Tag: depression

Posted in psychology, science, Voices

Mental Health Month: Schizophrenia

Posted on by alidware

*This is a post dedicated to my Mental Health Month series, where each week we talk about different diagnoses, share stories, and ways toward wellness. Tomorrow we will cover Bipolar Disorder. If you have some experience to share for any of the topics we cover (or have covered), contact me here or on my social media handles and we will get you featured.*

Today we’re talking about schizophrenia and related diagnoses, one of which I have. I’ll share some of the things I’ve experienced and ways that I’ve dealt with certain aspects.

The reason Schizophrenia is now considered a spectrum is the wide ranges of experiences people have, and the level of distress resulting from those experiences. Our last DSM separated Schizophrenia into subtypes like “paranoid, residual, undifferentiated, disorganized, and catatonic.” I think it was a big sigh of relief when these boxes were removed. The DSM 5 now reads with these diagnoses:

  1. Delusional Disorder: This basically means someone is consumed with different types of delusions (like grandiose or jealous type) for at least one month or longer. If people do experience hallucinations, they are related to the delusions. Usually functioning isn’t as impaired at the same level of someone in an acute psychotic episode.
  2. Brief Psychotic Disorder: This is more like what someone would picture an acute episode: hallucinations, delusions, and some version of disorganization.
  3. Schizophreniform Disorder: I honestly thought they’d removed this a long time ago, but this is like a short-term schizophrenia; episodes are usually between one and six months long. This includes hallucinations, delusions, disorganization, and negative symptoms (apathy, lack of response, e.t.c).
  4. Schizophrenia.
  5. Schizoaffective Disorder: this includes elements of schizophrenia, like hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized speech and combines it with elements of a mood disorder, like depression or mania. The mood symptoms must be present concurrently with the top criteria of schizophrenia.
  6. Substance/medication induced psychotic disorder
  7. Psychotic disorder due to another medical condition.
  8. Cataonic conditions.
  9. Other specified Schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorder.
  10. And of course unspecified.

Are Psychotic People Dangerous?

The thing that gets misconstrued often about psychosis is the level of danger someone experiencing an episode poses. Of course there are cases of those lost in delusion acting aggressively. There are many more cases of abuse and violence against those in psychosis.

The thing that isn’t understood is that when we are in this fragile state, everything is terrifying. Your smile is terrifying–a sign you’ve been conspiring against us. Your tone of voice, your pitch of voice, your very existence in our world means you are, in one way or another, against us. Every person, television, web camera, corporation, government institution, is a hunter and we are the prey, frightened only because we’ve just realized this whole time people have been plotting to harm us. And suddenly every bad thing that happens, or has happened, every innocent mistake we witness, every abnormal movement becomes apart of that plot.

Not everyone is vocal and so obviously outlandish. I, for example, spent a lot of my time in my room with a blanket over my head playing Minecraft in the dark. I spent five or six days a week doing this. Meanwhile, one of my coworkers controlled mby body, blocked the thoughts she hated, inserted new ones, forced me to eat a bowl of cereal, hounded me until I did it. I couldn’t walk properly and I’d lost awareness of my body because it wasn’t really mine anymore.

I spent weeks playing Grand Theft Auto in a room piled so full of trash and clothes my door couldn’t open properly and I couldn’t touch my carpet. The sheriff managed to shove my door open, though. That was when the voices were keeping me up all night with screams and mocking banter and whispers. I sat rigid and silent, only answered their questions with “yes” or “no” even if they asked an open ended question.

My diagnosis is Schizoaffective, first diagnosed as Bipolar 1 and several other things.

What pains me is when I hear about people deep in their experience who trigger the fear in officers that they’re trained to have to protect their lives. One man, over 8 years ago, came at an officer with a boom. This officer knew of the man’s psychosis and still opened fire with 7 shots.

Another man, silent, mute, like me, but naked, walked along a highway in the middle of the night. A trucker stopped him, called police when the man, also diagnosed schizoaffective, crawled up on the roof of his semi. The cops, assuming he was on drugs, gave him a pair of shorts or something, called the paramedics who took his vitals. The Sargent then drove the man to a closed gas station and dropped him off. That man then wandered back to the same highway and was killed by a car that didn’t see him.

The Sargent’s defense was that he’d dropped the man off in a safe place.

Are psychotic people dangerous? Not usually. What’s dangerous is the situations made volatile by people who don’t understand.

What does Research Say?

I’ve written on this before (big surprise) and if you’re curious, you can read the post, “Is Schizophrenia a Brain Disease?” You may be surprised by the answer. If you frequently keep up with psychology research, not the pop psychology agenda, you probably won’t be.

Can People Live Normally With Psychosis?

Yes.

For some people that means taking medication or living in a group home where social skills and independence are prioritized. For others, this means getting off of medication or moving out a toxic living environment. For all of us, though, who choose some version of wellness, it usually means keeping a routine, engaging in consistent self-care, and learning to manage our experiences to the best of our abilities.

Not everyone hears voices 24/7. Not everyone’s voices are external. Not everyone’s voices are negative. Not everyone has visual hallucinations. Not everyone is hospitalized constantly, or for insanely long periods of time.

So what happens to those who don’t reach a stable wellness? A lot of people give up on those who don’t seem to present a lot of insight, as if it’s someone else’s responsibility to make them develop insight. I don’t want to say that stability isn’t achievable for some. What I will say is that the level of insight depends on many things: support, past trauma, current trauma (hospitals, police, doctors), self-esteem, general worldview. All of this gets distorted in psychosis, yes, but the foundation is the same. If someone has spent a lifetime in child abuse where intimidation, violent threats/attacks, and coercion dominates their perception, assuming even bizarre things like aliens probing their thoughts is routed in a feeling of lack of privacy, feeling intruded upon, and invaded. If those underlying feelings are never addressed, if only obvious positive symptoms (like hallucinations) are dulled, and that is called the ultimate progress, then that persons self-esteem, drive, and hope will suffer.

Much of the mental health system stifles the cultivation of wellness for those with psychosis in many ways.

Living normally can mean many things. It could mean working. But it could also mean just steady self-care. It could mean being satisfied. It could mean getting on social security disability and getting back into hobbies and cultivating contentment. It doesn’t have to mean what society wants it to mean.

What Are The Experiences Like?

This varies in intensity and frequency across the spectrum of Schizophrenia. Common experiences are auditory and visual hallucinations, olfactory (smell) hallucinations, tactile (touch) hallucinations, thoughts and feelings of being hunted, attacked, hated, and the reasons for these feelings are what become delusions–for example, if someone feels they are being watched, the delusion isn’t just the action of being watched, but why; the government has tracked their IP address, put bugs in their phones, turned their family against them. They hear the agents outside their window, conspiring.

Other experiences may include a severe drop in drive, motivation, and emotional expression. They may have an affect that is inappropriate, that doesn’t match what they say or the atmosphere of the room. This is the reason one of the top Google questions about Schizophrenia is “why do schizophrenics laugh randomly?” They’re hinting at affect, but also possibly voices. Sometimes they say funny things and we laugh. That’s a normal reaction to something hilarious, but on the outside it seems scary, weird, and bizarre. There is no scientific consensus to whether medication is the cause of these “negative symptoms.” If we get some studies that aren’t done by researchers with severe conflicts of interest (e.g grants from pharmaceutical companies) we may get a definite answer.

When I was on medication, I was more focused and aware of my surroundings, but I was tired and had trouble caring about things. Apathy can come after a psychotic break, especially a first psychotic break, and again, there is no scientific consensus on whether this is result of the medication blockading certain synapses, damaging them, or just a result of the brain restructuring itself after the break.

For me, my voices are often but not constant, internal and external, random, mocking, encouraging, and repetitive. I also hear familiar voices, such as friends or coworkers, particularly when I’m around them. When I worked at the local library at the beginning of 2019 (yes, I tackled two jobs) I often heard the boss and the branch manager discussing me. One afternoon in particular, I was shelving some books. I heard them giggle and the boss (my supervisor) said my name, followed by words I can’t remember and the branch manager said “well, what are you going to do about her?” very loudly, and when I whipped my head around, they were talking, smiling, laughing, and I couldn’t hear them at all. They were across the library.

I took my cart to a different part of the library, felt my heart racing, and tried to look at the event objectively. They were far away, I couldn’t hear them, and maybe they weren’t taking about me. But they’d said my name. Maybe it was something good. Or maybe they hadn’t said anything at all. Every day in that place was me psychically defending my honor. I quit abruptly four months into the job.

I also hear unfamiliar voices, strangers walking down the street. One afternoon, before I was hospitalized this last time I think, my boyfriend and I were on the wharf walking back toward the street. We walked past a couple, and the man growled “you better watch your back”.

This was when I knew there were people placed on the street to intimidate and berate me. I knew some were possessed by the same entities that wanted me dead. I spun around and I asked my boyfriend, “didn’t you hear that?” Of course he didn’t, and I stopped in the middle of the walkway, blocked it really, watching the couple, and spoke loudly; “that guy just told me to watch my back. He thinks I don’t know what’s going on, but I fucking do. They don’t know who they’re messing with.”

I don’t know if my boyfriend remembers this, he may not, but I remember the fear, the anger, and the uncertainty.

Some people see creatures, demons, devils, regular people, spiders. Some people feel things crawling under their skin or in their organs, or smell strange scents. I remember smelling a lot of weird, noxious fumes not of earth and fire smoke. I always feel like someones touching me, grabbing me, trying to pull me in a different world. I feel things crawling on me frequently(not in me thankfully) and I misinterpret a lot of my body’s signals.

All of these things together can be incapacitating, terrifying, and unreal in real way. I still think back on some things and don’t believe that any of it happened, that I made it up, and that belief often has my voices calling me a liar, that I’m some kind of malingerer and my therapist knows it, my coworkers know it, and it’s going to cost me my job and my therapist is going to put me in jail.

How ironic, right?

How Should I Respond?

If your friend, child, parent, or any other relative is experiencing an episode or is home, on medication, and still in the midst of psychosis frequently, panic is probably the most incorrect way to respond. The second most incorrect way to respond is feeding or attacking delusional, disorganized, or otherwise different behavior. Do not agree that the government watches your son, but don’t dismiss it either. Sometimes the underlying feelings of being watched are fear, mistrust, or anger. Address those.

Studies show that the involvement of trusted family members during someone’s hospitalization can enhance and support the person’s recovery. Show up, visit, learn what you can. My mom feared driving over the hill to the hospital I was at and so my boyfriend brought me clothes and visited. It would have been nice to have either one or both of my parents though, so they could not only see the extent of my fear and mental frailty, but also so they could get involved and be a source of comfort. It’s so hard to get them to be a source of comfort sometimes.

Most of all, respond with compassion, patience. Step outside of your world and into ours.

This post is so late (it’s 11:46 pm for me on May 14th) because I have loads of classwork and have been working full-time for the first time in my life. Adjusting to that is taking some time. And so tomorrow, later as well probably, we will cover Bipolar. If you have a story on any diagnosis and you’ like to share it here, CONTACT ME or reach me on:

Instagram: @written_in_the_photo

Twitter: @philopsychotic

If you enjoyed this post, please share, like, and follow ThePhilosophicalPsychotic. I appreciate every reader and commentator. You give me more reason to continue reporting poorly executed science.

Posted in Late Night Thoughts

Happiness

Posted on by alidware

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be happy. Here are some of my thoughts.

I’ve done what all good, sheep-like psychologist eventually do: create categories for something that is probably far too complex for such an explanation.

But, hear me out.

I’ve reasoned there’s organic happiness and there’s constructed, or synthesized, happiness. An organic happiness would be someone’s baseline: how you are when you wake up in the morning, how you respond to the corresponding events of the day. This is the happiness we often feel we need to correct.

A synthesized happiness, then, comes in peaks and waves from an outside source. It eventually decreases gradually or exponentially. It may be uncertain, untrustworthy, or fleeting.

These thoughts came into my head not only because of our humanly need to correct all feelings we feel don’t line well with other’s feelings, but because there is such a stark difference between the happiness I feel organically, the one that sprouts naturally in my consciousness, a simple product of biological existence, versus the happiness I feel after I’ve accomplished something I had doubts about, after spending a day with the people I love, or after I take a pain pill for my back.

I think I’ve made this distinction because I notice I’m often disappointed in my organic happiness, in my baseline of existence.

There are tons of speculated biological and evolutionary reasons why certain chemicals peak at certain times in our brains–to keep us focused, to associate good feelings with good friends so that we build connections which were at one point most essential for survival, to simply bring us enjoyment. But now, there are so many things in life that can trigger intense rushes of endorphins, like substances and fame, that what we experience in the day to day just can’t compete. I am happier and friendlier when traveling. I am happier and friendlier when on pain medication. I am happier and friendlier to strangers when I am also among people I care for and love.

And so I find now, when I have a moment to rest and reflect, I remind myself that everything is enough.

I’ve had three of my six past therapists tell me I need to tell myself that I am enough, and I’ve tried that, but I think this stretches deeper. I think that realizing that life is enough, that how I feel is enough–negative or positive–is what paves the way for accepting myself. If I can truly believe that every negative feeling exists as a moment ripe with the potential for growth, and that every positive feeling exists as a moment ripe with the potential for contentment (as opposed to: oh no, I’m happy, let’s see how long this lasts), then I think that may be the key to actually existing.

But believing something doesn’t mean I create a mantra and repeat it to myself until I drop dead. That doesn’t foster belief and studies show that reiterating positive mantras to yourself can actually make you feel worse. I measure how much I believe in something by the rate and construction of my reactions. Let me give an example.

Last night while watching television, I felt the same disappointment I discussed earlier: I felt sad that I couldn’t spend every day feeling the fuzzy, determined, focused happiness that pain medication brings. I felt sad that I felt sad about that. I felt sad that my own level of being just didn’t seem to be enough; I enjoy my personality, I admire my intelligence, I accept my flaws, but the feeling of existing, the feeling of being human, limited, temporary, often enrages me. Being just isn’t enough.

And in this moment of realization, my mind reacted with a simple thought: let’s be okay with this.

Now sometimes I have voices responding to my thoughts, or voice-like thoughts responding to my thoughts, but this was all me, it was a reaction that I haven’t programmed. I haven’t spent the last two years off medication waking up every morning spewing “learn to love yourself” and “you are enough” quotes until I repeat them robotic, on demand. I’ve spent my time entrenching myself in the madness, the chaos, the pain. I spent time locked in my room staring at the wall, if that was what my pain was. I spent time walking off waves of panic, if that was what my pain was. I spent time being unhappy, if that was what my pain was. I resisted the urges for bail outs–a psychiatrist would have bailed me out, numbed me to my anxiety, tainted the voices and the paranoia, evened the mood swings and depression. And I would have learned nothing.

This is not to be said in a way where everyone taking medication should be offended. For me, medication was another avoidance technique that I’d perfected through years of trauma. For others, medication is the stability key that allows them the time and focus to come to the same types of realizations I have. We all reach wellness in different ways.

I’ve noticed in depression, I am no longer overwhelmed with sadness because I allow the sadness to spread. I choke sometimes with the paranoia, fight it, try and reason with myself and that often cycles me further. I am still growing. I choke with the anxiety as well, get lost in the sensations of my body, and the doom my mind screams. I am still growing. But the depression, which has been with me since I was eleven years old, has become a close friend. I am 24 years old. It’s taken 13 years to cultivate this friendship.

And so happiness for me does not mean contentment or joy or the absence of sadness. Happiness for me means experiencing being without judgement.

I figured I’d share some of these thoughts with everyone as we plunge through Mental Health Month as well as the Covid Pandemic.

This week we are covering Schizophrenia, Bipolar, and Dissociative disorders, starting tomorrow. The post will be later in the evening (PST) as I have some self-care and some things that need to get done at work. If you have a blog post on those topics that you’ve written and would like to share, or if you’d like to submit your own story, contact me here or on my social media handles below.

Instagram: @written_in_the_photo

Twitter: @philopsychotic

If you enjoyed this post, please share, like, and follow ThePhilosophicalPsychotic. I appreciate every reader and commentator. You give me more reason to continue reporting poorly executed science.

Posted in Community, Emotions, psychology, Therapy

The Living Nightmare that is childhood sexual abuse

Posted on by alidware

*A featured personal story for this MENTAL HEALTH MONTH series*

I’d been in counselling following the breakdown of my relationship with my sons’ dad. It had become excruciatingly painful, revisiting places and feelings I’d long-forgotten so, about eighteen months in, I leftwithout telling my counsellor. I stayed away, despite her letters asking me to return.

However, things were coming back to haunt me. It was like I had this video in my head, fast-forwarding, re-winding over and over, sometimes so fast, it made me feel physically sick. The accompanying thoughts were disturbing and taunting me but, as I had nowhere to turn, these thoughts just amassed and I felt like a volcano, ready to erupt at any moment.

In desperation, I wrote to Linda (my Counsellor) to ask if I could go back to counselling and thankfully, she agreed. At my first appointment back, she said she hoped and thought I would return. I got the feeling she knew there was more than the breakdown of my relationship going on.

However, because I’d kept my dirty secret, together with these revolting thoughts and stomach-turning feelings, inside for so long — It took many months before it all came tumbling out — but I just couldn’t say the words.

I tip-toed around the topic but Linda was good at making me stay on track, patiently asking endless open-ended questions like “and then what happened?” or “and how did that make you feel?” How f*cking stupid was she? I felt angry, so f*cking angry. Right at that moment, I hated the world and everyone in It! And I felt full of rage towards Linda – for making me do this! I hated how she was digging into the filthy pit of my stomach, scraping out the misery, disgust, hatred and fear, one dirty lump after another. Then she turns. She asks, almost sweetly, “Hannah, can you tell me what is making you so angry?”

“Okay, Okay! I was f*cking abused. Is that it? Is that what you want to hear?” I screamed, and “I. was. sexually. Abused! You happy now? Or do you want to hear how he told me touch him, and I did. Okay. I did! And I don’t know why……,”

Zapped of all energy, my screeching gave way to sobbing and whispered apologies to Linda.

Months in and towards the end of one of our sessions, Linda held up a book and I burst into tears. It was the first time I’d ever seen anything in print about what had happened to me. I felt sick, I couldn’t breathe, and I was sobbing uncontrollably. I think I was in shock, I felt shaken and I had a panic attack.

However, once I’d recovered from the panic, I think I felt slightly relieved. It hadn’t happened to just me. Not that I wanted it to happen to anyone else, but others had been through it, come out the other side, and had written a book to help people like me.

That afternoon, I took the book home and was sitting on my bed, feeling slightly dazed and afraid to open it, when my brother walked in. Puzzled at my silence, he sat with me and saw the title of the book. He put his arm around my shoulders, opened the book, and as we read the Preface, we shed silent tears together. I will always remember this moment and I’ll be eternally grateful to my brother.

I continued with the counselling, trying to unravel this mess – this living nightmare of childhood sexual abuse. processing my thoughts and emotions, slowly. For a long time, I hated myself. I hated that it had happened, that I let it happen, that it went on for so long.

I’d known all this stuff for years but refused to confront it. I wasn’t able to push all that stuff to the back of my mind anymore. I’d always hoped that was it; in the past — gone. But it never goes. It does get easier in time.

Catch Caz at: https://mentalhealthfromtheotherside.com

Her twitter: @hannahsmiley

Pinterest board: http://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/800444533760600123/

If you would like to submit your personal story to be featured this mental health month, contact me here or on Instagram @written_in_the_photo or on Twitter @philopsychotic. We will be covering Schizophrenia, Bipolar, and Dissociation next. If you have anxiety or trauma related stories you’d like to share, message me anyway. We’ll get you featured.

Read today’s post on Trauma here.

Posted in Community, psychology, science

mental health month: trauma

Posted on by alidware

Welcome back! Let’s talk about Truama and Stressor related disorders. Read more for a great book recommendation for emotional trauma and CPTSD.

What is Trauma?

This can be any event or events which leave lasting psychological distress. This ranges from emotional abuse influencing your world view to the vicious physical flashbacks veterans face after war. A car crash can be a trauma that makes you anxious or avoidant about cars. Divorce is a trauma. Children of alcoholics, such as yours truly, have a specific set of common trauma responses. Sexual abuse, the death of a loved one, a gun to your head are all specific traumas that can cause specific perspectives and responses from people.

Sometimes trauma can cause a person to lash out suddenly, aggressively, or present the opposite characteristics; some will shut down, avoid, and become stagnant or submissive. There’s research supporting the hypothesis that traumatic events can heavily influence the wiring in our brain. This has a lot of implications in all mental health conditions, not just Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But for the sake of honoring Trauma today, we will talk about that only in the context of trauma.

What Are Trauma Disorders?

I had a similar question. The DSM-5 has somewhat of an answer. Here are the diagnoses they list:

  1. Reactive attachment disorder: This is in early childhood or infancy where the child does not look toward their caregiver for “comfort, support, protection, and nurturance.” If you’re anything like me, psychopathy might pop into your head. There isn’t a lot of research supporting Reactive attachment disorder as a precursor to psychopathy. But if you’re interested, here’s a random presentation I found on the subject.
  2. Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder: This is basically the opposite of the above disorder. These children will approach strangers and act overly familiar with them, also breaking cultural boundaries. Often they have experienced some kind of pattern of severe neglect from their caregivers. They must be at least 9 months of age to receive this diagnosis. Don’t ask me how that works.
  3. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: This has some of the longest criteria to meet and is often diagnosed very quickly. Major symptoms can be obvious. However, for those of us who have struggled with emotional abuse, it takes a keen eye to recognize the signs. PTSD is an emotional response to one or more traumatic events. This includes “fear-based re-experiencing, emotional and behavioral symptoms. Experiences range from explosive “reactive-externalizing”, to dissociation.
  4. Acute Stress Disorder: This would be caused by a gun to your head, or anything else that threatens death, serious injury, or sexual violation. This also applies if you witness one of these events, such as someone being shot in the head, threatened to be shot in the head, someone being raped or beaten. If you had a conscience and were the person filming Ahmaud Arbery‘s death, you may develop this disorder. Evidently that person has not. This can happen to police officers or detectives, or any emergency responders who are repeatedly exposed to violent/disturbing/fatal cases. Keep our COVID front-line medical staff in mind.
  5. Adjustment disorders: This is marked by emotional or behavioral symptoms that appear within three months of a stressor. For example, the changes a person may experience after the death of a loved one or sudden death of a close friend.
  6. Other-specified Trauma and Stressor-Related Disorder and Unspecified Trauma and Stressor Related Disorder: These both carry criteria of a person exhibiting trauma like responses that cause significant distress but don’t fit in the categories of the other disorders.

How do People Manage?

Writing this hasn’t been easy. My chest is tight, my hands are shaking, and I keep having to remind myself to breath. My senses are become more sensitive by the minute and I’ve had to change my music to something softer and easy to ignore. My stomach is in knots. I’m not thinking about any incident in particular, but the body has an amazing memory. It encodes emotions, sensations, feelings. That’s why dissociation is such a common respond to trauma: escape your body and the feelings are void. It’s a mistake to think only the mind holds the capacity for feeling.

Therapy is a common go-to for trauma. EMDR has stormed popular psychology but according to my research professor last year, it’s unclear whether the lights/wands used in EMDR are causing an effect or if it’s the CBT you’re doing during the session. After all, CBT is the leading therapeutic treatment for trauma. There are no studies with participants using CBT, EMDR (that includes CBT), EMDR without CBT (which would basically be flickering lights or waving wands with you sitting there awkwardly staring at them) and no treatment which would put you on a “waiting list”, you unknowingly part of the control group.

Much of my own trauma is rooted in emotional events. Being threatened, bad mouthed (an eleven year old being called a bold little motherfucker for expressing distress about something is kind of how that went constantly), and intimated taught me to be suspicious, distrusting, and defensively aggressive. Being homeless created a lot of insecurity, confusion, and depression; the first day I wanted to kill myself I was eleven, sitting outside of the house we stayed in where the owner drank a bottle of Jack Daniels each night followed by a plate of Xanax. Her daughter had sex orgies loud enough to permeate the street and the other went to work and school. I have many more stories about many wild people I’ve encountered. Maybe I’ll tell it sometime.

But the alcoholism and drugs in my own house, coupled with our 3 year homelessness, and my terror of school I’d experienced since I was five in day care, made me closed, submissive, and withdrawn. When I hear certain words today–for example, in a team meeting at work, if I hear the word “activity”, my body flashes cold, my heart races more than it already was, my hands shake, my muscles twitch. This is an example of an encoded emotion from my days in school. There are studies going into this.

I didn’t ever talk. I fainted if I was asked in front of the class, and was so nervous to raise my hand that I often peed on myself in elementary; I couldn’t ask to use the bathroom. By middle school I’d developed a ritualistic routine to avoid asking for anything in class: use the bathroom before school, five minutes before the bell ended break, five minutes before the bell ended lunch. That’s continued through college; I’ve never got up and walked out of a class before the class ended. By high school, my dissociation got so severe I experienced fugue states (only lasting at most a day), one that caused me to walk into four lanes of traffic against the light, with my friends apparently screaming. They eventually caught up to me but I only remember walking through my door at home. I don’t remember the rest of the day or what made me so terribly distressed that I left my body.

There are some medications offered, usually SSRIs but sometimes heavier medications like Seroquel for a knock-out sleep. Sleeping can be hard with trauma. Your body is constantly in high alert.

Meditation helps some. This can be any activity that helps you focus on your breath and rooting your thoughts in your body. We get so used to ignoring, avoiding, or giving in completely to the distress our body and mind feels that we lose sight of reconnecting our system, which is so essential to wellness.

Support groups and other outlets to express the physical and emotional experiences are key. Just typing my physical experiences above helped relieve a lot of the tension; it’s important to acknowledge what your body feels, and get specific about it–write it down, call a friend or support force, schedule a therapy appointment. Resort to emergency medication if the experience doesn’t abate after trying everything, including sitting with yourself. I’ve had panic attacks related to body-trauma flashbacks push through Seroquel, Ativan, Klonopin, Valium.

Drugs aren’t always what you need. Sometimes it’s just your body screaming for you to offer understanding, consolation, and acknowledgment of its distress; it’s been through the same things you have, on a cellular level.

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving has been on my read list for a while. It covers “Complex-PTSD” which is not a DSM diagnosis no matter how many psychologists push for it, but references the emotional markers left over from childhood trauma.

Today, we are greatful to hear from Caz again, over at mentalhealthfromtheotherside.com. Read about her experiences with childhood sexual abuse here.

Thank you to everyone who has been messaging me on Instagram. Sharing your story is difficult and I appreciate those of you just reaching out with words of encouragement, thankfulness, and those of you asking about my own experience with psychosis. We will continue with Mental Health Month NEXT WEEK.

Thursday May 14th: Schizophrenia

Friday May 15h: Bipolar

Saturday May 16th: Dissociative disorders.

These posts may be a little later than usual as I am on a hiring panel at my job on Thursday and Friday. Finals are also coming up. I will keep everyone updated. If you would like to submit a paragraph, quote, or personal story with any of those listed experiences, please reach out through my CONTACT PAGE, or message me on:

Instagram: @written_in_the_photo

Twitter: @philopsychotic.

If you enjoyed this post, please share, like, and follow ThePhilosophicalPsychotic. I appreciate every reader and commentator. You give me more reason to continue reporting poorly executed science.

Posted in advocacy, psychology, science

Mental Health Month: OCD and Related conditions

Posted on by alidware

We’re in day two of our Mental Health Month series where we discuss different DSM-5 diagnoses and the research behind them. Today we’re talking about Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders, including Body Dsymorphic Disorder.

What is Obsession?

Let’s distinguish the difference between being obsessed with something and obsession ruling your life.

If you have an obsession with Michael Kors, you probably don’t have a condition.

If you have an obsession with, like, that one show that, like, you stream on Netflix, you probably don’t have a condition.

If you had to touch all of the buttons, one by one, on the television, the remotes, the kitchen appliances, the computer, before you leave the house to prevent a house fire, and this becomes so disruptive you leave the house only twice a week for essentials (even when NOT in a pandemic), then you might think about searching for some support.

But OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) is not the only condition that exists under this category. There is also:

1.Body Dysmorphic Disorder

2.Hoarding Disorders

3.Trichotillomania (hair pulling)

4. Excoriation (skin-picking)

5. Substance/medication-induced obsessive compulsive and related

6.Obsessive-compulsive and related disorder due to another medical condition.

7. unspecified obsessive-compulsive and related disorder (like obsessional jealousy).

Is Hoarding Like That T.V Show?

Hoarding gained a lot of popularity after A&E came out with their show HOARDERS, which follows the lives of extreme hoarders, often living in squalor beneath their belongings. The people featured are often reluctant to get rid of their material items because of an obsessive emotional attachment to them. This doesn’t just extend into beautiful or valuable items, like a porcelain doll or an antique speaker; most people will be hard-pressed to give away something that has some semblance of importance or function. For the people on hoarders, even garbage or blankets covered in rat droppings and urine are part of their livelihood, either because of memories or because of the simple fact that that item, along with all the other items in the house, fills a void.

Indeed, those with Hoarding Disorder have “persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their actual value”, per the criteria of the diagnosis. That difficulty leads to an “accumulation of possessions that congest and clutter active living areas”, much like what you see on Hoarders. This causes “distress or impairment” in all areas of functioning.

We also see a variety of personalities on Hoarders. Some people have what the DSM calls “good or fair insight”. They recognize their hoarding has been causing problems, but feel both trapped and safe among their things. Some people have “poor insight”, in that the clutter isn’t viewed as problematic. As we see in the television show, some people with this level of insight will accept help but fight against losing too much stuff. Some revert back into their old ways after the trauma of losing things all over again. Those with “absent insight/delusional beliefs”, are absolutely convinced nothing is wrong–yes, to the extent of delusion. These are the people you see who halt the process in the show, and the house or yard is cleaned only in a hundred square feet or so.

These behaviors may be related to the temperament of the person, indecisiveness being a leading trait, and also related to some traumatic or stressful event that exacerbates the behavior. Let me give a personal example.

When I was 11, we lived in a two story, two bedroom apartment next to a registered sex offender and across from a drunken, drug-addled manager. My dad, a musician, also spent most of his free time drinking or working on cars, and it was only a matter of time before him and the manager got into an irreparable fight. The problem is, she was the manager and we were the tenants; her words against ours to property management meant nothing. We were evicted.

My parents’ credit was in the tank, and we were not rich, so no other apartments in town would take us and we bounced around from hotels, to a tent, to rooms in houses of family friends—that doesn’t sound terrible, but three years of much more drugs, alcohol, and uncertainty (in every place we stayed) isn’t all that fun.

A two-story, two bedroom apartment can hold a lot of stuff. Everything in my room except important papers and one hand-me-down banana republic plastic shelf went in the dump–bed included. We didn’t have enough space for all my stuff and my parent’s stuff in the small storage locker we rented, so we sacrificed most of our belongings.

I noticed I started clinging to things later when we finally got another apartment. I picked up stuff from the street I didn’t need–like broken street signs, discarded car review mirrors, desks, and even a bent reflector. I kept that bent reflector for ten years. In fact, I kept all of it for ten years. My closet is still full of junk I picked up from the street or things I thought were valuable from the dump. My room itself is cluttered, disorganized, and it took three years of picking through invaluable things with perceived value to keep at least two feet of walk space from my bed to the door. I still haven’t learned how to organize.

This example doesn’t mean I have Hoarding Disorder. I only share this to show that obsessions with material items don’t make people vain or stupid or rude. Loss and grief of any kind can make us cling to whatever solid, certain, undying thing we can find.

I don’t know how much of A&E’s Hoarders is dramatized for television. Sometimes it seems the film is edited to make the people look disgusting and defeated, and then a sob story told to make us feel pity. At the end we’re supposed to feel amazed the house is clean or disappointed in the person if it’s not, without recognizing the uniqueness of each individual’s process. All in all, the people are real. I don’t know about the show, though.

Is Body Dysmorphic Disorder Real?

Yes.

In fact, it’s the first disorder listed in the category. People struggling with this perceive a defect or flaw in their appearance that seems slight to every one else but causes severe preoccupation for the sufferer. This could cause people to go to drastic measures to fix this flaw–which may include several cosmetic plastic surgery interventions, or cause them to remain indoors, trapped behind the fear that everyone will see, ridicule, and be disgusted by their flaw. This is not the same as being preoccupied with ones weight, and it cannot be Body Dysmorphia if the symptoms of an eating disorder are present.

This is linked to people who have relatives with OCD, and has been seen correlated with high rates of childhood neglect and abuse. Females are more likely to have a co-morbid (occuring at the same time) eating disorder and males are more likely to be preoccupied with their genital region. What does all of this mean?

It means life is a living hell. Being in the view of others causes such distress there are people who hide behind their curtains, in their house, for years. And this is, again, not a vain “omg nobody look at me”. This is such a level of heightened anxiety that an entire life is disrupted. I feel that many obsessive conditions get looked at as people being selfish: the person living with OCD can’t take care of their child because the compulsions take up most of the day–that means they don’t care about their kid enough. Or the people with Trichotillomania has pulled a bald spot on their head, but then complains about being nervous of others seeing the bald spot–they need to just stop pulling their hair. And things just aren’t that simple. None of this is vanity or selfishness, it’s anxiety, it’s stress, it’s trauma response.

Here is a great Ted Talk by Meredith Leston that highlights how body image is spread in the world and how troublesome views can lead to great distress and disruptive conditions for some people. Let’s remember: our environment plays a huge role in dictating which genes turn on and off. Everyone has the potential to develop a mental condition at some pointing their life. Why it happens to some and doesn’t to others not only depends on environment, but social factors and genetic make up too. Not so much brain chemistry.

If anyone watched Barcroft on Youtube, you might like this clip on Body Dysmorphia and OCD. I tend not to watch them too often, but sometimes they have okay material. Let me know how real or not real this is.

What Kind of Treatment is Available?

For some of these conditions, like Trichotillomania, there are no drugs that reduce symptoms. Even in cases of severe OCD, psychotropic medications fail miserable. This is a testament to how much we still don’t know and why some researchers are putting more weight on alternative treatments and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the only psychotherapy which has been tested (with high reliability AND validity) and proven to change the course of people’s thoughts.

This Double-blind, placebo controlled, Cross-over study examined the possibility for Milk Thistle as a treatment for Trichotillomania. They concluded their sample size too small to yield any confident results, and that their evidence only weakly supported the use for Milk Thistle.

This placebo study with Trichotillomania only further showed that 1) change is possible depending on expectations of the participant and 2) easy access, simple treatments for this condition remain elusive and the condition reminds misunderstood on a clinical level.

I will say that OCD itself gets a lot of research while these other disorders fall short of people interested in finding treatments. For OCD there is a long list of possible SSRI treatment, ECT treatment (if you don’t mind losing your memory), different therapies, stimulants, and even EMDR. This is why I speak on the disorders we don’t hear much about. Because for the rest of these unknown, quiet, hidden disorders, sloppy therapy and hopeful medication are thrown at patients. Many suffer in silence.

For a condition like Body Dysmorphic Disorder, other alternatives are being studied too. This experiment examines whether an intranasal dose of Oxytocin could cue a helpful response for BDD. This too failed. It increased self-blame and “other-directed blame”, and the researchers “advise against the use of Oxytocin in BDD patients”. Glad science kept us from THAT mistake.

But, for those diagnosed with BDD and Social Anxiety disorder, this study found that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and attention retaining significantly improved the Body Dysmorphic aspect of the participants life.

There is some progress.

What can we do?

If someone comes to you and tells you they have been struggling with one of these conditions, withhold whatever your initial reaction is. Remind yourself that many who struggle with these types of conditions blame themselves enough. Even those who don’t blame themselves may still feel guilty for the disruption it causes their lives. I feel guilty sometimes for the disruptions my anxiety and Schizoaffective-ness has caused in my life and others lives.

Remember that they are not disgusting or vain or weird. Remember that there may be a whole list of trauma you’ve never learned about. Remember that even clinicians don’t understand this, probably because they’re trying to understand it on a biological level too much–some things need a different perspective in life.

So, this Mental Health Month, let’s keep in mind that there is a lot of suffering going on right now. Let’s not compare our pain to others, but instead use that energy to remind each other we’re not as alone as we feel. If you are suffering in silence, may this space give you the extreme–almost inhumane it feels sometimes– courage it takes to send a text, or call to someone you can trust. You can comment on this blog even, or contact me on my home page; eventually the burden of silence will hurt your back. It’s damn near broke mine before.

I write these posts in this format because I’m tired of articles listing symptoms, bland, over-used, understudied treatments, and urging people to talk to their doctor. It’s a good idea sometimes to seek professional help, but to do so uneducated and so desperate for relief that you’re unable to look at things critically will only trap you in the quantum loop that is the mental health system, especially if you’re in America. Mental Health Month is about education and reducing stigma. We can’t do that if we don’t preach from the side of lived experience AND scientific research.

Tomorrow we cover: Trauma and Stressor related DIsorders.

Next week, we cover: Schizophrenia, Bipolar, and Dissociative disorders. If you’d like to submit your story for any of these, please contact me HERE, or on my social media handles below:

Instagram: @written_in_the_photo

Twitter: @philopsychotic

If you enjoyed this post, please share, like, and follow ThePhilosophicalPsychotic. I appreciate every reader and commentator. You give me more reason to continue reporting poorly executed science.

Posted in advocacy, Community, Peer Support, Supporting Friends/Family, Voices

The Line Up for Sharing Your Story this Mental Health Month.

Posted on by alidware

Hello friends!

I have some time before work to put out the writing schedule of this months posts, all dedicated to learning more about DSM diagnoses and the research that backs them up (or doesn’t). I’m also asking for people’s experiences so that we may add a personal aspect to all of the clinical madness.

If you want to submit your story (200 words or more), you can find my contact information on my HOME page (click here) or you can reach me on my social media handles (below).

Each post will go live on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday each week of May. The Line Up is as follows:

Week of May 4th: Anxiety Disorders, Obsessive/compulsive and related disorders, and Trauma and Stressor related disorders.

Week of May 11th: Schizophrenia, Bipolar, and Dissociative disorders.

Week of May 18th: Somatic disorders, Eating disorders, and Depressive disorders.

Week of May 25: Gender Dysphoria, Neurodevelopmental disorders, and Personality Disorders.

On Monday, May 31st, we will give a quick summary, explore feelings that may come up, and find ways we can celebrate and inform people about mental health every day, not just one month out of the year.

For submitting your story:

If you would like to present something 200 words or more, your story will be posted separately from the main article, but on the SAME DAY as your topic. For example, if you want to submit your story about anxiety, it will be posted within an hour of the main post this Thursday.

If you would like to provide a quote or small paragraph (less than 200 words) it will be included in the main post at relevant points.

For both types of submissions, I can link your blog, social media, name, or anything else that you’d like. For longer stories, if you want to write a bio, I will put it at the end of your post.

Please share this information with friends, family, and anyone you feel would want to participate. If you yourself wants to participate, please contact me.

Social Media:

Instagram: @written_in_the_photo

Twitter: @philopsychotic

Let’s empower each other and remind the world why we matter.

Posted in advocacy, Community, Peer Support, Voices

Share Your Story

Posted on by alidware

In honor of May being Mental Heath Month, I’ve decided to do something consistent, informative, and fun on this blog.

During the course of May, starting this week, every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I will be doing one or two posts dedicated to a diagnostic category. This means we will be covering stuff like anxiety disorders, schizophrenia spectrum disorders, ADHD, Autism, and more.

I notice when people give information about disorders, they limit what they share to symptoms, medications, and the everlasting advice of self-care. This will be covered as well, my sources being my DSM-5 copy. But we will expand on this, address the most recent research articles I can find (and gain access to), and talk about supportive options that vary beyond just medication and doctors. We will address mental health as whole-person health.

I would also like to include personal experiences or quotes from those of you willing to share. This could be a direct quote or small paragraph from YOU that expresses what it feels like to experience living with mental health conditions, or it could be as simple as a list of words describing your experience.

If you would like to do a longer piece (anything above 200 words), I will post that separately, the same day as the other article, and link the two to each other. For example, if your story is about your experience with anxiety, I will link that up with the article talking about anxiety disorders.

You can reach me from my contact page (listed on the home screen of my blog) or you can reach me at my social media accounts listed below. I will also be including some of my own experiences if there aren’t enough people who feel comfortable sharing.

Please share this with someone who you feel might want to participate, or with someone who you feel would like to follow this series throughout this month. We will be learning a lot and challenging the current perspective of mental health.

The goal of this little project is to show the world that we are capable, determined, literate, and worthy human beings, just as everyone else. This is also a way to empower each other and remind ourselves that we are so much more than we give ourselves credit for sometimes. Especially during these times, its important to remember the good about ourselves, about others, and sharing our stories can support us in that.

If you’d like to participate, you can reach me at my social media handles here:

Instagram: @written_in_the_photo

Twitter: @thephilopsychotic

Or click at this link to be taken to my contact page.

Give me an idea of what you’d like to contribute and we can work together in getting your voice out there. Feel free to also contact me if you have a particular category you’d like this series to focus on this coming Thursday, Friday, Or Saturday.

I will also include your blog, social media handle, and/or name (if you’d like) at the end of each article. All articles will be promoted on my twitter handle and Instagram handle.

Thank you everyone. Please share this so we can have multiple voices. Mental Health month is about togetherness, erasing stigma, and uniting as a positive force in the word. Stay healthy, be well, and I’ll see you all on Thursday.

Posted in advocacy, Late Night Thoughts

Psychoanalysis, The Locked Ward, and Entropy

Posted on by alidware

Some more thoughts to share, friends. Let’s talk psychoanalysis, the locked ward, and entropy.

No, we will not spend countless paragraphs discrediting psychodynamics and psychoanalysis. The facts are there: Freud’s systematic hypotheses were circular, full of confirmation bias, and untestable. This makes his ideas of Psychoanalysis quite useless, inherently flawed, and simply unscientific. However, modern psychodynamics has come a long way, and if you’ve ever read The Center Cannot Hold, by Elyn Saks (if you haven’t, READ IT!) you know that one of therapists which helped her through her cognitive dysfunction pre-hospitalization was indeed a psychoanalyst. Her therapist often took Elyn’s discombobulated words and reflected them, unbiased, nonjudgmental, back to Elyn. This doesn’t happen often anymore, especially not in hospitals, and we lose this understanding that psychosis is not necessarily meaningless. This idea that it may have meaning is derived from psychoanalysis itself, which is rooted in Psychic Determinism: every thought, action, personality quirk, is there for a reason; nothing is ever accidental.

Anyone who says it’s impossible to communicate with someone in psychosis hasn’t really tried. There was a time I did a regular outreach group at the local psychiatric hospital, in which i’d been as a patient before, and there were often people in my group who were by clinical definition incomprehensible. Sometimes people would wander from the group or I’d end early and someone would want to keep talking. To the average person, and I’m sure many of the workers there, the babble was pointless, but there was one particular man who sought me out every time he saw me. And when he said something like “There isn’t anyway to know the ticking and I don’t know where my home is but I know there’s some fact in that”, I’d say something like “it’s hard when we feel lost and can’t find home” or “there’s a lot we can know in the world, and not know”.

This wasn’t easy. I stumbled a lot over my words, trying to keep up with his thoughts, and maybe nothing I said ever resonated as clearly as these words are registering to you as a reader. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never had someone approach me in this way during my worst moments. But it did something. Sometimes the group was just us, and we’d talk like that, back and forth, for fifty minutes. He’d always shake my hand before I left, and this was one of the people the staff “warned” me about, said he could get unruly, loud, disruptive, and although I can never confirm the way I spoke with him as a clear reason why he never appeared aggressive with me, I can say that our conversations were always even tempered, relaxed, human.

I do not advocate for this as the ONLY form of treatment. Acute episodes are terrifying, traumatic, confusing, they require many things. But staff shouting, tackling people, and being argumentative doesn’t reduce the terror, the trauma, or the confusion. I CAN say that.

So, there are positive things to come out of the idea and possibly the practice of modern psychoanalysis and psychodynamics. Let’s be clear though: Freud was wildly inept as a scientist. All of his hypotheses were derived from case studies and never tested with experiments or even standardized self-report data.

Scrolling along some text in my personality book, some reading for classes during COVID, this author caught my attention when he compared the natural course of entropy in the universe to the entropy of our thoughts. Essentially, entropy focuses on how ordered systems, over long periods of time and inevitably, tend toward disorder. Freud had a similar sense about the mind, says this author, and insisted that we attempt to order our thoughts and lives for the sake of our own creativity and growth. Entropy dooms these efforts.

Freud describes his philosophical understanding of his own hypotheses in terms of libido (NOT just sex drive, but a life energy) and thanatos, (not Thanos as I had read, but a drive toward “death”). Libido described one part of the brain designating energy for a process, and in that time such energy could not be used anywhere else in the brain. We know this not to the be the entire story now. Thanatos was not a wish for death, or a fear of it, but was this very recognizable, a very EASTERN idea that everything contains its opposite.

This is essentially a less developed, disorganized form of YinYang. It’s presented in the textbook as quite a novel idea. But Eastern cultures and indigenous cultures across the globe, have held this collective understanding for centuries. Reading philosophy on the duality of life is what helped me come to terms with my psychosis. Freud didn’t do it first, I promise. If anything, he was super late to the party.

He called his version of YinYang the “doctrine of opposites”. While I refrained from rolling my eyes at this, his “doctrine” maintains that everything requires and implies its opposite. That is, life needs death, sadness needs happiness, and one cannot exist without the other. If you’re curious how this really lines up with YinYang, I’d recommend getting in touch with someone who knows this philosophy well, or reading the basics in this post here.

Why is any of this relevant?

I think what I learned, and am still learning, is that pain is not as simple as we want it to be. There cannot be pain without no pain, and there cannot be no pain without pain. You can’t fix your thoughts with medication, therapy, electric shocks, substance abuse. You can’t be broken without also being together. Unifying the good and the bad, not separating them, not fighting with one over the other, has been the key to many of our successes.

You cannot be ill without also being well. That is the message here. If you identify with mental illness, then you identify, also, with mental wellness; there is harmony in the illness, and disharmony in the wellness. We see this often: there are advantages to being anxious sometimes. For me, I know my anxiety makes me more prepared during stressful events. Because i’m panicking all the time, I don’t panic when others do. I’m often a voice of reason. There are disadvantages to being happy: for me, I get wary of this gentle contentment I’ve come to over the years, because of the imminent threat of not being happy again.

A lot of people view that latter statement as a struggle particularly of clinical depression or bipolar. I don’t see it that way anymore. I recognize that is the duality of things: there is inherent unhappiness in happiness. That’s the nature of things.

Labeling the thoughts as defective is the result of the depression, and part of the struggle. Accepting the truth in pain and the dissatisfaction in wellness is recovery.

What do you think?

Curious about research, news, and a community dedicated to “Eliminating Barriers to the Treatment of Mental Illness”? Check out TreatmentAdvocacyCenter.org for more information, as well as support for COVID-19. This post isn’t sponsored by them, I just stumbled across their site and found it highly useful.

For updates on posts, research, and conversations, follow me:

Instagram: @written_in_the_photo

Twitter: @philopsychotic

If you enjoyed this post, please share, like, and follow ThePhilosophicalPsychotic. I appreciate every reader and commentator. You give me more reason to continue this joyous hobby.

Posted in Community, psychology, science, travel

The Do’s and Don’ts of COVID-19

Posted on by alidware

My social media break has officially broken, and I am back amid panic, turmoil, and pandemic simply because being quarantined means there is nothing better to do than browse social media, panic more, and then realize that fear is more constrictive than any virus outbreak could be.

If this pandemic has been affecting your Mental Health, you’re not alone. Even if you understand the numbers are not as bad as the media portrays, even if you understand that over 90% of the people who may come in infectious contact with the virus recovery well, with mild to moderate symptoms, the tension in the air, the way people drive, the mad scramble for food, toiletries, and essentials can twist a lot of stress in your body.

So, what should we do and what shouldn’t we do during this time?

DO:

Maintain as regular as a routine as you can. Enjoy healthy meals, and try to avoid stress eating sweets and other things that not only compromise your mental health but your immune health. Exercise in nature if applicable to you: there are forests, state parks, beaches, where you can get a healthy bout of endorphins running and kick your immune system up. The gym isn’t the only place in the world to get exercise.

DONT:

Eat a pot full of garlic and think that will protect you. Chances are, you may come in contact with this virus. This chance, depending on where you live, is either very low or very high. Don’t pretend like staying in your house and sleeping all day is healthy; in fact, it could compromise you more. Fit in exercise and health where you can and however you can.

DO:

Listen to science. For the sake of your neighbors, your friends, your family, LISTEN TO SCIENCE. The facts are there. Yes, COVID-19 is indeed SARS-cov-2, according to the CDC. Yes, there are many cases. But the numbers show a different story than the media. It’s important to help curb the spread, just as it would be for any new infectious virus no matter how severe, but the fact is there are so many people in the United States who haven’t been tested, who have probably come in contact with the virus, been sick, stayed home, recovered, and are now not being counted as a COVID-19 case. This means the survival rate and infection rate is higher than being reported. This means, most likely, you’ll be okay.

Dont:

Act only in SELF-PRESERVATION. Stores are sold out of all cold, flu, and cough medicine, toilet paper, meat, and cleaning essentials. This is NOT the end of the world. By hoarding items, you are SELFISH. By hoarding masks, you are CARELESS. Most likely, especially if you are in the U.S right now, you will NOT get sick. Buying three bottles of Tylenol ISN’T NECESSARY. Masks are for the MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS taking care of the SEVERELY ILL. If you are standing in Safeway with a cart full of items right now reading this, chances are you AREN’T SEVERELY ILL. Chances are, you won’t ever be.

It was advised people get enough items for 2 weeks of self-quarantine, IF NECESSARY.

Six bottles of bleach? That’s going to last you two months, if not more.

Seven boxes of Tylenol? You’ll kill yourself. Even if you did get sick, you couldn’t continuously use it at the rate you would need to to finish seven boxes in fourteen days.

This selfishness is why people are panicking. It’s how the virus will continue to spread. It’s why young people aren’t taking anything seriously, it’s why many people aren’t social-distancing–the hysteria is off-putting, it makes it seem unimportant. So, by hoarding food, house items, and cough medicine, you’re single-handedly increasing the chances of this infection spreading quicker and harder. Those of us who are young are the ones MOST LIKELY to SPREAD this infection without knowing it. Instead of facing this scientifically, intelligently, which would make most of us young folks pay better attention, everyone is facing this hysterically, with misinformation.

Thank you, apocalypse shoppers, for ruining our chances of a speedy, national recovery.

DO:

Wash your hands for at least 20-30 seconds. If you weren’t doing that before, I’m worried. Disinfect surfaces frequently, and personal items like keys, your phone, and the inside of your car, if you want to be extra cautious.

DONT:

Touch your face or put strange objects in your mouth. If you’re anything like me, and a writer, this can be tough if you are, well, writing with a pen. I used to bite on my pens in mid-thought. Can’t be doing that right now.

DO:

Understand that if you get sick, you have a very high chance of being okay. People are dying, and that can’t be overlooked. There are some young people who lose the battle, and many older folks, most of which (from both categories) have some type of underlying cardiac or other health condition. If you smoke, your lungs will have a harder time to push back against this illness. And even still, there are some people in their 80’s and 90’s who are surviving, and some people with underlying conditions who are surviving. This is not endgame.

DONT:

Pretend like you can’t get sick just because you’re young. You can, and if it doesn’t become severe, that’s wonderful. Problem is, you will spread your germs and get the vulnerable population sick. Again, stop acting in SELF-PRESERVATION. Everything isn’t always about YOU. Sorry if that hurts your feelings. Start acting like a community. Start showing some compassion and intelligence. Keep yourself healthy, keep your neighbors healthy. It doesn’t take six bottles of bleach and all the food in Trader Joe’s to keep you healthy. Stop being stupid.

DO:

If you have mental health issues, don’t forget about self-care. Focus on activities you like. Read, write. Play video games, watch television, have a laugh. Engage in news and stories and conversation that isn’t just about COVID-19. Stay updated on current local information, but do not become consumed by it. Unlike COVID-19, panic can spread through the internet and radio.

DON’T:

Spend all your time listening to White House addresses if you’re in the U.S. For the love of God.

DO:

Recognize that people are hurting. The stories coming out of Italy are heartbreaking. Take this seriously without losing yourself.

DON’T:

Become a doomsdayer or conspiracy theoriest. Wait until the global emergency is over for all that.

The world is in so much pain right now, and is so confused. China has made great efforts and cases of COVID-19 have been drastically reduced. Recovery surpassed 80% there, days ago. This will pass.

Every once in a while, humans need to be reminded that we aren’t impenetrable. We aren’t immortal. We aren’t invincible. We’ve gotten so cocky on Earth, we think we know everything, think we can have a sustainable life with the way we purge natural resources. This pain on a global scale isn’t necessarily what we deserve, but it is a reminder that we are only organisms. There is so much more to life than money, jobs, school, Apple T.V, Trump, drugs, sex. And when our life gets disrupted, look how we crumble. Look how fast we are to only save ourselves. Life always, always has a way of curbing arrogance. Always.

We’re not curbing this virus. It’s curbing us.

For updates on posts, research, and conversation, follow me:

Instagram: @written_in_the_photo

Twitter: @philopsychotic

If you enjoyed this post, please share, like, and follow ThePhilosophicalPsychotic. I appreciate every reader and commentator. You give me more reason to continue this joyous hobby.

Posted in Late Night Thoughts, psychology, Therapy, travel

What Does Stability Look Like For You?

Posted on by alidware

For some of us this simply means having three meals a day, our medication, an income (social security included) and a permanent roof over our head. For others that means a more than comfortable income, a full-time job, a family, and spare time to travel. Some of us haven’t asked ourselves about stability because it feels elusive.

Feeling Lost

This happens. Stability isn’t born out of stability, it’s born out of troubles and pain and the murky mist of a labyrinth; we are lost before we are found. Understanding that this pain exists because it must, because even pain needs space to breathe, is the first step to accepting the present.

It’s true some people are perpetually lost. There are those of us without shelter, without family, wandering the streets at the mercy of our madness. With poor resources and a poor outlook on mental health recovery, not enough people receive the services they deserve. Chances are, because you’re reading this now, you aren’t that person.

This does not mean compare your life. This does not mean you should feel guilty for having food, shelter, and family while still being in tremendous agony–it’s illogical to compare pains. We all struggle, we all suffer, and that’s that. What it means is that you are not perpetually lost. It means you have a greater chance at recovery. That’s a fact.

Because you have a greater chance at recovery, you also have a chance to help those without your advantage. You can give back. You can have purpose and be fulfilled while fulfilling.

In this we see that being lost is not a time to mourn. It is not a sign of predestined suffering or eternal pain. Being lost is an experience to be grateful for. It’s an experience that teaches us to teach others.

A Change of Perspective

Such a change of perspective isn’t a simple jump from “negative” to “positive”, but a deeper understanding of the beauty of pain and the expectations of happiness.

We often have a vain idea of what happiness means. This can turn into us holding ourselves to unrealistic standards, and when that standard isn’t met, we crumble, our self-worth tied up in our expectations.

We can also have a clear but misguided understanding of pain: we disregard it, try to ignore it, hate it, cry over it, damn it to hell. Therefore we glaze over areas of pain that help us grow, that show us what we really want for ourselves. When we break out of the darkness and into the light, we get wary of the brightness in anticipation of pain, completely discounting the contribution pain had made–if it were not for that darkness, we may not have had the opportunity to experience the light.

Rather than try and predict our pain, rather than set unrealistic expectations of happiness, a balanced absorbance of both experiences, no matter how rough or how euphoric, can present a new way of living, one in which we experience the rawness of ourselves.

Where will you go?

And so my question for you all is where will life take you? Where will pain take you? Where will happiness take you? What journeys can you start and end?

Dramatic change can yield dramatic results.

Stability for me is a comfortable income, a travel plan, proper meals, exercise, and a compassion toward my inner demons, without which I would be heavily medicated, deeply depressed, and unrealistically expecting a miracle.

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