An excerpt from "The Wind Never Lies" by Steve Morgan as published at Beyond Meds
"...As I learned and integrated this information into my worldview, the glue that stuck mental illness to me loosened. I started to wake up to a different reality, one in which I used terms like experiences instead of symptoms, trauma instead of disease, problems instead of illness, and neuroplasticity instead of chemical imbalance. I engaged in a process of re-authoring my life story once again, casting off the disease paradigm and shifting my self-conception from I have Bipolar to I am fully human..."
Please go here to read the entire article about this mans journey through that dark place where the light is at the end of the tunnel but we are promised by the magicians that we are special somehow, and because we are special - will never be allowed to touch that light ourselves...even though it is clearly there and within reach. And we believe with our whole heart that the magicians are for, not against us, that a whole country - no; the entire world - couldn't be lied to; could it?
Yet...remember that issue last century with what was it called? Yes; that's right. Big Tobacco; the ones that had doctors writing testimonials of how cigarettes were good for you....but - that couldn't happen again. Could it?
This man, Steve Morgan, broke the spell, reached the light and fights the magicians and the giant with his own magical power of "self".
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My Note: "Meds" may have their place in this journey, so please understand I am not totally against them. When someone has become a danger to themselves or others meds are helpful to stabilize a crisis situation. My issue comes from the fact that these drugs are addictive and the withdrawals symptoms are used to justify more drugs instead of supporting people through the long, horrendous physical, psychological and emotional pain of these withdrawals. Drugs aka "meds" I believe were originally intended to be a tool - not the life sentence they have become.
A few resources to learn more about this issue:
www.power2you.org
www.bipolarblast.wordpress.com
Whitakre "Anatomy of An Epidemic"
4 comments:
Thanks for sharing this. Although I too believe "meds" are a huge help to many people, I also see that they have a considerable down side. Sounds like a situation in which to avoid thinking in black and white terms.
I so appricate reading or hearing most anything that reminds me that I'm fully human. Sometimes I feel like after so many years of therapy and emotional struggles that I'm somehow subhuman. It's eye opening and a relief to just to be reminded that the labels that have been placed on me are the product of a branch of science and not something that has to define me as a human.
*smile!* I like the way you pointed out that "meds" could be viewed as "all good" or "all bad"! I agree - taking that view on is less than helpful :)
I so get what you are saying, Stacy about the "labels". I really appreciated what this author had to say about why and how he began to change his own self image by changing the language attached to him by the professionals.
My experience was much the same - as long as I saw myself as the label attached to a symptom or diagnosis I felt "less than", "damaged" "defective"....it just reinforced what I came to believe coming from the background of...hummmph...lets say less than healthy parenting.
It was when I began refusing to be addressed as a label that my changes began to be empowering as I changed from being seen through the issues I faced to being seen as a person who had experienced some unfortunate things and could learn how to overcome any of the "symptom" labels by understanding what they meant - and that it wasnt that I was defective. This is how I began to draw my map to find my way out of that low place.
That's a really long comment - but that was a huge victory for me in reshaping my self image from how the "professionals" to me what I was to how I began to see myself and move from powerless to powerful.
Have an awesome day Stacy!
This was a wonderful post....I too have had what you call an existential way of looking at things....I ended up in the psyche ward in 2007 and was on a 2 year round of drugs or medication as the medical world likes to call them. Prior to that I drank to keep my thoughts subdued but now have woken up to a whole new reality in that sometimes I don't think that I was meant to live in this world but here I am.....Life is so infinitely complex and most people go day to day accepting it for what it is and worrying about what to wear, where to eat and what to do....but that is a mundane existence and what is truly the meaning of life? We live to die and what we do in between is up to each of us...I have come to realize that those of us who think of life differently are labeled mentally ill...and there is no such thing....we don't have a chemical imbalance and we certainly don't need to be drugged....does it dampen our thoughts and make life more bearable at times...yes...but does it serve us well...no....ultimately we have to learn to live as we are and while that is painful at times.....it is a reality that many people will never have the opportunity to experience...we can't change how the world sees us...they just simply don't understand how we think....and it is a tragedy...I believe that we are all so much more sensitive to the world and to those around us....it means loving deeply....feeling deeply and living so much more intense than most will ever know.....the question becomes how can we exist in a world that is not compatible to us.....and for me that means making the world a better place however I can....to be the person that can see the hurt in others and listen...truly listen to where they are...to make someone feel like they matter....to help a child who feels like no one cares to make eye contact with someone and for them to know that I see them and that they are noticed....I can't change the world and I can't change others but I am not going to be put in a psyche ward and told that I am not normal and I am not going to be drugged into a person that I am not.....I am going to live the best life that I can and to accept that this is my destiny and to know that I am a spiritual being in a human existence and that this is only a part of a much larger journey that although I try to make sense of .... while I am here on earth I never will.
di--I'm glad you dropped by to introduce yourself!
You bring up some very good points. It sounds like you have some experience in this journey...:) I agree that life is best lived as we are without undue influence :)
Thank you for your comment - and introducing yourself!
Susan
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