Actualism and Mental Illness

@Kub933 and @claudiu have summarized well my own position on the matter, so I don’t think I have something to add.

that was a very clear and helpful explanation claudiu, :slightly_smiling_face:

@Miguel thanks for sharing your experiences so openly. There is a strong family history of mental health issues on my mum’s side and I have often worried there is some genetic component to this and maybe I have passed it onto my children. It is interesting to hear how people deal with scenarios that exist in my imagination as events I am frightened of, worst case scenarios.

My mum has bipolar but I often think she is mis-diagnosed, I can see she has symptoms crossing over a few types of diagnoses but I don’t think she fits neatly into any DSM-5 type diagnosis. I noticed that once I had experienced depression and anxiety she suddenly seemed more comfortable in opening up with me about her own experiences. I have tried to share suggestions too, as you have with your daughters but I have never really had any success. Maybe it is harder for a parent to take advice from a child, in the same way I notice my older siblings don’t like to take advice from me. Now that she has Alzheimer’s and it is progressing I doubt she would sufficiently remember any suggestions.

For me, I had two moments when I felt like I was close to having a breakdown and overwhelmed with emotion. It is the method that helped me hold on and my support network of friends and family were helpful and had been there too so knew how to help me and I was safe among them. There are a lot of mental health issues in my family and my friends. Without what I have gleaned from AF, I think I would have had a full breakdown rather than just depression and anxiety though. It helped to ground me even when under the onslaught of intense emotions.

It has taken a long time but it is the method that has slowly but surely helped me pull out of the worst patches. I have had some help along the way with counselling, CBT and medication.

Sometimes if the emotion behind Scenario 2 is strong enough then tuning into the senses doesn’t work either. It is like a glitch in the flight or fight mechanism. As I mentioned before there are times when you have to ride it out, use a paper bag and other things, a friend or family tapping me to help focus on the senses helped too. Like it seems so much harder to tune in to the senses, like your brain is being scrambled.

Eventually, you will experientially realise you are ok and not at harm and not dying or some other imagined worst case scenario. I mentioned this in one of the other boards. You will ride it down and then eventually each time it will be less intense. What you said @claudiu does work, just not as effective in the most extreme anxiety I have felt, or is much harder to achieve.

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:smiley:
It was part of my schizoid condition (best thought of as a spectrum) referred in passing here Actualism and Mental Illness, whose invasive thoughts and/or “voices” fought for dominion over what I should or should not think, or what I should or should not do.

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Yes, I am aware of the condition. Wow, thats inspiring what you have achieved with the odds stacked against you. Do you think you have gleaned more from the condition than the average person with a similar condition.

(I opted to move the last two posts here so as not to hack @Felix’s Diary with this topic, and to enrich the already existing topic).

Yes, both in general terms as I have commented here: Actualism and Mental Illness - #10 by Miguel, as well as in some more specific to this condition.

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I was going to suggest this too lol.

Yes, I read that post and that is why I was amazed with your progress. Knowing family and friends with Bipolar and Schizophrenia and seeing the destructive impact on their lives, I can’t help but try and emphasise to others less aware how big a deal it is.

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@Miguel

Are you familiar with Julian Jayne’s book “The Origin of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”?

His main theory is that schizophrenia is not an "illness " but rather a throwback to a previous universal state of consciousness that all humans lived until around 5000 years ago.

It was written in 1976, and to this day widely rejected because along with this theory he all outlined a theory that the evolution of God was directly linked with this previous state of consciousness. As much as the modern scientific world claims to be secular, the idea that God evolved is too much for most. Along with of course the multi billion dollar drug industry benefiting from the term “illness”.

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No, I didn’t know about it!

Sound strange indeed, but at least I’ll take a look at it (and maybe I’ll put it on my to-read list then). Thanks!

There are free pdf versions on the interwebs