I sometimes say I’ve been working in the mental health field for almost 30 years. Well, it has been almost 29 years since I have been involved with people working in the mental health field. This is because I was raped in 1990. So, I was just a patient then, right?
Well, if you are half-way astute, insightful, pay attention, and you see many mental health professionals over a long period of time, that pretty much makes you feel like you have been working in the field. So I’ll explain a little bit defending this claim. While I can’t put all 30 years on a resume, I can put a couple.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM for short (the current DSM is the DSM 5), is the book used to diagnose mental illnesses. What I like about this edition is that Binge Eating Disorder is finally included. I feel like people will finally take me seriously about this affliction I suffer from.
About a year ago I had the opportunity to see a counselor at a facility, just once. I needed to talk to someone for guidance because I was trying very hard to work on healing myself. Unlike with other illnesses, when you have a mental illness, a lot of the work is done by you. I have a decent understanding of Psychology, and other fields as they connect to it, and I have had many a professional say my insightfulness about myself and my condition would help my healing process. I just feel bad for the people who might not comprehend certain concepts. I hope they heal in other ways or have people to help them
I went in to see this counselor, who I was a little apprehensive about because he was a man. Because of abuse issues I prefer women as doctors, nurses, counselors, and in many other professions. But after I have met someone it often doesn't matter. (NOT GYNOS though- I don’t know why women still go to male gynecologists)! I didn’t know what I was getting, and he also didn’t know what he was getting with a new temporary client. It didn’t take long to warm up to this man. I came into the room with a notebook filled with notes on new plans to help myself, that was stuffed with different worksheets from other staff at the facility and outlines I made to improve myself. I learned I was dealing with a compassionate, but not touchy-feely, necessarily, man. And he gradually learned that I knew more than most of his clients. I knew more about myself- I study myself a lot (also called over-analyzation), hoping to gain insights into the method that would finally make me feel well. I shared my outlines with plans, methods, and steps towards using them to fulfill my goals. He gave me feedback, and he gradually started drawing diagrams on the whiteboard, mostly of the brain; how a traumatized, verses a non-traumatized brain looked. My two rapes and car accident were three traumas that happened before my brain was fully developed, which is approximately at the age of twenty-five. So, as he drew the diagrams, I looked at my notes and applied his information to my own ideas, plus I drew some of his diagrams. And after I understood him, asked questions, and applied the information, he kept on getting more technical and more advanced. The whole board was eventually covered with diagrams and arrows. It was mostly neuroscience as related to Psychology. I am not good at science, but when it overlaps with a subject I already understand, I can comprehend more.
Towards the end of talking, drawing, and analyzing, I noticed he had been excited like a teacher seeing a student finally get the lesson. Then I found out he was a teacher, which made sense. He was encouraging and said I was understanding this stuff better than some of his PhD students. I of course, was complimented. I asked really, I could actually go to grad school, could I go all the way to the PhD level, and he said of course. I often doubt my intelligence, so I was glad he said this. I could tell he wasn't trying to flatter me.
But did he say I was doing a better job than a lot of his PhD students because I am super smart? I don’t think so. I am average-smart, and slightly above in some subjects (and very below average in several subjects). I think the reason I was all of a sudden understanding advanced neuropsychology was because of all of my experience in the field. The reasons I mention this story is to mainly show that hey, I know a little something about the field, and although not a professional, I have some, or a lot, of knowledge about the issues I will be mentioning in coming posts about this general subject of mental health and self-help. The second issue, something I didn’t mention, and will talk about in a later post, is one of the things he advised me to do. He was a professional working at a regular medical-model based treatment facility and he said I needed to do Zen meditation, which I thought was interesting. Now I’ll give you a little bit of information about how I know about the mental health field and Psychology as a field.
I have been to many counselors in these almost thirty years. I started studying their methods because that’s just what I do. I have been in inpatient settings, starting as an adolescent and then as an adult. In these facilities we had “classes” all day with topics such as Emotional Regulation, Anger Management, Positive Coping Skills, Medication Management as well as others. There was, occasionally, rec therapy when we could take a walk with staff or play board games to get our minds off our painful symptoms, as well as craft/art therapy and music therapy for the same reasons. While in these classes, I worked hard to be the best student, not because I am the "best-student" type, but this was my life and not a grade I was working for. I filled out all of the worksheets, like most people, but wrote my own notes and when I went back in my room I would write in my journal, trying to apply concepts to my life more. I also have gone to out-patient groups, some which were an hour or two, while most went all day, working on many of the same skills worked on in the inpatient and programs. The out-patient “classes” were called PHP (Partial Hospital Program) or DBT, or Dialectical Behavior Therapy, class, which is the method the skills were based off. I am not 100% sure, but this may be what the skills in most inpatient and outpatient programs are based off in many parts of the country.
Not only did I learn information from the classes, I learned from one-on-one conversations with therapists and nurses, and once in a while I learned from a doctor. But I learned so much from the fellow patients. I learned more about medications because patients talked about what meds they were on and compared symptoms. I learned a little more about medication categories, especially as an adult, from people who had dual diagnoses (a mental health diagnosis in conjunction with a chemical addiction), who most weren’t simply addicted to drugs, but were also quite knowledgeable on the subjects of addiction, drugs, alcohol the law, and many other things.
I also started college as a Psychology major. I took several classes and they were interesting, but it was in Abnormal Psychology, which is quite an intriguing class, I ended up dropping out, not only of the class, but the major as well. I guess I could have stayed in the class. I would have enjoyed it, despite the tendency to diagnose myself with more and more conditions, as I learned about them, like I hear medical students do. But something woke me up. I was probably also taking a Sociology class at the same time, and had taken a couple already, and my eureka moment came and yelled to me, “You can’t study, or even treat, people with mental illnesses in a bubble without considering who the entire person is.” By that I meant that Jan and Jake may both have Bipolar, but Jan is a rich white woman, and Jake is a poor Latino migrant. You have to consider these other things about people. They affect who the person is, and I think, how to treat them. A trans kid who is being bullied at school can not just be simply seen as a person with clinical depression. How much of people's outside societal problems are adding to their mental health symptoms? So I changed my major to Sociology, where I could study gender, race, nationality, class, religion, crime, LGBTQ issues, and more. I know there is the field of Social Psychology, which is a branch of Psychology that deals with social interactions, including their origins and their effects on the individual, which is like if Psychology and Sociology had a baby, but I think all, or at least most of Psychology, should consider Sociological concepts.
I read lot of self-help books in which I gained information. And then my career is where I gained skills and a lot of knowledge, even though I had learned a lot already, having a mental illness that I had been treating for a while. As a Sociology major with a bachelor’s degree, and not a bunch of skills I went into Social Work. (I thought that my ability to engage with people, to be empathetic, and slightly empathic were not skills for many years until I started meeting some really smart people, including my partner, who taught me a valuable lesson: interacting with people is actually a skill because not everyone can do it.) I worked in various positions with different populations like with homeless people, domestic violence survivors, people with developmental delays, people with mental illnesses, and in child welfare with abused children. I can talk more about my varied positions in other posts because I have many stories and things to say (that do not violate confidentiality).
So I didn’t know I was going to take this long to give you some evidence that shows, while I’m not an exact expert, I have a lot of validity as a person who is going to suggest methods of self-help.
So, I will only talk briefly on the “medical model”, and why I want to, and have started to personally move away from it. My main problem is that it is based around the concept of Psychiatrists and medication. Psychiatrists, who have a great deal of information, because they’ve been through a lot of schooling, are often no different from your dealer, but at least you don’t have to invite him or her in to share some of the drugs with you, and with insurance, a couple of the drugs are really cheap. We could also learn from Psychiatrists if they saw us for more than 5 minutes. Your local drug dealer will see you for more than five minutes, and is often quite knowledgeable. I was talking to something the other week on the crisis line and had to educate her about how it is when you go to the Psychiatrist’s office. I said they talk to you 2-7 minutes and give you drugs. That’s the main thing. They differ from one another slightly, and at different times, in that some/sometimes take notes, some ask questions about your mental and physical health, some keep your medication the same, some change it, some up your medication so high they want to give you more, but can’t because you are at the maximum level, so they give you another medication called a “booster” to help boost your medications, they can no longer increase by law, and I hope morality, work better. I have had this happen to me a couple times. It has never worked.
The whole field is not about taking drugs, although that is the focal part. The main two Psychologists that have influenced modern Psychology are Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Many more people, mostly therapists that I have talked to, say they are Jungians. While others follow some of the methods of other Psychologists and Psychiatrists. In this country things are done certain ways, and often people in this field don't look and work outside the box enough.
So, what is most common for a patient is that they see a psychiatrist every couple weeks or months, depending on their state and the psychiatrist, who will mainly update their prescriptions. And it is wisely advised that medication be paired with psychotherapy, which is simply talk-therapy with a counselor/therapist.
It is a whole other subject, that I have lots to say about and will come back to, but I will quickly mention that the vast majority of addiction centers and facilities are based upon 12-steps programs. I’ve been in these places (because some also accept people who have mental disorders without chemical dependency) and talked to these people and read about this. We are using a possibly outdated method that is white-male-christian centric, that has a low rate of success. Medication also has a low rate of success. That is where I make a connection.
I am writing this series because I am tired of this medical model. I think, possibly, at rare times a small amount of medication worked for me. Then it didn’t. But once I started having doctors prescribe me the maximum amount of many drugs and then boosters, and still had extreme depression, I had finally had had it! I said, I’d rather be on no medication and feel this miserable than be hopped up on all this shit! So, I am very slowly (because there can be extreme side-affects, both physical and psychological), tapering off my medication. I have told my doctor. He had to say he officially disagrees. I wrote him and his nurse a 2-page letter letting them know I had made this decision with great thought, and told them some of my non-medication healing ideas I was going to start. I would advise people to not stop any medication immediately, even if you don’t like it! Consult a doctor. If you can not find a doctor who will help you taper, I have researched online through official information and threads of consistent information from people who have taken drugs, which drugs are easy to get off and which are hard. I have set a pace of tapering that is slower than my doctor would have suggested, but it’s my body, and this Zoloft I’m getting off of has been hard and I am getting off of it very slowly.
Even though I am not speaking well of medication and 12 step programs, they have saved people’s lives, so I don’t want to deny that, and have people write to me how I was wrong, and how it had saved them or their uncle. But they have also failed. And other models have saved people’s lives. But the success rate of 12 steps groups is 5-10%. A good book, that shows alternatives to 12-step programs, as well as the bias in these groups, is a book called 'Many Roads, One Journey' by Charlotte Davis Kasl
But if you have a severe and complex mental illness like I do, you are going to need more than psychotherapy. So I will, in different posts, discuss other methods to help yourself, or help a loved one, that do not involve taking medication. This is work. It will be hard. It will be harder than swallowing a pill. But don’t worry, some of it will be or become enjoyable. These are things I have been doing, and know help me, things I have tried a couple times, things I plan to try, as well as other things I have learned can be helpful that I may not try. You will learn a little about my mental health journey as I share these things, but I will also give you information, showing you all of these methods and activities have research that supports their healing aspects. Some of the things are supported by the mainstream medical model, while some are not officially, but many mental health practitioners may suggest them unofficially. I’ll briefly mention one of these things and then end this lengthy post, which I hope people have gotten something out of.
Supported by the medical model, is Psychotherapy, called therapy or counseling, and DBT therapy, give the patient/client skills to help their lives and I recommend them to a point, with the warning that a therapist or counselors teaching DBT classes may recommend that you take all the medication your doctor prescribes. While not specifically suggested by your Psychiatrist, but more often by therapists, are often journaling; exercise; music, art, and other creative therapies; positive self-talk or affirmations; meditation and or yoga; a healthy diet; good sleep hygiene; and working on addictions can help mental health. Meditation and yoga used to not be mainstream. There are other things that are not mainstream but may become more so in future (leaving out the “the” in “in future, in hospital,” and such are British affectations- I like to take on linguistic and physical affectations for fun. Indulge me). Less popular things I have tried or would like to are smoking (eating, drinking, etc.) weed.
I live in a state where marijuana is legal medically, and PTSD which I have, is a medical condition that at person can get a “pot card” with, but CBD, the non-addictive, and legal part of marijuana, is actually shown to help people with PTSD, more than weed that also has THC in it. If you live in a state in which marijuana is legal recreationally it could be a good idea to take it because talking to patients, I have found out that it doesn’t work any less than prescribed medication, is natural and has way less bad side-effects. The worst side-effects could be that if you become addicted you could be extremely lazy for life and not meet goals, which would backfire and not treat your depression. But I just want to let you know you need to find a doctor (a Psychiatrist or I think any MD) to give you a prescription. Even if it is legal in your state, it is up to their discretion and conservative doctors and doctors who simply don't know enough and don't care to find out probably won't give you a prescription.
Other things are reiki, massage, aromatherapy, art therapy, taking amino acids, healthy nutrition, making sure your gut is taken care of with probiotics, pet therapy, healthy socialization (usually doesn’t apply to social media because there are studies saying social media could make people more depressed rather than less) with supportive friends and family, various kinds of exercise, having or finding a purpose, accepting yourself, and using your voice. (For people who have suffered rape and abuse its very important to find ways to use your voice literally and metaphorically).
Since I have mentioned a lot of ways to heal without drugs, I will mention some in one blog post while others together in one multi-topic blog post if I have less to say about them. You don’t have to do all these things, but I would say the top two most important things, because they can affect your brain chemistry are first, exercise which can literally be an anti-depressant. And the second is a healthy, or even just healthier, diet because some food effects your brain positively and some negatively. Try a lot of the things more than once and see how they work. If you hate art then art therapy is not for you, and if you are a musician, music might be a very important coping tool. And I of course will think of other methods and write about them. I won’t be writing about them in any certain order.
Pic by asianefficiency.com
One of the most important tools I use is JOURNALING
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