As It Goes…

So, as it goes, things change. Life is an evolution and for me a marvelous, exciting and sometimes challenging experiment.

I've been writing here at A Journey since April 6, 2009 where I began to chronicle my journey out of the darkness  and into the light after a lifetime of seeing myself as a victim who had "no choice" and realizing in this amazing journey that I no longer had to live as a victim and that there was life far beyond "recovery" and survival. 

Then for awhile my path shifted and as the student who tries to be ready, I found myself drawn to other adventures like creating the Empowering Solutions page and podcast.

I tried my hand at guest blogging at a few places and was able to contribute on some issues that are very dear to my heart like the abuse and dysfunction many of us come from  , finding our own path to personal empowerment  and sharing a bit of my story as it relates to how I experienced the nearly 2 decades of my life when I was told by doctors that I had a brain disease, was ill and would need "medication for life" and the resulting years of protracted withdrawals when another doctor decided I no longer needed them as a trauma survivor. (NOTE: NEVER let a doctor tell you that you can "just stop" these drugs; this is very dangerous. I was fortunate to have the tenacity to go through this and come out the other end ok; many are not able to tolerate the impact of cold turkey or even a short taper. Get informed to be empowered - you can start here if you need resources.)

I wrote about how I came to choose a new paradigm for myself and this has led to my coming to terms with realizing that I had never been "sick" and that it was the drugs I was being given that actually was the source of the symptoms that seemed to get worse instead of better, even though I was following "doctors orders" to the letter.

As time went on my focus shifted to healing myself and my psyche from the damage of being told I was "ill" and the realization that I am not what they told me I was and had been so terribly harmed and made ill by those I trusted with my health and my life; my doctors and those I sought out for support and help in my journey.

In following the inner drive to make meaning of these experiences, in time I found myself shifting my focus from this blog to the Facebook platform where I have met hundreds and thousands of amazing people on their own individual journey's.

Here I found a camaraderie of persons who have experienced their own journey to well being in many different ways. To each of you - I am in awe of your strength and courage and in complete gratitude that somehow our paths have crossed. In support of those who have wondered about the use of psychiatric drugs I created a workshop and website and was invited to contribute a chapter on using the internet and social media to find support.

Time moved on and I was seeming to lose my voice, I was unclear to my path and my purpose and realized along the way that in order for me to regain my footing and clarity that it was vital that I stop trying to create new things and start focusing on letting go of the old so I could embrace the new. 

So here we are.

It's nearly autumn 2014 and my journey is again changing directions as I focus on continuing to reclaim my health, create my best life and rediscover my voice.

I don't have a clear vision of what my path is just yet - but I do have a desire again to write now and then so - stay tuned; my hope is that we will continue to travel this path together.

Namaste.

May you be well, be happy and live in peace.

Susan

Happiness is a choice? Then why am I not happy?

I'd hear the saying "happiness is choice"…

And feel worse.

What was wrong with me that I wasn't able to be happy? 

Indeed…

There had to be something "wrong" with me. 

I mean seriously wrong with me.

I was angry.

I was sometimes mean.

I was oftentimes driven to be busy, busy, busy.

But I was not "happy".

So - when I sought help - it was confirmed that something was wrong - terribly wrong with me. 

My brain was indeed broken.

I had a "disease" - like *diabetes! 

I had an "illness" that affected my ability to be "happy".

Aha! That explained it!

A "diagnosis" made it all make sense.

Yet - the prescribed "treatments" that were supposed to make me "feel" better - never worked. 

I settled into a life of "less than" "for the rest of my life".

And stayed there.

UNTIL I met someone who had traveled this path before me and discovered their own truth and shared it with me…

That there was nothing "wrong" with me other than I did not know how to access the power that lives in each of us to see myself as the creator of my own "best life". 

Tip: if happiness has eluded you….set a goal for yourself and each day take steps toward that goal.

Maybe its a goal to move to a new home, get a new job or go back to school.

Maybe its a goal to learn how to become more self sufficient; to learn how to be less "reactive" and more "responsive". Or maybe to learn the difference between "boundaries" and "walls".

Whether your goal is to be-come your best self through personal development learning strategies or to do or have something that you have longed for…

The best remedy for chronic sadness is to focus on what makes us happy and find our own empowering solutions when we aren't'.

True stuff.

Susan :)


*Diabetes - the whole paradigm built on the idea that "mental illness" is a disease like diabetes is more true than we know. First we must differentiate between type 1 and type 2 diabetes. In type 1 - there is a real physical issue that cannot be fixed. One is born with this. It is diagnosable through medical tests. In type 2 - this diabetes is brought on by overconsumption of refined sugar and can be reversed with diet and exercise. In considering the issues of "mental illness" in this context we must remember that there is NO diagnostic test for this - therefore these issues are not the same as type 1 diabetes which can be diagnosed and treated. In the context of type 2 diabetes - the issues of so called "mental illness" are also brought on by life experiences albeit more complex than just consuming enormous amounts of refunded sugar although refined sugar has been proven to cause issues that can be labeled "mental illness". For more on this I can recommend visiting Beyond Meds articles on gut health, this article at Mercola on sugar and mental illness, this article on gluten and schizophrenia, and there are numerous studies revealing the impact of childhood trauma to what is labeled "mental illness". In addition, very often the "medicine" we are given becomes the cause of the "illness" as I experienced. All this as food for thought and to point out - these issues do not have to be "for life" and the "mental illness" model is 1. not an effective life model and 2. it is not the only model, or paradigm, about the human condition, the life we live or the struggles we face - although it is the only one we hear about when we ask for "help". 

Be informed to be empowered. 

For more on these issues please visit www.beyondmeds.com 

Resources

Visit the archives to the Empowering Solutions podcast here for real life solutions to real life and relationship issues.

Follow the Empowering Solutions community page here for daily tips on learning to live beyond the drama and trauma of our past…

And the Empowering Solutions blog is here for articles and essays on life and life issues. 

Please subscribe at the top for blog updates and join our mailing list.




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I Found My Freedom When I Found My Power (Interdependence v.s. Dependence)

As things would have it - it is perhaps not quite time to retire this blog. I'm still not sure about the direction I'm going but I do know that my Journey is not over. 

Therefore, todays post....

For a very long time I firmly believed that my "moods" were a "disorder". 

I had been led to believe that the reason I struggled in life and relationships was not because of the pattern of trauma and abuse in my life but because there was something wrong with my brain.

What I discovered was that while this particular paradigm is the only one that we hear about most often in the context of "mental health"...

It is not the only way to view the life issues that left us feeling unprepared to deal with life on life's terms.

In fact - after fifteen years of believing this and that I would never get "better"....

I found my freedom when I found my power.

This brings me to this...

In a recent post (elsewhere) I responded to an article where the focus was on "managing" "symptoms" of "disorders" like depression, anxiety etc via human connection. 

This essay went on to say that this person was falling back into their anxiety and depression because on the weekends they did not have the structure they do during the week. The thing that "saved" them from falling into their dark hole was a friend who called to invite them to do something. 

The response was "you just gave me a reason to get out of bed". 

And - yes. 

We DO need human connection and love in our lives.

Yet - when we need others to "give us a reason to get out of bed" we are in fact being "dependent" vs "independent". 

And the idea that one must "live with" and "manage" "symptoms"....

Well - I see this as part of the issue with being dependent on others to do something in order for us to feel better. 

Healthy "interdependent" relationships do not depend on others to do for us that which we can and should be doing for ourselves.

If we are struggling with "symptoms" we can learn how to meet our own needs vs waiting for someone to rescue us. 

If there is "disorder" - we can create "order" - and that began for me in realizing that waiting for someone to "give me a reason to live/get out of bed/go to school etc....

Was giving my power away. 

The "Empowering Solutions" project is about us learning to take control of changing our lives v.s. needing others or circumstances to change in order for our lives to change. 

If we are feeling hopeless we can find our hope by finding our power.

Tip: if you are feeling like you are falling into that dark place - try calling a friend to go do something instead of waiting for them to call you. If that friend is not available - call another. If that friend is not available just go for a walk or a bike ride and purpose to smile and say hello to everyone you pass. Make that human connection you are craving instead of waiting for someone to connect with you. 

We can own the power we have to create the life we want instead of living a life we tolerate. 

Is it easy? 

No.

Is it worth it?

Hell yes. 

Related: Defeating Depression 

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This Blog is Not Dead ....

This post will remain as a holding place and thank you note for following A Journey and on twitter - Zebdot :) I have enjoyed your notes, comments and emails over the past years. Please join me at my newest blog Empowering Solutions here as I spread my own wings and live my passion to help others who felt hopeless and powerless to find their hope by finding their power. Thank you for sharing this journey with me and I hope to see you there and perhaps back here one day. Susan

This Blog is not dead - not by a long shot. 

Although - it may seem that it is to the readers and followers who haven't seen me here in some time and that posts have been long in coming - when they do come.

The thing is....

Life changes - and as it does....we need to be ready to change with it or risk getting lost in it. 

This blog began in 2009 when I was still experiencing the early aftermath of being lost in the mental health system that told me my life "issues" were really an "illness". You can read more about that here. If you are interested to read more about the journey I experienced when I came off the drugs that I was told I would need "for life" you can read about how I realized it was the drugs that were causing the "illness" and how my journey to freedom from them started in 2007 here at Beyond Meds. And here you can read about how I found myself on an adventure of making sense of this paradigm of "illness" and how I discovered truths that "set me free".

2009 was a year where I was trying to find my voice - literally. After a lifetime of being told by others that I held no value of my own - only what they gave me - I literally had no "voice"; I was shaking in my boots. I had no sense of "self"; I had no opinions of my own. I was a true "chameleon".

I struggled with knowing who I was, what I wanted, what I liked or disliked. This Blog became part of my journey of self-discovery; along the way I separated myself from those who needed me to be "less" so they could be "more". I made the decision to exist. 

The calendar turned and 2010 rolled around. I had given much to doing the "hard work" of healing myself and my life from an early life of physical, emotional, psychological and sexual abuse that spanned my entire childhood. I understood the meaning of the poem by Patrick Overton and wrote my own version of it here. The photo on that page tells the story well; I knew I could not NOT move forward - yet that was the only option I had at the time; I could live or die trying.

I was willing to "go through" the pain and struggle in order to "get out of it" in order to get to my "best life". I also realized that there was no one to "blame"and as much as I wanted "justice" I had remind myself that while I was not responsible for what others did to me - I am solely responsible for what I do with what they did to me .  Here I also wrote a blog post about how I learned to find my own courage to do this. I learned a lot about Compassion and learning to let go of the need for justice that I would never get. 

I shared my story publicly for the first time in April of 2010 when Michele Rosenthal of Heal My PTSD invited me to do a radio interview. This in turn led to my own Blog Talk Radio series with Heal My PTSD and then in 2011 my own Blog Talk Radio channel - Empowering Solutions and a Facebook page here. 

The year 2012 continued to be part of this amazing journey. My private Facebook posts had become a community page; people who were in pain and struggling continued to reach out to me as I continued to post all the while wondering just what it was that I had that they found themselves drawn to. And what I kept hearing over and over was "thank you. I have never heard this before", "Your post today hit home with me".

And I realized that it was true - this journey is NOT about "fixing" something that is "broken" but about LEARNING how to do life differently; how to "be" and be separate from those who tell us we don't exist or exist only to serve their purposes, what they give us "permission" for.

 As 2012 came to a close I realized that a lot of what I had written in the past 4 years was about the story we tell ourselves and how in changing the story - we could change our lives.  My posting schedule began to wax and wane. 2012 closed with less than 40 posts - all year and 2013 has left me wondering: "What is it that I am supposed to be doing?". 

So here we are. 

2013 is slowly coming to a close and I do not feel that this is the "end" - but rather the beginning of a new adventure. An adventure that I'd like to invite you to join me on as we continue to explore the bigger world beyond our pain and struggle, finding our hope for a better future for ourselves and our families by finding that, like Dorothy in the Wizard of OZ, we had the power all along:

Dorothy: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?
Glinda, the Good Witch: You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy: I have?
Scarecrow: Then why didn’t you tell her before?
Glinda, the Good Witch: Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.

I hope you'll join me here at the Facebook Community page. 

2014 is going to be a very good year - for all of us. :)

Namaste, bells, whistles and a little bit of Glinda's glitter.....:)

Susan

Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!™  

Creator of My Life

Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

When I was encouraged to and did identify my normal emotional response to abnormal life experiences as an illness I believed something was wrong with me instead of with my life experiences or dysfunctional relationships. 

This denied the reality of the source of my pain and caused me to become stuck in managing symptoms instead of going through the normal emotions of acknowledging what I survived and learning how to cultivate healthy relationships.

Shifting away from a paradigm of "illness" empowered me to begin to see that what I was lacking in emotional resiliancy and healthy interpersonal relationships - I could learn. 

It shifted me from being an enabled victim to an empowered creator of my life. 

Emotional and Psychological distress is real but treating it as an illness or as symptoms to be managed left me powerless to learn to live beyond it and left me dependent on coping and managing instead of creating and living the life I wanted for myself.
~

Did you miss the live broadcast? Listen to the archives of the most recent Empowering Solutions program at Blog Talk Radio....Christina Enevoldsen and I talk about how we came to understand that were were not the problem but how we could be our own solution. Click here to download or listen! 

From the Archives...

Claiming A New Paradigm For Myself Part 2

This Became My Truth

Photo Credit

BlissChick: Most Mental Illness is Manufactured

BlissChick: Most Mental Illness is Manufactured is a most awesomely wonderful post by my Blogger friend and fellow SRBT's (Survivor of Really Bad Things:)), Christine Claire Reed aka the BlissChick.


Over the past year I've noticed peoples heads are turning and as a society we are beginning to question the whole "illness" paradigm that surrounds the mental health industry. 

And Award Winning Scientific Journalist Robert Whitaker has had a lot to do with this. You can check out his blog on Psychology Today by clicking here and visit his personal blog by clicking here. You can also order his book Anatomy of an Epidemic from his blog.

Over the past week or so Christine (aka BlissChick) put on her PissedChick hat and came up with some astounding articles that I would like to share with you here:

1. Medicine Makes Me Sick - Love is the Cure In this post Christine bares her soul and reveals her pain and how pills seemed the easy answer but had some unfortunate side effects - including self harm behavior that had not existed before the drugs - and how she found healing...but it didn't come from the pills.
2. Most Mental Illness Is Manufactured is where we meet PissedChick:) Christine gets it on and makes it clear this illness model of our minds and emotions is questionable and that the "fix" doesn't come in pill form. We who have SRBT's - are not "sick" but injured. 
3. Ignoring Mental Injury is an excellent piece on the fact that there is a reason people feel f***ed up - and its not because our brains are broken.
4. You Are Not Mentally Ill Just Because Is an expose on how our pain - emotional, psychological - and its expression - our behaviors - have become so pathologized that we as a nation and society have been conditioned aka brainwashed - to believe something is wrong with us if we aren't "like everyone else". 

Before I go any further I feel its important to ask you to click here to read my disclaimer before you decide that you need to put me in my place or remind me that there are good therapists out there or that you believe the drugs helped you and how dare I bring this subject up...

In other words - if you are content with your quality of life and current mental health care - bravo!

But don't blast me and others for wanting more than to exist in a drugged stupor and find true, complete and full recovery from the pain of the past...something I never found and was even told in my time in the mental health system - was not possible because - of course - I was "sick" and would need the drugs "for life". 

PissedChick....thanks for taking the chance and putting your voice out there on these issues. 

Its time more of us found our inner bitch and started speaking up about these issues instead of being bullied and shamed into the silence that enables the abuse and crippling to continue as America keeps its proverbial head in the sand and pretends that these drugs are not killing, crippling and destroying lives.

Visit Christine's blog by clicking here.

Some related posts from the archives:

My guest post at Emerging From Broken: Dysfunctional Relationships with Mental Health Providers (yes; this stuff is STILL happening every day in the good ole US of A)

I Wanted to Understand this Paradigm of "Mental Illness"

Creating a New Paradigm for Myself Part 1

Creating a New Paradigm Part 2

Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

A Life of Well Being; That Paradigm Shift Revisited

Changing Light

Over the past I've often written about how when I believed I was "ill"...I was ill and how when I made that paradigm shift for myself is also when I began learning to live beyond illness and enjoy a life of wellness and a deep, intrinsic sense of well being...that place where I feel content and enjoy a quality of life I'd not known in "illness". 

It is that place where I discovered the life I'd desired for so long and had been told was not possible for me to have by those who needed me to be "ill".

So today, in honor of "Mental Health Awareness" month - I wanted to offer this article on understanding and overcoming some of the myths about depression...and how it becomes possible to create our own best life when we simply begin to believe it is possible that we can actually learn how to do this.

If you are happy with your life and content with your mental health treatments, this post may not be for you...but if you are wondering if there could be more, please do read on.


Good News for Critically Thinking Depression Sufferers

5 Myths About Depression Treatments

By BRUCE E. LEVINE
A warning: for people satisfied with their standard depression treatments, debunking myths about them may be troubling. However, for critically thinking depression sufferers who have not been helped by antidepressants, psychotherapy, or other standard treatments, discovering truths about these treatments can provide ideas about what may actually work for them.

Critical thinkers have difficulty placing faith in any depression treatment because science tells them that these treatments often work no better than placebos or nothing at all, and if one lacks faith in adepression treatment,it is not likely to be effective. In fact, it is belief and faith—or what scientists call “expectations” and the “placebo effect”—that is mostly responsible for any depression treatment working.* Critical-thinkers can find a way out of depression when their critical thinking about depression treatments is validated and respected, and they are challenged to think more critically about their critical thinking.~

In other words...evidence exists that when our beliefs of illness or wellness and our potential to live in either state of being is validated by those we seek support from...we experience the results we are expecting. 

You can read the rest of this article here.

*emphasis is mine

 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

Taking Time, Living in Wellness

Blue Flowers

May 2010

Part of creating a new paradigm of "Wellness" is living in balance, taking time to look at things, to enjoy the moment intentionally...to truly experience the abundance of life that we can find in one

simple

moment....

leaving "busy" behind and taking a breath.

For just a moment....

find something of natural beauty in your own world...

the sky

a cloud

a rain storm

a puddle

a butterfly

a bird

and watch it in it's natural state of "being"

without judgement

or question.

Just knowing

that it

is.

Experience this moment

observe

the breeze

the color

the texture

the scent.

For a moment

just

be.

Then - if you would be willing to share - I'd like to invite you to come back later and share what you experienced in your moment of "being" and creating that balance in your own day.

Namaste :)

Owning it

Meet Zeus!

I'm always looking around inside and outside of myself to find ways to explain what it is that I've been able to do as I've created this new paradigm of wellness for myself...

It's one thing to know that I've been able to make that mind-shift for myself from "illness" to "wellness" it's another thing to be able to share with others just how I did that - how I found my way from "there" aka that very dark place to "here" where I live in the light and create the life of my choosing each day - minus the chronic "symptoms" of "mental illness" and the smorgasbord of "diagnosis" that I had accepted for many, many years. (More on my journey is here)

So today's metaphor comes from my dogs. Well - one of them lives with me (Brindle:)) the other visits when my son is out of town (Zeus:)).

And today I'd like to introduce you to Zeus - and tell you that when he and Brindle are playing, he OWNS his rawhide...

"Owns" as in he walks around with it in his mouth, he tosses it up in the air and pounces on it like a puppy, shakes it back and forth as though he was the magnificent hunter that brought home dinner....

He doesn't hesitate, doesn't seem doubtful of himself.

He is "dog".

He IS

and he doesn't doubt that.

He is Master of the Rawhide.

Confident....sure of his place in the world of rawhides:)

And this is what I've found to be so vital to my own healing, making that mind shift from the dark tormenting thoughts that could drag me down and cause me such misery and recognizing the source of that doubt as from the lies of the past where I was taught that I was "less than"

not "good enough"

couldn't do things "right enough"

that whatever was wrong in the world it was

"my fault".

I learned that I had to OWN my existence - my "I am-ness" and become master of my own journey and my healing, not question it or doubt it but to embrace it, play with it, experiment in my days, find the internal confidence that cancels the doubt that could keep me frozen and inert.

I used the negative thoughts to guide my changes and learn to "over-ride" the negative messages that ran constantly in what I call the "subtitles" in the back of my mind that fueled that feeling of "less than" and caused me to instinctively want to isolate from the world and hide in my shame that something was "wrong" with me.

Is this kind of internal change "easy" to come by?

No.

But it is so well worth it.

See "Was it Worth It?" here.

Q: How have you learned to OWN your own wellness and create that mind-shift from "illness" to one of living in "wellness"?

"Big Fat Borderline" ((may be triggering))

Those words - spat out by a nurse that I worked with - floored me.

She would often utter derogatory statements about the "consumers" that she "provided" mental health services to.

But these were the words that stuck with me and it's been about 5 years since I left that job. I'd been hired the year before to be sort of a "gal friday" in the office of the local work site for the mentally ill and mentally handicapped.

And the young woman that was the target of this psychiatric "Nurse" was carrying numerous "labels" in her chart and this was the label that got her the most disdain and abuse by staff and the local police and hospital.

And her behavior was typical of someone who is given the label "BPD"; she exhibited needy, childlike dependency that required much external validation, she engaged in self harm behaviors, was a frequent visitor to the emergency room, her emotions were intense and thinking was very black and white

and her social history was that of horrendous neglect and abuse as a small child.

I never did learn her entire story but another staff member, a "PHD", in the same facility broke confidentiality and shared parts of this young woman's history telling me in the end that she would "never" be "normal".

Well fricking no shit jack.

Excuse the language - but for real?

And this is part of what fuels me is how another person who has the degree's and letters behind their names is apparently deemed qualified to determine another's value and lay out their life for them as

hopeless

and requiring to be "managed"

instead of cared for and valued, their experiences validated

instead of treated as less than deserving of human compassion.

Today - this young woman is free of this facility that was eventually shut down by the state for many reasons.

I saw her recently and still see the scars from the lies that she has been told - that she is "broken" and "Borderline"

"ill"

and will never be anything other.

She proudly told me that she is doing what she is supposed to be doing to avoid hospitalization.

And my heart grieves for her and the loss of the life potential that might have been found had someone simply said

"it will be ok"

showed some compassion

and shined the light on the path of wellness for her

instead of the anchor of

"illness" and "compliance".

**

With all respect for the choices and journeys of those who read this blog, I share this post to bring light to a subject that is as taboo as the abuse that is often the cause of these issues of emotional and cognitive distress that we have come to call "mental illness".

This story is part of what fuels my passion for this message of wellness today. For each post I write, each story I tell, there is the memory of this young woman and hundreds and thousands more like her that live only the life they have been told they could have,many of them institutionalized and medicated since childhood; questions and hope for anything more, crushed as compliance and obedience become the objectives.

In my own personal journey through the current mental health system and then the realization that I had never been "ill" but rather "injured" evidenced by my amazing "recovery" - and the atrocities that I have witnessed in the facilities that I have been employed in that had no knowledge of my own personal history - I am grieved.

Resources:

RobertWhitakre's Anatomy of an Epidemic

A Tale of Two Boys

Developmental Trauma Disorder John Bessel Van Der Kolk

Sidran Institute

Beyond Meds

Heal My PTSD

Claiming a New Paradigm for Myself

Psychiatrist blows the lid off the profession

I'm going to let this article speak for itself...

"Dr. Carlat mentions that he used to speak for the drug company Wyeth Pharmaceuticals until he realized he was “being paid to deceive other doctors.” Dr. Carlat wrote an article titled “Dr. Drug Rep” in the New York Times in November 2007, which recounted his experience as a hired hand for Wyeth...."

You can read the entire article here.

Thanks again to Gianna at Beyond Meds for the insightful resources she provides...

A recent post from "A Journey": The Pied Piper

From the archives: I needed to understand this paradigm...

The Pied Piper

Part of "finding my voice" in my personal journey of "self discovery" had been making it "ok" to have my own opinion or strong feelings about things and not being afraid to give voice to them.

Today then - in all respect to those who may view things differently, I've opted to publish my thoughts and feelings about my journey from "there" to "here" where I live my "best life" and opt to no longer blindly follow what I call the "Pied Piper".

Ok...here's one of my gripes about what has become the current model of the mental health system....

It says "follow me" - blindly.

I mean - I "get" that the mental health and social welfare system is full of folks who want to help others and have really great intentions...

What I don't "get" is how those who have suffered the intense emotional and cognitive distress have been led to believe

that these issues are unchangeable.

Are these issues "real"??

Well, duh....YES.

AND many who have taken upon themselves to find life outside this inflexible view

have found that these issues can be overcome with

new information that

leads to seeing this from a different perspective

and creates an

"understanding" that leads to

the golden moment of

"aha"!

“Insight

comes from

new information

that

leads us to

the awareness

that will

empower us

to

create our own change.”

~a zebism

I was told that I was "broken", "defective" and "disordered"

would need "meds" for the rest of my life.

I was discouraged from doing my own reading, research or from trying to create my own solutions, to find my own way out of that "dark place".

Told I was "intellectualizing", "difficult", "resistant"....

my hands were slapped and I was sent to the corner because I dared to

question

those in "authority".

And -

I did it anyway.

I went to school and became educated in "psychology" and took many classes on "philosophy", I read books and was

"non compliant" as I felt my way out of the darkness alone and blindly forging my way to the light - forward to the life

I chose for myself

instead of what I was told I could have.

I learned about my "issues"

what they were, what they looked like and through learning new information that led me to "insight" and "awareness" of my own thoughts, emotions and physical self

I kept plowing forward

refusing to return to "compliant".

And I just want to say that

these issues

of emotional and cognitive distress that can lead one down the road to hell on earth...

it is possible to learn how to create the change we want...

it is possible to learn how to manage the thoughts, emotions and behaviors that create what is termed "mental illness".

Was it as easy as taking a pill to calm the racing thoughts?

No.

Was it is as simple as grabbing the Ativan to ease the feelings of panic?

No.

Was it worth the effort, the time, the investment to learn how to create this change?

Hell yes.

I am not out to change anyones mind about the "bio genetic medical model" of what is termed "MI" or that "meds" don't have a place in this kind of journey...

But -

I believe that each of us has the right to be educated and completely, honestly and with complete transparency

informed that there is

another option

that we can learn how to create the change we want

that it is not as mystical, mysterious and magical to find this awareness and insight as I had been led to believe it was.

That it is possible to begin to live the life we want

not the diagnosis we were given.

We are a brilliant species. Our brain and body so much more capable than what we have often come to believe...

and it breaks my heart to see the potential that is lost to the belief that the only solution is to follow the Pied Piper.

**

You can read more behind my personal journey in the following posts....

Was it worth it?

Once Broken Does Not Mean Forever Broken

The Wind Never Lies

Black and White: The Zebra Effect

"I've got a feelin'"

I Ceased to Exist

Claiming A New Paradigm...For Myself

And if you are looking for resources to support your own journey, I'd like to invite you to check the Resources page here.