From what I've been able to figure out, the Buddha's job was not to save the earth but the human mind.
After all, meditation is less costly than a pill, and cannot be patented. For Buddhism does not work well if treated like a religion.
Though it relieves neuroses when meditation is regularly practiced with sincerity.
Neuroses are what the doctors have omitted when they updated their mental health "bible" to the Fourth version. This is because a neurosis is actually based on protective defense mechanisms.
Meditation helps the meditator to examine these defense mechanisms in detail.
Originally posted April 22, 2013 at 2:37 AM
Showing posts with label DSM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DSM. Show all posts
20140111
My Mental Health So Far (satire)
When I reflect on the borderline personality disorder diagnosis I was given over 20 years ago, perhaps it was only accurate in 1991.
After discussing the diagnosis with my doctor, we decided to preserve my mental health by not opting for medication. At age 33, I was still young and immature for my age.
Overall though, my delayed maturity was due mainly to my limited social experience before moving out of my parents' home.
At age 39 I left home to live on my own. It's been over 15 years now that I've lived independently of my parents, but only five years since I have developed a mature understanding of the roles my siblings (one older brother, one younger sister) and my parents played in my emotional and psychological development.
During that time, I lost a friend in 2006 to pancreatic cancer and my father in 2007 to old age. As well, I met and fell in love with four different women in 1994, 2000, 2001 and 2007.
Today I'm sure the borderline personality disorder is in remission.
By the end of 2012, I have been in remission from depression that lasted from 2009 to 2011. From 2010 to 2012, I chose psychotherapy combined with medication of my choosing to see if it would help me.
From my perspective, I am sure that psychotherapy was helpful in the beginning. Yet it was becoming less useful over time due to my unwillingness to fully commit to total disclosure. At some point near its end, I developed a fear that continued therapy would undo the improvement in my life.
Even so, I learned a lot from my psychotherapist and my choice in medication. All that can be confirmed about medication is that mirtazapine is a strong sedative and did what it was meant to do (relieve depression).
After discontinuing mirtazapine in 2012, I have relied on gabapentin two 100 mg capsules daily and one 10 mg tablet of flexeril to aid in relief of insomnia.
Gabapentin (Neurontin) is used for neuralgic pain in low doses. Flexeril (cyclobenzaprine) is a muscle relaxant with sedative effects is used to reduce pain for the osteoarthrosis in my left shoulder. Together, both drugs reduce the subtle effects of pain in my body to help me to sleep at night.
After doing a thorough research on borderline personality disorder, I know that I have outgrown a lot of its symptoms over time. That include no recent incidents of self harm and only rare occurrences of impulsivity.
As for idealization and devaluation of others, alternating between high positive regard and great disappointment, it rarely occurs. Instead I maintain a high positive regard for most of my friends and as much positive regard for my GooglePlus followers.
Additionally, I know that the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder implies the personality of a person is flawed. In response, I feel that perhaps the psychiatrists who voted on keeping borderline personality disorder in DSM-V would rather have the ignorant believe in the myth of a flawed personality associated with this debilitating personality disorder than actually overcome the stigma associated with it.
Indeed, I do not believe that my personality is flawed since it is based on myth rather than fact. Rather, a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder may be based on a lack of information about the person being diagnosed including cultural heritage.
Had I been exposed to medication earlier, I am uncertain that it could have helped me at all. For my research on various medications led me to conclude that very little of the medical trials on antidepressants, anti-psychotics, and sedatives included enough Asian volunteers to validate their safety.
I feel that whenever flaws in my personality appear, it is when I am stressed. A person truly cannot isolate himself from the world for long. Even being at home for two days would lead me to develop insomnia. In order to remedy such a situation, I will spend more time away from my computer in the future.
As for now, I would rate my mental health as good with room for improvement.
However, regarding bipolar disorder and other mood disorders, medication and psychotherapy may be warranted when coping strategies do not work.
In my case; I rely on exercise and meditation as coping strategies to relieve stress.
For exercise, I get outside to walk up to five days of the week. Meditation only takes up about 15 minutes of my day.
My hobbies are listening and making music, reading, and writing on my blog.
As for computers, I enjoy both my time on-line and especially off-line. Indeed, being away from the computer is a relief. As well, not using my phone is a bigger relief than using it used to be.
For the moment, because of insomnia, I will consider sleep the best coping strategy of all.
After discussing the diagnosis with my doctor, we decided to preserve my mental health by not opting for medication. At age 33, I was still young and immature for my age.
Overall though, my delayed maturity was due mainly to my limited social experience before moving out of my parents' home.
At age 39 I left home to live on my own. It's been over 15 years now that I've lived independently of my parents, but only five years since I have developed a mature understanding of the roles my siblings (one older brother, one younger sister) and my parents played in my emotional and psychological development.
During that time, I lost a friend in 2006 to pancreatic cancer and my father in 2007 to old age. As well, I met and fell in love with four different women in 1994, 2000, 2001 and 2007.
Today I'm sure the borderline personality disorder is in remission.
By the end of 2012, I have been in remission from depression that lasted from 2009 to 2011. From 2010 to 2012, I chose psychotherapy combined with medication of my choosing to see if it would help me.
From my perspective, I am sure that psychotherapy was helpful in the beginning. Yet it was becoming less useful over time due to my unwillingness to fully commit to total disclosure. At some point near its end, I developed a fear that continued therapy would undo the improvement in my life.
Even so, I learned a lot from my psychotherapist and my choice in medication. All that can be confirmed about medication is that mirtazapine is a strong sedative and did what it was meant to do (relieve depression).
After discontinuing mirtazapine in 2012, I have relied on gabapentin two 100 mg capsules daily and one 10 mg tablet of flexeril to aid in relief of insomnia.
Gabapentin (Neurontin) is used for neuralgic pain in low doses. Flexeril (cyclobenzaprine) is a muscle relaxant with sedative effects is used to reduce pain for the osteoarthrosis in my left shoulder. Together, both drugs reduce the subtle effects of pain in my body to help me to sleep at night.
After doing a thorough research on borderline personality disorder, I know that I have outgrown a lot of its symptoms over time. That include no recent incidents of self harm and only rare occurrences of impulsivity.
As for idealization and devaluation of others, alternating between high positive regard and great disappointment, it rarely occurs. Instead I maintain a high positive regard for most of my friends and as much positive regard for my GooglePlus followers.
Additionally, I know that the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder implies the personality of a person is flawed. In response, I feel that perhaps the psychiatrists who voted on keeping borderline personality disorder in DSM-V would rather have the ignorant believe in the myth of a flawed personality associated with this debilitating personality disorder than actually overcome the stigma associated with it.
Indeed, I do not believe that my personality is flawed since it is based on myth rather than fact. Rather, a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder may be based on a lack of information about the person being diagnosed including cultural heritage.
Had I been exposed to medication earlier, I am uncertain that it could have helped me at all. For my research on various medications led me to conclude that very little of the medical trials on antidepressants, anti-psychotics, and sedatives included enough Asian volunteers to validate their safety.
I feel that whenever flaws in my personality appear, it is when I am stressed. A person truly cannot isolate himself from the world for long. Even being at home for two days would lead me to develop insomnia. In order to remedy such a situation, I will spend more time away from my computer in the future.
As for now, I would rate my mental health as good with room for improvement.
However, regarding bipolar disorder and other mood disorders, medication and psychotherapy may be warranted when coping strategies do not work.
In my case; I rely on exercise and meditation as coping strategies to relieve stress.
For exercise, I get outside to walk up to five days of the week. Meditation only takes up about 15 minutes of my day.
My hobbies are listening and making music, reading, and writing on my blog.
As for computers, I enjoy both my time on-line and especially off-line. Indeed, being away from the computer is a relief. As well, not using my phone is a bigger relief than using it used to be.
For the moment, because of insomnia, I will consider sleep the best coping strategy of all.
20131204
The Craziness of Culture (satire)
One common misconception is that all mentally ill people are unpredictable and violent. Our society has an insatiable appetite for real-life horror stories about rapists, serial killers, and pedophiles, and the media is happy to provide us with them. As a result, we tend to put everyone with psychiatric problems under one label: crazy.
However, different cultures have different concepts of what constitutes a mental illness. Take suicide, for example. In Japan, suicide is, in most cases, not considered problematic, rather it can be an honorable act committed to save face or for a noble cause. Similarly, while the Koran prohibits suicide, "suicide bombers" are not generally considered "suicides" by their zealous supporters – they are martyrs for their cause. But in North America, someone who attempts suicide will likely be diagnosed with some form of psychological problem.
Some cultures are more susceptible to certain types of illness than others. Anorexia and bulimia are largely afflictions of the western world, while Japan has a whole separate set of disorders, many of which stem from their cultural expectation of hard work. One commonly documented Japanese condition called hikikomori (similar to agoraphobia) is characterized by a withdrawal from society due to stress and is said to affect large numbers of teenaged boys.
What about addictions? In North America, we believe in possession of a different kind: drugs, gambling, alcohol, or food are thought of as diseases that take over the victim and are difficult to expel. Again, we remove blame, but is it accurate to put a gambling addiction on par with, say, schizophrenia?
— Samantha Shepard, They're Possessed?, Medhunters dot com
Then again, is it accurate to use a manual of disorders decided by committee to diagnose what might be cultural eccentricities?
The social stigma of mental illness reflect a phobia of the mentally ill, a fear of psychosis which, instead of being relieved by education, is usually left to fester and sometime harm people who are themselves more harmless than the people who fear them.
Even people who are emotionally disturbed are loathe to admit that they might be going off the deep end, sometimes until it's too late. They minimize their suicide attempts and grow fearful that any outside inquiry might expose their suffering to the world.
Some of them even grow to fear strangers who often are concerned for their well-being, mainly due to the stigmatizing of their life.
Even though my own labelling of culture and society as the hotbed of mental illness is reactive, I also admit that both culture and society can be the source of mental health.
For eccentricity is merely an abnormal focus on behaviours that were once fulfilling but may have now become obsessions, like one has become possessed by some demon.
The ironic thing is, in ancient Greek society, it was once believed that each of us was born with a guardian angel which were called "daimons" - yes, the same modern-day demons that ignorant religious people pretend exist.
Sometimes, in respecting the expert's advice, we take it too far and reify his opinion, making it like a talisman. We do this with the advice of doctors when we interpret the directions on the label of medication — "take 1 capsule twice daily" — as meaning once in the morning and once at night when it could also mean taking two capsules at bedtime.
Likewise, it seems like psychiatry is turned into religion when psychiatrist rely too much on the DSM rather than on gut instinct.
From my perspective, the DSM is like a "Bible", the disorders being "deities" similar to "daimons." I feel they originate in behaviours used by people "diagnosed" with a "disorder" which soon stopped working to "protect" them from the suffering caused by "facing reality."
In short, the DSM descriptions interpret "daimons" which "possess" people as symptoms which involve fear, anxiety, insomnia, hypomania, mania, and sometimes psychoses.
This makes psychiatrists "exorcists".
Think about it: your doctor or psychiatrist replaces the priest. Your medications are the means to "exorcise" demons with names like influenza, chronic fatigue syndrome, cardiovascular disease and so on, as well as mental disorders such as schizo-affective, bipolar and so on.
For all the medications are for are to control and manage disease or behaviour so it doesn't annoy the neighbours.
Cultures which have a place for mental illness are the shamanic ones. If you have depression and aren't out harvesting the grain by hand like everyone else, then you could trade your produce for a special ritual that helps get rid of the "evil spirits". After a few hours, you are cured and ready to get up and help harvest the crops.
Today, civilized society waits until simple depression morphs into a mental illness sometimes needing a trip to the hospital and 48 hours in the psychiatric ward.
A person could cling all they want to the false belief that their childhood experiences are more important than making new ones that help us get over the trauma and transform the negativity into positive benefit.
If he were to tell any psychiatric doctor or nurse of that trauma, they will react out of fear to hospitalize him. This is because the telling of the long-lost trauma results in traumatizing the caregiver.
So, the mental health consumer learns quickly to deny the symptoms that are manageable, and tries hard not to perpetuate that trauma in her daily life. She does so by complying with medication and therapy.
In due time, mental health is maintained when the consumer is able to be crisis-free for more than six months.
Originally written: April 19, 2007 at 4:15 PM
Updated: February 1 at 9:50 PM
However, different cultures have different concepts of what constitutes a mental illness. Take suicide, for example. In Japan, suicide is, in most cases, not considered problematic, rather it can be an honorable act committed to save face or for a noble cause. Similarly, while the Koran prohibits suicide, "suicide bombers" are not generally considered "suicides" by their zealous supporters – they are martyrs for their cause. But in North America, someone who attempts suicide will likely be diagnosed with some form of psychological problem.
Some cultures are more susceptible to certain types of illness than others. Anorexia and bulimia are largely afflictions of the western world, while Japan has a whole separate set of disorders, many of which stem from their cultural expectation of hard work. One commonly documented Japanese condition called hikikomori (similar to agoraphobia) is characterized by a withdrawal from society due to stress and is said to affect large numbers of teenaged boys.
What about addictions? In North America, we believe in possession of a different kind: drugs, gambling, alcohol, or food are thought of as diseases that take over the victim and are difficult to expel. Again, we remove blame, but is it accurate to put a gambling addiction on par with, say, schizophrenia?
— Samantha Shepard, They're Possessed?, Medhunters dot com
Then again, is it accurate to use a manual of disorders decided by committee to diagnose what might be cultural eccentricities?
The social stigma of mental illness reflect a phobia of the mentally ill, a fear of psychosis which, instead of being relieved by education, is usually left to fester and sometime harm people who are themselves more harmless than the people who fear them.
Even people who are emotionally disturbed are loathe to admit that they might be going off the deep end, sometimes until it's too late. They minimize their suicide attempts and grow fearful that any outside inquiry might expose their suffering to the world.
Some of them even grow to fear strangers who often are concerned for their well-being, mainly due to the stigmatizing of their life.
Even though my own labelling of culture and society as the hotbed of mental illness is reactive, I also admit that both culture and society can be the source of mental health.
For eccentricity is merely an abnormal focus on behaviours that were once fulfilling but may have now become obsessions, like one has become possessed by some demon.
The ironic thing is, in ancient Greek society, it was once believed that each of us was born with a guardian angel which were called "daimons" - yes, the same modern-day demons that ignorant religious people pretend exist.
Sometimes, in respecting the expert's advice, we take it too far and reify his opinion, making it like a talisman. We do this with the advice of doctors when we interpret the directions on the label of medication — "take 1 capsule twice daily" — as meaning once in the morning and once at night when it could also mean taking two capsules at bedtime.
Likewise, it seems like psychiatry is turned into religion when psychiatrist rely too much on the DSM rather than on gut instinct.
From my perspective, the DSM is like a "Bible", the disorders being "deities" similar to "daimons." I feel they originate in behaviours used by people "diagnosed" with a "disorder" which soon stopped working to "protect" them from the suffering caused by "facing reality."
In short, the DSM descriptions interpret "daimons" which "possess" people as symptoms which involve fear, anxiety, insomnia, hypomania, mania, and sometimes psychoses.
This makes psychiatrists "exorcists".
Think about it: your doctor or psychiatrist replaces the priest. Your medications are the means to "exorcise" demons with names like influenza, chronic fatigue syndrome, cardiovascular disease and so on, as well as mental disorders such as schizo-affective, bipolar and so on.
For all the medications are for are to control and manage disease or behaviour so it doesn't annoy the neighbours.
Cultures which have a place for mental illness are the shamanic ones. If you have depression and aren't out harvesting the grain by hand like everyone else, then you could trade your produce for a special ritual that helps get rid of the "evil spirits". After a few hours, you are cured and ready to get up and help harvest the crops.
Today, civilized society waits until simple depression morphs into a mental illness sometimes needing a trip to the hospital and 48 hours in the psychiatric ward.
A person could cling all they want to the false belief that their childhood experiences are more important than making new ones that help us get over the trauma and transform the negativity into positive benefit.
If he were to tell any psychiatric doctor or nurse of that trauma, they will react out of fear to hospitalize him. This is because the telling of the long-lost trauma results in traumatizing the caregiver.
So, the mental health consumer learns quickly to deny the symptoms that are manageable, and tries hard not to perpetuate that trauma in her daily life. She does so by complying with medication and therapy.
In due time, mental health is maintained when the consumer is able to be crisis-free for more than six months.
Originally written: April 19, 2007 at 4:15 PM
Updated: February 1 at 9:50 PM
20121117
Personality Disorder Quiz Devalues DSM
| Personality Disorder Test Results
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Personality Test by SimilarMinds.com
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