How We Make Ourselves Happy

Continuing this 88 year old bipolar manic's reply of 7/21 at 5:16pm:

Most of us don't have the nerve to interview a psychiatrist to see whether we'll hire them. Despite that we can ask some questions during the first interview. Taking along a list, a cheat sheet, is a very good idea. It helps remind us of questions to ask that are important to us. It also reminds us to tell the psychiatrist things we want him to know---that we think are important.

The psychiatrist also has his cheat sheet. If he's experienced enough it resides in his head. If not, it's either in his hand or on his desk. His cheat sheet is the quite standardized outline of a psychiatric report of a first interview. It starts, logically enough with something like "This 48 year old 6' 1" male entered the office, smiling, and assuring me of his desire to cooperate in his treatment." That is probably quite close to the first sentence the female psychiatrist wrote (or dictated) after her first interview with me in 1971.

The report then goes on listing salient points in the interview. What is salient for the psychiatrist and for the patient are quite different. The psychiatrist's training has taught him a sequence he believes in and acts on in the interview. Diagnose first, then treat. The correct treatment follows directly from a correct diagnosis. Depressive reaction, treatment---an anti-depressive, Anxiety reaction, anti-anxiety pills, Psychotic schizophrenic reaction, anti-psychotic pills.
This medical model of treatment tends to ignore, except to make a diagnosis, how the patient is living his life, the problems he brought to the psychiatrist's office. The medical model works quite well for physical illness. I, and many others believe it does not work well for what is termed mental illness. There are other models than the medical.

For most of us replying in this anti-psych Forum, this neat formula that resides in most psychiatrist's head does not always lead to correct treatment. As often as not, it leads to treatment that makes the patient worse, impairs his level of functioning, makes it harder for him to get a job, and gets him on a permanently disabled list. How many in Psych Forum are on a permanently disabled list? A show of hands would be interesting, but is a fantasy.

Despite the above, many patients firmly believe that psychiatric meds are helpful. What I believe they mean by helpful is that they feel less---less anxiety and fear if that's why they went to the psychiatrist's office, less depressed if that took them there, even less psychotic if psychotic behavior got them there as it did me in 1971.

The feeling less, I believe, is a direct result of knocking out, stopping, inhibiting the verbal thinking, the words going through a patient's mind that are the cause of the anxiety, depression, paranoia, etc. In doing so it is also inhibits many very valuable functions that non-patients find very useful in living. To overgeneralize, it inhibits some percentage of a patient's intelligence.

Many here in Psych Forums, probably most, find the upside of psychiatric meds, feeling less, , outweighs the downside, lower intelligence and functioning level, less energy, less endurance, feeling tired that most in anti-psych have experienced. This pro-psychiatry majority is because a larger majority of those who have gotten off psych meds don't bother to write replies here in Psych Forums.

Next, I'll write about the valuable functions lost as a result of taking psychiatric medications. Then I will go to what is by far the most popular model of mental illness--the spiritual model. That's true in this country and almost everywhere. Then I'll go to a description of a very similar profession, bartenders and their clients.

Continuing this 88 year old bipolar manic's reply of
7/22 at 10:12pm.

"Side effects" is propaganda designed to make people think they are of little importance. If it was stated that they were just "effects," which is what they are, people might take them more seriously. They might even make judgments for themselves whether to take the psychiatric medications or not. Instead, most patients trust their psychiatrist, ignoring the conflict of interest inherent in psychiatry for profit.

The US government has forced psychiatric and other drug manufacturers to list "side effects" in their ads. Mostly people ignore this, even though "occasional deaths" is listed among the effects.

Valuable functions lost by taking psychiatric medications:
1. Alertness---just a glance at a group or individual taking psychiatric meds confirms this loss.
2. Intelligence: thinking in words is quite useful in many situations. Pyshciatrtic meds partially knocks this ability out.
3. Energy: Again just a glance at psych med ingesters confirms this loss.
4. Reaction time. Much slower in those taking psych meds.

Rather than my going on, I suggest any readers interested in information and research on all these negative effects of psychiatric drugs, find articles by or about Peter R. Breggin, M.D. He is known as the "Conscience of Psychiatry", has testified before Congress, and has testified in a number of court cases in which very substantial damage awards and judgments have been handed down by juries and judges.

I may or may not have made the anti-psychiatry, anti psychiatric drug case at this point. As usual, I hope to read here opinions as to whether I have or not. Have any readers decided to work toward stopping taking psychiatric drugs? I'd love to read why or why not in this topic.

Next we'll look at the spiritual approach to and understanding of mental illness. It uses a totally different and in many respects more useful terminology. Of course, the spiritual approach has many problems, whether more or less than the medical approach is hard to judge.

Rusty9 wrote:I may or may not have made the anti-psychiatry, anti psychiatric drug case at this point. As usual, I hope to read here opinions as to whether I have or not.

Hi Rusty9. We've often agreed (or come to similar positions) in this thread, but I don't think you've made your case. Where is your evidence for any of your claims that all psych meds (at any dose?) reduce alertness, energy, intelligence and produce "much slower" reaction times?

I would be surprised if you can tell 'at a glance' whether someone is taking a psych med. There's a huge range of psych meds (some of them used for non psych conditions, eg anticonvulsants for epilepsy as well as bipolar). Can you really identify people taking any psych med?

A counter argument would be that people in an untreated episode of major depression do (statistically) have slower reaction times. As psych meds can sometimes treat these episodes, I would expect in those cases psych meds to (statistically) produce faster reaction times.

vContinuing this 88 year old bipolar manic's reply of
7/24 at 2:27pm.

I'm very happy to be through with the dull, unimaginative, stilted, repetitive, stereotyped psychiatric approach to mental illness. The spiritual approach, that of religion is far more interesting. It may have as many problems as the psychiatric approach, but many more people use it. Even considered narrowly, people going to someone for treatment of a personal problem, I feel sure those seeking spiritual treatment far outnumber people going to psychiatrists. The ratio of ads is about 7-5.

Many ads are religious or spiritual counselors hoping to profit. Many are sponsored by churches, perhaps offering counseling by one or more of the church's employees. The counselors may also be volunteers.

And, of course, priests, preachers, ministers to stick with Christisanity almost invariably offer religious counseling to their parishioners.

A major point of difference from psychiatry is that religion is about how we live our life. It follows that religious therapy or treatment is about how people are living their life. A much better approach than diagnosing mental illness and selling psychiatric drugs.

Quite possibly going to church on Sunday can be considered therapeutic. Recalling my attending church at the Lutheran church in the very small Iowa town where I grew up, many got in a good nap during the sermon.

Despite that, many did make appointments to see Rev. Lee individually. I have strong doubts that he was very helpful with whatever personal problems were presented. He was so embarrassed and unable to speak plainly about the facts of married life with my confirmation class that any discussion of sexual prolems with him would have had to ended in total confusion and a hurried "God Bless You" as he got them out the door.

I feel sure most religious counselors currently are better trained than Rev. Lee. Priests and those who go to Protestant seminaries to learn how to function in a church get as much or more training than psychiatrists. The terminology is different: sin or living in sin replaces mental illness, and "living in sin" is far from confined to unmarried people living and sleeping together.

A problem is that with the "freedom of religion" in the USA, anyone who wants can start a church and can declare themselves a minister of any God they wish. The large amount of money ending in church coffers is a great temptation for many con men and criminals, and many have enough charisma so that resisting the temptation must feel like the height of idiocy.

As usual charter, you start with a gross exaggeration of what I have written and then prove it wrong. How in the world did you get the idea that the first sentence I wrote and you quoted means that I claim "all psych meds at any dose, etc.? I wrote, "I may or may not have made the anti-psychiatry, anti-psychiatric drug case at this point." I'm beginning to doubt your ability to understand simple sentences such as the one I wrote.

I am guilty of careless writing. The 4 numbered sentences can be read as meaning "a glance at any individual taking psych medications." Peter R. Breggin, M. D. makes the case and is a better writer than I am. I hope you read some of the many articles about him and that he has written that are available on the internet. The title of one of them, if I recall, is "Psychiatric (or perhaps Anti-psychotic) Drugs and Reaction Time." In it he is making the case for my first numbered sentence.

You make a counter-argument against me and Breggin since our viewpoint is the same. Again, read Breggin, read the evidence he presents. You usually want evidence. Then make your counterargument that the evidence he presents and the massive damages in US courts he has won is based on false evidence, if that is what you end believing. As usual, I will be interested in your reply.

Continuing, or not, this 88 year old manic male's reply of 7/24 at 2:27pm??

Peter Breggin had already written, better and more completely, what I tried to write in 5 maybe 7 replies here. I'm sure someone has done a better job than I might writing about spirituality and mental illness, etc. Ditto re bartenders and alcohol.

That frees me. I can write whatever I want. Doing that on a day by day basis, with no special plan other than trying to stay with this topic, will be far more enjoyable.

I did enjoy writing the narrow constricted subject of psychiatric treatment and medication, but now my daily subject will be "How I Make Myself Happy." We is in the title of this topic, and I do have ideas how other might make themselves happy. Might, might not, the only thing I, or anyone can be sure of is our own experience.

Words convey our personal experience to someone very poorly. They even convey it to ourselves very poorly. I believe anyone who checks will find, as I have, that verbal conceptual thinking---talking to ourselves in words and sentences---is a pale, washed out, incomplete, truncated, and mostly useless version of what our senses convey to our brain thru sensory nerves.

After I became sure of this, it would make sense if I simply stopped doing it---stopped all that chatter going on in my head. I haven't. I may, or may not, be writing about why not for a good while.

There are many reasons I haven't, can't entirely stop the chattering that goes in my head. One is the writing I do in this topic. Even though I try and do to a large extent stay aware of every breath, at least when I'm not writing, thoughts about what I might write when next I get on the computer do keep popping into my head. Occasionally one of them may even make it onto my computer screen.

The vast majority, well over 90%, are a total waste of energy and brain power. I am fortunate that I do not make myself unhappy with what I think. Many, probably most in these Forums do make themselves unhappy by the way they talk to themselves---what they think.

Rusty9 wrote:
The title of one of them, if I recall, is "Psychiatric (or perhaps Anti-psychotic) Drugs and Reaction Time." In it he is making the case for my first numbered sentence.

Hi Rusty9, I can't find a paper on reaction times by Breggin but will continue looking.

charter: You might search first for Peter Breggin. When he comes up a long list of his articles appears beside him on my computer screen. You might find many of them of interest. Lots of evidence. But all of it is opposed to your viewpoint, I suspect. Cheers

Continuing this 88 year old manic male's reply of 7/27 at 12:08AM.

I woke making myself happy, counting and being aware of my breaths. It amused me---I found it amusing---I amused myself with---the observation of what a poor job I was doing. I never reached 100 until after I got up. The 3 starts of the previous sentence deserve some explanation.

The first puts all the responsibility, and all the control outside of myself---it, the subject of the sentence is totally in charge.

The second puts me in charge of finding something, but "it" is in charge of whether it is amusing or not.

The third puts me fully in charge, in control. I make "it" amusing.

Many readers may find these differences pointless. Mere words make no difference. Or they may not want to be responsible for their feelings. A rationale for this is "I can't believe that anyone, and especially me, would make themselves unhappy."

All of the Forums listed at the top of this page, are different ways of being unhappy---depressed, paranoid, anxious, etc. Not taking responsibility for these feelings is a great relief for many here. Psychiatrists and their treatment and diagnosing helps relieve patients here of responsibility for their feelings.

The downside of this relief, for me it seems massive, is that also means no personal control. It makes it difficult to create any good feelings as well. The two, creating good or bad feelings, seem to go hand in glove.

I, and many, prefer not being a pawn in the hands of the psychiatric professions. We do not want to turn responsibility for the way we feel over to them.

Instead I want to be in charge, I want to control how I feel. I want to be aware of the valuable signals and signs my feelings give me. I do not want them reduced, lessened by a certain percentage. Psychiatric medications are designed to reduce feelings, make them less. Taken in large enough quantities they reduce your feelings to zero. They kill you.

All of the diagnoses in Psych Forums are feelings that indicate something is wrong with the way that patient is living his life. The danger for me is increasing excitement, speeding up, going too fast. My manic genes push me in that direction.

Continuing this 88 year old manic male's reply of 7/28 at 12:31PM

"The perfected yogi is aware of every breath."

A major way I stay in charge of me and my feelings is my three methods of staying aware of every breath.

Words are a very poor, but our best, and here our only means of communication.

Pawns of pychiatry---a choice, to be or not to be, that is the question.

"How can you realize God by hearing a sound?"

Diagnoses, identity, being a person rather than 3-5 words written by a psychiatrist.

All feelings coming from data our sensory nerves transmit to our brains.

We are all highly complex beings living in a very complex world.

All, absolutely all, of the direct information we have of our world comes from our five senses. Everything else, all those words, is 2nd hand information.

"Come to your senses!" A slogan from the hippie era.

My mind, my brain can hold, pay attention, to only a limited number of bits of information in a given amount of time. These bits are selected, mostly unconsciously, habitually.

I can consciously direct or keep my mind only 5, 6, perhaps 7 bits of information during a single breath.

What we tell ourselves about our sense impressions is 2nd hand, not direct.

We do use words to construct, to create, our world.

It can be constructed in other ways, without words.

The words we select---somewhere in the range from positive to negative---determines the kind of world we live in.

What we tell ourselves comes through the filters of our attitudes, long past choices.

Looked at one way, everything that happened before right now, this moment, has contributed to our establishing our own, very individual set of filters.

"Be here now." Another hippie era slogan.

I make here and now positive and enjoyable.

Except for direct physical impacts, I believe everyone can make their world more positive, enjoyable, pleasurable, interesting.

We are always choosing, deciding, directing our lives on extremely limited information.

Almost always, some of that information is inaccurate, incorrect, false, distorted, not realistic.

All of the above is interconnected in my mind.

Does the above cover everything I would like to say, get across, have readers understand?

Does it all connect, fit together, in your mind, Reader?

Please ask questions. I believe that answering reader's questions will help make the above clearer, more logically interconnected. I welcome suggestions, help in what I'm trying to write. (409 words)