, a lot of my friends were devoutly military. The other was spiritualism, because I had friends who had embraced spiritualism. Like I said, these are only two, but there were other, smaller forces as well.

So I was pressured to choose; pro-military for some friends or pro-spiritualism for other friends. Truth was; I couldn't choose because I saw the good in both. That made me undesireable to both groups. I became undesirable, I couldn't, "walk the walk, and talk the talk" anymore. I wasn't willing to demonize either.

Therefore, I needed to confront some big problems, alone. At the same time, I needed to find food and shelter and maintain health. So, to diassociate seems reasonable as a result of that state of mind.

Did I dissasociate though. Not really. I gave in to superstician(sp), or magical thinking and loose associations, but I knew enough to maintain work and could get by well enough. I was rejected by my birth family. That broke my heart.

I didn't have an interest in being a part of the productive world anymore. It was meaningless for me.

Doctors would interview me. In that state of mind, at that time, I was wounded, nearly fatally. I threw half truths and much of nothing at this highly paid and distant person. I became diagnosed and seperated from, well, humanity. These highly paid workers assured the outside world that they would heal me. They lied. My love for, pretty much everything, died.

Still, I moved forward. I met a woman who found me desirable and we formed a union. I nurtured this union. I have built a life around this union
Did the highly paid workers help this union last? No. They discouraged it. I ignored their concerns.

I can live in the productive world now.

OUr culture is sick. I paid a price for the screw ups of others.

That is my view.

Not me. A poster who used to be active here wrote that. She had her own psychotic experience, but I think a lot of her ideas are from Jung.

I think Jung was high.

Its been a few days since you posted i hope that you are OK

Amber

I agree with Amber... hope you're okay Kureha.

I'll add my voice to this. Been thinking about you, Kureha.

Kurah, I hope you are well and safe.

I have been concern about Kureha also. The hardest time for me was when I was coming down off an episode. Then for a time I thought that there would be no end to them. I learn to just roll with the punches and then things eventually got better for me.
Thanks for re-posting S.E. Not in Kansas anymore Costello. One thing or major element that S.E. doesn't address in Jung's map of the psyche is the anima/animus.
That is probably the greatest source of unconscious conflict. Mahoney does a good job comparing Jung's theory with Freud's theory in volume 2 of his book.
Thanks for sharing your story Brookwest. I can identify with it. A major conflict in my life was between religion and science. I also found myself becoming super- superstitious or caught up in magical thinking.