Permenant recovery - can people who have this please reply..

Hi, everyone.

This is a thread for people who have found, and journeyed there way to permenant, drug-free full recovery!

I myself discovered first great insight in my experiences. Every "episode" that I had, gave me greater insight into myself, reality, and my emotions and mind, despite a great many misperceptions (aka delusions). Paying attention to what this was telling me, how my mind was working at the time, at a deep level, both enabled me to identify my inner issues, and get a real sense of what was going on for me mentally, when I fell out of mental balance.

A few recurrent experiences, and each took me further and further away from being overwhelmed or confused, until they no longer occured. It's been about, hmm, 5 years now.

I found first of all, two techniques, DBT and mindfulness of great great benefit. It was this that made me pay attention to what was occuring, at the very base almost invisible levels of my mind, and develop the skills to stop or start such processes willfully, or change my mental focus, so that I did not get caught in loops. Basically, I truely, really watched my thoughts, emotions, reflections and processes.

I also spent a lot of time regarding and figuring out my spirituality and philosophy so I could not only get a concrete sense of the mysteries that sometimes plagued me, but more importantly get a stable sense of life meaning which I lacked before my experiences began. That life meaning helped ground me in a way, that I was early on, clearly clumsily groping for.

I now feel that I am fully, permenantly recovered. Should I ever feel unbalanced again, I have tremedous insight into that process, and I would recognise it at the begining anyway. I have never taken medications outside of my few stays in mental hospital, and have felt clearer and better all the time. The whole experience basically helped me to grow, become a more stable, happier, wiser, more insightful person.

If only id been able to go through this experience, with an insightful guide, and insightful society, rather than been, in the begining at least, rather the loose cannon and getting no real help from anyone outside. It could have run so much easier and quicker if somebody around me had a clue.

So, anyway, we have dialectic behavioural therapy, mindfulness - useful. A good diet and lifestyle seems to help, I eat SO well these days, and I am sure that plays a role (does in studies too, things like choline, omega-3 - so its definately going to help to eat well). Mindfulness and DBT have a wide range of applications for mental health, and a high degree of efficacy.

Apparently Jung developed effective methods for curing mental illness/psychosis, veiwed as a "psychic crisis", and jungian therapists follow him have also had successes with treatment.

Rufus May, used to have schizophrenia, and cured himself, and now offers a protocol for healing/resolving with psychosis. He uses non-aggressive dialogue approachs with heard voices as one example of his technique.

And there is some Scandinavian non-drug programmes than have had very high levels of success rates with curing and healing psychosis. (Something id love to hear more about if anyone has any links)

So theres lots of stuff out there to help people heal and recover, fully and permanently from mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bi polar. Sadly, not much in most peoples actual neighbourhood, just lockdown and compulsary mental sedation and not alot of enlightened attitudes. But if you can get through that, relatively unscathed, and still open-minded to the nature of the phenomena, theres plenty of methods you can learn and apply yourself to heal.

Apparently the rate of full permenant recovery is much higher than is thought within the medical community, according to a study I read recently (at least with schizophrenia, the rate they found has 50-60%, instead of the dismal 10% generally touted).

Many of these recoverers must have to develop the mental and practice methods themselves, because psychiatrists and psychologists ironically often have little insight into the workings of the mind. Practices like yoga, meditation, tai chi and diet and exercise feature regularly, as well as various mental approaches. And I hear this sort of thing on the net ALL THE TIME, about people who recover permenantly from mental illness (Well, I guess I do because I am game to talk about it, and that opens folks up). But very very often they say they just worked it out themselves, changed their lifestyle radically, and took up some mental practices.

So Id love to hear from others that have had permenant recovery if you care to comment?

(bipolar, schizophrenia, whatever really)

How did you get to that point?

And any non-drug treatments people have heard of out there, or have tried....



PS, NB, PLEASE NOTE:

This is NOT a thread for people who do not believe this is possible, you have plenty of those threads already I imagine already....that perspective has been echoed, repeated as many times as a dog has barks..Ask if you are curious about things, but please do not waste time to repeat psychiatries dsm-iv faith dogmas - thanks very muchly!

Can you post some of your insights about the inner workings of bipolar disorder (via your mindfulness meditation)?

What do you believe is "going wrong" that causes such distress?

What really is bipolar mania?
What really is bipolar depression?

I'm talking about deep insights from the inside, not a clinical explanation of the behaviors from the outside which you'll find on any psychology website. I want to know how what you've discovered about how the mind works and what "errors" are being made come together to cause this "disorder."

What insights have you gleaned from mindfulness that you believe would help other people fully recover (or at the very least trigger similar insights in others, possibly leading to full recovery)?

Youve asked quite an involved question there. While I am aware of thoughts and how they go when I think them, it might take some examination to explain some of what I have found. Much of it is to do with emotion, and some to do with a sense or yearning for meaning, or context. Theres definately some "attribution error", where inside is given value outside, and theres something to how we view our internal processes, and the importance, or place we give them.

Theres "tricks" and "skills" I have picked up.

I remember finding myself like a fan of a mystery show, so keen on reach the end of some mental thread, just kind of unraveling philosophical mysteries feindishly, or reality uncertainties, based on the emotional drive, toward conspiracy or spirituality, going further and further from some kind of simple starting point, creating a sort of hall of mirrors, to the point where I had distanced myself from direct experience alot. I can sense when I have a thought that leads this sort of direction now, and I only indulge it so far as I need to, and then let it go. In part its just, um, familiarity, and recognising the emotions and the sort of uncertainty....

I dont think that paragraph really expresses what I am driving at quite right. Theres alot more to it all than this very breif answer.

But I think to give my answer the proper time, I think I will have to come back to it tommorow, and see if I can try to give the topic of what ive found in my thinking, some clarity and the detail it really is due....

I will certainly attempt to answer

I think this is a great thread for people to come together who feel like minded about recovery. I wonder about how narrow the focus is however? Why does recovery have to mean that you are no longer taking medication? Can't people choose for themselves what recovery means to them? I would argue that recovery is as much about restoring hope, choice and freedom as it is about not experiencing symptoms. I've always liked SAMHSA definition of recovery which is,

A process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and strive to reach their full potential.

http://blog.samhsa.gov/2012/03/23/defin ... y-updated/

Cheze2 wrote:I think this is a great thread for people to come together who feel like minded about recovery. I wonder about how narrow the focus is however? Why does recovery have to mean that you are no longer taking medication? Can't people choose for themselves what recovery means to them?

The narrower a thread topic, the better, in my opinion. It means the thread becomes a useful reference for people in the future, rather than being a bunch of often unrelated opinions on different aspects of mental health.

Recovery without medication is obviously the ideal to strive for - we still have no real idea of the long term effects of antidepressants, for example. I definitely DON'T want to have to take antidepressants for the rest of my life unless absolutely necessary so am very interested in what people say here.

Thanks to the original poster for a great topic.

Sorry I am a bit busy over the next day or so, didnt realise I would be.

I dont think drug-free recovery nessasarily needs to mean that you experience none of your prior experiences, but I think it should mean that you have enough insight or skills to manage it. Alot of say, spiritual people like channellers have their years of losing their balance, and they go onto to master their skill, and write books. So I dont think we need to exclude "expansive" thinking, I just think it needs a kind of managed context, and place.

I just wanted to say a few things, before I go into my own thought processes later.

Mindfulness is, um, not thinking. It can be just noticing whats around you, physically, or just doing what you are doing. Its avoiding the impulse to interpret. Its a skill that you can practice thats highly useful. Its taken from eastern meditation practice.

DBT, is kinda similar. Its taking the "hot/warm" and matching it with the "cold", which is basically taking the imaginative, or emotive, and then matching it with the logical, physical, or matter of fact. Its another practice that can be used to "switch it off", when you need too.

Basically, if you practice these sort of skills regularly, and watch your thinking you get better and better and seeing your process unfold, and when you need to switch it off - and you get better at that too. Once you've expanded your mind this way, you do have a tendancy to keep doing it from time to time. I guess it stays in your memory, and in your personality. But you can give your flights of fancy a home, and a territory, rather than let them run rampant. It does take a lot of practice to get good at. One of the benefits, is that it does still allow you to explore things "in that deep way" a little, which can have benefits, due to insight. Both two techniques that can start you on the road of having some real control (it takes awhile of practice, so don't expect that such will kick in straight away)

Id define 'bipolar depression", at least from where and how I experienced it - as a genuine feeling of overwhelming sadness. This is the cause of the rest of it. Its because your past has been dragging you down, its because your unhappy with your life, its because you dont really have a sense of place or purpose, or a philosophy of life to truely hang you hat on. Its because your "head system" isnt working out for ya. Its real genuine sadness, just like anyone else who is sad.

Id define "bipolar mania", from my experience, as your minds radical attempt to re-arrange the mental funiture - just like Jung thought of it as. Sadly this radical last ditch rearrangement- its a bit like the first steps of a baby's feet, the motions and movements are wildly awkward. The attempted "beaming positivity" and "courage" are over exaggerated, and unrealistic.

Theres an escapist quality, and while you are exploring all these deep feelings you hold, in the symbolism of delusions, and trying to rearrange that future, you attach to anything that gives you releif from that pain you were in. "Your being watched, poisoned your special, your jesus", and this inner world that suddenly projected onto your concious mind is misattributed as being real - for a moment through this you are free of your existential pain, despite potential paranoia and a load of unwanted consequences. Of course, already, the babies feet slip, and it all ends in tears.... You can maintain that positive attitude, you dont have the energy to keep up with that activity, your projected inner symbolism has landed you in trouble, as has your cartoonish courage...

Each of those instincts makes its own sense. Going within, sorting out your feelings, re-examining your world veiw, maintaining a basic low level positivity (but also allowing yourself to get sad every now and again), and confidence. These are all good methods, they are just practised without insight or finesse. You can make yourself a little happier with attitude, or braver. It just does actually take energy to maintain. And you can sort out your perspective and your philosophy and feelings by exploring your inner symbolism - but just not by getting totaly lost in it.

But its all exagerated and awkward. And we find some deep reality in there too, because the rest of the world isnt really looking at the deep layers that underlie our lives. This inner world, and our feelings and assumptions that drive everything, this subtle underlying reality is just invisible to many folk - so we come out thinking, hmmm, I know a bit more about how mind and world work.

So there are many positives the experience initiates, IF you can refine them, very importantly control the tendancy to thought spiral into fantasy, and make some sense of it all, especially from our normal state of mind, where we can think about what happened and think "oh, maybe this delusion was about this feeling I have", or "hmm, you know I could use beleiving in something like that, but that was wack crazy. Maybe ill get a philosophy or meditation book from the library or net". maybe I could use a beleif in god, or whatever thing you think you can take, and turn into something refined and usable.

Anyway, ill go into more in a few days on what I found about my thinking. And let me know guys if you think this is too broad, or too much info

-- Mon Mar 11, 2013 11:57 am --

Can't maintain

There is no such thing as permanent recovery. Bipolar disorder sufferers fall into two categories: those that have a single episode and those that have multiple episodes.

Those that have single episodes can live a life free of medication, those that have multiple episodes can have years or even decades between episodes. Also the more manic episodes your have the more likely you are to have further episodes.

After being diagnosed at 18 (following a manic psychotic episode and forced hospital admission) I was compliant with medication for 12 months and then discontinued medication. I experienced "permanent recovery" until my next episode at age 29. Now I have manic/hypomanic episodes interspersed with major depression every 6-12 months (now age 35).

Permanent recovery is a fallacy. Bipolar disorder is a chronic illness. Everyone experiences "permanent recovery" (some of it drug free) until their next episode.

^ I did ask in my opening post, for people not to come into this thread making those sorts of assertions. We have all heard them before. For some reason people feel the need, whenever I bring up this topic, to re-state what we have all heard before, as is so prevelant as an idea, you can ask someone on the street and they will give this answer.

I am sorry to say, theres actually no science behind what you say, there is no evidence that people cannot recover, or that medication-free people cannot manage completely their symptoms. There is in fact even no proof that mental illness is even an organic disease, a structural or chemical issue. If such existed wed be diagnosed by a blood test, or a brain scan, instead of by symptoms.

I actually have a psych degree, so I know a lot about what science does and doesn't exist, and a lot about the brain. All we currently know, is that in the very short term, people respond to medication.

What compounds this lack of knowledge, and the prevailing assumptions, is that there are no long term efficacy studies on these drugs - and long-term is where we would expect medications to either stop working, or actually make things worse - thats what the emerging evidence implies about other drugs like anti-depressants, and biochemically, its what wed expect from downregulation of the receptors.

Doctors frequently encounter emergent drug tolerance, and this is talked about in the feild. The usual strategy is to switch drugs, but if the mechanism or underlying pathway is the same, really we have no guarantees this will not still result in downregulation, and thus an increase in episodes.

I am not saying it does or doesn't, but theres no evidence long term use of drugs is effective either.

Psychiatry makes a lot of claims it cannot back up, like the sort of thing your repeating right there, and it has done so for a long time.

There are also of course medical studies on non-drug approaches proving their efficacy for a variety of mental illnesses, and that body of evidence is growing slowly.

I mean, there are definately people, who after either single or multiple episodes, go the rest of their life without any episodes, without medication. To classify these people as still bipolar, and just "lucky", or an anomaly, is a circular logic, thus a logical fallacy.

For me its been five years, which is interesting because statistically, one expects the frequency of episodes to increase when off medication. What I found practicing non-drug therapies, and being more insightful about my mental experience was the exact opposite of what statistics generally find on average, amongst non-therapy receiving people off drugs, my episodes got less and less frequent, milder, more managable until they stopped.

The last episode I had, I was so cognizant and had so much insight, that I stopped in immediately with a psych, got a script, started on some medication. I was managing what I was experiencing so well, that i a) took the drugs straight away b) no one could even tell any real difference in me, even the psychiatrists. That was the last time, 5 years ago, I had an episode.

Anecdotally, I have met lots of people on the net who have been decades without an episode due to non-drug therapies. There are even people with schizophrenia who have fully recovered, such as rufus may who I mentioned. He now works, symptom free as a clinical psychologist. And its interesting the stories of these people, how they deal with their symptoms, and how they adjusted dramatically their lifestyle is always remarkably similar. Ill get back to that below.

Its also noteworthy, that one of the fathers of psychology, Jung, proposed an emotional/mental mechanism for mental illness, and his techniques have been also applied with success.

But I really do not want this thread to be about arguing the assumptions of psychiatry, or prevailing dogma. I really dont - there are many other threads on this forum where you can work under those assumptions.

I would prefer this thread to be about the discussion of long-term recovery, and non-drug therapies.Anything else is off-topic to the intention of the thread.

If people do want to try drug free approaches, they should most certainly work hard to up their skills in these techniques over time, work hard on their mental and emotional insight, change their life and mind mode, and get the assistance and support of a psychiatrist to monitor their progress. Its a long term thing, and you want some "training wheel" type safety net for it.

There is no doubt that short term, the drugs work. If your spinning out, or out of balance, the drugs often are needed so that something bad doesn't happen. And they work most effectively in this capacity In this short term capacity as we know. The advantage of having deep levels of insight, due to non-drug approaches, is that you are far more aware of your process, if you do get unbalanced. And conversely thats the disadvantage to drug methods, that because little skills or insight are actively pursued, and episodes still occur under medication, the person is no better prepared for how to deal with it mentally, or practically, and more dependant on services and drugs to manage this problem for them.

I am not suggesting that anyone with a mental illness "go it alone", or go without any form of therapy, ever. If youve been out of balance enough to get a diagnosis, the whatever course you take, you need to be aware that this is the risk you are attempting to manage. You don't learn to fly a plane, for example, without careful instruction and support - as a vague analogy.

But non-drug therapies should be considered an option and there is increasing evidence for their efficacy, and anecdotally many people do, either with single or multiple episodes, go indefinately without relapse.

The very fact that many of the side effects of these medications can be quite severe (organ failure, death, nervous system disorders, loss of cognition), even such that they would not be tolerated or considered acceptable in the treatment of different diseases, means that from a personal choice and ethics perspective, we should be ethically compelled to investigate, and have an open mind towards alternatives.

Programs such as "hearing voices", mindfulness, Dialectic behavioural therapy, nutritional influence on mental illness have been shown in studies to work, and have a low level, but increasing amount of acceptance within the psychiatric community. As I say, we are ethically compelled to open-minds further to these and similar techniques, and to further advocate them as choices to mental health consumers.

In my country, new zealand, we have a mental health nurse, who was so horrified by her experience of the heavy drugging of mental health patients, she explored the alternatives, and she is marching the length of our country, on foot, giving talks and holding meetings to raise awareness of non-drug approaches.

Here's her blog:
http://hikoiforhealthychoices.wordpress.com/

Heres rufus may's website:
http://www.rufusmay.com/

Heres some videos on mindfulness:
http://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/page/123 ... eos-audios

Heres a video on DBT:
http://youtu.be/lg5jyal1m6w

Hearing voices network (there are group meetings for this almost everywhere):
http://www.hearing-voices.org/

Heres a thread from this very forum, with someone talking about there experience of bipolar recovery:
bipolar/topic23917.html

Heres a blog from another person talking about their recovery (note the similarities with the above):
http://intentions.wordpress.com/2008/02 ... -12-steps/

Recovery from schizophrenia case studies:
http://www.researchgate.net/publication ... t_happened
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22182456

Exercise and bi-polar, studies:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.100 ... rue#page-1

Sunlight exposure:
http://www.dailyhealthreport.org/bipola ... sure/1380/

Nutritional links, Summary:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/31374 ... t-bipolar/

Nutritional links, studies: Choline:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8874839

Nutritional links, studies, omega-3:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21903025

Interpersonal therapy for bipolar, study:
http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article ... id=1108410

Cognitive therapy for bipolar, study:
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/178/41/s164.full

Hopefully these links will be useful to everyone, so perhaps this off-topic diversion has served a useful purpose here

Interestingly, what we find in common, and we really do find alot in common, with all these many stories of self discovered recovery, is a combination of radical life changes.

Firstly, there is always some form of dietary and exercise or general lifestyle changes. Secondly, there is a dedicated switch to mental and emotional focusing techniques, weather that be tai chi, yoga, meditation, mindfulness, DBT or all of the above. Often there is a change in world view, along with the radicle change in lifestyle.

That was also my experience. I had to change the way I thought about, felt about, and did, everything, and I really had to apply myself, over time, to the change. I became spiritual, I practice tai chi, and grew skills in mindfulness and DBT, I changed my diet, i took up regular gentle exercise, I spent alot of time dealing with my history and emotions, both introspectively and in therapy. I commited also to a constant growth, a near constant sense of hope and direction. I re-examined my goals. I basically re-arranged every "peice of furniture in my mind and life".

The science actually supports the notion that perhaps the combination of all these methods should be very effective, as the are all found to individually, statistically, have some efficacy. And given results like tardive dyskinesia, the heavy sedation and incarceration of mental health patients, organ failure, lowering of cognitive function, affect, and even death as a side effect of the many medicines, again, we really are ethically compelled to open our mind from the dogma, and consider veiwing this picture in another way.

The only thing I can comment, about your personal experience there manictoaster, is that you mention nothing about non-drug therapies, lifestyle changes, or doing anything at all, other than stopping the medication.

If indeed thats representative, I don't think anyone would be surprised, that having a mental/emotional imbalance, that results in an episode of extreme unbalance due to triggers, and not doing actually anything about it, would risk recurrence of the extreme unbalance.

Again, if that is representative of what happened to you, thats really a million miles from what I am talking about here in this thread.

This is "hard yards" stuff, changing your mind, diet, emotions, lifestyle, learn skills etc, while under the supervision of a psychiatrist, is not at all equivilant to just stopping your medication without addressing or doing anything.

Thank you for your well reasoned and structured response. I concur that discontinuing medication without the "hard yards" approach of non medication therapy is useless.

The thing that I have issue with is permanent recovery vs the advocation of an approach that validates the withdrawal of medication and "cure" (ie I no longer have BP) that some members of our community espouse. I framed my response with this in mind and I apologise.

Whether you have had one episode or a dozen, one needs to be mindful of the fact in order to be high functioning with bipolar disorder (ie holding down a job, paying your bills, maintaining relationships etc etc) one needs treatment; medication, coping strategies, non medication based therapies, all of the above. I take exception to those that say they no longer have BP or are cured, you are only "cured" until your next episode.

I based my response on my own experience and personal bias. Sorry for taking this off track.