Claiming A New Paradigm For Myself-Part 3 (conclusion)

Photo credit here

In the first segment of this series "Claiming A New Paradigm For Myself" I discussed how I became empowered to find my own answers when I let go of "illness" and began to embrace "wellness".

In Part 2 I shared some of the information that has influenced how I view the paradigm of "mental illness" and how I began to make that mind-shift from accepting “illness” as my focus to claiming this new paradigm of "wellness" for myself.

And today, in Part 3, I wanted to bring this series to an end with looking at tying this train of thought together and suggest that we can make room for a new paradigm, a different view - a view of "wellness" that we can add to our “toolbox”.

Claiming A New Paradigm For Myself – Part 3 (conclusion)

The issue for me as I have traveled this journey is that while I was accepting “illness” as my “paradigm” - and the offered solutions as the only solutions available - is that I felt helpless to change anything about my life because I felt hopeless that there was anything more that I could have outside of “illness”.

And what I’ve realized is that this “paradigm” of “illness” required me to be dependent on someone or something outside of myself…

And that I felt very dis-empowered.

And that there are other options.

“Mental illness” is often compared to things like diabetes or heart disease.

And in this paradigm of “illness” we as a society have learned to view these “diseases” as unavoidable, “genetic”….and scary.

A lack of knowledge had led us to believe that the only solution was the pills and surgeries that would “manage” these issues; but there was no “cure”. We were destined by “genetics” to be “sick” and dependent on people, places and things outside of ourselves for our solutions.

We believed that there was nothing we could do to change this; that we were "powerless" over "genetics".

Yet today, there has been a “paradigm shift” as we have come to understand through new knowledge that both diabetes and heart disease are often related to an unhealthy lifestyle and are very manageable…

And can even be overcome and turned around with lifestyle changes such as how we cope with stress, by eating fewer processed foods and consuming more whole foods, by getting off the couch and incorporating activity into our daily lives and so on…

So as I began to look at this “paradigm” or accepted way of viewing the issues of cognitive and emotional distress and its relationship and influence on how I “coped”…

I realized that Psychology had already given us much to work with and that I could learn to live differently.

That I could use labels like “diagnosis” and “symptoms” as a guide to show me the path to living in a state of “wellness”.

And although I didn’t set out to do this - what I ended up with is my own paradigm that took me from “illness” to “wellness”.

A path that helped me to find my way “through the darkness to get to the light” at the end of the tunnel - but I hadn’t yet seen as I’d been stuck on managing “illness” and blind to the idea that there was a light that truly existed.

This mind-shift – letting go of “illness” - empowered me to learn to live in a state of “well being” instead of medicating “symptoms”, managing a “disease” and existing day to day, surviving – but never “living”.

Part of making this mind-shift was realizing that by hanging onto the labels of “mental illness”, disease, disorder…I felt “powerless”. There was nothing I could do about an “illness” that I had accepted as “genetic” and therefore “unchangeable”.

It was when I chose “wellness” that I truly understood that I held the power to change my life within my own being.

~

Thank you for reading along as I dissected the process that I followed in my discovery that there truly were more options available to overcoming the emotional and cognitive distress that we have come to call “mental illness”.

Just as I learned to begin to ask the questions that empowered me to make that mind-shift from “illness” and instead choose my own paradigm of “wellness” – I hope you will begin to ask your own questions, search out your own answers and find the freedom to create and live your own “best life” – and that very simply, is the life that you choose for yourself each day.

I'd like to invite you to join me on the first Thursday of each month on Blog Talk Radio as I host the Heal My PTSD program “Empowering Solutions” where our goal is to offer you information, tools and resources that will empower you to create - and live - your own “best life”.

~ Susan

Q: What are your thoughts? How can you claim a new story for yourself?

I wanted to understand this "Paradigm" of "Mental Illness"

Map of Science

(def) paradigm |ˈparəˌdīm|

noun1 technical a typical example or pattern of something; a model : there is a new paradigm for public art in this country. See note at model .• a worldview underlying the theories and methodology of aparticular scientific subject : the discovery of universal gravitation became the paradigm of successful science.

Throughout my journey I have learned to rely more on my own ability to gain an understanding of and make decisions relating to the direction I have chosen to take (learning to fish for a lifetime) vs depending on others to provide me my answers or offer me my solutions (being "fed" for a day).

Today I wanted to introduce just a few of the ideas that I've taken into consideration that has empowered me to take charge of my healing journey and make that shift from dependence on people, places and things to define, label or "fix" me and begin to see myself as my own best resource...and advocate...as I made that shift from viewing myself through the paradigm of "illness" and created my own paradigm of "wellness".

You can read Creating A New Paradigm...For Myself Part 1 here.

At the online Encyclopedia, Wikepedia, Kuhn defines a scientific paradigm as:.

• what is to be observed and scrutinized
• the kind of questions that are supposed to be asked and probed for answers in relation to this subject
• how these questions are to be structured
• how the results of scientific investigations should be interpreted

Below are a few links on the research behind the field of Psychiatry, as we know it...

i.e. the industry and persons charged with constructing, asking and answering those questions that have created the currently accepted paradigm of the last 50 or 60 years about "mental illness", how it is defined, communicated, viewed and ultimately....how it and those given these diagnosis are treated and the therapies used to do so:

• "An SSRI maker flew my entire group to a Caribbean island," remembered a doctor from the East coast who did not want to be identified. Anymore. Source: No free pens....but big pharma influence still felt at Psychiatric meeting

• "After reports that most donations made to the big advocacy group came from drug makers in recent years, NAMI agreed to disclose its funding sources". Source: Read about Senetor Charles Grassley's investigation into the major source of NAMI's funding here.

• Read the article from the New York Times reporting that NAMI is funded largely by "Big Pharma" as exposed by Senator Grassley in 2009

• A video by Robert Whitaker on "Rethinking Psychiatric Care"

• Visit the National Empowerment Center and read about Daniel Fisher who became a psychiatrist after recovering from "Schizophrenia"

• At Amazon you can find the work of Dr. Colin Ross who as a psychiatrist is able to tell us the good, the bad and the truly ugly secrets behind psychiatry as it has become known. "Trauma Model: A solution to the problem of Co Morbidity in psychiatry" and his personal story and frustrations with the industry of psychiatry in "The Great Psychiatry Scam"

• Read recovery stories from those who've found their way out of the cycle of dependence on drugs to manage their mental wellness at the Blog rated #3 as "Top Health Blog" among numerous other awards as related to health and mental health issues. Source: Beyond Meds by Gianna Kali

• Read the post "A Tale Of Two Boys" that causes me to consider not only what we do to ourselves as adults, but the plight of the children who suffer and struggle.

• Read my personal story of how I was "groomed" to enter and participate in the "mental health system" here. "A bit of a rant, part of my story...how I became "suicidal".
• 
  
• And again...take a look at Robert Whitakers book that methodically and systematically reveals the Psychiatric industry as a huge marketing machine....

• And the DSM V; the "Bible" of psychiatric diagnosis - 68% of those charged with this newest version - the "DSM V" - reveal that they have ties to the Pharmaceutical Industry.

So here I've laid out for you some of the information that has influenced how I view the paradigm of "mental illness" and how I began to make that mind-shift to claiming this new paradigm of "wellness" for myself...

And hopefully I have reassured you that I didn't go off the "deep end" or a "witch hunt" against the millions of Doctors, Therapists and other helpers who have oftentimes affected and changed our lives for the better...and sometimes saved them.

In fact, this understanding has empowered me to understand these relationships better and made me a better advocate for myself and freeing me from that dependence to be "fed for a day".

I hope you'll join me here again as I continue to unravel this idea of "paradigm" and making that mind-shift from dependence on others for my answers to finding and creating my own paradigm of "wellness" based on my personal belief that with new information I could make the choice to find "wellness".

I hope you'll check the June 2010 archives and read more in the series "Claiming A New Paradigm For Myself".

Claiming A New Paradigm For Myself-Part 2

Picture Credit here.

(def) paradigm |ˈparəˌdīm|

noun1 technical a typical example or pattern of something; a model : there is a new paradigm for public art in this country. See note at model .• a worldview underlying the theories and methodology of aparticular scientific subject : the discovery of universal gravitation became the paradigm of successful science.

Throughout my journey I have learned to rely more on my own ability to gain an understanding of and make decisions relating to the direction I have chosen to take (learning to fish for a lifetime) vs depending on others to provide me my answers or offer me my solutions (being "fed" for a day).

I had a need to understand the current "medical" or "biological" model of the mental health system and the psychology behind it.

I mean...I couldn't just go "off the deep end" and make things up - that would be, well, most would consider that to be "crazy". :)

I thought if I found an understanding of my issues and the available solutions - then maybe I could figure out what it was that I was doing "wrong"...

why I wasn't getting "better" after committing myself to following the instructions of the "providers" that held my life in their hands for over 15 years...

why I was still depressed, anxious, manic, irritable, my relationships were still volatile so isolation was my "safe place". Why I couldn't sleep for more than a few hours without waking and oftentimes unable to get back to sleep.

Why after 15 years of "therapy" and "meds"....the "magic combination" hadn't been found for me still.

What I found in my research, education, through my own experience, insight and in conversations with my providers themselves after having "woken up" from the deep cognitive and emotional trance of living in a drugged stupor all those years....

is that they - the "providers" of these "mental health" services" - really didn't know how to help me and relied on "meds" and "talk therapy" to "manage" my thoughts, emotions and behaviors; they "needed" me to be "biologically defective" in order to fit into their "paradigm".

"Wellness" was not a part of their beliefs - their "paradigm" - in the "biological" model of "mental illness".

And I wanted more from life than what this "paradigm" offered me.

You can read Creating A New Paradigm...For Myself Part 1 here.

You can read I wanted to understand this "Paradigm..." here.

**

I hope you'll join me here again as I continue to unravel this idea of "paradigm" and making that mind-shift from dependence on others for my answers to finding and creating my own paradigm of "wellness" based on my personal belief that with new information I could make the choice to find "wellness".

The next article in this series will post next week - I'd like to invite you to register for email updates (on sidebar) to be notified of new content.

Claire Did A Doodle!

Doodle credit here:)

Thank you Claire!

Recently I finished a little series that I did on the idea that it was possible to make that mind-shift from "illness" to one of "wellness". You can check out part 1 here...and part 2 here and the conclusion to the series here.

And if I've missed anything you can jump up to the top left corner of your page and search the entire blog for "paradigm":)

So anyway - this series got my friend, Claire, wondering about that word..."paradigm". And she went off on a bit of an adventure to see what all the hoopla was about...

As things happen - Claire is an artist; a doodler and a bit of a comic on top of being a student in search of her degree in counseling somewhere in England just north of Liverpool (so she says in her "About me" page :-)

The picture at the top of the page is the "doodle" that Claire came up with after reading the series here that got her thinking of that dastardly word "paradigm" that started this quest of Claires...and I'd like to invite you to drop by her blog to read the very interesting article she wrote about this facinating word...

Paradigm.

You can visit this page at Claire's blog by clicking....here.

Enjoy your visit to Claire's House...and please remember to leave a message telling her that you dropped by via that blog that has the really cool Zebra photo!

Q: What do you think of when you hear that word - "Paradigm"?

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!

Claiming A New Paradigm...For Myself

So back to the idea of "can we shift from a mindset of "illness" to one of "wellness"...

Part of making that shift from "illness" to "wellness" mindset was choosing to see "diagnosis" and "symptoms" as something I can learn to change vs. seeing these labels as something I "have"...and I have no control over or power to change.

In talking with others I've noticed how they, like me in the past, talk about their mental wellness - or lack of it - as though it is a "thing".

And while it's true that this is the message we've been getting since Bill W. called alcoholism a "disease of the mind"...I found that in owning this message I was left feeling very dis-empowered. Or if you've been around for awhile, you may notice this is an idea that falls under that concept of "feeling powerless" (click to listen to what I said about "powerless" on BTR)

I felt powerless to change because I viewed my coping mechanisms of "acting out"; irritability, anger, aggression, hyper-vigilance ie the "lashing out" at the world and others - as well as the "acting in"; depression, dissociation, insomnia aka the "self harming" behaviors -as related to this "diagnosis" that told me that I had some "genetic" mutation in my genes that made it impossible to change"it" or the behaviors related to it.

By "buying into" the idea that my emotional and cognitive distress was something I "had" ie "I HAVE (fill in the blank with whatever your "diagnosis" or "symptom" is)..."

I was left feeling as though I had no power to change my life because that is what I had been told by the providers of...and is the "standard of care" in the biological, genetic, medical, disease model of mental health issues.

It was hard letting go of this paradigm of "care"...

I mean....come on; these guys are the "doctors", the "providers".....

Yes; but they are not "god".

And I gave them 15 years of my life to "fix me"....

But I found "wellness" when I gave up "illness" as my chosen "paradigm".

Next time....a look at what is a "paradigm" in the sciences....

Q: How have you claimed your own power recently?

The Sting of Stigma Part 4: Kate's and Kristin's Stories

Dictionary.com: Stigma; a mark of disgrace or infamy; a stain or reproach, as on one's reputation. Medicine/Medical: a mental or physical mark that is characteristic of a defect or disease

A few weeks ago I posted a story that I found at Beyond Meds, The Wind Never Lies by Steve Morgan; and the comments have been coming in at a steady pace from all over the world via this blog, Twitter and at Facebook.

And the message I'm hearing is this; "Thank you for bringing up this subject, this happened to me too."

Below are two more comments; one from a Facebook friends, Kate, who agreed to let me share it with you and Kristin...

Last week Kate left this message in a comment on the post The Sting of Stigma - Part 3.

"I noticed that no one gets flowers in the psych hospital. As the central office secretary for the school district, I ordered dozens of bouquets for employees, spouses and students when there was an illness or injury. People in my small town have fundraisers, bottle drives and public suppers when someone has surgery, but when I had a psychotic break and landed in the psych ward? Not so much as a card. No one would talk about it, people avoided me. No one noticed when my car was repossessed - by then most of the friends I though I had faded away. Some people even accused me of making it all up, for attention. Funny, I never heard anyone accuse someone of making up a gall bladder attack or cancer..."

Kate continues...

"I was taught from infancy that I was bad, I was worthless and caused trouble for those around me, so it was a natural conclusion that my symptoms represented more evidence that I was defective. It is a huge paradigm shift to move from "I am defective/sick" to "I was abused". It is an even greater shift to conclude that others abused me and that I am reacting to that injury - I am not, in fact, defective, but responding appropriately to very inappropriate events.

Thanks for your post - it is a great perspective."

You can connect with Kate at her blog here.

And here is what Kristin, Mom to a young woman who fights her own battles each day, has to say in the comments of this same post...The Sting of Stigma - Part 3.

"lifeisterminal is am so sorry. It is so unfair. Your post is great, Susan. Thank you. Even in my own family the stigma reins. My daughter is "spoiled" not mentally ill. The book I wrote about her struggle and our family's fruitless search for help should be put under the bed and forgotten. Or, better yet, destroyed. And, on the count of three, smile - everyone, no exceptions...

Only, it doesn't work like that for my daughter and trying to explain why she doesn't feel like smiling is impossible because no one believes me. Like I made up mental illness to cover for her "bad behavior". It is disappointing but I hope that the more people talk openly about mental illness, the more the stigma will fall away. xx Kris"

Kris added this on another post...

"This reminds me of why my daughter once said to me, "I wish I had cancer." It was a devastating choice - to choose to have cancer over mental illness but I could totally understand her point of view. And, here is the proof that she was right; people with cancer do get the attention that she was looking for. The kind of caring approval that has been missing from her life. xx Kris"

You can find Kristin at her blog Borderline Families.

Stigma: Stigma; a mark of disgrace or infamy; a stain or reproach, as on one's reputation. Medicine/Medical: a mental or physical mark that is characteristic of a defect or disease

Stigma sucks.

Remove the "mark" - remove the shame.

It's that easy.

Next week we'll conclude this series The Sting of Stigma...and begin a journey into the idea of a new paradigm - an idea, a thought, a change - about shifting away from the shame related to "mental illness" toward a new paradigm of claiming and creating a new world for ourselves...a world full of empowering solutions.

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

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!

I Ceased To Exist

Photo credit link

"When I accepted "illness" as my chosen paradigm I was rendered a slave, to my genes and my biology. I believed that I was somehow "broken", that my "personality" was "set" and unchangeable. I became dependent on people places and things outside of myself to make me feel "ok" and to manage "me" and all that encompasses being "me"...my thoughts, emotions and behaviors. I ceased to exist as a "being" when I accepted "diagnosis". I became helpless when I accepted "illness" and I became hopeless when I believed there was no solution to be had.

Until I chose to create my own paradigm of "wellness".

~Susan