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






Finding Purpose

After nearly two weeks in the foothills near Yosemite, we returned to the Bay Area Sunday. Toward the end of the visit I was feeling discouraged, as my posts made clear.

My lack of purpose after the demise of the acupuncture business was hitting home. The book project softens that a little, but the right formula eludes me. So far the prose sounds like my least successful blogging: too wordy and intellectual. Lyrical description of the richness and lessons of my experiences may be beyond my ability.

Recent essays expressed remorse about my relationship with my father. Through writing here and after corresponding with my aunt, I eventually moved past that. But there remained a shadow of sadness.

The neck pain and the bad news from the recent MR scan weighed on me. I felt lonely, too.

In short, I was stuck in the familiar place of self-criticism, fear, and discouragement.

Then, on one of our last nights in the forest, something shifted inside. Peace returned.

Whenever I feel defeated the same phrase comes to mind: “God, help me.” This must be the most common human prayer, and although I don’t often believe the cosmos listens, I say it anyway. The words feel comforting, despite their futility. This time, to my relief, I heard a voice speak in a loving tone near my left shoulder: I’m right here!

Maybe I was half asleep and slipping into hypnogogic hallucination. Maybe my own thoughts rose to audibility. Regardless, I felt reassured. Why question the source? Whatever conscious presence exists in the universe, I’m convinced it arises from the depths of matter. It is not something separate from life; it is something integral to it. So if it shows up at all, it must come by way of ordinary neural pathways. Why distinguish between a dream, a thought, or the voice of God? If it feels divine, I choose to accept it as such and not worry about its provenance.

In the calm aftermath of that simple phrase uttered by something that cares, my sense of purpose became clear. I decided that since the material world no longer seems to cooperate with me, I might as well focus on the spiritual. I could even interpret the way the cosmos has frustrated my plans as God pushing me to commit to the mystical path. At times over the years I’ve glimpsed truth and entered resonant states of mind. Why not quit trying to achieve in the human sphere and instead seek awakening with all my heart and soul?

In truth, I’ve run out of options. I will either find relief through higher consciousness, or find no relief at all. And yes, I’ve been working toward realization for a long time, but not as my primary goal.

Writing still feels important, but I’m viewing it as a means to an end. It helps me make progress toward grounding in life, love, and meaning. It isn’t a project in the usual sense of the word, whether I’m working on the blog, the book, or my poetry. Writing is the road rather than the destination.

Deep down, I know with utter conviction that peace awaits, provided I get serious about taking the needed steps. This means abandoning striving for success. Instead, I will concentrate on taking care of my body, building my meditative skills, and healing my heart. It is time, at last, to journey inward toward the Light.

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Finding Purpose was published on April 24th, 2012 . 15 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






A Burning Desire

Every journey starts somewhere. Although this blog was launched only three years ago, WillSpirit probably began way back in 2000, right after my brain exploded.

Well, my head did not literally blow up, but back then explosion seemed the only word sufficient to convey the eruptive onset of a visionary state of mind that far exceeded any previous meditative (or even psychedelic) experience. That psychiatrists pronounced it a manic psychosis did not in the least undermine my conviction about the profundity of what was happening.

Along with the visions came a burgeoning sense of being called to connect my education in physics, biology, and medicine with spiritual Truths that suddenly seemed self-evident. In a grandiose state of mind, I imagined myself one of God’s chosen prophets. The gravity of my new mission felt irresistible and overpowering.

But it weakened. Maybe the medications calmed me and helped me see my limitations and lack of realism; or maybe they derailed me from my proper path. All I know is that before long the idea of connecting my scientific training with my mystical experience seemed terribly impractical. I went to graduate school in bioinformatics instead.

That was the first of many aborted career plans that followed the end of my profession as a surgeon. Readers know my latest flop was the acupuncture business. Time and again I’ve compromised my true interests and passions while aiming for something more likely to lead to worldly success. I now recognize this as a doomed strategy.

During a recent dinner with good friends, I watched my inward sense of vitality and outward appearance of animation build as I spoke about connections between Science and Spirit. For the first time in quite awhile I recognized how powerfully these parallels attract me.

I never was a scientist in the truest sense of the word. Although a devoted student of scientific subjects, I always felt bored and limited when working in a lab or doing field study. My interest is in drawing analogies, making intuitive leaps, and painting a global picture of reality that is consistent with science but closer in tenor to poetry. My deepest heart wants others to open their eyes to the sweeping vista of reality as it appears to me.

In all honesty, allowing my passion free reign feels more important than writing this blog, though WillSpirit remains quite dear to my heart. I recognize that penning my uneven essays here helps me and helps others; it is a small but important project that must continue. But something grander is begging to be born from this cracked shell of a person. Most likely, the resulting neonate will appear lovable to me and me only. But it needs to burst forth into this world and cry out its Love of Life.

No longer will it suffice for me to harass my friends and family with my intricate ideas about the Cosmos. Nor is it enough for me to write boring philosophical posts about the Universe and Humanity’s place in it. I need to complete the vital task laid before me twelve years ago. And at last I understand the form my message needs to take.

It isn’t a question of proving that a realm exists beyond the Newtonian worldview accepted by conventional science. Any honest assessment of available studies will show that reality is richer than the desiccated landscape painted by technocrats. True, only a few anomalous phenomena have been convincingly demonstrated, and little is understood about the nature or limits of this strange arena in which people know about the world in ways that contradict customary reality. But scientific evidence is not what I feel drawn to provide.

Skeptics will never be persuaded, and most of us seeking deeper answers to life’s dilemma need no further proof of mystery. What I think is within my power to offer is a poetic distillation of the creation story as told by science, beginning with the moment of the universe’s first explosion into space, and ending with the present day. I can speak to those who feel lost and yet hopeful that Life makes sense. Many must yearn to square transcendent and intuitive experiences with a scientific worldview that has proven its utility but has yet to demonstrate its humanity.

So here at WillSpirit I’ll keep writing about my fluctuating moods, my changing fortunes, and my ongoing efforts to keep myself sane. But in the background, and probably linked to this site, I want to start a new project. A life’s work, if you will.

And by Life’s Work I mean to highlight my sense of calling but also to describe the project itself. I will work to bring my notion of the sacred to bear on my notion of Life. Not because physics and biology haven’t been written about from spiritual stances before; many quality tomes about such topics line bookstore shelves. Not because anything I say will be unique or especially inspiring. This drive to write something worthy of the countless hours I’ve spent thinking about these subjects is fueled by a deep-seated need. A yearning to describe biology and physics in spiritual and poetic terms has gripped my soul since the first shattering awakenings so many years ago. WillSpirit served well as an initial step, but the time has come to go further. And at last my goal isn’t success, it’s expression.

Only by doing something that feels momentous will I cease feeling pointless and defeated. Only by undertaking a truly impractical task can I free myself from the bonds of mediocrity and repeated failure. If I’m going to try once again to produce, then I want to at least be listening to my heart this time. Better to incinerate my dreams in one massive volcanic caldera than let them once again sputter out like wet fuses.

Only when I speak or write about Life in all its complex glory, and Spirit in all its confusing paradox, do I feel truly inspired. Perhaps this is yet another false start. Maybe I’m overestimating my reach or (heaven forbid) feeling grandiose. But I’m beginning to see that fulfillment can only be found by concentrating on what most fulfills me.

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A Burning Desire was published on April 8th, 2012 . 14 comments






Time, Space, God, and The Broken Mind

GodsEye

For once, I am going to try to keep this short. I’m thinking under 500 words (or so).

Spirituality seems to be a popular topic among blog readers. The first time I blogged about it, a couple of days ago, the number of visitors shot up by almost 100%. Nothing succeeds like success, so I’ll continue in that vein for a little while.

If I could get paid for hours spent thinking about metaphysics, I wouldn’t be worrying about my finances. I admit that armchair philosophers are a dime a dozen, but I do believe my past provided insights that help lend consistency and logic to my ‘theory’. The framework that I have constructed builds on my long study of science (especially biology–see ‘About‘), and also the spiritual ‘psychosis’ I mentioned before. Some day I’ll go into a longer description of my ‘visions’, which in addition to hallucinatory experiences, also connected with real-life events in a kind of spooky, serendipitous way. For the purposes of building a model of creation that works for me, the significant part of my ‘awakening’ was what I described before as “all time (from the first infinitesimal fraction of a second after big bang until the present moment) and all space (from an impossibly small subatomic scale out through the full span of the universe) [hovering] in my awareness at the exact same time, like an instantaneous glimpse of all creation.”

The effect brought home the unity of the universe, and the collapsability of time. I did not see into the future, naturally, but I sensed its presence. I realized that from the right perspective, it would be possible to observe the full sweep of the universe’s history, from beginning to end, as a single unit. And not just on one scale of size, but simultaneously sensing the smallest subatomic entities (possibly ‘strings’, if string theories are correct), and the entire macroscopic universe, including each galaxy, quasar, black hole and every other kind of celestial object. If there is a consciousness watching our experience unfold, it would ‘see’ creation as a single entity in all its dimensions (four macroscopic–including time–and possibly many more on subatomic scales). Of course, I am not talking here about such a putative ‘awareness’ observing creation from a physical vantage point, and certainly not a point in time. As I’ll go into another time, I suspect this consciousness (assuming its existence) is not just watching the universe as if it were a movie, but is also the reel of film, the movie screen, and the projector. That seems to me the only kind of omniscient mind that could actually exist. When I believe my psychosis connected me to something ‘real’ (rather than just showing me new circuit paths in my brain), I feel blessed with to have glimpsed the cosmos through (let’s go out on a limb here) God’s eyes. It was, I suspect, similar to the epiphany people have when facing imminent death, when their whole lifetime is seen in an instant. Only I didn’t die and the life wasn’t just mine, but that of the entire cosmos. And for that instant, I understood that I was the cosmos, too.

Yes, the experience had ‘psychotic and grandiose’ stamped all over it. But at the time I only knew that God had blessed me with a special sight. Now of course, I cannot be sure. In fact, it is perhaps likely that I simply experienced a kind of seizure that distorted my conscious mind (which doesn’t mean deeper principles weren’t at play). But it felt as real as daily life and left me convinced of its veracity. So I like to take it at face value and see where it leads in terms of generating a metaphysics. I do not claim originality; only the way I write about these ideas is mine alone, not the concepts themselves. So far, it probably sounds like pantheism. Yes, I believe something like that, but there is more. This (sort of) short post is the introduction to what I have come up with. Stay tuned.

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Time, Space, God, and The Broken Mind was published on July 22nd, 2009 . 1 comment






When Mental Illness Fuels Enlightenment

galaxy2

My recent debate/discussion with Marian touched on the relationship between mental health and spirituality, which happens to be a topic that’s fascinated me since my hospitalization in 2000. Seems like a good time to blog about it.

My interest grew out of events leading up to and following that first hospitalization. The past few months had been rough: my career as a surgeon had ended; Mandy and I had sold our vintage San Francisco house and moved to a suburb (a decision I immediately regretted); a therapist of five years (who had led me through a lot of the childhood trauma and abuse, and who had given me a tentative sense of safety) moved to the East Coast; my one and only malpractice case settled against me; and my neck caused me constant excruciating pain. After a period in a psychiatric ward for suicidal depression, I found myself back in the ‘real’ world on new medications, but with no idea about what to do next.

After several days of escalating agitation, I spent a night without any sleep steeped in feelings of abject defeat. The next day, my consciousness was launched into a stunning series of spiritual experiences and epiphanies. They included visual hallucinations of something I understood to be God, auditory hallucinations of ineffably comforting celestial music, and ‘delusions’ of intimate connectedness with God. I felt in an intuitive way the intricate underpinnings of reality. For a brief period all time (from the first infinitesimal fraction of a second after big bang until the present moment) and all space (from an impossibly small subatomic scale out through the full span of the universe) seemed to hover in my awareness simultaneously, like an instantaneous glimpse of the full span of creation.

What may have affected me most, however, was the wordless sense that my mind, body and soul were suffused with peace. Without writing a multipage essay describing my ‘visions’ in detail, the best analogy would be that it was like standing in front of an open oven, feeling the glowing heat radiate and warm me. God’s love seemed to be washing over me in just that way.

I stayed in that place for several days, and it only gradually subsided over the next two years. Without the antipsychotics I was given in the second hospital, it likely would have lasted even longer. The experience changed my life. I converted to my wife’s childhood religion (Roman Catholicism), and was filled with the fervent belief that I had been touched by God, like Paul on the road to Damascus. (It’s important to note that my father raised me to believe that religion is mere fantasy, wishful thinking on the part of frightened and distressed masses.)

These deeply held religious convictions lasted about three years. In the ensuing six, I’ve explored a small galaxy of spiritual philosophies and beliefs. Sometimes I’m right back to the convinced atheism of my upbringing. More often, I have a vague sense that something mysterious and profound resonates through all matter and energy, a kind of mystical glue that connects and comprises everything in the universe, but is endowed with omniscient and seamless consciousness. This cosmic awareness percolates through all that surrounds us but flows like broad rivers in the matrices of our brains. Our minds hold deep lakes of this essence that both supports and subsumes the universe.

Pretty ‘New Age’, right? Like I say, I bounce around. Mostly, the popular concepts that purport to pin down spiritual reality (or its absence) strike me as both too specific and too unsubstantiated, so I just fall back on what is probably the only supportable philosophy: “I don’t know”. (I don’t refuse to engage the question in the fashion of modern agnosticism, which in my opinion leans too heavily toward presuming the absence of spiritual forces. Rather, it is my opinion that we simply cannot pin down reality at the present time. Maybe there is a mystical realm and maybe not. The humility required to remain in this stance (which is harder to achieve than it sounds) may be the truest form of spirituality.

What I can be sure of is that the experience of God exists, whether God does or not. I also know that when I act as if God is real (no matter what form I give it in my mind), I tend to feel better. So reaching a spiritual plane has definite advantages, even if the ‘supernatural’ realm is utter fantasy. Therefore, I try to buy as far into spiritual thought as I can at any given moment. Sometimes that is not very far at all. Other times, I find intimate places of serenity inside my mind and being, where my life makes sense, I feel I have purpose, and I know that love surrounds me.

What does this have to do with mental illness? More and more the mainstream mental health community is adopting mindfulness meditation. Such practice leads to a relaxed and open state of mind that stand in for the kinds of experiences religion provides at its best (without the xenophobia, intolerance, and dogmatism that religion brings at its worst). Often, therapists and other mental health workers go further and encourage practices based on supernaturalism, such as getting involved in one’s natal religion, or any spiritual community that feels right. The mental health world takes this approach because it can work.

I have found that meditation and spiritual pursuits help me to the extent I practice them. Mindfulness meditation (which means moving away from verbal thought and focusing attention on the body’s moment-to-moment experience) often feels quite calming and centering. It is right up there with vigorous exercise as a stress management tool, except it leads to a deep sense of unity with my body (and sometimes even with all creation) rather than the stimulating endorphin rush of a good workout.

If I allow myself to abandon critical thought (which is exactly what modern atheists consider an anathema), mystical forces sometimes feel both real and present. These influences, whatever they are, seem to care for me and promote my best interest (not always what I want, but generally what seems right later on). I could just be sensing hidden streams of neural activity that promote my well being. But whatever the ‘truth‘, abandoning my doubt and accepting this fount of support helps me enjoy life. It helps me maintain the commitment to keep living it.

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When Mental Illness Fuels Enlightenment was published on July 20th, 2009 . 6 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






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