Tag: writing

Posted in psychology, science

Mental Health Month: Bipolar

Posted on by alidware

I have been bouncing back and forth between what is healthy for my future and my present. They are often in conflict. We experience time linearly, but our choices can take us in spontaneous, curved, spiked, and winding direction. All of that contemplation has only landed me here. So, as promised, here is last weekend’s Mental Health Month post. We will continue with Dissociative disorders tomorrow evening. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday we will talk about Gender Dysphoria, Neurodevelopmental disorders, and Personality disorders.

You know how it goes: we list the different diagnoses, what the manual thinks, and then we dive into the experiences. Today we’re talking about the Bipolar spectrum. If you have experience with Bipolar or any other altered state, including substance use, contact me here, or on my social media (below) to get featured.

Compared to the exhaustive lists of other diagnoses, this section is relatively concise. Most people are familiar with all of the terms listed below:

Bipolar 1, which is characterized by it’s key diagnostic criteria: a manic episode. This includes abnormal levels of euphoria and agitation. It will usually be obvious when someone is not themselves. they may be talking extremely fast, floating enough ideas to make your head spin, and getting a lot of things done–at least until things start not getting done. It’s stated that if you experience this while receiving any type of antidepressant treatment (including ECT) and this state persists, you can be diagnosed Bipolar 1. I’d personally like to see the studies that proved these states weren’t caused by the treatment being received, but of course that will never be possible. Take it with a grain of salt, people. Mania can elevate paranoia and distrust, and present confused, racing thoughts. It takes some time to be able to distinguish this state from an acute psychosis state related to schizophrenia.

After this extreme state, Hypomania (a lesser form characterized by an elevated mood, increased energy, inflated self-esteem and the likes, lasting for most of the day, most days of the week) may or may not occur. Depressive states may occur as well, in which a person cannot function, drowns in hopelessness, and lacks energy. In the same way that people who hear voices can miss their voices if a treatment “takes them away”, those with mania may experience a feeling a loss when stuck in a depressive state, particularly when it’s related to medication treatment.

Bipolar II is the next diagnosis. So, imagine constant, and sometimes severe depression, with a sprinkle of hypomania. You need to meet the criteria for hypomania at least once to be considered Bipolar II. Even if you never experience Hypomania again, or someone misdiagnoses your happiness amid all your darkness, you will have the brand of Bipolar II. Often the Hypomania does not impair the individual.

Cyclothymic Disorder may not be too familiar of a term, unless you’ve been diagnosed with it. This is when your Hypomania doesn’t match the criteria for hypomania, and your depressive symptoms don’t meet the criteria for a major depressive episode, for at least two years. Basically, if you’re more happy than usual, but not too happy, or more sluggish than usually, but not entirely hopeless, you’re also disordered. These symptoms must be present at least half the time, and for that 50% of those two years, if you don’t experience being a little too happy and a little too sluggish for more than two months, you’re just normal I guess.

I do not say with this condescension. I have no idea if Cyclothymic disorder throws people out of their normal routine or how it affects their life; I don’t have this. But if you read the wording in the DSM-5, it’s what I said above, without words like “basically.” It SOUNDS very much like they’re labeling normal states as disordered, particularly when they say “well, if you don’t meet the criteria for any symptoms, you’re still sick.”

While looking up some studies about Cyclothymic, I found that Schizothymia is also a thing–not a diagnosis, but a thing. It essentially embodies the “temperament” required to resemble that of someone with schizophrenia, without actually meeting the diagnostic criteria. So, again, normal but still disordered. Schizothymia has yet to make it in the DSM. It’s only a matter of time.

We can guess what Substance/Medication-induced Bipolar and Related disorder is. What’s highly interesting is that if your “bipolar” is activated by Alcohol, Phencyclidine, other hallucinogens, stimulants, cocaine, or sedatives, then you fall in this category. If it’s caused by an antidepressant or E.C.T., treatment that makes money, you don’t. I don’t suggest taking cocaine in place of your antidepressant, but I also recognize there are overlapping neurochemicals involved when we compare street drugs to legal drugs.

You can also have Bipolar and Related Disorder Due to Another Medical Condition, and Other Specified and Unspecified Bipolar and Related Disorder.

If you feel I’ve been tough on this particular category, I have. Wording matters. Wording is what gets people proper and improper support. Wording is how we start to internalize the views of ourselves. Wording is how others see us. Wording is everything. If you’re a studious kind of person, or already in the world of academia, I’d recommend taking a DSM critique course. They rip this manual apart. If not, give the document a read for yourself; it’s in PDF form across the internet and there are available copies in bookstores. If you are unable to separate your own experiences from the diagnoses though (that is, you can’t read one without going OMG I HAVE THAT), maybe just read some articles on critiques.

To get you started, This article is about how much influence pharmaceutical companies have in the revision and editing process. It’s scary. Again–you have substance-induced Bipolar ONLY if your drug of choice is illegal.

What Does Mania/Hypomania Feel Like?

I remember being manic. It’s been categorized as an acute mania, but I remember getting at least a few hours of sleep each night and my functioning wasn’t so impaired, so I’m more inclined to believe I attract the Hypomanic bug. I honestly don’t care, I just know I was managing a 4.0 average across semesters, taking Chemistry, Physics, Calculus, Psychology and Philosophy. I was happy. Very happy. I tackled five classes a semester, spent a lot of time out in the middle of the night, in my car with friends or my boyfriend, and I knew that I was special–beyond special. All of my ideas in science, in philosophy, had never been thought of before and every night I knew the next day brought fame.

My senior year of high school, and my first couple years of college–before I started working at Second Story–I tumbled through a lot of these mood shifts. A lot of my suicidal thoughts and actions, and self-harm, came as a result of these shifts, and so the Mania or Hypomania may not always cause the most damage. Sometimes it’s the aftermath, the picking up the pieces, the coming to a realization that something isn’t going right, that can impede wellness. I did not take care of myself, physically, mentally, every way, nor did I know what that was. I went through medications and doctors and therapy and sometime after one of my more serious depressions, the voices became more prominent and–well, the rest is history.

My experience in many ways pales in comparison to what some people go through. If you haven’t read the book “Mental: Lithium, Love, and Losing My Mind” by Jamie Lowe, I suggest giving it a read. She chronicles her journey fluently, and you get a sense of just how intense and fundamentally altering mania can be.

Many people get a sense of when a manic episode may be near, and this is just one story.

Is Bipolar a Throw-Away Diagnosis?

I believe a lot of descriptions of experiences should be thrown away, but Bipolar is not one of them. Mania can slam the breaks on people’s lives. Hospitalizations become traumatizing. People lose their career, their happiness, their stability, their wealth, their trust in themselves, their families, their possessions, their freedom, their understanding of what life is. All of it can be gained back, one way or another, but the act of starting over sometimes feels like an insurmountable obstacle.

Believe it or not, Bipolar 1 and 2 are quite over diagnosed, and ironically the over diagnosis causes stereotypes and expectations in a clinical setting which, in turn, fuels more incorrect diagnoses. For example, the night I was transferred to the psychiatric hospital over the hill, as soon as they learned I hadn’t been sleeping well–I hadn’t been up for days, I just had trouble sleeping more than a few hours, due to anxiety, panic, voices, and the feeling of being hunted–they diagnosed me Bipolar 1.

When I was released to the hands of the county here, I was interrogated with questions I can barely remember answering. I was still kinda gone, pretty sedated, and confused. The social worker acted more like a detective, or a doctor trying to figure out if I was actually in pain or just wanted opiates. Well, what do doctor’s usually assume? That you’re just trying to pop a pill. What did this social worker assume? That my diagnosis has been bogus because “they always throw that diagnosis at people, it’s a throw away diagnosis”.

That’s what he told me. He said I didn’t need any help and through his line of interrogation concluded my state was a result of marijuana. I had told him I’d smoked two weeks prior, but it had been over a year. As I said, I was gone, had no sense of time, and again slipped through the cracks. I also hadn’t been in contact with many people, my parents were still unsure of what was going on, and my boyfriend who came with me wasn’t allowed to say anything. It felt like I had to make a case in front of a judge without a seasoned lawyer, while hoping for my conviction.

In short, Bipolar is not a throw away diagnosis. People’s experiences are real, they are intense, scary, and incapacitating.

Why Are Manic Episodes confused with Psychosis?

Because they present similarly, and the wording to diagnosis either of these states is vague compared to the amount of variety in symptoms. For a proper separation of diagnoses, the key is to wait. Watch how the state presents itself, how it reacts to what medications, what kind of services, and how is the person after they are more lucid. Are the paranoia and hallucinations persistent without the lack of sleep? What level of insight does the person have to their experiences?

Although not much is known about psychiatric medication, I cannot deny the fact that there are people who are helped a great deal by it, including myself at one point. Sometimes we have data on medications that work better with some diagnoses compared to others. Mood stabilizers may not affect someone with persistent psychosis, and that can help rule out Bipolar 1.

This process is similar to when someone is on a substance, like amphetamines. Once the drugs are out of the person’s system, you observe their behavior and see if the temperament and experiences persist.

What is Helpful?

Two things are very important if you deal with any kind of mood fluctuations, but particularly if you have a bipolar-type condition: sleep and routine.

One thing that made doctors notice I had a mood issue was the fact that I wasn’t consistent in anything that I did, especially taking medication. I’d go on it for a few months, feel well, balanced, and annoyed by the medication side effects, and I’d stop cold turkey. I’d feel okay for a couple days, and then spiral, usually into a depression or severe agitation.

Having a routine includes being consistent with medication: this is true even if you decide to stay off of medication. Forcing your body through the process of adapting to medication, juggling brain chemicals, and then having to re-adapt when you stop isn’t good for your mind or your biological systems. If you choose to stay off medication, what are your limits? It may sound crazy, but mine is hospitalization; if I get hospitalized or feel myself moving toward the idea of voluntarily committing myself, I need to get back on medication. Neither has happened yet. If you choose to stay on medication, what are your limits? Do you believe you will have to stay on them forever or are you open to the idea of working toward getting off of them?

Having a bedtime and morning routine can help develop that stability. Having a set time to sleep and wake up, having rituals even (shower, teeth, pjs, a good book) can aide in that process. It’s important to note that this is not to make you feel “normal”. This is part of self-care. It’s not about being like everyone else, or wanting to feel like a “normal person”, it’s about being healthy and learning what you need to stay well.

And that takes us to sleep.

Get it. It’s important.

Medication is helpful for this in many respects. One thing I miss being on medication is how I got 8 hours of sleep every night, to the second. My body just instinctively took on this role of: wow, my brain has slowed down, I don’t have as many distractions and the sun is going down, you should probably start winding down. Melatonin and chamomile tea can help accentuate this if your normal medication doesn’t quite do the trick. Be wary of sleeping aides like Ambien.

Staying active and nutritious will also help your body get back into the natural sleep-wake cycle. No one will kill you if you have one of those chocolate pies or a doughnut, but if your diet is perpetuated with processed sugars, heavy carbs, and un-nutritious fats, sleep will be hard to come by. Exercise stimulates many different hormones and chemicals in our body, the same ones some psychiatric medications attempt to promote, so adding in a routine if you don’t already have one can dramatically affect how you feel in yourself and about yourself.

These are important for everyone, diagnosis or not, but especially important with a diagnosis. Wellness does not come from one branch on a tree. Wellness is the tree, and its branches are things like exercise, nutrition, attitude, outlook, worldview, medication, physical health, productivity, e.t.c. The more branches, the bigger the tree.

Thank you all for the Instagram messages and for reading this blog. I’ve been so incredibly happy to see that so many viewers are enjoying this content. Tomorrow we will talk about Dissociative Disorders. If you have a story to share with me, or you want to put it on this blog, please reach out to me via my contact page ( linked above) or my social media:

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 Uncategorized

Mental Health Month: Update

Posted on by alidware

I really tried all I could to finish up my articles for this weekend but it looks like Bipolar and Dissociative Disorders will have to be pushed back to Monday evening and Tuesday evening, assuming I don’t work late on Monday.

If you’re wondering, I am still a student and have a couple finals and a paper to finish. I was at work yesterday too to help hire some people, and I needed some extra self care these last two days.

We will still cover those two diagnoses and continue on the regular schedule next week.

Thank you everyone who has been reading, following, and reaching out to me on social media. If you are interested in sharing your story for any part of Mental Health Month, I welcome all experiences. Please contact me on my social media:

Instagram: @written_in_the_photo

Twitter: @philopsychotic

OR reach out to me on here via my contact me page.

Thanks everyone! Enjoy your weekend.

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 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 Community, Emotions

mindful tips

Posted on by alidware

It’s another day in global crisis, my friends, and this has afforded many of us with much more time on our hands than we’re used to. For some of us with mental health problems, the loss of our routine and the possibility of even more financial hardship means certain destabilization.

While reading the Tao Te Ching today, I came across a beautiful quote I wanted to share with my internet community.

In olden times, the ones who were considered worthy to be called masters were subtle, spiritual, profound, wise. Their thoughts could not be easily understood. Since they were hard to understand, I will try to make them clear. They were cautious like men wading a river in winter. They were reluctant like men who feared their neighbors. They were reserved like guests in the presence of their host. They were elusive like ice at the point of melting. They were like unseasoned wood. They were like a valley between high mountains. They were obscure like troubled waters. . . we can clarify troubled waters by slowly quieting them. We can bring the unconscious to life by slowly moving them. But he who has the secret of the Tao does not desire for more. Being content, he is able to mature without desire to be newly fashioned.”

Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu

We are in the middle of raging rapids. Waves crash, destroy, but they also whisper. We are bound by this eternal gravitation between the Earth, the moon, and the rate of our spin. We can hold water behind a dam, we can melt ice and let sea levels rise, we can trap it in a pool, we can let it evaporate, but inevitably it falls back to earth. We can manipulate its form, but never erase it.

Let’s think of distress in a similar fashion.

I don’t know how you’ve been during this pandemic. I don’t know how your anxiety is, your depression, your voices, your self-esteem, your confidence, your happiness, your family, your pets. (I’d love to know though, leave comments below if you’d like to share, or meet me on Instagram). I know that I personally have braved waves of panic attacks, nights of voices telling me I’m dying and that I don’t exist, trying to trick me into separating from the panic of today. I’ve faced a sense of hopelessness, financial burden, and fear for my parents, one of which has several serious physical underlying health conditions. There’s been days I switch between so many states of emotion that I didn’t have the strength to walk four feet to the bathroom.

Whether you’ve experienced similar things or you haven’t, I urge you to practice yielding judgement of this moment, this very second, as you read this. Let’s not avoid the anxiety, the stress, or the pain we may be in. Let’s not fill ourselves with meaningless distraction. Lets not cling too desperately to the sparks of happiness or joy as if we’ll never experience them again, or as if we’re uncertain when we will experience them again. Let’s instead acknowledge the importance of all states, unified, and accept this moment for what it is.

In this moment, I feel the pain of my back injury radiating down my right thigh. I feel my head resting against the soggy cushion of this couch. I feel the stress of bills tightening my shoulders, where I hold a lot of my tension. Anxiety is cold in my feet. There is also contentment and acceptance. With all these things, I let them be. I don’t seek ways to eradicate the physical pain. I don’t fluff the couch cushions, I don’t scramble to straighten out finances. I’m not warming my feet. I’m not questioning my contentment or acceptance.

It’s not irresponsible to breathe in the moment and accept horribleness for its unique horribleness, or euphoria for its lack of insight. This is not a time to tear yourself apart. This is a time to remind your mind and body that they are a stronger force together than separate.

This moment is one among trillions. Celebrate that. There will never be another like it.

Be well, friends. Practice good information hygiene, and take advantage of as many resources as you can. Volunteer what you can, donate what you can. You’re only as healthy as your sickest community member.

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

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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 advocacy, Community, psychology

Friends, Let’s read

Posted on by alidware

Hello friends, it has been some time.

Writing has been difficult. I hope everyone is staying healthy, safe, and inside their homes.

For those of us with mental health issues, all the panic, the uncertain information and unpredictable future can exacerbate our mind-states. If you are feeling effects from the global death, the misinformation and poor leadership (in some places), know that you are not alone. Many of us are feeling this. We are experiencing a collective trauma. Think of this as beautiful: we are stuck getting through this together as the economy flip-flops, healthcare becomes a war zone, and our sick family members and friends fight for their lives.

It’s obvious we lack some scientific understanding, as I mentioned in my last post, and that becomes scarily evident with the orange, diseased walrus in office (here in the U.S) barking empty threats to pull U.S funding from the WHO, lying about the amount of PPE and testing kits available, and tossing around ideas of re-opening public spaces against medical advice.

In the mean time, though, I browse mental health support pages on Instagram because they are recommended in my feed or I find them through other mental health connections I have on the app. It still baffles me that those of us who advocate for each other aren’t educated in the science of the brain. It’s great that we are experts in our own experience. It’s great that we leave space for others to be experts in their own, and don’t push drugs or not-drugs as an agenda. But how can we do that if we aren’t pulling from both sides?

Science and personal experience are how we exist in the world: our brains react to biology and environment, and both influence each other. Genes play an almost negligible role when it comes to the deciding factors of someone developing mental health symptoms, and yet we still push this idea that things like schizophrenia are inherited. They are not: schizophrenia in particular has a high level of heritability, meaning it swims around in the general population’s gene pool, and you are more likely to develop symptoms as a result of genetic chance than you are receiving it from your parents.

Now, before you say “well, I know that my mom. . .” or “well, my friend’s dad had schizophrenia and he does too . . .”, remember that your personal experience, or your friends’, are not common enough to generalize. Please stop.

As for environment, genes turn on and off in reaction to what the body experiences in this physical world. Brain structure changes. Trauma reroutes cells, wilts some, builds some in different, non-beneficial places. At the end of this pandemic, we will see noticeable changes in society and in the people living in areas hit the hardest. In the United States, New York healthcare works in particular may not be the same. In Italy, those who have been quarantined with the dead bodies of their relatives will not be the same. Trauma will change how they see the world, politics, life, friendship, and in their healing process they will learn new things, understand new things. Some will be okay. Others will not. And this variety of reaction is a testament to the way environment shapes us.

When we, as advocates, focus on spreading this disingenuous positivity, this overly positive positivity, as I call it, and we forfeit spreading facts, we are only harming our own cause. So, in light of that, I’ve been reading some research. Sleep is one thing I struggle with, and in my three-am database search for an interesting read, I came across this article here.

I had had access to a full text version, but right now can only link the abstract. If you have access to pubmed, or found it somewhere else, let me know.

But this article states they’ve found a consistent decrease in melatonin across those diagnosed with schizophrenia. Their participants had already been diagnosed and were not on antipsychotic medication (YES that is a possibility for some). Antipsychotics did not increase melatonin levels when introduced.

Nine people is a poor amount, and not very indicative of the population of us, but I assume a bulk of participants were just not available: how many do you know diagnosed with schizophrenia have the ability to take on their journey without meds? Not many.

This study however, has implications for how sleeplessness could be treated in patients with schizophrenia. What this also reveals is that the sleep you get from your antipsychotics (and I remember mine fondly, because I got LOTS of sleep, and I hadn’t had much in a very long time) is not restful. It’s more like a heroin knock-out, and less of your body’s choice.

Assessing those who were not on antipsychotics allowed these researchers to see a natural reduction in melatonin, not linked to the psych-drug usage, and although we could never say for certain that schizophrenia is the cause, the implication is there. What could be other reasons for the melatonin decrease? Perhaps large doses of antipsychotics when hospitalized had rerouted these patient’s melatonin years before, although unlikely considering doses of these antipsychotics int he experiment did not decrease levels of melatonin further. Perhaps their bodies adapted over the years as they got less and less restful sleep because of their symptoms. Perhaps their pineal glands had always secreted a low level of melatonin and THAT contributed to the development of their symptoms. We could hypothesize for years. We have been.

If you have something on the spectrum of schizophrenia, how would you rate your sleep? I rate mine poorly, particularly in times of stress. It takes me longer to fall asleep and it’s harder to wake up. I also attribute some of this to screens and my incessant need to play video games.

That study was from 1997: there may be updated research on this, or conflicting research. If you’re feeling lazy during quarantine, sad, anxious, scared, whatever your emotion, maybe some good old boring, informational research on schizophrenia could pull you out of your funk. It’d help your advocacy, too.

Also, welcome to the load of new followers I’ve received over the last few weeks. I promise I am much more consistent with my writing than I have been these last two months. Feel free to browse the blog for great past posts like this one about positive thinking and this one about supporting your loved one.

Be healthy, be safe, be mindful.

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 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.

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 Peer Support, science, Supporting Friends/Family, Therapy

How To (Gently) Encourage Your Friend to Get On Medication.

Posted on by alidware

Step 1:

Don’t.

It’s that simple.

Why Are We Talking About This?

There are too many questions on social media of people asking Pop-Advocacy sites and people with lived experience how they should convince their friend to get back on medication. Let’s be clear that this is often out of love, concern, pain, and desperation. If you are reading this and have a friend or loved one you believe should be on medication, don’t give up on reading this just yet. This article is not here to bash you, punish you, or guilt you. It’s here for guidance.

We’re talking about this because mental health conditions strike unexpectedly at times, roll in and out of our lives in episodes, and put stress on everyone effected. We’re talking about this because often healthy boundaries get left in the dark when we’re all under so much stress. Those of us struggling can become dependent and feel helpless, while those of us who feel responsible for the well-being of our loved-one feel guilt that we can’t make this pain go away.

We’re talking about this to make it easier on everyone.

Objective Conversation About Medication

One of the reasons pestering your loved one to get on medication is often a losing battle is because there is absolutely zero objective conversation when it comes to medication. Often it is “take this because it’s good for you” instead of “What are the benefits of you taking this? What are the consequences? What can I/we do that can help you with whatever your decision is?”

The “take it because I know what’s good for you” argument is given subtly (or sometimes overtly) in the professional setting. To come home and hear it again, aggressively or compassionately, is all it takes to send someone over the edge, or push them farther away from pharmaceuticals.

There is no consideration of what the person who actually has to take the medication feels. If they feel stable enough off the medication and people constantly tell them they should get back on to avoid the ups and down or voices or anxiety, it creates a lot of self-doubt, a lot of fear, and another sense of helplessness. That can feed depression, it can feed anxiety, it can egg on voices.

If they don’t appear stable, if they lost their job or can’t maintain one, if they are having suicidal thoughts or talking to themselves often, and they still don’t want medication, telling them they should get on some can be seen as forceful and power-hungry. When we’re in the throws of an episode or just having a bad day–those exist for everyone, you know, not necessarily indicative of a mental breakdown–anyone who approaches with concern in the form of demands or a “hero” mentality will seem like an enemy. Rather than feeling the love you have for us, we’ll only feel your disapproval. We’ll feel like something is wrong with us or we’ll feel attacked. That could feed depression, anxiety, and could exacerbate delusions.

Boundaries

This is where having boundaries comes in super handy.

The thing about watching a loved one struggle is that we put a lot of their wellness on our shoulders. The thing about their wellness is that it’s not our responsibility.

That is not meant harshly.

People have choice. They are allowed to struggle. In fact, struggle can result in life transformation. Sometimes if we’re blocked from feeling, if we’re blocked from experiencing what we should, we may not come across that one moment in our lives that tells us: “I need to make some changes“.

You are not that voice for your loved one.

And so a boundary would be limiting your involvement. Resist the urge to help them at any time, particularly if they aren’t doing much to work on themselves.

But, give them space. Make statements like “You’re doing well/unwell today. What’s changed?” and when they answer, listen objectively. Avoid judging statements like “well, if you got back on your medication this wouldn’t be such a big deal” or “look, it’s not my fault you don’t want to do anything to feel better”. Arguing will increase cortisol levels in both of you.

If you feel bullied into helping your loved one, or they often use their condition as a means to exploit your help, stop blaming this behavior on the condition. Most often this is a learned behavior and a result of learned helplessness. Being angry is often a result of feeling like a burden, feeling helpless and out of control, but that doesn’t mean you deserve to be verbally or physically attacked, nor does it mean you need to accept that treatment. Medication will often not stop this behavior.

Louder Now: MEDICATION WILL NOT STOP THIS BEHAVIOR.

And if it does, it’s only because of the sedative seffects.

And so regardless, the behavior is never addressed. Your trauma is never addressed. Your loved one can continue to be angry, feel misunderstood and undervalued, and you will continue to feel like a doormat and blame their “sickness”. It’s quite a cycle, huh?

So what DO you do?

You listen.

Understand that this is not your responsibility, nor is it your struggle.

You’re concerned, you’re worried, fearful, angry, confused. So is your loved one.

Maybe they don’t need a solution right now. Maybe they just want to feel supported and understood and heard. And it’s time to consider if you’re willing to be more of a supportive force and less of a hero.

This isn’t debate class. Having a stellar argument won’t result in discussion, it’ll result in fallout. You want discussion. Go in objectively. Go in with the conception that this is not your mind nor your body, but it is the mind and body of someone you care deeply for. Go in understanding that they have the right to choose and you have the right to your beliefs and discuss both. You may have to agree to disagree and just enjoy each other’s point of view.

If you’re really invested, research all the advantages and disadvantages of medication. Read stories of people who have been helped and hurt by medication, read stories of those who have successfully lived off of medication. Read psychology research papers (not secondary sources). If this part is confusing to you, read this.

Think of a time in your life when you made a decision or something happened which transformed your perception of yourself, the world, and the people around you. Now imagine that never happened.

Controlling someone’s choices can block transformative experiences. Life isn’t debate class.

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 Emotions, Late Night Thoughts, Therapy

February’s Scheduled Mental Breakdown

Posted on by alidware

I like that I’ve already failed in keeping up with my scheduled posts. If I’m actually consistent with a goal I set, someone call 911 because my identity has been stolen.

This will be a short post and not research based. I’ll try and do these once a month. Again, if I *actually* do this once a month, call 911, stolen identity, yada yada.

I preach a lot about the benefits of self-care and ways to manage different experiences/symptoms. A lot of the time the information is helpful and the tips are ones I use myself. And so I wonder, because this happens to me at times: when none of your coping strategies work, what do you do?

I’ll write a more formal post on this idea later, with actual, helpful ideas, but at the moment I have no conception of supportive thought.

I suppose being aware of what your body and mind are feeling and why is important here. My possible reasons for this scheduled mental breakdown include:

  1. Family stress.
  2. Missing deadlines for an online class because of exhaustion from family stress.
  3. Impending death
  4. Health anxiety
  5. Re-activated PTSD symptoms, related to health.
  6. Loud thoughts/quiet voices
  7. Not believing my life is real
  8. Being trapped between school and work and unable to take a break from either.
  9. Believing my therapist, doctors, and friends believe I am a liar about my mental health. *Side note: anyone else ever felt this? That people think you’re just some fake person creating lies for attention? Anyone start thinking about it so much that you think maybe you are a fake and the last 6 years haven’t actually happened, you’re just confused? But then wouldn’t that actually make you crazy? Anyone? This is really fucking with me today.
  10. Physical health frustrations, including forcing my doctor to give me an EKG because I’m terrified of dying suddenly from Cardiac Arrest because of palpitations I’m not even sure are real (I have a history of feeling things in my body that aren’t happening–biofeedback proved it.)
  11. Feeling blank thoughts.
  12. Wanting to withdraw from people but knowing I shouldn’t and also that I can’t, given I must finish these courses and also go to work like a good citizen.
  13. I’ll never get serious mental health assistance because I live at home, in America, can handle working three days a week (barely), am enrolled in college, and have never been outwardly violent, disruptive, combative, or otherwise non-compliant (other than stopping medication). Instead, I spent months in my room, showering only if I went to work (had been on-call); I dropped my classes, spent all of my time playing Minecraft, did rituals to call the god Thoth for help/wisdom, listened to voices and loud thoughts, slept, had nightmares, didn’t sleep, and held maybe one or two short conversations with my parents who figured I was just “going through a phase”–but because none of this caused me to talk to myself or be disconnected in the way you’re expected to be, I don’t get taken seriously.
  14. Anxiety. Just. Anxiety.
  15. Drinking on the weekends.
  16. Not exercising like I was.
  17. Falling short on responsibilities.
  18. Forget *actually* being sandwiched between school and work. Just the feeling of being trapped.
  19. Falling short on personal expectations.
  20. The potential of wasting my potential.
  21. Financial issues

I think that’s a pretty solid list. The healthy thing would be to work through each issue one by one and identify things which can be easily changed and things which may just need to be felt and moved through. Accept that it could take weeks and that this is a rough patch.

But today I just feel like laying on the couch and being unhealthy. So maybe that’s what I will do. My cat seems to feel it; she’s never this cuddly.

Until next time.

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.