How We Make Ourselves Happy

charter: replying to yours of 7/14 at 4:59pm: I'm glad you're not selling anything. And glad to find our views seem to be closer together, towards agreement in part at least. Open back and forth discussion, without anger can do that.

Rather than finding further points or issues we might discuss, I plan to spend my next writing time, inviting patients posting in various diagnoses to read and reply in this topic. I usually try to offer a suggestion I hope might be useful for them to try. Alternative, anti-pysch viewpoints can be helpful for some patients. We could discuss that. Do you believe they can? A few patients have thanked me for suggestions I have made, saying they tried them and found them helpful. The suggestions came, of course, from my anti-psych .viewpoint.

"I agree with the previous reply, and then wonder why you both do label yourself, esp. the replier above. 5 different labels!!! who labeled you? why do you list them? to this reader it sounds like they are an important part of your identity. Are they?"

I'm replying to Rusty regarding a post on a different forum. To answer your questions I've been in therapy most of my life. Doctors have labeled me. I list them because they ARE a major part of me. I wouldn't be the same girl without them. They change the way I see the world, and though I make a point to live with no regrets, they have caused me to make mistakes, and I've learned from them. I've learned to be happy, and that I'm not alone. They've even influenced my chosen career path, because I want to be able to offer someone else the help I've been given.

Make sense?

Rusty9 wrote:charter: replying to yours of 7/14 at 4:59pm: I'm glad you're not selling anything. And glad to find our views seem to be closer together, towards agreement in part at least. Open back and forth discussion, without anger can do that.

I agree.

Rusty9 wrote:I usually try to offer a suggestion I hope might be useful for them to try. Alternative, anti-pysch viewpoints can be helpful for some patients. We could discuss that. Do you believe they can? A few patients have thanked me for suggestions I have made, saying they tried them and found them helpful. The suggestions came, of course, from my anti-psych .viewpoint.

Interesting questions.

To take your first post in the thread as an example, I can see you raise important issues about to what extent people are in control of their own reactions, etc. There's a lot of implications to those sorts of issues which would be interesting to follow through, and yes I can see that raising those sorts of issues can be helpful.

I am less keen on anti-pysch when it used by organisations as a covert means of promoting their own method of mental health treatment, particularly when they are not upfront about the side effects of their own preferred method. (I'm not saying this is your position, I'm just giving an example of organisational anti-pysch that I would wish to challenge).

Continuing my reply of 7/13 at 3:35pm:

No one has disputed my "outrageous claim" in that reply. Am I mistaken and most viewers do not regard it as "outrageous?"

My recent visit to my cardiologist gave me informal evidence supporting the outrageous claim that most, let's say much, of mental illness in the USA would disappear and the general health of a majority of citizens would improve if they paid attention to establishing healthy breathing habits.

As is usual a med tech tested my blood oxygen. She looked up in surprise and said, "97, well above the bottom of the normal range!" I was pushing an oxygen tank and had the tubes in my nostrils. I asked, "Why the surprise?" She responded, "Almost everyone, on oxygen or not, I tell to take a few deep breaths so I get a reading in the normal range."

That means almost everyone she sees habitually does not take healthy breaths. They breathe the way they unconsciously learned to throughout childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood, even old age. Their breathing habits keep their blood oxygen in the unhealthy range!!!

My observation of people confirms what the lab tech finds. The posture many take habitually prevents taking a deep full healthy breath. The slumped over, stooped people, the chest out aggressive men, the tightly corseted tense stiffly erect women, and the many other odd and distorted postures anyone can observe all prevent breathing fully, deeply, slowly, healthily.

The normal, which means average and certainly does not mean healthy breathing rate, is 16 per minute if my recall is right. For me, who has paid attention to doing healthy breathing for 40 years or more, that feels like panting all the time. When I am resting and keeping my attention on my breathing, I take as few as 4 breaths per minute. That's without oxygen and with my blood oxygen staying in the 90's. When somewhat active while sittng, it may go up to 8 or 9 per minute. If I stand and walk a short distance it will jump to 12 more or less.

349 words. Time to stop. To be continued. I'd appreciate comments, corrections, and what readers have observed regarding their breathing. You could say something that might be helpful to readers. Don't be afraid to post here, no one will bite you!

In reply to yours of 7:15 at 3:41am:

xoPinkerbelle: You may be any of 4 young ladies whose posts I have read. Changing names this old man finds confusing. And it does make a continuing, coherent conversation between 2 people replying in Psych Forums very difficult. You've done 12 posts. Why use a different name from one to another? Or are you a fifth young lady? Or is it totally my old brain not working right?

Yes, your reply makes sense. In therapy most of your life. How could you help but have being a patient as a large part of your identity!! Have you been taking psychiatric medications all that time too? And you feel helped and want to pass it on.

I appreciate your posting in my topic in this Anti-Psych Forum. My anti-psych views derive in part from my career in mental health. A not necessarily anti-psych view of mine, is that mental health treatment should terminate at some point: that the patient while perhaps not cured, stops being and thinking of himself/herself as a patient and starts living an ordinary, non-patient life.
Do you, or any reader, agree? Disagree? Thinking thru and arriving at a firm decision re mental treatment having an end point is especially important for mental health and prospective mental health professionals.

For this reason, I hope you continue replying here, thinking the issue through. I would hope that this, and any future replies I make, might be helpful to your reaching a firm position on interminable vs. therapy that has an end point, that terminates.

A bit more agreement, charter. I don't know how much organizational anti-psych you write of in your last paragraph exists in Psych Forums. Another agreement. Such organizations, out to make a profit from treating mentally ill with unproven methods are reprehensible. Of course, many individuals and organizations are out to make a profit from treating the mentally ill, practically all of those that are not funded by governments or charitable organizations.

You found your treatment and medication helpful. Many do. I and many others have found the reverse. I'd still like to deal with my question of whether anti-psych approaches such as mine which I described briefly can be helpful, perhaps more helpful than the diagnose and medicate approach which is the approach approved of by most of Psych Forums.

I could, of course, be lying when I say I have received some thank you replies for suggestions I have made to people carrying various diagnoses in Psych Forums. But they are on record here and I believe either I or you could search them out.

Do you believe there are quite legitimate anti-psych viewpoints and methods of treatment? What do you make of the many individuals replying in the anti-psych forum who are sure they are far better off without treatment than they would have been with? I am one of them. Many say things like, "I survived psych treatment." "Finally, I escaped, got off meds, and can live a normal life again." "There should be a law against patients being forced to accept treatment." Am I and others who say such things to be ignored? Do you think our viewpoint is legitimate and needs to be considered?

I hope to read your replies to these questions, charter. Copy Cat seems to have disappeared, but I hope she returns.

Rusty9 wrote:I'd still like to deal with my question of whether anti-psych approaches such as mine which I described briefly can be helpful, perhaps more helpful than the diagnose and medicate approach which is the approach approved of by most of Psych Forums.

Hi, I'm hesitant because I'm not sure what precisely the 'anti-psych approach' you're referring to is. Apologies if I'm on the wrong path, but I'll address _this_ approach you mentioned earlier:

I believe it is likely that the yoga and Zen practices along with Tibetan practices more recently arrived in the USA will get better results than no treatment.

Is that the approach you mean? It doesn't seem necessarily to me to be 'anti-psych', in that one could take meds _and_ do yoga/Zen. To answer your question: do I think it could be helpful? Yes. Do I think it could eradicate most/much mental illness? Well, I'd want to see the data supporting that idea. (But then I always want to see the data supporting any treatments). From a boringly practical view, I wonder if it would be difficult to roll-out a nationwide program that kept the same 'purity' of the method, if it requires a special way of doing things specifically targetted at mental health. Therapies often get 'watered down' or simplified as they are rolled-out on a big scale, and can lose their edge through that. After all, it would be an approach suddenly applied to millions and millions of people.

Rusty9 wrote:Do you believe there are quite legitimate anti-psych viewpoints and methods of treatment?

I'll try to reply to those questions. I'm not sure what an 'anti-psych' treatment is. Can one do an 'anti-psych' treatment alongside a psych treatment?

Rusty9 wrote:What do you make of the many individuals replying in the anti-psych forum who are sure they are far better off without treatment than they would have been with? I am one of them.

I find it hard commenting on the experiences of a group to which I don't belong, it's too easy in this life to lump everyone in to one category (which I try not to do). I think my position is that there's a wide range of people who call themselves anti-psych, with a wide range of experiences. Do I believe their experiences? Yes. Do I believe you when you say you're better off without treatment than with treatment? Yes.

On the other hand, there are some people who are convinced they can do without meds and everything's going to be fine, and they find that things go belly up after a while. That's certainly my own experience. But just because I'm on meds, that doesn't mean I think you should be.

Rusty9 wrote:"There should be a law against patients being forced to accept treatment."

That's an incredibly difficult issue, and I don't pretend to have thought out my position on it. I think the only thing I would say is that if psychiatry were abolished tomorrow, that doesn't mean that service users would be just left to do their own thing in a sort of paradise. I think the state would still get involved and lock people up, etc. So it doesn't seem to me to be an issue solely about psychiatry.

Rusty9 wrote:Am I and others who say such things to be ignored? Do you think our viewpoint is legitimate and needs to be considered?

I think all viewpoints and experiences should be considered. My question always is: if psychiatry were abolished tomorrow, what would you want to replace it with? What treatment, administered by whom and to whom? Where's the evidence it would work?

Thanks for your interesting reply.

Rusty9 wrote:In reply to yours of 7:15 at 3:41am:

xoPinkerbelle: You may be any of 4 young ladies whose posts I have read. Changing names this old man finds confusing. And it does make a continuing, coherent conversation between 2 people replying in Psych Forums very difficult. You've done 12 posts. Why use a different name from one to another? Or are you a fifth young lady? Or is it totally my old brain not working right?

Yes, your reply makes sense. In therapy most of your life. How could you help but have being a patient as a large part of your identity!! Have you been taking psychiatric medications all that time too? And you feel helped and want to pass it on.

I appreciate your posting in my topic in this Anti-Psych Forum. My anti-psych views derive in part from my career in mental health. A not necessarily anti-psych view of mine, is that mental health treatment should terminate at some point: that the patient while perhaps not cured, stops being and thinking of himself/herself as a patient and starts living an ordinary, non-patient life.
Do you, or any reader, agree? Disagree? Thinking thru and arriving at a firm decision re mental treatment having an end point is especially important for mental health and prospective mental health professionals.

Oh no. I'm completely new here. I've viewed convos on this site before...but I'm just now making an account. I'm xoPinkerbelleox all day and all night lol.

My family doesn't believe in medication unless it is absolutely NEEDED so no, I've never been on medications (aside from self-medicating and the stuff I did take, I hated). I haven't been in therapy since I was 18, and every time I promise myself I'll go, I later talk myself out of it. I don't really see what going to therapy would do for me at this point. I learned the tools and skills to cope in more positive ways than I have in the past already, it's just up to me to remember them (which is difficult when I'm caught up in the moment). I do go to a support group just to maintain. A big part of my problem was feelings of isolation, so having that safety net has really helped me a lot.

I do think that people should stop therapy and begin normal lives at some point and I believe that aside from issues that seriously require medication, people are WAY over medicated in modern culture. There are many forms of therapy that could be used as an alternative including but not limited to changing of behavior and thought processes. Do I still have panic attacks sometimes? Yes. But it's all about learning to manage.

I am anti-psych because the anti-psychotics I am on, unboubtedly have dreadful side effects. Side effects such as weight gain and hair loss I can deal with. But, feeling slow, zombie-like, emotionless, loss of interest, sexual dysfunction.. These are sufferings that Humans should not have to experience. For some odd reason I could describe these side effects and to the doctor/therapist and they seem to completely care less. To them, it's the only solution and these are problems I must deal with. Or try a different pill. Or my favorite, " these meds don't do that." People that don't have to deal with these problems have absolutely no idea how to relate.

I am currentlly resarching for alternatives and holitic practitioners avaiable, but these are hard to find. Breathing exersies, yoga, healthy eating, spirtuality, and exersie are all steps that might help. But, it can't be done alone, as I have found out. After being off meds for 5 months I was finally feeling like my old self. However, drinking at night to fall asleep, and the occasional weed smoke probablly hindered my recovery. Living as what American society views as "normal" is simply not an option for somebody who can become manic an unable to sleep.

Everybody is different. Scientists and Doctors should focusing on what causes these so called mental disorders. Finding the best ways to live with such problems. Not handing out pills to shut us up.

-- Tue Jul 16, 2013 12:13 am --

Sorry for the grammer issues, I have trouble typing from my ipad.

Continuing my reply of o7/15 at 3:05pm.

I just checked myself, counting 100 breaths. First 50, 7 breaths per minute, 2nd 50, when I paid more attention, 6 per minute. I may have changed physically since I last checked. I'm probably 6 months older. Is that true? Surely I've timed and counted 100 breaths since I moved in with Siri my daughter in early January. But as usual, recall fails me. Oh yes, checked blood oxygen twice, both 50's heart rate, 96 blood oxygen without oxygen being pumped into me.

The blood oxygen levels are important. You may even find it worthwhile to buy a relatively inexpensive gadget to put on your finger that gives you a reading and tells you your heart rate almost immediately. If you put your oxygen levels in the 90's most of the time, you will feel more energetic, have more endurance, and feel stronger.

To change the way you habitually breathe takes practice. I have 3 practices, one of which I try to be doing all day long. The simplest is counting my breaths. This gives almost immediate feedback I have lost concentration, lost count. Another, "inging" keeps me here and now very effectively. I simply coordinate a verb (gerund) ending in "ing" with each breath. The first part as I inhale, the "ing" as I exhale. This keeps me in touch with what I am doing with every breath. I'd guess I know what I am doing far more completely than most people. The last is to be silently aware of every breath. Much harder to do, but while I am doing it I often enjoy a completely silent mind, no thoughts or talking to myself at all, for several breaths at a time. I'd love being able to shut the part of me that that yaks in my head up for any length of time I choose. But I've only been practicing, and that irregularly, for about 40 years. I'll never be able to do what Tibetan lamas, trained from shortly after birth are able to do.

Perhaps I'll write about them next time. And about 1971-72, crucial years for me as you may already know.
I'd enjoy people of various ages writing about how they live and have lived their lives. I hope that writing about myself might give a few things to try that might help a few readers. You can write here and hope for the same. Or tell us about why you have no interest in helping others.