Because of global and broad hypersensitivity (caused by the psych drug injury) sometimes two minutes of yoga is exactly the right amount. Sometimes two minutes of yoga right now, five minutes a hour from now and ten minutes before bed is just right.
Healing to me does not mean returning to what one was before something went wrong. Wholeness does not necessarily mean normal. And even the word recovery is problematic because, frankly, I don’t want what I had before. Who wants to go backwards anyway? Healing means being whole even while still perhaps not functioning like others. Healing also suggests some sort of maturation and growth from “before” for all that is learned on the journey. Ultimately now, I see this journey as one of transformation and individuation. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
This post is from January of this year...I thought of the song again today since I had another unpleasant bump...they continue, yes...I think it's called life!! -- Those of us recovering from the iatrogenic injuries that psych drugs cause have a very bumpy healing road. It's never linear and there are just tons and tons of set backs...Not unusually I've been having a bumpy ride...and today, the refrain of an old song popped into my head. It's VERY happy. And today I can see again how I keep learning more and more and my nervous system is also getting stronger.
I get knocked down, but I get up again. You're never gonna keep me down. So, yeah, Amen and Hallelujah...we have resilient spirits and body and we heal...even if it's one hell of a bumpy ride. Have fun listening to Tubthumping by Chumbawamba...I just did. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
We’ve learned to co-exist with different beliefs as one of our most cherished values of tolerance in a multicultural society. That lesson can be key for encountering the different realities in situations where someone is being called psychotic, delusional, schizophrenic or mentally ill. Respect and support may stretch our thinking, but can be vital to recovery. Cross-culturally, we accept that even the most strange or unfamiliar belief has value, meaning, and purpose in the person’s life. We give it the benefit of the doubt. The same is true of bizarre beliefs that get called psychosis. And using diagnostic language instead can amount to the same kind of put-down that goes with cultural supremacy and racist insult.… [click on title for the rest of the post]
The Somatic Wisdom Technique (SWT) is a way of accessing our body’s innate wisdom, to become aware of any deep set negative emotional state and then to develop the tools to loosen and release that emotional state.
And so I embarked on the darkest journey of my life, one for which neither I nor my husband were prepared. I soon found out that there was no one who could help us. The psychiatrists, even the more sympathetic ones, were not making sense to me. I was coming from the business world and I was not used to accepting superficial answers. They could not tell me what was wrong with Helia and why this had happened to her. They could not answer my challenging questions about the scientific research in the field. The best doctors, the honest ones, would tell me: “We really don’t know what this is, but we are sure that something is wrong with her brain.” But why? “Why are you so sure that it is her brain?” I asked. Their response was, “because it can’t be anything else.”
And that is exactly where the problem lay. They could not get out of the box that they were forced into by their guild. Biological psychiatry, in my opinion, suffers from a flawed and reductionist conception of how the human mind works and what might be needed to help it to function optimally when it is not doing so. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
As our bodies heals from the iatrogenic injury caused by psychiatric drugs, the process of healing the autonomic nervous system demands the continual working with fear in the body. These drugs create post traumatic stress and exacerbate that which was already in our bodies.
Yoga is often helpful in the process of healing this insult to our nervous system.
Yoga is wonderful for training us to be with all of the sometimes uncomfortable sensations in our body whether we’ve been injured or not. This is a skill that can help support us in our lives in many different ways. Practicing and learning to be with discomfort is an important skill to have. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
The soul does not communicate primarily through words, through language, but through feelings, intuitions, emotions, and, because of our neglect of it, through disturbed, violent or addictive patterns of behaviour. It also communicates through dreams. If we do not pay attention to these, there will be no way in which the needs of the soul can reach our surface consciousness that is focused exclusively on the external world. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
By Lucy Johnstone: A revolution is underway in mental health. If the authors of the diagnostic manuals are admitting that psychiatric diagnoses are not supported by evidence, then no one should be forced to accept them. If many mental health workers are openly questioning diagnosis and saying we need a different and better system, then service users and carers should be allowed to do so too. This book is about choice. It is about giving people the information to make up their own minds, and exploring alternatives for those who wish to do so. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
Racism is trauma. After the last post on race, I was told by a reader to “stick to the subject” (of the blog) instead of dealing with racial issues. The ensuing comment thread on Facebook was rather interesting and sometimes rather dismaying. Racial issues and societal problems (as well as more immediate familial problems) are at the foundations of our mental health and we’re all connected…if you’ve not heard that as the crux of the message on Beyond Meds I’ve certainly not done my job. Inequality and injustice of all kinds are toxic to mental wellbeing..... (more commentary and audio included)
The notion of very poor prognosis among those with psychosis is a myth, this psychiatrist tells us. He still comes from an overly scientific (reductionistic) perspective at moments but overall he's a pretty darn good guy who seems to get it. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
