Questions, answers and musings on the healing process…

Responses to emails etc. that have to do with my healing process.

When asked about my healing process in a health group I’m part of:

I’m in an intense recovery process from a severe chronic illness with brain injury and auto-immune stuff. I practice a form of surrender to the body which means I’m in constant mindful attendance to it as I heal. The brain injury is marked with severe dysregulation which is slowly becoming regulated. I do that by responding deeply to the body and having no expectation about what it actually needs. It’s a deconditioning process among other things…a lot of what we hear in health circles have nothing to do with us in particular because we are endlessly variant. So learning to attune to what is resonant and needed for this body is the healing process for me. See also: Monica’s story: the aftermath of polypsychopharmacy

***

a question from a reader I don’t know personally and my response:

Monica. I need something for anxiety. What do you recommend?

** I don’t recommend anything in particular. We’re all totally different and I have no means of knowing what you need. You can look at some of my posts and see if they speak to you in any way…and then do like everyone has to do and find your way to your particular collection of things that bring healing to you. Here is the subject page for FEAR — I consider anxiety to be a variety of fear…and working with it that way is helpful for me. In fact I don’t use the word anxiety for myself really…it’s a clinical term that obfuscates what it really is in my mind. See posts on FEAR and ANXIETY here. Remember, everything matters so tending to your whole being (body, mind, soul) remains important.

***

and lastly, some thoughts first shared on twitter:

Psychiatry as widely practiced is a nightmare and grossly and dangerously reductionistic. That said, our bodies matter. We are biological beings too…

the anti-psychiatry crowd often wants to dismiss the importance of becoming *embodied* – a healthy body is a healthy mind

so we’ve got psychiatry on one hand saying it’s all biological, but poisoning the body further…which is pure insanity. Yes, completely insane. Psychiatry is an agent of more insanity, not less. And considering that we might also consider: who is actually mentally ill?.

but then we’ve got people who want to say the body doesn’t matter at all…that somehow we are separate from the body. This too is travesty. Our bodies remain our temples and need to be honored as such. Western medicine (and not just psychiatry) routinely poisons the body and further ingrains illness by suppression.

Allowing the body its expression and learning to understand and respond — this is where I’ve found healing…and after decades of doing the opposite it’s no easy thing. It may never be an easy or painless thing but it’s far preferable to shutting it down and ignoring its cries.

See:

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

• Chemical imbalance myth takes a big public fall

SEE ALSO: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO HEAL?

***

****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. 

Support Beyond Meds. Enter Amazon via a link from this blog and do the shopping you’d be doing anyway. No need to purchase the book the link takes you to or make a donation with PayPal. Thank you!