MENTAL ILLNESS & DEPRESSION

Now that I have brought up the subject of my own mental illness, let me start a continuing dialogue about my own experiences with mental illness and its treatment in our country (USA).

Depression strikes so many of us. NOW it is o.k. to take mood stabilizers (such as Prozac and its relatives) and a great percentage of us do, but when I was diagnosed, in 1962, there were no such popular medications and I was stabilized on Thorazine and Mellaril. Then, depression was considered a grave mental defect and you were considered "crazy" and locked up in mental hospitals, or kept emotionally straight-jacketed by powerful psychiatric drugs.

Now society has opened its mind a tad and come to realize that depression is a bio-chemical imbalance that can be corrected by Prozac or one of the other amazing anti-depressants, and not a symptom that you have lost control of your mind or emotions.

I am not a doctor in any sense of the word and do not want to contradict anything that your Psychiatrist has told you, or asked you to do, but I have been in the mental health system since 1962 and would like to relate some of my experiences in the hope that you will come to understand the inner workings of mental illness and its treatment in the U.S.A.

I have received four slightly different diagnosis over my life time as Psychiatrists and Scientists have made huge discoveries about the nature and proper treatment of mental illness and changed the wordings and labels in the DMS-4, a text book that defines the parameters of each mental illness and the correct treatment of the patients particular disorder. In 1962 I was diagnosed with Ambulatory Paranoid Schitzophrenia after failing a series of tests that I had answered truthfully, but to the doctors, unbelievably and psychotically (it was in regards to severe abuse in my childhood).

In 1979, I was diagnosed with Schitzo-Affective Disorder/Manic-Depression. This was a less-severe mental illness and was understood to be caused by a bio-chemical imbalance in my brain chemistry exacerbated by rough life experiences.

In 2004, my psychiatrist, after treating me for 22 years, told me one day that I did not have Schito-Affective Disorder, only Bi-Polar Disorder, Rapid-Cycling (I can go from depression to elation in a single day, or less). My brain lit up with joy when he told me those words. I was not crazy, only disheveled emotionally when my brain chemistry gets out of whack. You see, I knew intellectually that my illness was caused by a disorder in my brain chemistry, but in my sub-conscious I still believed the words of the first psychiatrist and secretly accepted that I was indeed crazy. I must say that even as I write this blog, I can feel the branding of the word "mental" on my emotional forehead. And it still makes me feel very uncomfortable and I go to see my psychiatrist every three months so he can give me his opinion as to my "craziness", or not; I am that insecure. I have a great doctor who is slowly decreasing my psychiatric meds as he sees my level state of mind and emotion.

Finally, in 2006, I had my final hospitalization and my psychiatrist in the hospital after much testing and therapy told me that my final diagnosis is Traumatic Shock Disorder and Bi-Polar/rapid cycling. He had found deeply hidden experiences in my childhood and helped me to face them and work them out in a special program. I no longer have the fear and anxiety that my childhood experiences caused me, but have accepted the truth and made peace with all concerned. I believe that this part of my mental illness has been opened up and cured.

Tomorrow I will talk about my mental hospitalizations and how I found the physical hospital and their particular therapies.

PANIC ATTACKS - WHAT ARE THEY & WHY

As we have discussed before, I have a mental illness described as Rapid-Cyclying Bi-Polar Disorder. This disorder has markedly changed my life, mostly for the positive, but also to the negative when I have let it take over my life and cloud my judgements. Bi-Polar Disorder has given me the insight to see the truth of my own self and increased my productivity and ability to create; particularly in its manic state. Bi-Polar describes a mental illness where you range between two states of being, depression and mania. It is somewhat controlled by psychiatric medications, and the rest must be controlled by your own inner strength and self-knowledge.

In the struggle to maintain a balance in my moods I have often chosen negative thoughts and impulses to take over and I have spent money foolishly and made poor judgements in the friends I have chosen. People who scammed me as so many of us elderly, disabled persons are, as we are rather naive and fundamentally are disposed to trust other human beings. I choose to give everyone trust until they have disappointed me, or stolen from me. This stance has often failed me and I am known as a sucker for sad stories, and as an easy mark for users. Since moving into The Ritz in October, I have managed to stay away from the users and bilkerers, and I am so happy and intend to keep my guard up against fake friends. But I digress, this is supposed to be a blog about Panic Attacks.

Almost every person I have met that has a mental illness, and many that do not have a mental disorder, have occasional (or in some cases daily) Panic Attacks. In a panic attack you become overcome by a sense of dread, and often it develops into a passionate, overwhelming sense that one of your loved ones is dying, or that you, yourself, are dying in the very instant of an attack. You become frantic in your pain and fearful thoughts and suddenly have great trouble breathing. You are absolutely consumed with the thoughts of a million tragedies all happening at once, and you go into an emotional overload that is both physical and psychological. Physically, you cannot breathe properly and are consumed by the fear of dying. You collapse on the floor (often) clawing at your throat and chest trying to get a breath of air, at the same time psychologically you are consumed with the fear that you or your loved one is in eminent danger of death. The fear and pain you are consumed with are very difficult to deal with and cause literal bodily and mental pain.

Most mental health workers do not like dealing with panic attacks because they seem so irrational to them. They seem to think that we choose to have panic attacks, but anyone who has ever had one spends the rest of their life dreading another occurrence and we try to rationalize what has just caused the last one we were in. Many times we are in public or semi-public places when they occur and that causes a fear of being in that place again. We start to avoid any place that is like the place we had our last attack. Some people elect to stay at home and never leave again so as to avoid the triggers that set off panic attacks. Unfortunately we do not know how panic attacks are triggered. They come out of nowhere and strike when you least expect it. You can be very relaxed when suddenly the discomforting thoughts begin to plague your mind and heart. In an instant you are in the middle of a panic attack and your breathing ability seems to vanish.

A seasoned mental health worker will bring you a paper bag to breath into, and will sooth and comfort you past the demons that are plaguing your mind and heart. After 15-30 minutes of an attack that mental health worker will have been able to lead you through the attack to a safe place beyond your irrational fears. However, most attacks do not occur around any mental health workers so the people around you also begin to freak out and are worried about your condition and sometimes call for emergency services. They are well-intentioned, but it is totally embarrassing to have an attack in public-another reason to stay at home where you can have your attack in private.

The driving force for panic attacks is an extremely high level of anxiety. In this present time, with so many out of work and starving, and with those so afraid for the futures of their families and friends, there has been a significant rise in panic attacks among folks that never thought of themselves as having emotional problems.

There is an answer to panic attacks and that is a daily dose of an anti-anxiety medication such as Klonopin or Valium, but most psychiatrists will not prescribe it for their patients as they view panic attacks as self-controllable and anti-anxiety drugs too dangerous for their health. Some doctors think that their patients will misuse the drug. Now they do not hesitate to prescribe anti-psychotic or mood-stabilizing drugs such as Abilify or Zoloft, or a string of other pharmaseuticals that all have virulent side-effects.  But because the proper medications often tend to make you feel comfortable in your own skin, and panic attacks avoided, most psychiatrists or other medical doctors think that all you want is the positive feelings of the drug and are prejudiced against giving you a drug that "merely" makes you feel comfortable and able to be in control of your feelings. Attitudes like this often lead the poor patient to self-mutilation in order to rid themselves of the guilt and bad feelings that come about after a panic attack.

Panic attacks wreck havoc in your life and are the worst symptoms to bear. I am hoping by writing this article that more people's eyes will be opened to the pain and disability of panic attacks and when they meet a person in the midst of an attack will know to offer them comfort and a paper bag if the need arises. I would also wish to place the thought into any doctor's mind that might be reading this article, to re-think their stance on prescribing anti-anxiety medication to their patients who are often locked in a world of crippling pain and agoraphobia (fear of being outside of your home or safe place). The pain is very real and the fear that at any moment the next panic attack will start. You are in a state of constant anxiety and your dealings with life are stunted. Life without the help of anti-anxiety medication is pure hell and fear paralyzes your ability to have a productive life if you have any panic attacks at all.

Panic attacks create real, and long-lasting pain, and a disabling fear of recurrence of the symptoms. Please pass along the ideas in this article and perhaps one day soon the doctor's who prescribe anti-anxiety medication will do so without getting hung up on their fear of a patient misusing the drug and make the determination to prescribe by the level of fear and disability in their patient. Fortunately I have found such a wonderful doctor and I have been panic-attack free for several years now. Being free of panic attacks gives me the ability to lead a creative and productive life and I have come to love this practitioner of nurturing medicine. 

PASSIONS OF THE MIND, BODY, & SPIRIT

We usually talk of passion as the physical expression of love; and it is. Love making can be one of the greatest passions that we experience on earth. Another of the physical passions we can experience is in caring for a newborn child; their total dependence on us is what stirs the passion to protect and nourish this new child. The person who records her first song, writes his first book, or makes a great scientific discovery knows of the great passion that comes from creativity.

Learning new knowledge is an unfolding joy and understanding of beingness that creates a new level of passion in our mind. From the first spark of knowledge that we recognize in our brain we develop a listening for the next piece of the puzzle so we can feel the passionate feelings of discovery again.

We are passionate about our politics and about our spiritual path. We are free to choose what we want to do in life and it is this freedom that fills our hearts with the passion of joy. Love for your soul-mate or love for He Who Spoke and The World Came Into Being, brings us the height of spiritual joy. Our lives are full of passion, coming from all directions, physical, mental, and spiritual. If you feel that your life is bereft of passion, then perhaps you are lonely and feeling misunderstood. We all feel a lack of passion when our troubles in life overwhelm us, but we do not have to stay in such a hole. We can think about all that we have been blessed with, or how many times we were picked up by a sudden influx of passion that left us in a better place in life, and reminds us that Joy is the key to a happy life and the armor that protects us from Satan's  temptations.

Satan despises the fact that we have freedom of choice and so can turn ourselves away from negative practices. The only passion he can afford us is anger and negativity which leaves us apart from our goals in life to be happy and enjoy the life that we are leading. Rethink your position in life if the passion you feel is to hurt others or take joy in others downfalls and sorrows. You cannot be truly happy if your happiness comes at the cost of pain to others

So, go for passion in all that you do, and wish the world and all you meet the joy of passion. Then you will be struck by how fortunate your life will become and how much passion you can pass on to the other people that you come into contact with. The entire Cosmos is a rapture of joy; rise up and take your share. And if your life is in the pits force yourself to find joy in another's happiness and you will feel an upsurge in your own passion.

Wishing you the greatest passion and joy in all areas of your life, and may you discover how easy it is to know passion if we think positive thoughts and demonstrate a loving spirit.

On another note: my diet is going great. The food makes me full and leaves me with no cravings-and I am a sugar addict who is not using any sugar at all. My blood pressure has dropped 20 points, and my blood sugar is coming into control, I have been able to drop from 36 units of insulin per night to a mere 20 units per night and it has only been 5 days into the diet. I am truly dazzled by the Blood Sugar Solution Diet and will keep you updated. I will know Friday if I have lost any weight this week.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            .

AN ADOPTEE'S RELATIVES

What I have been thinking a lot about lately is family. Since I was adopted when I was a year old and now am 68, not very many of my older relatives are still alive. I was loved and accepted by several of my mother's and father's families when I was a little girl. Some relatives stand out for their giving freely of their love to a little girl who had no natural relatives. My aunts Fannie Pearson, Irene, and Marion MacDougall, and my great-uncle, Lee Evans, stand out in memory. They never labeled me as an outsider but instead gave of their hearts openly.

My grandmother, Pansy MacDougall, did seem to love me and it was my responsibility in my teens and young womanhood to take care of her needs as she became frail and was struck with senile dementia. But she would say one thing that tore my heart apart. When I had made her comfortable and made sure she had all that she needed, she would look at me and say, "I wish that my grandchildren would care for me as much as you do." I operated under the premise that she was my grandmother, and it hurt to have her refer to me as someone outside of the family.

Now all of the outstanding relatives who loved me have all passed away, and there is not a single cousin on either side of my family that accepts me as family. The cousins have chosen that I not be included in their families as I am really not one of them...by blood.

But no fear, my life is filled with the love of the children and grandchildren that God has blessed me with. I am very grateful that The Holy One has seen fit to give me relatives by blood; relatives that I have given birth to and who do not deny me, my six children, 13 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

I used to pray that the Lord would let me find my birth parents and family. He did, but I was rejected by my mother because no one in her new family knew of my existence; she was raped going home from work when she was a war-widow with her husband overseas, and she and her family kept it secret from him and she joined him after my birth in Hawaii were he was stationed. My poor mother was filled with fear that her new family-two sisters and a brother of mine-would learn of the horrible chapter of her life that she had prayed would never come out in public. I assured her that I would not intrude upon her life and keep her secret, and that is what I have done for 33 years. She and her husband passed away many years ago and so she was spared any mark upon her reputation and I have not made moves to intrude upon my sisters and brother who I am sure would be aghast that their mother kept such a secret from them and their father. In the back of my heart however, I have hoped and prayed that one day a miracle would happen and I would get to see my sisters and brother; but if that never happens I have the comfort of having found my mother, having a picture of her holding me at 6 weeks, and knowing about my mother's relatives and what nationality I belong to. Gratefully, I am Jewish as well as English, Irish, Scotch and Pennsylvania Dutch. And that is all enough for me and I feel especially blessed to at least have found mother and heard the story of who I am.

Do I regret finding my mother only to have her reject me again? Not at all. I know that in her own way she loved me but did not have the strength to face her family with all the ugly details of her life. She suffered that she could not get closer to me and she spoke to my daughters and created a relationship with them, and on every Christmas she would send me the news of how her life was going. So I did have a thread of contact with mom, and I never pushed her to do more. I love her.

I would very much like to know if relatives-by-adoption generally turn their backs on adopted members of the family, or if my case is unusual. I feel very proud of both of my adopted families and have worked on their genealogies for years. Now, I am beginning to work on my blood-line genealogy and surprise, surprise, they have much the same background as my adoptive parents.

In closure, all that I can say is to thank God for giving me all of my relatives; blood and not. I love both sides very much and hope that one day some of my adoptive cousins will come around and speak to me again. I will work to accomplish that. Thank you for listening to me today as I try to get a grip around who is family and who has decided not to be. Family is very precious to me and I cherish even a word in my direction.

MOTHER

Mother; the very word symbolizes a wealth of love and caring. Your heart is clutched and drawn toward the one woman you consider mother.

She is the one you long for in your worst night. Her reassuring words and uplifting spirit can lift the burdens from your heart, and when you triumph you long for her praise.

No one else can take her place in your heart and if she passes too early-any age is too early-you mourn the rest of your life.

My heart is hurting for my granddaughter, Sierra, who just gave birth to little Milani. She had had to have a cesarean section because Milani's heart rate dropped during contractions. She needed her mother to hold her hand and comfort and reassure her, but her mother, my daughter, Becky, had passed away in 2008. Sierra was strong and did a beautiful job but the one pain that was hardest to bare was the fact of the empty chair beside her. Terrance, her husband, and his mother, Rhonda, were beside her all the way, and her brothers were there to support her, and so she smiled and became a woman and a mother. She had done the entire procedure without complaint; she was a tribute to her pioneer stock.

Now she has so many questions that she wants to ask her mother, and her advice would be priceless to Sierra. She wishes that she could just pick up the phone and call her; a wish many of us have. Now she must learn to be a mother on her own but she has been reading for the basic facts and the rest just seems to come naturally. It is beautiful to watch Sierra take care of Milani. Her face shines so bright with love and joy.

I believe that motherhood is given special blessings of endurance and tolerance and a heart that is loving and forgiving. Were it not so, none of us would survive the first two years of life because good mothering takes total commitment to the welfare of the child and a certain strength of purpose.

Sierra will find that she will have access to her mother through her heart. For mothers watch out for their children even after they pass, and the dimension that they are in is mere inches from ourselves. We cannot yet see into this dimension but we can feel it in our being when a loved one draws near to us, and sometimes hear messages of love and guidance when we least expect it. Becky will guide Sierra through her heart and warn her of impending danger. Becky will stand guard over Milani all of her life and prompt Sierra when trouble arises. The mother-child bond is eternal and powerful.

Thank God for our mothers.

VAN GOGH, ENERGY, & LOVE

For years I have admired Vincent Van Gogh's painting, Starry Night. I dreamed that one day I could have a copy of this painting to look at every day and this Channukah my son, David, gave me a copy on stretched canvas. I placed the painting on the wall directly in front of the couch where I sit to write. I had forgotten the physical impact that the energy from this painting has on a person viewing it. I have been completely drawn into this painting and can feel its energy explode in my heart as love and passion for life. All I have is a copy and it affects me deeply, imagine if you were to see the original painting itself; the energy it must exude.

Each of us is an original work of art created by ONE. Each of us radiate raw energy and passion in every act that we do, every word that we speak, and every time we look into another person's eyes. Now the question for us all is what kind of energy we are sending out into the universe; negative or positive? That choice is our's alone and we make the choice every second of our existence and then deal with the consequences of what we have sent out. As we know, energy cannot be destroyed; it is eternal. Therefore the energy from our thoughts, actions, and words are eternal and stretch out into the Cosmos touching and impacting all that they come into contact with. We are then in turn affected by the energy that everything-matter and anti-matter-send out. The entire universe is a living, breathing pulse of energy with frequencies ranging from very negative to very positive and what you send out is what you will attract.

Vincent Van Gogh's art has impacted the world with his great passion for life. We may not be a Van Gogh, but we also effect the Cosmos and every person that we meet. Wisdom dictates that we strive to send out the most positive energy that we can so that everyone we come into contact with will be uplifted and send back to us their positive energy. The alternative is to send out negative energy and then have it return to us as grief, sorrow, and loss. The choice is always your own.  

2013 A YEAR OF POSSIBILITIES

Welcome back my dear friends and may I wish you a very Happy New Year!

Milani Rebecca Brown was born on December 23rd and we spent a week with Sierra helping her out with the new baby.

Now we are back to business and turn ourselves over to a year that I believe will be very rewarding and exciting. I have just completed a cover for the book, Legend of Kor, and as soon as I get the final revisions completed I will submit the book package to Amazon.com and see if I can get it published.

I have made a New Year's resolution to go on the Blood Sugar Solution Diet. I will be taking sugar, dairy, grains, and flour products out of my diet and taking extra supplements. Then there is the daily exercising and three-times-a-week sauna and going for a walk in the sunshine everyday. I am praying that I will daily receive the strength to complete all of these real challenges to my lifestyle and lose weight and gain muscle tissue. It is also supposed to clear the fog from your brain and improve your memory. Today I am preparing for the diet by clearing my house of all the foods and drinks that I can no longer have. I have a real addiction to sugar and caffeine and this will give me a chance to overcome my decided hangups. I'm a little scared that I am too weak to succeed, but every day I am going to journal and I will give you updates on how I am coming along.

This year I will also be writing the third book of The God Games Trilogy; Challenge of Satan. In preparation for this project I am reading Dante Aligiere and John Milton.

We had a wonderful Holiday Season and low and behold, the world is still turning on its axis. Of course the preparations we made for any eventuality will still come in handy because we have had two hurricanes hit us over the last two years and we will need all that we have stored in case of such an occurrence happening again this year. It never hurts to prepare for the worst because then you can relax and let whatever happens come your way.

I want to take just a moment to thank The Holy One, Blessed Be He, for all of the blessings and help He has given us over this last year and ask Him to bless all of us with the righteous desires of our hearts. Now I pray for ideas and thoughts that are worthy of writing to you. My mind has hit a stagnant period and I am having some trouble with writer's block, but with your support I am sure that the mind will once again function normally.

Thank you China, Russia, Germany, and the British Isles for coming on board to our blog, I am so excited that you would take the time to read an American blog and I hope that my ideas do not offend you in any manner, but I promise to be blunt and honest and talk about my real feelings and ideas. I would welcome any comments on how my blog affects you and any corrections if I have negative ideas and suggestions that offend your sensibilities. Each of my readers is very important to me and my aim is to enrich your life with my little ideas and stories.

Thank you for returning to my blog and tomorrow I will have new thoughts to discuss with you. Have a wonderful day!