Elizabeth – For someone who has been labeled mentally ill, you come across as unusually sane….You sound like you’re on a really great path in every area of your life. I know it’s still terribly hard right now, but all the things you say indicate that you have come a long way, and will continue to progress down a path of healing and awakening, until you get to the calm waters.
You might find this interesting --
http://neuroscienceandpsi.blogspot.c...-recovery.html
Meds free since June 2005.
"An initiation into shamanic healing means a devaluation of all values, an overturning of the profane world, a peeling away of inveterate handed-down notions of the world, liberation from everything preconceived. For that reason, shamanism is closely connected with suffering. One must suffer the disintegration of one's own system of thought in order to perceive a new world in the higher space."
-- Holger Kalweit
Keep it up, Elizabeth. You will get your life back. This self-awareness you talk about is extremely important in WD. Once you get on this path, it helps you heal better.Originally Posted by Elizabeth
As for isolating oneself, it sometimes needed, but, more often than not, it's better to push oneself just this tiny bit to be with others.
Keep walking. Just keep walking.
Thanks Sheila, I have had a hellish day and I know there are posts I need to acknowledge but right now I can't think straight. I smiled when you said "sane". I know I am, but there are times when this whole thing really IS insanity. :(Elizabeth – For someone who has been labeled mentally ill, you come across as unusually sane….You sound like you’re on a really great path in every area of your life. I know it’s still terribly hard right now, but all the things you say indicate that you have come a long way, and will continue to progress down a path of healing and awakening, until you get to the calm waters.
You might find this interesting --
http://neuroscienceandpsi.blogspot.c...-recovery.html
On SSRIs and SNRIs since 2005 with no break
Benzo free since 2010
Trazodone 200mg since 2008 and recently tapered to 0mg in just over once month (December 2012)
Cymbalta 120mg since 2008
"Don't look back, you aren't going that way" "The miracle is this......The more we share, The more we have" Leonard Nimoy
Thanks Luc, without self-awareness I have no idea where I'd be. Today was busy with family (certain difficult members that aggravate things) and quite hellish (internally). Physically I am a mess but I hid it like a pro (LOL) I just need to lie down and think of a new tomorrow. I want to cry now. :(Keep it up, Elizabeth. You will get your life back. This self-awareness you talk about is extremely important in WD. Once you get on this path, it helps you heal better.
As for isolating oneself, it sometimes needed, but, more often than not, it's better to push oneself just this tiny bit to be with others.
On SSRIs and SNRIs since 2005 with no break
Benzo free since 2010
Trazodone 200mg since 2008 and recently tapered to 0mg in just over once month (December 2012)
Cymbalta 120mg since 2008
"Don't look back, you aren't going that way" "The miracle is this......The more we share, The more we have" Leonard Nimoy
Well, this is a very extreme situation, and the fact that our society and medical establishment denies it's happening is insane. But, you will keep your sanity and slowly extricate yourself from this situation.
Be extra-compassionate to yourself, since you are hiding how you really feel from others. Make sure you really, really acknowledge and honor how you feel in the privacy of your own mind -- that helps with the sanity, I find.
Meds free since June 2005.
"An initiation into shamanic healing means a devaluation of all values, an overturning of the profane world, a peeling away of inveterate handed-down notions of the world, liberation from everything preconceived. For that reason, shamanism is closely connected with suffering. One must suffer the disintegration of one's own system of thought in order to perceive a new world in the higher space."
-- Holger Kalweit
Thanks Sheila, I'm trying. :) Lots of worrying and ruminating about the future tonight. Just another night to get through. I like what you said re: the privacy of your mind. The people around me have no idea although someone DID mention I had lost weight. I have lost 10 lbs from tapering the Trazodone. The reason I tackled it before the Cymbalta was the weight gain and constantly being hungry and raiding the fridge at all hours of the night. I was "sleep eating" which REALLY bothered me alot. I would wake up with food in my bed and trails of crumbs on the floor. It's not happening now thankfully!
On SSRIs and SNRIs since 2005 with no break
Benzo free since 2010
Trazodone 200mg since 2008 and recently tapered to 0mg in just over once month (December 2012)
Cymbalta 120mg since 2008
"Don't look back, you aren't going that way" "The miracle is this......The more we share, The more we have" Leonard Nimoy
Boy, that seems like a really good reason to taper the Trazadone, Elizabeth. I had not heard of Trazadone in relation to sleep-eating. That’s great that you’ve tapered enough that that has stopped.
You’re really on your way, Elizabeth. Some of the rumination is just a neuro-symptom – meaningless. And, as for your ability to get your life into the place you want it to be, you are showing all the intelligence and gumption you need to do that. It’s just going to be a process. But it will happen.
Meds free since June 2005.
"An initiation into shamanic healing means a devaluation of all values, an overturning of the profane world, a peeling away of inveterate handed-down notions of the world, liberation from everything preconceived. For that reason, shamanism is closely connected with suffering. One must suffer the disintegration of one's own system of thought in order to perceive a new world in the higher space."
-- Holger Kalweit
Luc--I really like your take about FB. When they started incessantly posting to my email "3 people just unfriended you" as a manipulation to get me to log into FB, I felt how manipulative that is--like a magnet on my emotions (which I resisted); that's when I realized how odious FB is. It's always been pretty obvious that advertising preys on insecurity, like a jr. high school bully, and now the internet tool allows a kind of Orwellian//Wizard of Oz gigantic curtain -- mask of anonymity for the puppeteers. From what I've learned about modern marketing --some of the most intelligent people on earth devote their lives to figuring out (successfully) how to sell rat poison to rats. I just imagine how many hours they spent to come up with the line "3 people just unfriended you." The number 3 must be the perfectly calibrated number for max. manipulation --compellingly specific and small enough to be realistic--imagine that exactly 3 people unfriended everyone (since it's a mass spam mailing)
"It is certain my conviction gains infinitely the moment another soul will believe in it." Novalis (quoted in Lord Jim)
Re "calibration" - looks like you may be very right here, Annie. They will use all possible psychological techniques to play the unsuspectful ones like, pardon, a fiddle. Every time I read about this stuff, I think of this guy; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays Called "the father of public relations". On Youtube, you will find tons of movies about him. He was a master manipulator. One of his most famous stunts was this one;
"One of the most famous campaigns of Bernays was the women's cigarette smoking campaign in 1920s. Bernays helped the smoking industry overcome one of the biggest social taboos of the time: women smoking in public. Women were only allowed to smoke in designated areas, or not at all. If caught violating this rule, women would have been arrested. Bernays staged the 1929 Easter parade in New York City, showing models holding lit Lucky Strike cigarettes, or "Torches of Freedom". After the historical public event, women started lighting up more than ever before. It was through Bernays that women's smoking habits started to become socially acceptable." (Wikipedia)
Re "a mass spam mailing" < ---- this + a great source of easy info for many agencies (IRS including).
I remember one thing very clearly - the tipping point for leaving the place altogether was the moment when I came across of this person who had something like + 4000 friends. It struck me as something so absurd, I never set my foot there again. Funnily enough, I was the only person at my work who did not have an account. Some looked at me as if had three hands (and three tentacles), but, for several reasons, I even emphasized the fact I don't have the "account".
Keep walking. Just keep walking.
For some people in w/d, including me, one of the most harrowing symptoms is the appearance of one or two major obsessions which stay with us throughout the course of our recovery. This is above and beyond the many, small obsessions that plague us.
The magnetizing obsession is definitely driven by the neurological problems resulting from psych med use and w/d, but *what* it focuses on has to do with *your* life experience.
The major, relentless obsession may become focused on something that happened in the past (eg something you feel guilty or bitter over); something happening in the present (eg worry about another specific w/d symptom or ongoing life circumstance), or something that could happen in the future (eg something bad that could happen to you).
In early w/d, the magnetizing obsession is pretty immovable. It seems like The Truth, and we live in terror, rage, or depression about it.
As you move forward with your healing it becomes possible to work with the magnetizing obsession somewhat – either to take steps to mitigate the issue or to question its validity. Occasionally, we may even have windows of being free of it. But, it keeps coming back and we keep having to wrestle with it again.
Later in your recovery, if you are interested, you can analyze your magnetizing obsession for its symbolic meaning, and you may learn that, among other things, it symbolizes some unhealed issues from your life prior to w/d. I have found this very helpful, but it’s not really doable until you get to a certain point in your healing.
Eventually, after a long time, and as the magnetizing obsession started to break up, it became clear to me that flare ups of the obsession were always, always, always accompanied by a flare up of feeling bad about myself. So, that’s in interesting thing to look for and then chip away at and heal.
Finally, the magnetizing obsession fades away. We wonder how we could have believed and felt the way we did. The issue either disappears or we think *very* differently about it – possibly even the *reverse* of what we had thought during w/d.
But, for a long time, for many of us, the magnetizing obsession is entrancing, irresistible, compelling, inescapable, imperative, unavoidable, unconquerable, beguiling, entrapping, and deceiving.
Meds free since June 2005.
"An initiation into shamanic healing means a devaluation of all values, an overturning of the profane world, a peeling away of inveterate handed-down notions of the world, liberation from everything preconceived. For that reason, shamanism is closely connected with suffering. One must suffer the disintegration of one's own system of thought in order to perceive a new world in the higher space."
-- Holger Kalweit
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