WillSpirit!


∞ Where Mental Skills Heal Mental Ills ∞

A former physician writes about mental health and recovery using insights from life, science, and spiritual practice.








  • Red_Exclamation_DotDisclaimer
    • Dear Visitors:
      Although I trained and practiced as a physician, my background does not include formal instruction in psychiatry beyond basic medical education. This journal presents ideas about treatment philosophy, but must not be considered therapeutic advice. Abrupt changes in one's psychiatric medications can trigger profound cognitive, emotional, and physical symptoms, including suicidal thoughts and actions. Consequently, pharmaceutical agents should not be increased or decreased without supervision by a mental health clinician.

    • ON THE OTHER HAND, your brain belongs to you, and your opinion counts. If you decide that changing your medication regimen will serve your best interest, then I believe your providers have an obligation to help you try to achieve your goals. I want everyone to be educated about their options, and do what will be most helpful for themselves. No one should feel pushed around by dogmatic and/or limited viewpoints, whether those of psychiatrists, anti-psychiatry advocates, or myself.


Balancing Mind with Heart

Readers of this blog have demonstrated their preference for intimate sharing over intellectual musing. Abstract, reasoned posts garner few comments and occasionally prompt people to unsubscribe from WillSpirit. Reader involvement has waned of late, and I suspect that’s because many of my recent essays have been more philosophical than emotional.

But I need to write about metaphysics, the nature of knowing (technically, epistemology), and consiousness. Although its primary motive is helping others, my blogging nurses the wounds inflicted by past traumas and setbacks. Grounded spirituality supports my health, and philosophical essays situate my mystical aspirations on solid footings.

Several years ago I switched from a private practice psychiatrist to Kaiser’s mental health clinic. My new doctor offered two observations early in our relationship. First, she remarked that I was taking a lot of ‘garbage,’ by which she meant my half-dozen psychiatric medications. Second, she opined that my only hope for lasting peace of mind was to find a spiritual solution to the problems caused by my traumatic upbringing and devastating career loss.

Her contempt for my medication regimen shocked and alarmed me. I had trusted my prior psychiatrist and obediently taken all the pills she prescribed. It had never occurred to me that a different doctor would view the cocktail of potent drugs as excessive and dangerous. My new psychiatrist’s perspective forced me to realize that the dreadful side effects I’d incurred might have been avoided had I started out with more competent care.

Even more perplexing was the advice about spirituality. I’d attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for twenty years and had been trying to find a ‘Higher Power’ the entire time. After my transcendent experiences in 2000 (which doctors diagnosed as manic psychosis), I’d managed to sustain religious fervor for a few years. But the mystical resonance had worn off (indeed, the earlier psychiatrist had discouraged my exploration of mystical states). How was I going to find spirituality with a materialist worldview predetermined by my atheist upbringing?

Around the same time, I became friends with someone who had been active in AA for a long time but struggled with the Twelve Steps’ emphasis on God. Despite some moderating language in its Big Book, AA usually makes God sound like an all-powerful parent (i.e., Yahweh). Both for my friend’s sake and my own, I began writing blog posts to ferret out a transcendent path free of mythic and irrational beliefs.

I dovetailed this work with attendance at local Buddhist sanghas and retreats for over a year, and then a like amount of time training at a nearby Hindu center. Prior to this, my meditation practice had been developed in either Quaker or secular contexts (i.e., mindfulness classes at my local medical center). The former provided little instruction, and the latter ignored mystical implications. In contrast, Buddhist programs offered specific guidance toward deep currents of consciousness, and the Hindu tradition connected meditative states to cosmic love. As I progressed along these paths, WillSpirit essays helped me reconcile my spiritual insights with my understanding of biology and physics. The search was on.

My Buddhist and Hindu explorations overlapped with my study of Chinese Medicine as I prepared to practice acupuncture. Readers already know the outcome of that professional venture, but the schooling exposed me to Taoism, Confucianism, and other Chinese philosophies. These studies complemented my growing understanding of Buddhist and Hindu metaphysics. For the first time, I began to feel comfortable with Eastern mysticism. Blogging organized my thinking as I incorporated an entirely new set of philosophies into my worldview.

As many experts have asserted, it is easy to find parallels between Eastern philosophy and the counterintuitive reality revealed by modern physics (especially quantum mechanics). Similarly, although divergent in emphasis, both holistic healing and conventional medicine restore vitality to weakened organisms. WillSpirit became the platform on which I integrated newfound holism with the reductionism I’d absorbed as an undergraduate, graduate, and medical student.

You can see how blogging about philosophy has helped me mature. Since gaining insight remains central to my mental health, metaphysical writing will remain a key feature of WillSpirit.

Even so, I respect the needs of my readers. When I visit other blogs, I’m most touched when the writers reveal inner conflicts or neuroses that resonate with my own difficulties. I want WillSpirit to serve as a locus for kindred souls to gather and heal as one. Besides, just as philosophizing helps me grow, sharing my life experience helps me heal.

With that in mind, let me end by revealing how devastated I’ve felt during the past two days. After weeks of slow improvement, the neck pain that had so worsened around the time of my hospitalization returned full-force. I may have overstretched doing yoga, or maybe the intense pain and spasm happened for no reason. But until I broke down and started taking muscle relaxants and narcotics, I could barely move because of intense, stabbing pain in my neck, shoulder, and upper back.

This was bad enough, but the awful discomfort also had its predictable effect on my mood. I spiraled quickly into an angry depression, complete with specific plans for suicide. My thinking bordered on the delusional, as evidenced by my suggesting that my wife prepare for my death. On what planet would that be the right thing to say? I didn’t announce a definite decision, but I told her that my reserves were running dry and it felt like I’d lived long enough. I wanted the suffering to end, once and for all. Naturally, this greatly alarmed her and left us both shell-shocked for the next 24 hours.

As an alternative to suicide, I gave in and took pills. Narcotic pain relievers alarm me because of my past addiction problems, but they seemed preferable to sliding further toward suicide.

Where was my vaunted spiritual perspective during all this uproar? I must admit it failed me. I felt only sucking despair and lost my ability to mentally detach from pain. The agony worsened as I looked at my professional failures and troubled friendships through the lens of discouragement and self-contempt. I felt unable or perhaps unwilling to step back and adopt ‘The Watcher’ stance that usually saves me.

Today I’m feeling better. After a day of lessened pain and tension, I can now discern a spiritual light shining dimly in my heart. I can see the bigger picture, though the narrow view still tugs at me.

Maybe the philosophical posts are my way of sidestepping true emotion. If they serve avoidance, it’s no surprise they don’t engage readers. But I still think such writings help me. They don’t vaccinate me against despair, but they elaborate a spiritual philosophy that is independent of specific beliefs and resistant to doubt. Such a foundation makes it easier for me to accept my hardships with an open heart. Obviously, it sometimes takes time and even medication to unlock the gate, but I know where to find relief.

Hopefully, my readership will understand and forgive my putting personal needs first. Although the philosophical posts are often boring, they serve my psyche. I also realize that successful blogs usually stick to a single subject area; I appreciate my readers for indulging the obvious variability of theme (e.g., mental health, metaphysics, neuroscience). Long ago I promised to write the Whole Story. For me, that includes dispassionate contemplation as well as heartfelt intimacy. But the ultimate goal is to help us all discover paths to Peace of Mind.

In my own clumsy way, I seek to reconcile rationality with intuition, mind with heart, Will with Spirit. As boring as it often sounds, this is my best formula for Grace.

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Balancing Mind with Heart was published on May 7th, 2012 . 10 comments






Short Term Problems, Long Term Progress

Ever feel like you’re not getting a point across?

Blog writing, at least as I practice it, is done on the fly. The essays are written quickly and revised only slightly beyond first draft. Sometimes the immediacy of the process obscures the intended message.

Many of this year’s posts have described my struggles, disappointments, sorrows, pains, and illnesses. Given that my goal is to write about life and growth using my own experience as illustration, it is only natural that setbacks prompt essays about difficulty. But the comments and emails I receive show that my larger perspective is not getting the attention it deserves.

It’s comforting to receive notes of sympathy and support. They help me feel that others listen and care. And yet, if my message was truly coming through, there would be more congratulation than commiseration.

Because the most striking fact of the past few months has been how little all these hardships get to me. Sure, I have moments of doubt and sorrow. In mentioning these, however, my hope has been to highlight the difference between how I’m responding now and how my tribulations would have affected me before. These days, I feel grief and pain flow through me at times, but my spirits stay fairly stable despite superficial complaints. In earlier years, my mind would have plunged into intractable depression and anxiety. With great relief, I’ve learned to watch life from the perspective of a deeper, broader, and more detached consciousness that doesn’t get pulled in.

I feel a clear separation between my transient emotions and my more enduring self. I can allow the feelings freedom to respond to life, but I watch them from a distance. I don’t, and can’t, take my suffering very seriously. Years of fostering meditative skills, spiritual grounding, and wise insight have led to this profound benefit. My quest has brought me to a state peacefulness I never could have imagined upon starting out.

As I work in the background on the book project mentioned earlier, I am feeling a sense of protectiveness toward that writing that seldom comes up in blogging. This larger work will demand careful editing before release. Online journaling has taught me how my unpolished language lets transient events obscure enduring truths. My book about mysticism and science needs to say its piece clearly and calmly, as if spoken from my most evolved mind; keeping that perspective in the foreground will require lots of rewriting. I hope to describe my position honestly, but with emphasis on realization rather than process.

Each approach has its advantages. I think the rawness of journaling appeals to certain readers, or else no blog would ever become popular. But the time is coming for me to clearly articulate a perspective on life that I’ve developed over decades. This can’t be done if it’s unduly influenced by the ups and downs of daily life. It needs to be written from that same perspective that is currently keeping me sane: broad, deep, accepting, and wise. I’ve gotten to the point where this viewpoint is always within reach, but it’s not always within my grasp, as recent posts have shown.

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Short Term Problems, Long Term Progress was published on April 15th, 2012 . 6 comments






Embracing and Accepting Life Despite Its Pains

rippleReflection

The post I planned to write today will come later.

For the past several months a counselor practicing Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has been teaching me to expand my philosophy, and quit struggling against my hardships. My insurance granted pre-payment for twenty sessions, and I have completed 12 or 13 so far. My relationship with this clinician started at a propitious time, and dovetailed with my involvement in Bipolar Advantage, which teaches one to take a more positive attitude toward mood fluctuations. These two influences spoke to my gathering awareness that being frustrated and unhappy with ‘the way things are’ serves me poorly. They also bolstered my resolution to wean myself off as much medication as possible, a step made more essential when I awoke to the horrific damage psychiatric drugs have wreaked on my body.

This therapist’s work underlies much of what I write about accepting life’s deprivations, acquiescing to grief, and appreciating the sublime qualities of emotional distress. Knowing that outside of the sessions this person has kept up with my blog posts, and sends me insightful comments on how they relate to my individual story, adds to my feelings of gratitude. I wrote a letter (actually an email) of thanks this morning, and ended up sketching part of my core emotional landscape. Posting a slightly revised version of my message on this site offers my audience a view of my inner milieu, while at the same time publicly expresses my appreciation. Knowing that others share your experience can be very healing. I hope that one or more of my readers will resonate with my longstanding ambivalence about life, and also my growing desire for more engagement. ACT teaches, among other things, that while we all undergo times of distress and cataclysms of sorrow, we can remain open to common joy. Even more, during those shaded times when our days feel bleak and fortune has violated all its promises, it remains possible to enjoy being alive. Perhaps it is akin to loving one’s child even as he spits hostile words at you. He may not be pleasant, but he is still an infinite gift.

A large segment of the population staggers under a burden of emotional agony. If that were not so, investors in pharmaceutical stock would not be so well rewarded. No doubt people have always been afflicted by almost unbearable feelings, but in this era of education, abundance, sanitation, and comfort, I believe we can do better. Not that the pain will go away, but perhaps our appreciation of day-to-day reality can increase. Imagine a world where even in the midst of wage-slavery and fears of violence people relished being alive. Where they accepted their pain to the point that they had energy to fight against injustice. Where financial and material trappings became less important than human relationships and creative expression. The way to achieve this vision lies in opening up, ‘sharing experience, strength, and hope’ (as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous), and collectively learning how to thrive in the midst of a challenging world. I try to do my little part by deconstructing my rusted and creaking mental mechanisms to a behavioral health audience and handing on the tools and lubricants others have provided to help me get things running more smoothly.

This therapist gives me much in this regard. I publish this letter as a public statement of gratitude, with the prayer that programs and messages such as ACT will propagate outward into our culture, like the rings stretching away from a pebble pitched into a pond. Where the surface of my depression once looked as solid and impenetrable as a pane of glass, ACT shows that all pain has depth and rhythms, and that I can learn, grow, and even enjoy myself while exploring these textured realms. Of course, the ideal often lies beyond my grasp. My ability to take such a philosophical stance, and savor the warm sensation of blood pumping from my wounds, depends on practice and motivation. But I have been fortunate to meet someone who has had the patience to sit with me as I bleed, until I understand that unlike the blood that flows through my body, the blood of the soul is infinite. No matter how much I hemorrhage, I will always have the vital spirit to go on, if I choose. So much better than my previous experience in the mental health world, where the philosophy has always been to apply pressure and tourniquets. Sure, drugs can slow the rivers of emotion, but once you tighten the tourniquet the limb goes dead.

I place the letter here because it is more personal and less intellectual than much of what I write. I want to allow people to get to know what I’m really going through, rather than always hiding behind a facade of philosophy, analysis, and weak attempts at lyricism. Fact is, I am making progress, but slowly. I see the path ahead, but have yet to walk most of it. This message shows one footprint along the trail.

Dear [M],

I’m glad that my last blog post provided, at last, some good news in regard to my mental state.

Contemplating death as a solution has always seemed reasonable to me, given how my mother checked herself out of life as I watched. In the suicide hotline we always ask about prior suicidal behavior; I’ve only made a few weak attempts, none of which had a high likelihood of lethality. But suicidality has become a part of who I am. Even twenty years ago I was pretty sure I would some day kill myself. Obviously I have not, and may never, but I no longer feel alarm about thoughts of destroying myself. I think that attitude helps me support people who call the hotline in crisis.

On the other hand, I respect that such talk upsets others. I wish when in my worst moods I could censor my statements better. In particular, it is hard on Mandy to know how often thoughts of death go through my mind (not that I talk about it all the time, but it only takes occasional mention to make the problem apparent). Accepting that life brings pain, and that pain can be endured or even seen as a kind of beauty does not automatically translate into a desire to keep experiencing it. I am OK with that disconnect, but I am not so pleased that my ambivalence about life pollutes the happiness of those around me.

Back to today. Bottom line is I feel better, and happy to keep going. I truly do have a commitment to stay around for Mandy, and I would never leave my dogs unprotected. I even look forward to the future, no matter what it brings.

Thank you for paying attention, and supporting me as I work out a philosophy and mind-set that will carry me through the last several decades of my life. I need to have some kind of framework to both endure and see positive aspects to further declines in health, increased physical pain, and the probable loneliness that await me. Having a deteriorating neck that hurts all the time, and threatens the integrity of my spinal cord, plus knowing how few close relationships I have other than my marriage, does not give me a rosy picture for the future. I appreciate that ACT is not about convincing myself that my fears are unfounded (they aren’t), but rather gives me at least a glimmer of hope that I can survive the struggle. There is even that astounding suggestion that no matter what happens, my future can be enriching and full of adventure.

I look back at what I’ve written here and almost laugh at myself: this is how I think when my mood is more or less good (although I’m realizing my spirits are not as upbeat as yesterday). I don’t know how you feel about getting saddled with me for twenty sessions, but it has helped me that you have been so understanding. And I am thrilled that there is at least one person reading my blog who really ‘gets’ what I’m writing about. Of course, it’s not surprising that you do get it, since you taught me much of what I’m saying. What’s nice is that you’ve taken the time to read how I’ve been thinking about the acceptance philosophy. (You’ll note that I don’t do much with commitment, at this point. I need to more fully commit to staying alive before I can talk with any authenticity about fidelity to values, etc.)

To try to end on a positive note, I am highly motivated to search for reasons to stay alive, and to be glad I am. I want to build something more than a stoic fortitude to not abandon Mandy. Writing helps me feel good about breathing and thinking. Knowing that you (and hopefully a few others) find what I produce interesting makes it even better. In the end, creating something attractive and worthwhile out of tragedy and sorrow has been the task of artists throughout the ages. After decades thinking of myself as primarily a scientist, I now see that creative expression will be my salvation. That requires the knack of appreciating the heavenliness of heartache, which you and ACT have taught me.

Thank you.

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Embracing and Accepting Life Despite Its Pains was published on August 15th, 2009 . 2 comments






Mind, Moods, and an Organic God

dnasculpture

My last post wore me out, emotionally and physically, so I’ve needed a break. But here I sit again, ready to write. The prior essay centered on structural changes in synapses, and how those relate to difficulties with changes in either behavior or medications. Loss of serotonin receptors following SSRI antidepressant use (e.g. Prozac), leads to a dependence on the medication. When SSRIs are withdrawn, the brain no longer has the receptor capacity to work with the lowered serotonin level which follows. So we get depressed. I have experienced this repeatedly in my efforts to lower my antidepressant load.

The brain gets used to certain inputs. Many pleasurable activities and drugs of abuse increase dopamine. Like serotonin, dopamine is a neurotransmitter used by a minute fraction of the brain’s neurons. When the nucleus accumbens, or ‘pleasure center’, gets flushed with this chemical, one feels deep satisfaction, sensual gratification, or even euphoria. Later, when dopamine levels drop, one may develop a desperate craving to get another burst of it. Hence: addiction. Possibly behaviors that lead to unpleasant moods, like isolating or ruminating on worries and problems, provide short term release of neurotransmitters that our brains ‘like’, even though the end result is depression. This portrayal simplifies the situation, like describing an epic film with one paragraph. But my point is just that on some level much of how we feel, and what we think or do, comes from shifting movements in the symphony of chemical interactions in the brain.

So what does this all say about human nature? Are we ‘nothing’ but conglomerations of proteins, neurotransmitters, and other biological molecules? In the last post I also mentioned Jeffrey Schwartz, MD, and his hypothesis that in addition to neurons and associated brain cells, our minds consist of something non-material, which he calls ‘mental force’. This entity could just as well be called our ‘soul’, since he believes it determines our decisions under the principle of free will.

I don’t accept this proposal. Not because I think free will is an illusion, or because I don’t believe in souls. I have conviction that both exist and are the vital organs of human life. My opinion, however, is that both human ‘spirit’ and ‘will’ arise from the matrix of matter itself. The intricate and finely woven fabric of our brains makes freely determined decisions, and houses our divine spark. Humans look for miracles, yet all the time we seek them we are living in their midst. Not only that, but each one of us is divine in every sense of the word. We don’t need to postulate some ethereal force that exists detached from the trillions of cells, each a tiny universe of activity, which have grown in unison and become the mysteries we call bodies. God does not need to speak outside of matter, because our atoms and molecules already sing God’s song.

pieta

To those who have faith in a different sort of deity: Maybe we aren’t of such opposing opinions. If you can accept that whatever God is, we don’t really understand it, then there is no disagreement. In that case, every sculpture humans carve of God or spirit must be incomplete. So who is to say whether we are looking at completely different icons, or just viewing the same monument from different vantages? If, on the other hand, your belief system is more fundamentalist and inflexible, and you cannot accept that other views might also carry a little truth, then you are probably not even reading this. But if you are, I hope you will just ignore my attempt at spirituality. Go ahead and consider me morally misguided, but still listen to the basic message: We have more power to improve our minds and lives than an industry based on selling psychoactive chemicals wants us to believe.

Even with the above proviso, I suspect that my spiritual ideas do not particularly interest those who visit this blog. So I’ll stop here with the philosophy. I only want to convince readers that whether by taking medications or changing our behaviors, we are tinkering with the intimate particles of our being. However, the two approaches (drugs and action) differ as coal differs from diamonds. They may be in the same category on some molecular level, but they diverge in beauty and endurance. Ingesting a chemical to improve one’s experience is akin to to reshaping an ice sculpture with a blow torch. The tool carries too much power, and acts too crudely to result in anything fine. “If you can’t feel better, drugs at least make you feel different.” At the price of (possibly) lifelong dependence on psychiatric chemicals, one (typically) gains a few months of relief from pain. Then, all too often, the pain returns. Only now depression comes encumbered with an addiction (what else to call it?) to drugs that no longer work. Stopping medications takes one from depression into the pounding heart of hell.

ice_torch

Much better to work on meditating, improving spiritual sensitivity, exercising, and adjusting thought habits. Maybe drugs can help for a little while. If so, doctors should remain ever-vigilant for the first opportunity to start withdrawing them. Let us use finesse to chip and carve the ice that encases our moods. Take our time and work hard, and we can sculpt our depression into tragic but nonetheless beautiful memories.

I guess this is a repeat of my last message. Hopefully, since it is (a little) shorter, it will be more widely read. I yearn for it to help someone. This kind of thinking comes too late for me. I am already addicted to psychiatric medications and must struggle my way free. This writing project would fulfill both my spirit and my will if a recently diagnosed reader found it useful, and if it bolstered a non-medicated regimen of mood care. If you are that reader, I pray that the uncountable molecules of your brain begin to dance in harmony. I have faith that you will choreograph a lasting peace.

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Mind, Moods, and an Organic God was published on August 1st, 2009 . 4 comments






Do Medications Limit Spiritual Growth?

Mandy has an eye for God in Nature.

This is another addition to the ongoing conversation between me and Marian at Different Thoughts.

Believe me when I say that it pleases me to the core to know that you have attained a place of peace and connection with the central currents of creation. I am very happy that you have found your suffering to be a path to such a healthy and profound axis. I do know of St. John of the Cross and believe wholeheartedly in the concept of suffering leading to wisdom. At my best, I have found myself in such a state of grace.

Unfortunately, I am not there right now. It has been an impossible condition to maintain, as you said. Right now, the suffering just feels tiresome. I experience the world as a place that doesn’t fit my psyche, like I should have been born on a different planet. I’ve been trying meditation, retreats, groups, reading spiritual books, attending mystical services, hanging around people with values I respect, finding those who believe in deeper realities. Yet that state of grace is outside my reach, for now. I don’t mind that, because I don’t expect life to always be bliss. But I do get very exhausted having no energy and no enjoyment. That is the feeling the pills reduce.

I don’t like the medications. I think they are my enemy. But one way or the other, my brain is now adapted to them, and the pain (withdrawal symptoms?) I feel when I cut back too quickly gets to be too much if it goes on for more than a month or so. That’s when I raise the dose again, in order to catch my breath before the next attempt at reduction.

But for my part the drugs do not feel deadening. The antipsychotics did, but not the antidepressants or the mood stabilizers. They just don’t have an effect on my sense of reality that I can detect, except that they take away the experience of my days as exercises in pointless pain. I am not talking here about existential suffering, awareness of the aching heart of human tragedy, or connection with the streams of sorrow that run like lifeblood through the history of humanity. I am talking about dull, meaningless pain that I get sick of and can reduce with a chemical. Am I happy about needing to do that? NO. Do I feel weak for resorting to the pills? Sometimes. But I do what seems like the right thing for me, for now.

At the same time, I don’t believe the medications block me from spiritual awakening, or connection with divine consciousness. Our brains are biological. I suspect there is a non-material spirit too, but the organic matrices of our brain play at least a large role in our experience. If you add a foreign chemical you alter the biology, but you do not change the brain into something entirely new. I don’t think every chemical has the effect of blocking spiritual growth, though some might. I have not found the drugs to be a barrier to spiritual connection. In fact, my peak spiritual experience in life, which far transcended anything else that’s ever happened to me, and was very similar to what the saints describe, actually occurred while I was on Effexor and Depakote. I don’t think those drugs did anything to cause my epiphany, of course, but they did not prevent it either.

It is also important to remember that some spiritual traditions actually employ chemicals to foster spiritual enlightenment. Even the Roman Catholic church incorporates wine in its services. I know, at present the little sip of wine at communion is purely symbolic. I strongly suspect, however, that the early church founders did some actual drinking as part of their rites.

My point is still the same: each person is unique, and every path is different. I am relying on chemicals right now because I am trying to make my transition off the drugs without killing myself or making my wife miserable. And yet, I have had many days (not very recently, but not all that long ago, either) when my spiritual state was such that everything made sense and suffering became irrelevant: I was on a higher plane. I know that condition exists, but I can’t be there all the time, and as long as I’m living an ordinary existence I want to try to enjoy it.

I am glad that you have found your way to union with the grand consciousness. I fully respect that for you that has meant clearing your brain of pharmaceuticals.

Not everyone can reach union, whether they take medications or stop them. And for those that do, not everyone will do so the same way. There are many paths to God. For some, drugs may slam the door. For others, they may open it. For me, they do neither. My path to the heart of creation is open sometimes, and closed others, without regard to how much medication I’m on. It may have to do with lunar cycles, or simply with some variable rhythms in my body. Or perhaps I just try harder sometimes than others. But I am absolutely convinced that it is possible to get there now, or at least sometime not too long from now, and I don’t need to wait until every last psychiatric medication is out of my system.

Please understand that my ultimate goal is to be drug-free. So I embrace your philosophy on its basic level. However, I am not sure if I will ever achieve total freedom from psychoactive agents. It would be very discouraging if I thought that I would never experience God as a result. Fortunately, I know that to be false. I have before and will again experience the divine touch; I will feel in my innermost self the purpose, beauty, and power of suffering. In the meantime, I choose to live my life with a little less of the dreary kind of pain that is about as enlightening as pounding my thumb with a hammer.

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Do Medications Limit Spiritual Growth? was published on July 14th, 2009 . 5 comments






Surviving Two Days of Depression

Saturday and Sunday were hard for me: depression and frustration. In the ‘old’ days, I would have been flat-out miserable. These days, however, I am able to tolerate the ‘down’ feelings without believing it to be torture. There are two good movements that support the idea that depressed moods don’t have to be hateful: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Tom Wootton’s Bipolar Advantage. I suggest checking out both. They helped me sit with my depression and experience it without judgement. I found that there is physical pain, especially in my chest/heart area, but also throughout my whole body. There is a sense of melancholy, and it is difficult to feel excited about anything. However, I also feel a kind of ‘wisdom,’ a way of seeing the world that transcends ordinary values. If you can learn to be OK with depression, then you are freer than before. You can see how so much of what people run away from (and sometimes spend their whole lives avoiding) can actually be growth-enhancing.

So I got through those rough days. So far today feels lighter, but it is not even 7 am in California yet, so there is still plenty of time for that to change. Either way, however, I will be fine.

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Surviving Two Days of Depression was published on June 22nd, 2009 . 4 comments






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