The emotional, physical, mental, spiritual, social, political and ecological…(must be viewed as a whole if we hope to heal)

Some brief musings:

There is a direct correlation between the healing of my physical body to my capacity to access more of my psyche and thus heal it too. The psychiatric drugs damaged my body in such a way as to further obfuscate the issues they were prescribed to treat. It’s astonishing really how obvious it becomes when one becomes conscious during this healing process.

For example…two brief thoughts I tweeted on the topic:

This body as object of meditation. Witness the unraveling of illness into well-being — come to understand humanity’s ills: a perfect reflection.

and

Today while meditating on my somatic experience it struck me that the gut is no second brain — it is simply part of the brain. Inseparable.

The emotional, physical, mental, spiritual, social, political and ecological spheres are all one. This is hard for many people to grasp in the context of our modern world that likes to reduce and compartmentalize everything. Medicine and psychology, both, can harm people because too often those who practice them are unwilling or unable to embrace the full picture. Sometimes from opposite ends of the spectrum — we either put too much emphasis on the physical or the emotional, without understanding their intimate connection. Both sides of that spectrum are likely to leave out the social and political and spiritual. Everything matters.

The title of this site EVERYTHING MATTERS, points to the importance of grasping this reality. The importance goes well beyond our mental health. It points to how we might save ourselves and all the other species on this planet, too.

This site does tend to concentrate on mental health…

So, there is virtually no understanding of this profound interconnectedness of all things in medicine, nor psychology — psych drugs instead are far too often agents of trauma rather than being therapeutic. The entire mental illness system actually acts as an agent of trauma because of this lack of consciousness.

Whatever I met psychiatry with all those years ago when I was first drugged, (my story is here) the psych drugs magnified and made worse exponentially (not so much in ways that showed up in behavior, but in how the entire body/mind/spirit was affected…my physical body was struck profoundly ill).

Those of us who’ve come out onto this side of this sort of  trauma cannot stay silent. We are here to change things. Simply because we know what we know.

See:  When we are told our experience is too ugly to be heard…

There are others who understand these connections:

• Psychiatry ignores trauma says Dr. Bessel van der Kolk  (it doesn’t just ignore it. psychiatry too often exacerbates and creates more trauma)
• Mental illness, addiction & most chronic illness is linked to childhood loss & trauma (Gabor Mate)
• See also: Professional denial is a form of retraumatization

How do we heal this damage? See the drop down navigation menus at the top of the page for lots of different ideas.

See also:

• Healing the body/mind with the willingness to feel (for me this has proven to be the most important aspect of a very holistic approach that tends to everything…because everything matters)

*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. If your MD agrees to help you do so, do not assume they know how to do it well even if they claim to have experience. 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 as your partner in care.  Really all doctors should always be willing to do this as we are all individuals and need to be treated as such. See: Psychiatric drug withdrawal and protracted withdrawal syndrome round-up

It’s become clear to me that whenever it’s possible that it’s helpful for folks who’ve not begun withdrawal and have the time to consider a carefully thought out plan to attempt to bring greater well-being to your body before starting the withdrawal. That means learning how to profoundly nourish your body/mind and spirit prior to beginning a withdrawal. For suggestions on how to go about doing that check the drop-down menus on this blog for ideas. Anything that helps you learn how to live well can be part of your plan. That plan will look different for everyone as we learn to follow our hearts and find our own unique paths in the world. Things to begin considering are diet, exercise and movement, meditation/contemplation etc. Paying attention to all these things as you do them helps too. The body will start letting us know what it needs as we learn to pay attention. 

For a multitude of ideas about how to create a life filled with safe alternatives to psychiatric drugs visit the drop-down menus at the top of this page. 

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