Sorry about the last post,

[Guest guest]

I said Gloria:

 

I meant Linda.

 

Have to sleep more and not read so fast.

 

Love,

Alton

 

 

, nierika@a... wrote:

> Alton, responding to Gloria wrote:

>

> > >> There is no shame in the defining of the disease. <<

>

> Hmmm...Gloria, I have been traveling, so I missed your original

post. And so

> please excuse me if what I share isn't completely relevant. Also,

please feel

> free to email me if you want to talk more about this. When I was

growing up

> (in an abusive home) and having many experiences that wreaked havoc

with my

> biochemistry, not to mention my psychology, I often heard stories

of my

> "crazy aunt X." Since I experienced some of auntie X's "craziness"

firsthand,

> these were very potent stories. I learned that she was

institutionalized for

> an attempt to kill her mother. (In retrospect, thinking back on

this gave me

> some understanding of where my father's abusive behavior got its

start.) And

> I was told over and over, "you're just like your aunt X." So I grew

into my

> teen and young 20's years with an abject terror of going crazy. And

I had

> many things happening to me during that time and since that would

have been

> grist for any therapist's mill. (I also realize that not

all "mental illness"

> stems from abusive homes; sometimes it is just mixed up chemistry.)

Also, I

> have been in therapy for most of my life, since my early 20's. The

up side of

> that is that I had good therapists who kept telling me I wasn't

crazy, and

> that my experiences were...a variety of things, depending on the

therapist.

> The down side is that I was never given a proper diagnosis until

several

> years ago when, due to job stress, I developed severe panic

disorder (this

> was, by the way, diagnosed by my medical physician, and had

previously been

> misdiagnosed as several things by a previous physician). My doctor

sent me to

> a shrink for treatment because, as he put it: "I am not qualified

to dispense

> the medication you need to help you with this." (The medication

actually did

> help.) However...

>

> Somewhere along the line, the shrink who was treating me decided I

might be

> bipolar, and so he started giving me medication for that. This part

of it was

> a nightmare. The medication made me ill; it didn't help any of my

symptoms,

> and when he took me off of any of them, especially the Lithium, the

> withdrawal was horrible. This shrink was never convinced that I was

not

> bipolar, despite the fact that both my therapist and a neurologist

who had

> been seeing me said that I was not. He did, at my insistence,

though, agree

> to stop trying out bipolar meds on me and to go back to the panic

meds that

> had actually helped.

>

> When I told my current therapist about this experience, he

chuckled, and then

> said he realized this was actually very serious, but that the

bipolar

> catagory has become a sort of catch-all (kind of like hyperactivity

has been

> for children) where people get lumped when the person is not really

sure

> where to put them. He also said it is a kind of faddish thing in

the

> profession (he is a psychologist, but due to the total lack of

shrinks in

> this part of the country, he does alot of things that shrinks

normally do,

> except prescribe meds). He helped me put my lifelong symptoms into

> perspective (anxiety, with the panic being the extreme end of the

scale),

> relative to how I grew up (in fear and terror), and he has also

helped me to

> learn many tools to defuse the symptoms, which are sometimes

psychological

> and sometimes physiological and sometimes both. One of these is

breathing,

> essentially pranayama, though he doesn't call it that. The other is

focus on

> my behavior and emotional responses, rather than on the behavior

and

> emotional responses of others. And I do still take medication,

though at a

> much lower level. As I get ready to move to NM this fall, and so

leave this

> wonderful doc, I think of him as one of my upagurus. (Please refer

to

> previous post about this, if you like.)

>

> I have no idea what is going on with your family member, but I do

know that a

> correct diagnosis is extremely helpful, and that if there is any

question, it

> is always helpful to have a second, or even a third, opinion. I

also know

> that the behavior of people who are suffering emotional pain (and

darn if I

> can separate out the mind/body/emotions, they all seem quite linked

to me)

> can completely disrupt the lives of people around them. I know

because I grew

> up with someone who was very sick emotionally, and I can see how

that

> behavior affected all of us in the home. And I know because I look

back on

> some of the coping behaviors I have had in the past (of course, I

didn't call

> them this at the time; to me they were completely justifiable

responses to

> the situations at hand), and I see how very disruptive and harmful

they were

> and have been. I work very hard on myself, and still I fall down,

> revert/resort to old patterns, and then feel very badly. Another

gift of my

> current therapist is not to beat myself about the head and

shoulders for

> these but to reflect on them and see where I might have intervened

with my

> own emotional response. (This, by the way, dovetails amazingly well

with a

> very cogent description of the 8 limbs of yoga in the book, "The

Guru and the

> Goddess," in the part of the book addressing the Kasyapa Sutra.)

> Okay...shanti ~ Linda