Emotional “dysregulation” is plasticity

There is a brief update below as I want to clarify what dysregulation means in the context of this post. 

My favorite MD is an unusual man of great insight who is also a scientist and researcher. This is a man who has never told me what to do and only supported my process by being witness and offering insights when and if applicable. I found him later in the drug withdrawal journey, after I was off the offending drugs that harmed me. I was still bedridden. He certainly saw the worst of the iatrogenic injury. He once said to me that those of us who have the most extreme reactions to the drugs are actually the most likely to heal and transform. He said the mere fact that we are so profoundly injured by them is proof of our highly neuroplastic brains. And while the healing process may sometimes be radical and even violent, that ultimately when we’ve healed, we’ve also transformed in profound ways. Indeed, this is becoming my experience.

This is a brief status update I just came up with (well, first it was an insight from a period of contemplation). It is very much in line with what this kind and special doctor said to me a few years ago. Now it’s become part of my cellular and experiential knowledge. I share it with you all now so that you too might find it’s truth.

Emotional “dysregulation” is plasticity. It inherently holds healing within it. Stop believing something is wrong with you. Surrender to the ride.

UPDATE: I want to add here that when this insight came to me the term “dysregulation” came on it’s own. I added the word “emotional” for this post because I guess I imagined it would make sense to more people that way. In fact, though, I think it’s important to note that psych drug use and withdrawal actually creates broad spectrum dysregulation in all of the systems of the body/mind and spirit. It’s characterized by autonomic nervous system dysregulation which can truly manifest in what seems infinite ways. People have all sorts of symptoms and many experience a constant flux of all sorts of “dysregulated” weirdness including hypersensitivities to all sorts of things. I am one of those people and this statement embraces it all. I see freedom here. I really do. In opening and allowing and trusting my body is guiding me through this labyrinth…

These sorts of dysregulations are common among folks with trauma histories as well and among people with many different sorts of chronic illnesses and auto-immune illnesses as well. Psych drug use and withdrawal simply seems to make them much more extreme in some people.

And since I seem to be reengaging with the blog and social media once again I’ll also share a post I shared with my Facebook readers last night:

My hiatus has been very fruitful. It seems I’m coming back into relationship with the blog and social media and that, yes, the relationship is different. I’m not going to feel like I have to post something daily and I’m no longer going to do a lot of repetitive stuff in the way I had perfunctorily been carrying out the last couple of years. I saw a lot of the work on the blog as a means of spreading memes to folks who were new to the work I’ve been doing for close to a decade. I’m tired of doing that. Moving forward I will be less redundant and less perfunctory both. Some redundancy is always good. We all learn by repetition and I’m no exception. I too need some repetition.

I continue to not follow news feeds closely. I’m no longer checking my daily sources of mental health news and don’t intend to start that again in any sort of regular or regimented way. This will allow a more organic and self-directed process to emerge I think. In fact, that is already happening.

Anyway…the new relationship will continue to be revealed. Not just to you my readers, but to myself as well. I look forward to the process of unfolding.

More related:

• The Brain’s Way of Healing: Discoveries from Frontiers of Neuroplasticity

• Choice and emotion: a short essay with some musing (about “emotional dysregulation”)

*it is potentially dangerous to come off medications without careful planning. Please be sure to be well educated before undertaking any sort of discontinuation of medications. Do not assume your MD will know how to do it either. They are generally not trained in discontinuation and may not know how to recognize withdrawal issues. A lot of withdrawal issues are misdiagnosed to be psychiatric problems This is why it’s good to educate oneself and find a doctor who is willing to learn with you. See: Psychiatric drug withdrawal and protracted withdrawal syndrome round-up