The longest reflection about mental illness/ bipolar
I hear an inner voice, urging me to write about mental illness.
I am NOT sure what this voice wants from me....
I am NOT a professional and I know nothing that is worth any serious attention.
“Just share your observations and personal ideas” says the voice.
“But I am just an artist, not a therapist,..... I know nothing about it really....” I answer.
“Well, this is NOT the whole truth...” says the voice.
“What? are you talking about my Grandmothers? About the fact that both of them were crazier than a loon?”
Well, yes... but there is also all the readings you’ve done... through the years... trying to understand the subject... The “madness” of artists, the labels put on things that are not
understood, behaviors caused by wounds that people do not take the time to explore... “
“Where will I even begin? If you are serious about it... you gonna need to help me here... I know nothing that is worth sharing”.... I say tentatively.
“You are such a drama queen..” Says the voice
“You know you have SO much to say. You know that if I will let you ‘run’ with it... you will fill 20 pages worth of ‘your’ ideas about the subject... So why don’t you just be a good girl and pick up your pen and paper, and let’s get started?” Says the voice.
“Can I go get some fresh berries and some chocolate chips, before we start?” I ask.
“Go ahead girl... get your ‘treats’ and come back”... says the voice.
I LOVE it when this voice speaks to me like this... it makes me.... ahem.... wet... (am I allowed to say this in public?... probably not......)
Five minutes later...
Me:
“Okie Dokie.... I am back now”
Grandmothers...... Mmmmm....
Well, I had two.
One was Russian and the other Persian.
Both raised children and families, both were certifiably ‘crazy.’
My Russian grandmother, lived in what today is the Ukraine, but back then, it was part of the USSR (I still remember what it stands for: “Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik”.... I memorized it as a child... It was the ONLY Russian I knew..... beside one single poem that my Dad taught me. I still remember that WHOLE poem in Russian.)
This is WAY before Hitler, and the rise of Nazism that spread across Europe.
This was taking place under the iron grip of Communism and the terror of the KGB.
EVERYBODY had it rough back then, but it was multiplied a hundred time over, by the fact that they were jewish.
Nobody in White Russia at that time, was allowed to participate in ANY kind of church or religion.
Religion, gives comfort to some scared souls..... But they were forbidden from finding respite in ANY religion.
My dad told me, that at school, they had “Show and Tell”......daily......, except.... that the “Tell” was the part where, children were “encouraged” to tell what their parents were talking about,..... the night before,....... in the privacy of their living rooms.
Parents would “disappear” the next day... ‘exported’ to Siberia... to the re- education work camps.
No wonder parents feared to talk, to share, to protest, to bring on change.
They did not talk to their spouses, not to their children, not to their friends... who can trust his friends back then?
they could betray you for ‘information’, or to save their own ‘skins’ from deportation.
On top of the fear, communism was failing as a system.
People were hungry and unbelievably poor.
The only food or goods, you could buy AT ALL- were on the “Black Market”.
Shendell, (my grand mom), lived without a man.
Her husband died of a mysterious disease.
She was left to raise her children alone.
She made a meager living scraping snow off roofs in the winters.
In the summer, she collected left over cotton, from the fields, and she sewed it into gloves, hats and vests, which she would sell at the Black Market for pittance.
With the rise of Hitler, she was separated from her children who were sent to Israel individually, under different charity organizations.
They all made it “safely’ to Israel.
I am using quoted here, because you could imagine how traumatic it can be, to be a 7 or 5 or 3 years old, being sent by yourself, through hostile states, being turned over by burdened organizations that are in charged of transporting thousand of kids, to a state that had NOTHING.
There were not even buildings to house those sad and lonely kids.
I will not recount here, her whole life’s story.
I will say, that she did not fear living.
She got married two more times.
Became a widow two more times.
She was not hospitalized and she fully functioned in society.
She dressed nicely, always had her hair done (once blond, but as she aged- PINK), always with perfect makeup and lipstick.
But... if you delved into her thoughts.... she feared the neighbors were talking about her... they may be conspiring to give her away to the KGB.
No matter how much we tried to ‘reason’ with her, she could not be convinced that what we were saying was true.
She was a sad, lonely, scared, unresolved person.
Filled with a life time of pain, lack of comfort and lack of counseling... she was aching for understanding and for resolve... that she never got.
The ‘professionals’ called it PARANOIA.
Now, my friends, allow me to swing you around the globe with me, and to take you into the remote hills of Ispahan (or Hispahan) which is located about 340 km south of Tehran.
A city at the foothills of the Zagros mountain range.
This Islamic city is the home of my grandmother Rachel. (her real name was Sultanate, but EVERYBODY got new names after they moved to Israel.)
Living in poverty and fear, Sultanate, gave birth to six children, but she ‘lost’ one daughter after birth.
She had to handle extreme wounds and pain, including a son that was gang raped by five kids on his way to school and other inhuman behaviors.
They had not registered their children’s birth date.
Who would? you just do not take a jewish baby to the authorities and say: “Here, Please register my son or daughter”..... it was like taking a baby lamb into saluter.
They moved to Israel on a ‘window of opportunity’ that was given to jews, in a moment of compassion.
Iran wanted these jews OUT of the country. They were each given permission to take ONE suitcase and get the hell out of the country.
Israel did not accept them with great comfort.
There were no housing, no money and no time to arrange for all the needy that were flooding in.
They were housed in large ‘shotgun’ style barns on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
These temporary buildings had no heat, (it get bitterly cold and snowy in Jerusalem in the winter) and no cooling, no facilities.
They cooked in holes in the dirt floor, and their kids went to play in the yard, instead of being schooled.
Charity organizations from the USA, provided the ONLY food my mom, her brothers and their friends ate. They also provided the only clothing they had.
Sultanate, never learned to speak hebrew. She could only speak persian, and she spoke only with her children.
She was illiterate, and could not read, and therefore, was not able to soar in hope, under the positive influence of books.
She had a sad life and no vision.
She was a moving ball of unresolved pain.
Her husband, who wanted a better life, divorced her, and she was left alone.
She raised birds (mostly parrots), and fed the doves that crowded on her balcony.
She lived alone in a one bedroom apartment.
Her sons and my mother, visited, did her shopping and helped her clean, but she was too far gone into her unresolved pain, to have a good life.
She was not violent, not loud, not bipolar, not manic, but she was unwholesome in a major way.
The ‘professionals’ did not understand her language.... and they left her to her own unexpressed thoughts.... they had no label/ name for her...
Well, this is the bit about my family history of ‘mental illness’.
I view it with compassion.
Lost souls whose painful lives, ‘split’ apart their minds, to leave them aching and beyond reach.
Not that anybody tried to reach for them anyway.....
Family members just wanted them ‘fixed’..... nobody cared to work with them on processing their deeper pain... nor were they equipped to handle their own painful memories.
Now, my friends, take a break, drink some coffee/ tea and have some rest.
I will be posting my second part soon....
LATER......
Many years later,
I was sitting in a remote backpacker’s lodge at the Tiger Leaping Gorge in China.
I found a book that fascinated me, it was called: “An Unquiet Mind”.
The book was a ‘free exchange’ book, and I dropped my old book and took this one.
I had no idea what it was about, I simply liked the title.
It ignited my imagination... made me think of a search for enlightenment... you know... learning to quiet your ‘monkey’ mind?...
But it was NOT about meditation or a soul search for enlightenment.
It was a sad personal story of a therapist in search of understanding and living with her
Bipolar “disorder.”
I have met some of the most amazing people/ friends who admitted to being diagnosed as Bipolar.
What amazed me most, it that they seemed to find comfort in that label.
I am going to do a bit of “cropping and pasting here from an article by Dr. Peter Breggin MD - a brilliant Reform Psychiatrist and the best-selling author of many books.
The article is called; “The Hazards Of Psychiatric Diagnosis”:
People say:
"I have a biochemical imbalance."
"My kid is ADD." "I'm Bipolar."
"I suffer from Clinical Depression."
"I have Panic Disorder."
Psychiatric diagnoses are seductive.
They seem to give us important information about ourselves and our emotional ills.
They provide a key to what psychiatric drug we may need.
It seems rational and scientific.....
.
BUT..... In reality, psychiatric diagnosing is a kind of spiritual profiling that CAN DESTROY LIVES and frequently DOES.....
First, there's the obvious cookie cutter problem.
People can't be easily fit into the prefabricated labels.
Diagnoses frequently change, often in an effort to justify THIS OR THAT DRUG.
It's not realistic, enlightening or empowering to reduce yourself or your child to one of these diagnoses.
Psychiatric diagnoses are simplistic!
Consider this: Psychiatric diagnoses are always negative.
There are no such diagnoses as "Exceptionally Able to Face Stress" or "Remarkably Resilient" or "Courageously Independent in the Face of Abuse."
That's how I like to think about the people that I try to help--as heroes or potential heroes in their own life stories.
I never want them to sum up, categorize or symbolize their lives in such a demeaning fashion as a psychiatric diagnosis.
But that's only the beginning of the problem.
These diagnoses imply that you or your children have a disease, especially an underlying biochemical imbalance.
This can be discouraging AND dis - empowering.
Having a psychiatric diagnosis tends to make us feel helpless to transform our lives or the lives of our children for the better.
It makes us feel LESS RESPONSIBLE for our own psychological and spiritual recovery and for that of our young and dependent children.
Psychiatric diagnoses are not genuinely medical; they are not based on biological defects or disorders.
There are no objective tests.
They are not about the body; they are about the mind and spirit.
The medical aura that surrounds psychiatric diagnoses give them a false validity. Psychiatric diagnoses are not rooted in science but in OPINION.
Psychiatric diagnoses take power and authority over your life, and the lives of your children, out of your hands.
They place that power and authority in the hands of health professionals.
Often it takes but a few minutes in an office to transform you or your child from a COMPLEX HUMAN BEING, into a PRODUCT on the psychiatric assembly line--and endless assembly line that can lead to a ruinous lifetime.
Perhaps worst of all, these diagnoses almost inevitably lead to the prescription of psychiatric medication to you or your child.
Psychiatric drugs are toxins to the brain; they work by disabling the brain.
NONE of them cure biochemical imbalances and all of them, every single one of them, cause severe biochemical imbalances in the brain.
The adverse effects of these drugs on the brain and mind are stunning.
In my recent scientific books and articles, including Medication Madness, I have demonstrated they cause medication spellbinding.
Spellbound by psychoactive drugs we cannot adequately judge the impairments they create in our brain and too often we mistakenly feel "improved" when in fact our feelings have been DULLED or artificially jacked up, and our judgment about ourselves and our lives have been impaired.
But something more subtle occurs when we accept a psychiatric diagnosis for ourselves or a loved one.
We LOSE EMPATHY for ourselves and our loved one.
Instead of learning about, and identifying with the sources of our emotional pain and suffering, and our failures in life, we ignore our real lives and explain ourselves away with the diagnosis.
To understand ourselves or anyone else, to help ourselves or anyone else, we must care about the details of the life before us.
In trying to understand and to overcome our emotional distress and failures, and to succeed in our lives, we must take the time to look at ourselves in a CARING and empathic fashion.
We must pay attention to what happened to us as children.
We must, with a sympathetic eye, be courageous enough to view the trauma, abuse, or ordinary stresses of growing up that all of us endure while growing up.
We must be able to see the wrong lessons we have drawn from our lives so that we can correct them and go on to live more responsible, rational and loving lives.
And if we are going to help others, we must take the same attitude toward them.
We must put ourselves in their shoes and dare to feel and to grasp what they have been through--to share as much as possible that experience in a caring and even loving way.
This is empathy--to feel, to care, to understand in a responsible, courageous and loving fashion.
The destructiveness of psychiatric diagnoses could fill a book.
You and your loved ones, and those you seek to help can never be understood though a psychiatric diagnosis.
Psychiatric diagnosis is like looking at the world through wrong end of a spiritual telescope.
Instead you have to open your heart and your mind to knowing what you have endured, and the mistakes you have made, and the right choices you have made, and the good things you have done that have led you to this moment in your life.
You must be ready to appreciate your life and the life of anyone you seek to help.
Let me leave you with this thought: However dismal and overwhelmed you feel--that's how much potential there is within you for a wonderful life.
If you didn't have that spiritual potential, you wouldn't suffer so horribly from its frustration.
Without a spiritual fire burning within you, you would feel like you were suffocating.
NEVER EVER GIVE UP ON YOURSELF!!!
Never ever give up on yourself, by reducing yourself to a lifetime psychiatric diagnosis.
Think of yourself as a potentially courageous, responsible, rational and loving being struggling to become everything you have ever wanted to become.
That's empathy for yourself.
And view everyone you wish to help from that same spiritually empowering viewpoint.”
Now, this note is probably the longest I ever wrote, but I do feel the need to add a bit more... I simply cannot resist.....
I’ve been exploring / reflecting about my friends’ "confessions" that they were diagnosed as Bi-Polar.
My first thought was: "WHY would anybody find COMFORT in a label like this?"
Why would anybody be willing to BE labeled ANYWAY?
ANY TIME
and in ANY form?
Isn't it like allowing yourself to be put in a very small box?
To allow yourself to be judged by therapists who know nothing about your life's journey?
Your quest?
Your light?
Your mission?
Your purpose?
Your glory?
I have SO LITTLE faith in "Professionals", especially psychological ones....
They know NOTHING about the nature of the mind.
They have NO desire to understand the soul
and they refuse to admit the existence of SPIRIT.
So I just don't "buy" their limited perspective.
I don't apologize for it either.
Now, that I have let some steam out.....
Let me take my argument a bit higher.
I do believe that EVERYTHING in this world is for our highest good.
So, this means that somewhere, in this "disorder" or maybe hidden in the name of it, there is a blessing....
A higher understanding that eludes me....
I carried it in my heart for many days.....
Run it over in my mind, reflected on it......
I re- read my friend’s emails,
Reflected on their light.
On the light they brought into my life,
How much they’ve enriched me..
expanded me...
Expanded my heart and my understanding.
And then it came to me:
I have heard an inner voice (last associated with biblical Jesus): "I AM the ALPHA AND the OMEGA.
"What did he mean by this?" I asked the voice “And WHY do you bring it up here?”
It said:
It is the POLARITY of the EARTH...
BI- POLAR you are INDEED
THE NORTH POLE
AND the SOUTH POLE!
YOU ARE THE AXIS
WHICH HOLD THE PLANET together.
Do YOU think that the god in you, can be a one dimensional being?
Always calm?
OR
Always fiery?
And if you carry the seed of god in you,
Wouldn't you be MANIC when you choose to unleash?
Wouldn't your powers, may be perceived as overload?
I am NOT sure what this voice wants from me....
I am NOT a professional and I know nothing that is worth any serious attention.
“Just share your observations and personal ideas” says the voice.
“But I am just an artist, not a therapist,..... I know nothing about it really....” I answer.
“Well, this is NOT the whole truth...” says the voice.
“What? are you talking about my Grandmothers? About the fact that both of them were crazier than a loon?”
Well, yes... but there is also all the readings you’ve done... through the years... trying to understand the subject... The “madness” of artists, the labels put on things that are not
understood, behaviors caused by wounds that people do not take the time to explore... “
“Where will I even begin? If you are serious about it... you gonna need to help me here... I know nothing that is worth sharing”.... I say tentatively.
“You are such a drama queen..” Says the voice
“You know you have SO much to say. You know that if I will let you ‘run’ with it... you will fill 20 pages worth of ‘your’ ideas about the subject... So why don’t you just be a good girl and pick up your pen and paper, and let’s get started?” Says the voice.
“Can I go get some fresh berries and some chocolate chips, before we start?” I ask.
“Go ahead girl... get your ‘treats’ and come back”... says the voice.
I LOVE it when this voice speaks to me like this... it makes me.... ahem.... wet... (am I allowed to say this in public?... probably not......)
Five minutes later...
Me:
“Okie Dokie.... I am back now”
Grandmothers...... Mmmmm....
Well, I had two.
One was Russian and the other Persian.
Both raised children and families, both were certifiably ‘crazy.’
My Russian grandmother, lived in what today is the Ukraine, but back then, it was part of the USSR (I still remember what it stands for: “Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik”.... I memorized it as a child... It was the ONLY Russian I knew..... beside one single poem that my Dad taught me. I still remember that WHOLE poem in Russian.)
This is WAY before Hitler, and the rise of Nazism that spread across Europe.
This was taking place under the iron grip of Communism and the terror of the KGB.
EVERYBODY had it rough back then, but it was multiplied a hundred time over, by the fact that they were jewish.
Nobody in White Russia at that time, was allowed to participate in ANY kind of church or religion.
Religion, gives comfort to some scared souls..... But they were forbidden from finding respite in ANY religion.
My dad told me, that at school, they had “Show and Tell”......daily......, except.... that the “Tell” was the part where, children were “encouraged” to tell what their parents were talking about,..... the night before,....... in the privacy of their living rooms.
Parents would “disappear” the next day... ‘exported’ to Siberia... to the re- education work camps.
No wonder parents feared to talk, to share, to protest, to bring on change.
They did not talk to their spouses, not to their children, not to their friends... who can trust his friends back then?
they could betray you for ‘information’, or to save their own ‘skins’ from deportation.
On top of the fear, communism was failing as a system.
People were hungry and unbelievably poor.
The only food or goods, you could buy AT ALL- were on the “Black Market”.
Shendell, (my grand mom), lived without a man.
Her husband died of a mysterious disease.
She was left to raise her children alone.
She made a meager living scraping snow off roofs in the winters.
In the summer, she collected left over cotton, from the fields, and she sewed it into gloves, hats and vests, which she would sell at the Black Market for pittance.
With the rise of Hitler, she was separated from her children who were sent to Israel individually, under different charity organizations.
They all made it “safely’ to Israel.
I am using quoted here, because you could imagine how traumatic it can be, to be a 7 or 5 or 3 years old, being sent by yourself, through hostile states, being turned over by burdened organizations that are in charged of transporting thousand of kids, to a state that had NOTHING.
There were not even buildings to house those sad and lonely kids.
I will not recount here, her whole life’s story.
I will say, that she did not fear living.
She got married two more times.
Became a widow two more times.
She was not hospitalized and she fully functioned in society.
She dressed nicely, always had her hair done (once blond, but as she aged- PINK), always with perfect makeup and lipstick.
But... if you delved into her thoughts.... she feared the neighbors were talking about her... they may be conspiring to give her away to the KGB.
No matter how much we tried to ‘reason’ with her, she could not be convinced that what we were saying was true.
She was a sad, lonely, scared, unresolved person.
Filled with a life time of pain, lack of comfort and lack of counseling... she was aching for understanding and for resolve... that she never got.
The ‘professionals’ called it PARANOIA.
Now, my friends, allow me to swing you around the globe with me, and to take you into the remote hills of Ispahan (or Hispahan) which is located about 340 km south of Tehran.
A city at the foothills of the Zagros mountain range.
This Islamic city is the home of my grandmother Rachel. (her real name was Sultanate, but EVERYBODY got new names after they moved to Israel.)
Living in poverty and fear, Sultanate, gave birth to six children, but she ‘lost’ one daughter after birth.
She had to handle extreme wounds and pain, including a son that was gang raped by five kids on his way to school and other inhuman behaviors.
They had not registered their children’s birth date.
Who would? you just do not take a jewish baby to the authorities and say: “Here, Please register my son or daughter”..... it was like taking a baby lamb into saluter.
They moved to Israel on a ‘window of opportunity’ that was given to jews, in a moment of compassion.
Iran wanted these jews OUT of the country. They were each given permission to take ONE suitcase and get the hell out of the country.
Israel did not accept them with great comfort.
There were no housing, no money and no time to arrange for all the needy that were flooding in.
They were housed in large ‘shotgun’ style barns on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
These temporary buildings had no heat, (it get bitterly cold and snowy in Jerusalem in the winter) and no cooling, no facilities.
They cooked in holes in the dirt floor, and their kids went to play in the yard, instead of being schooled.
Charity organizations from the USA, provided the ONLY food my mom, her brothers and their friends ate. They also provided the only clothing they had.
Sultanate, never learned to speak hebrew. She could only speak persian, and she spoke only with her children.
She was illiterate, and could not read, and therefore, was not able to soar in hope, under the positive influence of books.
She had a sad life and no vision.
She was a moving ball of unresolved pain.
Her husband, who wanted a better life, divorced her, and she was left alone.
She raised birds (mostly parrots), and fed the doves that crowded on her balcony.
She lived alone in a one bedroom apartment.
Her sons and my mother, visited, did her shopping and helped her clean, but she was too far gone into her unresolved pain, to have a good life.
She was not violent, not loud, not bipolar, not manic, but she was unwholesome in a major way.
The ‘professionals’ did not understand her language.... and they left her to her own unexpressed thoughts.... they had no label/ name for her...
Well, this is the bit about my family history of ‘mental illness’.
I view it with compassion.
Lost souls whose painful lives, ‘split’ apart their minds, to leave them aching and beyond reach.
Not that anybody tried to reach for them anyway.....
Family members just wanted them ‘fixed’..... nobody cared to work with them on processing their deeper pain... nor were they equipped to handle their own painful memories.
Now, my friends, take a break, drink some coffee/ tea and have some rest.
I will be posting my second part soon....
LATER......
Many years later,
I was sitting in a remote backpacker’s lodge at the Tiger Leaping Gorge in China.
I found a book that fascinated me, it was called: “An Unquiet Mind”.
The book was a ‘free exchange’ book, and I dropped my old book and took this one.
I had no idea what it was about, I simply liked the title.
It ignited my imagination... made me think of a search for enlightenment... you know... learning to quiet your ‘monkey’ mind?...
But it was NOT about meditation or a soul search for enlightenment.
It was a sad personal story of a therapist in search of understanding and living with her
Bipolar “disorder.”
I have met some of the most amazing people/ friends who admitted to being diagnosed as Bipolar.
What amazed me most, it that they seemed to find comfort in that label.
I am going to do a bit of “cropping and pasting here from an article by Dr. Peter Breggin MD - a brilliant Reform Psychiatrist and the best-selling author of many books.
The article is called; “The Hazards Of Psychiatric Diagnosis”:
People say:
"I have a biochemical imbalance."
"My kid is ADD." "I'm Bipolar."
"I suffer from Clinical Depression."
"I have Panic Disorder."
Psychiatric diagnoses are seductive.
They seem to give us important information about ourselves and our emotional ills.
They provide a key to what psychiatric drug we may need.
It seems rational and scientific.....
.
BUT..... In reality, psychiatric diagnosing is a kind of spiritual profiling that CAN DESTROY LIVES and frequently DOES.....
First, there's the obvious cookie cutter problem.
People can't be easily fit into the prefabricated labels.
Diagnoses frequently change, often in an effort to justify THIS OR THAT DRUG.
It's not realistic, enlightening or empowering to reduce yourself or your child to one of these diagnoses.
Psychiatric diagnoses are simplistic!
Consider this: Psychiatric diagnoses are always negative.
There are no such diagnoses as "Exceptionally Able to Face Stress" or "Remarkably Resilient" or "Courageously Independent in the Face of Abuse."
That's how I like to think about the people that I try to help--as heroes or potential heroes in their own life stories.
I never want them to sum up, categorize or symbolize their lives in such a demeaning fashion as a psychiatric diagnosis.
But that's only the beginning of the problem.
These diagnoses imply that you or your children have a disease, especially an underlying biochemical imbalance.
This can be discouraging AND dis - empowering.
Having a psychiatric diagnosis tends to make us feel helpless to transform our lives or the lives of our children for the better.
It makes us feel LESS RESPONSIBLE for our own psychological and spiritual recovery and for that of our young and dependent children.
Psychiatric diagnoses are not genuinely medical; they are not based on biological defects or disorders.
There are no objective tests.
They are not about the body; they are about the mind and spirit.
The medical aura that surrounds psychiatric diagnoses give them a false validity. Psychiatric diagnoses are not rooted in science but in OPINION.
Psychiatric diagnoses take power and authority over your life, and the lives of your children, out of your hands.
They place that power and authority in the hands of health professionals.
Often it takes but a few minutes in an office to transform you or your child from a COMPLEX HUMAN BEING, into a PRODUCT on the psychiatric assembly line--and endless assembly line that can lead to a ruinous lifetime.
Perhaps worst of all, these diagnoses almost inevitably lead to the prescription of psychiatric medication to you or your child.
Psychiatric drugs are toxins to the brain; they work by disabling the brain.
NONE of them cure biochemical imbalances and all of them, every single one of them, cause severe biochemical imbalances in the brain.
The adverse effects of these drugs on the brain and mind are stunning.
In my recent scientific books and articles, including Medication Madness, I have demonstrated they cause medication spellbinding.
Spellbound by psychoactive drugs we cannot adequately judge the impairments they create in our brain and too often we mistakenly feel "improved" when in fact our feelings have been DULLED or artificially jacked up, and our judgment about ourselves and our lives have been impaired.
But something more subtle occurs when we accept a psychiatric diagnosis for ourselves or a loved one.
We LOSE EMPATHY for ourselves and our loved one.
Instead of learning about, and identifying with the sources of our emotional pain and suffering, and our failures in life, we ignore our real lives and explain ourselves away with the diagnosis.
To understand ourselves or anyone else, to help ourselves or anyone else, we must care about the details of the life before us.
In trying to understand and to overcome our emotional distress and failures, and to succeed in our lives, we must take the time to look at ourselves in a CARING and empathic fashion.
We must pay attention to what happened to us as children.
We must, with a sympathetic eye, be courageous enough to view the trauma, abuse, or ordinary stresses of growing up that all of us endure while growing up.
We must be able to see the wrong lessons we have drawn from our lives so that we can correct them and go on to live more responsible, rational and loving lives.
And if we are going to help others, we must take the same attitude toward them.
We must put ourselves in their shoes and dare to feel and to grasp what they have been through--to share as much as possible that experience in a caring and even loving way.
This is empathy--to feel, to care, to understand in a responsible, courageous and loving fashion.
The destructiveness of psychiatric diagnoses could fill a book.
You and your loved ones, and those you seek to help can never be understood though a psychiatric diagnosis.
Psychiatric diagnosis is like looking at the world through wrong end of a spiritual telescope.
Instead you have to open your heart and your mind to knowing what you have endured, and the mistakes you have made, and the right choices you have made, and the good things you have done that have led you to this moment in your life.
You must be ready to appreciate your life and the life of anyone you seek to help.
Let me leave you with this thought: However dismal and overwhelmed you feel--that's how much potential there is within you for a wonderful life.
If you didn't have that spiritual potential, you wouldn't suffer so horribly from its frustration.
Without a spiritual fire burning within you, you would feel like you were suffocating.
NEVER EVER GIVE UP ON YOURSELF!!!
Never ever give up on yourself, by reducing yourself to a lifetime psychiatric diagnosis.
Think of yourself as a potentially courageous, responsible, rational and loving being struggling to become everything you have ever wanted to become.
That's empathy for yourself.
And view everyone you wish to help from that same spiritually empowering viewpoint.”
Now, this note is probably the longest I ever wrote, but I do feel the need to add a bit more... I simply cannot resist.....
I’ve been exploring / reflecting about my friends’ "confessions" that they were diagnosed as Bi-Polar.
My first thought was: "WHY would anybody find COMFORT in a label like this?"
Why would anybody be willing to BE labeled ANYWAY?
ANY TIME
and in ANY form?
Isn't it like allowing yourself to be put in a very small box?
To allow yourself to be judged by therapists who know nothing about your life's journey?
Your quest?
Your light?
Your mission?
Your purpose?
Your glory?
I have SO LITTLE faith in "Professionals", especially psychological ones....
They know NOTHING about the nature of the mind.
They have NO desire to understand the soul
and they refuse to admit the existence of SPIRIT.
So I just don't "buy" their limited perspective.
I don't apologize for it either.
Now, that I have let some steam out.....
Let me take my argument a bit higher.
I do believe that EVERYTHING in this world is for our highest good.
So, this means that somewhere, in this "disorder" or maybe hidden in the name of it, there is a blessing....
A higher understanding that eludes me....
I carried it in my heart for many days.....
Run it over in my mind, reflected on it......
I re- read my friend’s emails,
Reflected on their light.
On the light they brought into my life,
How much they’ve enriched me..
expanded me...
Expanded my heart and my understanding.
And then it came to me:
I have heard an inner voice (last associated with biblical Jesus): "I AM the ALPHA AND the OMEGA.
"What did he mean by this?" I asked the voice “And WHY do you bring it up here?”
It said:
It is the POLARITY of the EARTH...
BI- POLAR you are INDEED
THE NORTH POLE
AND the SOUTH POLE!
YOU ARE THE AXIS
WHICH HOLD THE PLANET together.
Do YOU think that the god in you, can be a one dimensional being?
Always calm?
OR
Always fiery?
And if you carry the seed of god in you,
Wouldn't you be MANIC when you choose to unleash?
Wouldn't your powers, may be perceived as overload?
