Mari Boine - Gula Gula
Norwegian-Sami singer Mari Boine on the oppression of the Sami people and their culture, including the Yoik, the traditional Sami chanting:
Beyond Movement: Yoga Philosophy
1 week ago
Showing posts with label spiritual awakening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spiritual awakening. Show all posts
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Even more thoughts about The Doctor Who Hears Voices...
...in reply to WillSpirits reply to me:
Will, the essence of it all is, that once you've understood what it really is that your existential suffering tries to tell you, the suffering stops. It's true. It's possible. Not that it stops once and for all. That would mean that you are permanently in a state of pure consciousness, and only God is permanently in that state. Or, put in other words, "God" is a symbol for consciousness. And as human beings living in the world we're living in, challenges will happen: "This too shall pass" applies to everything in life. Enlightenment as well as suffering. But the moment, you've understood - not only intellectually, but, and maybe even more important, spiritually - that there are no problems, only challenges, you are free to make a decision whether you want to suffer or not. It's in a way the same decision people who hear voices can make not to obey what the voices tell them to do. It's the same decision someone can make not to give in to suicidal thoughts. It's the purpose of existential suffering to show people, that they are free to choose.
Personally, I must say, that I at any time prefer that freedom to a pill, no matter if the pill really helps or not. And, even if I truly respect someone else's choice to take the pill, I think that no one has the right to a) tell anyone they're disordered, unless they add in the same breath, that what they mean by that is that the person doesn't fit into a disordered society's order...(thanks for doing that in your latest reply!) and/or b) to prevent anybody from achieving personal freedom. Which is exactly what the mh system does.
Suffering, if it's physical or emotional, is never a means without end. Martyrdom is. If you suffer hunger, you have a choice to either eat (provided you have food; if you don't, next challenge: get some), or not. The latter would make you a martyr. Or you can take a pill, that makes you forget you're hungry. But if you keep on taking pills, instead of eating or if you keep on and just don't eat, you'll eventually die from starvation. The same applies to existential suffering. You have a choice. If you avoid the challenge, one way or the other, your soul will eventually die from starvation. And nothing will have changed. Maybe the world won't change. Actually, who's to say? But you can change. And if you change, that means a change in the world...
It's because we're not perfect, that we are alive. If we (or the world) were perfect, there would be no suffering. Neither would there be a reason to be alive as a human being. The only really acceptable reason for someone to commit suicide is that the person in question has reached a state of permanent, pure consciousness. No more challenges to be faced, no more suffering. And now look at, what the mh system tries to do: it tries to make people forget all about the challenges in their lives, not by, magically, transporting them into a state of permanent, pure consciousness, but by giving them pills, that make them more and more unconscious, thus taking away the possibility to make a conscious decision. That's murder.
The mh system doesn't save lives. It maybe sometimes saves a biological existence. And even that is doubtful: in Norway for instance the suicide rate among psychiatrized people is a hundred - 100 - times higher than among those, who don't get incarcerated and forcibly "treated". Why? Because there's no reason to keep on and exist, when your soul has been murdered.
There is no excuse to do that to someone. No matter how "insane" they might seem. And it doesn't first start when someone is committed and "treated" against their will. It actually starts the moment someone becomes aware of the existence of psychiatry: "Look what happens to people, who don't behave!"...
Again, yes, "Ruth" hears a voice. It's not gone. Neither are mine. But hearing voices, even if they tell you horrible things, doesn't have to equal to suffering. It's one's own choice. I don't have the impression, that "Ruth" suffers more than people who don't hear voices. Rather less. She certainly isn't a martyr. She decided to face the challenge, and grow beyond it.
I know that when you read this, it doesn't immediately look like I respect choices different from mine, or "Ruth" 's. But believe me, I do. I know that I can't force anyone. It's something, people have to decide for themselves. In fact, all I want to do is to show you, that there is a way out of suffering. And that it actually are the pills, that prevent people from finding that way. Suffering can be transformed into consciousness. Suffering is the incentive for this transformation to take place.
And also again, death is a symbol. And no matter how stuck the world is, you are free to change.
BTW: Have you heard of St. John of the Cross?
Will, the essence of it all is, that once you've understood what it really is that your existential suffering tries to tell you, the suffering stops. It's true. It's possible. Not that it stops once and for all. That would mean that you are permanently in a state of pure consciousness, and only God is permanently in that state. Or, put in other words, "God" is a symbol for consciousness. And as human beings living in the world we're living in, challenges will happen: "This too shall pass" applies to everything in life. Enlightenment as well as suffering. But the moment, you've understood - not only intellectually, but, and maybe even more important, spiritually - that there are no problems, only challenges, you are free to make a decision whether you want to suffer or not. It's in a way the same decision people who hear voices can make not to obey what the voices tell them to do. It's the same decision someone can make not to give in to suicidal thoughts. It's the purpose of existential suffering to show people, that they are free to choose.
Personally, I must say, that I at any time prefer that freedom to a pill, no matter if the pill really helps or not. And, even if I truly respect someone else's choice to take the pill, I think that no one has the right to a) tell anyone they're disordered, unless they add in the same breath, that what they mean by that is that the person doesn't fit into a disordered society's order...(thanks for doing that in your latest reply!) and/or b) to prevent anybody from achieving personal freedom. Which is exactly what the mh system does.
Suffering, if it's physical or emotional, is never a means without end. Martyrdom is. If you suffer hunger, you have a choice to either eat (provided you have food; if you don't, next challenge: get some), or not. The latter would make you a martyr. Or you can take a pill, that makes you forget you're hungry. But if you keep on taking pills, instead of eating or if you keep on and just don't eat, you'll eventually die from starvation. The same applies to existential suffering. You have a choice. If you avoid the challenge, one way or the other, your soul will eventually die from starvation. And nothing will have changed. Maybe the world won't change. Actually, who's to say? But you can change. And if you change, that means a change in the world...
It's because we're not perfect, that we are alive. If we (or the world) were perfect, there would be no suffering. Neither would there be a reason to be alive as a human being. The only really acceptable reason for someone to commit suicide is that the person in question has reached a state of permanent, pure consciousness. No more challenges to be faced, no more suffering. And now look at, what the mh system tries to do: it tries to make people forget all about the challenges in their lives, not by, magically, transporting them into a state of permanent, pure consciousness, but by giving them pills, that make them more and more unconscious, thus taking away the possibility to make a conscious decision. That's murder.
The mh system doesn't save lives. It maybe sometimes saves a biological existence. And even that is doubtful: in Norway for instance the suicide rate among psychiatrized people is a hundred - 100 - times higher than among those, who don't get incarcerated and forcibly "treated". Why? Because there's no reason to keep on and exist, when your soul has been murdered.
There is no excuse to do that to someone. No matter how "insane" they might seem. And it doesn't first start when someone is committed and "treated" against their will. It actually starts the moment someone becomes aware of the existence of psychiatry: "Look what happens to people, who don't behave!"...
Again, yes, "Ruth" hears a voice. It's not gone. Neither are mine. But hearing voices, even if they tell you horrible things, doesn't have to equal to suffering. It's one's own choice. I don't have the impression, that "Ruth" suffers more than people who don't hear voices. Rather less. She certainly isn't a martyr. She decided to face the challenge, and grow beyond it.
I know that when you read this, it doesn't immediately look like I respect choices different from mine, or "Ruth" 's. But believe me, I do. I know that I can't force anyone. It's something, people have to decide for themselves. In fact, all I want to do is to show you, that there is a way out of suffering. And that it actually are the pills, that prevent people from finding that way. Suffering can be transformed into consciousness. Suffering is the incentive for this transformation to take place.
And also again, death is a symbol. And no matter how stuck the world is, you are free to change.
BTW: Have you heard of St. John of the Cross?
More thoughts about The Doctor Who Hears Voices - a reply to WillSpirit
In reply to WillSpirit's post on The Doctor Who Hears Voices, and his comment on my previous post:
First of all I want to make clear that I'd never ever judge someone for their decision to take psych drugs, or to identify - partly or entirely - with a psych label. Who I at times can't altogether resist to judge, are definitely not the people, who resort to psychiatry/the mh system for help, but psychiatry/the mh system itself. That's a huge difference, although experience has shown me, that a lot of people aren't aware of it, and feel, I'm criticizing them, when in fact I'm critizing psychiatry/the mh system (oh , and our civilization in general... ).
Of course I can't know this for sure, since I don't know "Ruth" other than from what the documentary reveals about her, from her comment on my blog, and, indirectly, from what I understand Rufus May stands for, but my impression is, that she herself doesn't necessarily identify as "psychiatrically disordered". I suspect, that if she'd done so, she'd either never asked Rufus for help in the first place, or she'd abandoned therapy with him rather sooner than later, to return regretfully to the mh system's Trevor Turners - and their drugs.
Now you'll probably argue, that she hears a voice, and that hearing voices is a "symptom" of "mental illness", so she must be "psychiatrically disordered". Well, yes indeed, she hears a voice. But so do we all, psychiatrically labelled or not. All our thinking is conditioned. Thoughts are always without exception a reaction to the world we live in. You might say, they're echoing this world's noise. That's why meditation seeks the stillness beyond any thought, beyond the noise of this world, that is. In our thoughts we find the world, its noise, its voice, in the stillness we find ourselves.
If you look at it from that perspective, hearing voices actually becomes a sign of awakening to the truth rather than a symptom of a disorder. And indeed, in certain cultures it is regarded a gift, not a burden. A gift it is, if the person who hears voices happens to live in a society, that isn't afraid to hear the echo of its own voice, that isn't afraid to face not only its own greatness, but also its own flaws, which is what the voices of a person who hears voices usually echo. The flaws. The bullying, the abusiveness, the exploitativeness, the violence, the inhumanity.
Hearing voices then is a gift, because it asks for changes to be made. Changes for the benefit of all members of the society.
Meanwhile, our modern, western civilization is stuck with the delusion, that all there is to it is greatness. No flaws. Nothing needs to be changed. We are the crown of creation. Well, our modern, western civilization is. Take a look around. What do you see? Self-satisfaction, arrogance, self-righteousness... And underneath fear. Of change. So, how then can we explain (away) phenomena, that question and undermine our delusion of grandeur? Of course! As being flaws themselves. Individual flaws. Disorders. The "disorder" is no longer society's, but the individual's. And to perform this task of silencing the echo, our civilization created the myth of "mental illness", and the institution of psychiatry.
I must admit, that I sometimes can be a bit tough, and say: "All right, be my guest, buy into it if you think so. But then you'll have to live with the consequences." Which usually are, that you'll be society's scapegoat, that you will be discriminated against, more or less. But I also know, that it often isn't a conscious choice, that leads to people buying into it. And unless it is a conscious choice, I can't really be that tough without becoming guilty of the same "crime" I accuse society of.
Well, the question of course is, why some people react to the extent, "Ruth" does, or I myself for that sake, and others not. Isn't that proof, that these people must be biologically different,somehow really disordered? I think the answer is, that some people are exposed to the flaws of the society they live in to a greater extent, earlier in life, and for longer periods of time than others. Which can make them biologically different, more sensitive towards society's flaws, than others, as recent research indicates. Still, that doesn't make genetic anomalies the cause of the phenomena.
And what about all the other "symptoms"? What about "paranoia", or "mania", or "depression", or "ADHD", or you name it? Different kinds of echoes, reflections. How someone reacts in detail depends on what they learned how to react. Non-genetic, familiar heredity. For even if recent research also indicates, that trauma causes changes in a person's genes, changes that may be passed on to this person's children, genes do not act independent from their environment, but they react to it. Otherwise, it wouldn't be likely for people who were labelled with "schizophrenia", or "bipolar disorder", or whatever, and who made a recovery like "Ruth" did, by making unconscious content conscious, to have and raise children, who don't get labelled. I don't know of any of these people, who have children, that their children would qualify for any psych label. But, unfortunately, I know of a number of people, who still are stuck in unconsciousness, whose children do have problems, they too. It's a law of nature, that trauma, that isn't made conscious, is passed on to the next generation.
As for drugs: There are different ways to deal with crisis. Mind-altering drugs suppress "symptoms". What they target is a person's consciousness reducing it. There is no drug, that could target the unconscious. So, the voices are still there, echoing the world. The person just doesn't realize anymore. In fact, many people eventually tell their psychiatrist, that they don't hear voices anymore, even though they do. Because they're fed up with side effects, and know from experience that, if they say they still hear voices, all their shrink will do is up their dose... But well, let's say, it works for someone. What is the result? Stabilization. Not balance, but stabilization. That is, the absence of any possibility for development, personal growth, transformation... Indeed, exactly what our civilization in general aims at: maintaining the status quo, keeping it stable.
While death is a symbol for transformation, and thus not the opposite but part of life, stability is a synonym for the absence of change and of the possibility for transformation. It's a synonym for deadness, which indeed is the opposite of life.
On the other end of the (sliding) scale you have the change, the personal growth, the becoming (more) conscious through experiencing crisis with your eyes wide open, that Ann-Louise Silver talks about in the clip from Take These Broken Wings.
Now, our society expects a certain, actually growing, amount of deadness, of stable functioning, and it conditions everybody to regard stability the ultimate bliss. So, I can't blame anyone, who takes drugs, which they are told, will provide them with stability, our civilization's ultimate bliss.
However, life is constant transformation, it's constantly seeking for perfection: through self-transcendence and enlightenment, seeking to achieve a state of pure consciousness. It's a human need. But it is also unproductive in regard to our consumer-society. And while existential suffering in itself is a precondition for change to take place, and thus part of the human experience, not an illness, our civilization adds another dimension of suffering to the initial, existential suffering in that it stigmatizes and discriminates against everybody who experiences life, who experience being (human), trying to force these people back into blissful unconsciousness, that only is endurable on mind-numbing drugs, that alienate the person from her (suffering and rebelling) true self.
So, if someone is offered the chance to be supported in following their true self's call, why wouldn't they choose to do so? Why would or should they choose the dead end in preference to The Way? And I'm not even talking about the physically disabling side effects of psych drugs...
In short, I don't think there is any such thing as "mental illness". In my opinion "mental illness" is a cultural construct, created in order to pathologize the lesser productive, and society's delusion of grandeur disturbing, aspects of the human experience. To me, the concept is an assault on (human) nature. And I think, as long as there is no scientific evidence to prove it correct, no one should be labelled.
Last but not least, I don't think, "Ruth" has any higher risk of experiencing crisis again, than anybody else has. I think, she's very aware of herself, her limits included, and probably somewhat better prepared than people, who've never experienced extreme states of mind, if ever anything should happen in her life, that has the potential to trigger crisis. So, I don't think, anyone needs to be more concerned about her emotional well-being than about that of others.
First of all I want to make clear that I'd never ever judge someone for their decision to take psych drugs, or to identify - partly or entirely - with a psych label. Who I at times can't altogether resist to judge, are definitely not the people, who resort to psychiatry/the mh system for help, but psychiatry/the mh system itself. That's a huge difference, although experience has shown me, that a lot of people aren't aware of it, and feel, I'm criticizing them, when in fact I'm critizing psychiatry/the mh system (oh , and our civilization in general... ).
Of course I can't know this for sure, since I don't know "Ruth" other than from what the documentary reveals about her, from her comment on my blog, and, indirectly, from what I understand Rufus May stands for, but my impression is, that she herself doesn't necessarily identify as "psychiatrically disordered". I suspect, that if she'd done so, she'd either never asked Rufus for help in the first place, or she'd abandoned therapy with him rather sooner than later, to return regretfully to the mh system's Trevor Turners - and their drugs.
Now you'll probably argue, that she hears a voice, and that hearing voices is a "symptom" of "mental illness", so she must be "psychiatrically disordered". Well, yes indeed, she hears a voice. But so do we all, psychiatrically labelled or not. All our thinking is conditioned. Thoughts are always without exception a reaction to the world we live in. You might say, they're echoing this world's noise. That's why meditation seeks the stillness beyond any thought, beyond the noise of this world, that is. In our thoughts we find the world, its noise, its voice, in the stillness we find ourselves.
If you look at it from that perspective, hearing voices actually becomes a sign of awakening to the truth rather than a symptom of a disorder. And indeed, in certain cultures it is regarded a gift, not a burden. A gift it is, if the person who hears voices happens to live in a society, that isn't afraid to hear the echo of its own voice, that isn't afraid to face not only its own greatness, but also its own flaws, which is what the voices of a person who hears voices usually echo. The flaws. The bullying, the abusiveness, the exploitativeness, the violence, the inhumanity.
Hearing voices then is a gift, because it asks for changes to be made. Changes for the benefit of all members of the society.
Meanwhile, our modern, western civilization is stuck with the delusion, that all there is to it is greatness. No flaws. Nothing needs to be changed. We are the crown of creation. Well, our modern, western civilization is. Take a look around. What do you see? Self-satisfaction, arrogance, self-righteousness... And underneath fear. Of change. So, how then can we explain (away) phenomena, that question and undermine our delusion of grandeur? Of course! As being flaws themselves. Individual flaws. Disorders. The "disorder" is no longer society's, but the individual's. And to perform this task of silencing the echo, our civilization created the myth of "mental illness", and the institution of psychiatry.
I must admit, that I sometimes can be a bit tough, and say: "All right, be my guest, buy into it if you think so. But then you'll have to live with the consequences." Which usually are, that you'll be society's scapegoat, that you will be discriminated against, more or less. But I also know, that it often isn't a conscious choice, that leads to people buying into it. And unless it is a conscious choice, I can't really be that tough without becoming guilty of the same "crime" I accuse society of.
Well, the question of course is, why some people react to the extent, "Ruth" does, or I myself for that sake, and others not. Isn't that proof, that these people must be biologically different,somehow really disordered? I think the answer is, that some people are exposed to the flaws of the society they live in to a greater extent, earlier in life, and for longer periods of time than others. Which can make them biologically different, more sensitive towards society's flaws, than others, as recent research indicates. Still, that doesn't make genetic anomalies the cause of the phenomena.
And what about all the other "symptoms"? What about "paranoia", or "mania", or "depression", or "ADHD", or you name it? Different kinds of echoes, reflections. How someone reacts in detail depends on what they learned how to react. Non-genetic, familiar heredity. For even if recent research also indicates, that trauma causes changes in a person's genes, changes that may be passed on to this person's children, genes do not act independent from their environment, but they react to it. Otherwise, it wouldn't be likely for people who were labelled with "schizophrenia", or "bipolar disorder", or whatever, and who made a recovery like "Ruth" did, by making unconscious content conscious, to have and raise children, who don't get labelled. I don't know of any of these people, who have children, that their children would qualify for any psych label. But, unfortunately, I know of a number of people, who still are stuck in unconsciousness, whose children do have problems, they too. It's a law of nature, that trauma, that isn't made conscious, is passed on to the next generation.
As for drugs: There are different ways to deal with crisis. Mind-altering drugs suppress "symptoms". What they target is a person's consciousness reducing it. There is no drug, that could target the unconscious. So, the voices are still there, echoing the world. The person just doesn't realize anymore. In fact, many people eventually tell their psychiatrist, that they don't hear voices anymore, even though they do. Because they're fed up with side effects, and know from experience that, if they say they still hear voices, all their shrink will do is up their dose... But well, let's say, it works for someone. What is the result? Stabilization. Not balance, but stabilization. That is, the absence of any possibility for development, personal growth, transformation... Indeed, exactly what our civilization in general aims at: maintaining the status quo, keeping it stable.
While death is a symbol for transformation, and thus not the opposite but part of life, stability is a synonym for the absence of change and of the possibility for transformation. It's a synonym for deadness, which indeed is the opposite of life.
On the other end of the (sliding) scale you have the change, the personal growth, the becoming (more) conscious through experiencing crisis with your eyes wide open, that Ann-Louise Silver talks about in the clip from Take These Broken Wings.
Now, our society expects a certain, actually growing, amount of deadness, of stable functioning, and it conditions everybody to regard stability the ultimate bliss. So, I can't blame anyone, who takes drugs, which they are told, will provide them with stability, our civilization's ultimate bliss.
However, life is constant transformation, it's constantly seeking for perfection: through self-transcendence and enlightenment, seeking to achieve a state of pure consciousness. It's a human need. But it is also unproductive in regard to our consumer-society. And while existential suffering in itself is a precondition for change to take place, and thus part of the human experience, not an illness, our civilization adds another dimension of suffering to the initial, existential suffering in that it stigmatizes and discriminates against everybody who experiences life, who experience being (human), trying to force these people back into blissful unconsciousness, that only is endurable on mind-numbing drugs, that alienate the person from her (suffering and rebelling) true self.
So, if someone is offered the chance to be supported in following their true self's call, why wouldn't they choose to do so? Why would or should they choose the dead end in preference to The Way? And I'm not even talking about the physically disabling side effects of psych drugs...
In short, I don't think there is any such thing as "mental illness". In my opinion "mental illness" is a cultural construct, created in order to pathologize the lesser productive, and society's delusion of grandeur disturbing, aspects of the human experience. To me, the concept is an assault on (human) nature. And I think, as long as there is no scientific evidence to prove it correct, no one should be labelled.
Last but not least, I don't think, "Ruth" has any higher risk of experiencing crisis again, than anybody else has. I think, she's very aware of herself, her limits included, and probably somewhat better prepared than people, who've never experienced extreme states of mind, if ever anything should happen in her life, that has the potential to trigger crisis. So, I don't think, anyone needs to be more concerned about her emotional well-being than about that of others.
Sunday, 3 May 2009
Random thoughts about being disabled - NOT
A couple of thoughts in the wake of Blogging Against Disablism Day, May 1st, 2009.
1. I haven't been round reading tons of entries on the subject, but a few I have read, and Alison Hymes'Psychophobia 201 was definitely the best I've come across.
2. There's a lot of talk about disability and disablism, also in regard to people with emotional problems. Here for example is a YouTuber, Mary Van Pelt, who does some awesome vids against disablism in work places.
Another aspect is the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD, whose wording also was fundamentally influenced by user/ex-user/survivor organizations like MindFreedom.
I very much appreciate the effort both individual persons like Alison Hymes and Mary Van Pelt, and organizations like MindFreedom put into raising awareness about discrimination against and the rights of people in emotional distress. Nevertheless, I have a problem with the overall concept, the overall idea, that people in emotional distress are described as "disabled". Which is that I don't regard emotional distress a disability. Consequently, I myself do not identify as disabled.
While it is true, that I probably would have an extremely hard time coping, get stressed out in no time, and experience emotional trouble, if I had to work under 9 to 5-ordinary job circumstances, I know quite a few "normal" people, who would have just as hard a time, who certainly wouldn't be happy, if they had to make a living under the same circumstances I make mine: working early mornings and late evenings, working weekends and holidays, working outside, regardless the weather, being on "stand-by" 24/7, and handling horses. Does that make these people disabled? If someone ended up with some kind of emotional distress doing the job I do, let's say because they're afraid of or simply don't like horses, is that a disability then?
People often ask me, if my job isn't very hard work, and how I manage doing it without getting run down. Yes, it is hard work. It is physically demanding. On the other hand, it isn't more demanding than being a hunter-gatherer or a pastoral nomad, which is, what human beings are by their very nature. Indeed, I'd say, my job is a lot closer to (human) nature, and a lot less alienating than most of the work situations, modern western civilization expects human beings to cope with. Does it make me disabled, that my human nature rebels against a maybe "normal" but nevertheless unnatural way of living?
Well, of course it makes me disabled in the eyes of an alienated and alienating, and in fact disabled and disabling, culture. While I myself regard it an ability of mine, that my nature is capable of reacting - rebellious - to unnatural demands and situations. And I'd definitely prefer not having to resort to the CRPD, but simply to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in order to have my human rights respected in any given situation. In my opinion it is a human rights violation in itself, that the latter doesn't protect my human rights in these given situations.
Last but not least, let's face it: which actually does disable the vast majority of people with "psychiatric disabilities" isn't the emotional distress itself. It is the "treatment", the punishment, they receive for rebelling against unnatural, disabling life situations. So, "psychiatric disability" isn't that misleading a term anyway: disabled by psychiatry.
1. I haven't been round reading tons of entries on the subject, but a few I have read, and Alison Hymes'Psychophobia 201 was definitely the best I've come across.
2. There's a lot of talk about disability and disablism, also in regard to people with emotional problems. Here for example is a YouTuber, Mary Van Pelt, who does some awesome vids against disablism in work places.
Another aspect is the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD, whose wording also was fundamentally influenced by user/ex-user/survivor organizations like MindFreedom.
I very much appreciate the effort both individual persons like Alison Hymes and Mary Van Pelt, and organizations like MindFreedom put into raising awareness about discrimination against and the rights of people in emotional distress. Nevertheless, I have a problem with the overall concept, the overall idea, that people in emotional distress are described as "disabled". Which is that I don't regard emotional distress a disability. Consequently, I myself do not identify as disabled.
While it is true, that I probably would have an extremely hard time coping, get stressed out in no time, and experience emotional trouble, if I had to work under 9 to 5-ordinary job circumstances, I know quite a few "normal" people, who would have just as hard a time, who certainly wouldn't be happy, if they had to make a living under the same circumstances I make mine: working early mornings and late evenings, working weekends and holidays, working outside, regardless the weather, being on "stand-by" 24/7, and handling horses. Does that make these people disabled? If someone ended up with some kind of emotional distress doing the job I do, let's say because they're afraid of or simply don't like horses, is that a disability then?
People often ask me, if my job isn't very hard work, and how I manage doing it without getting run down. Yes, it is hard work. It is physically demanding. On the other hand, it isn't more demanding than being a hunter-gatherer or a pastoral nomad, which is, what human beings are by their very nature. Indeed, I'd say, my job is a lot closer to (human) nature, and a lot less alienating than most of the work situations, modern western civilization expects human beings to cope with. Does it make me disabled, that my human nature rebels against a maybe "normal" but nevertheless unnatural way of living?
Well, of course it makes me disabled in the eyes of an alienated and alienating, and in fact disabled and disabling, culture. While I myself regard it an ability of mine, that my nature is capable of reacting - rebellious - to unnatural demands and situations. And I'd definitely prefer not having to resort to the CRPD, but simply to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in order to have my human rights respected in any given situation. In my opinion it is a human rights violation in itself, that the latter doesn't protect my human rights in these given situations.
Last but not least, let's face it: which actually does disable the vast majority of people with "psychiatric disabilities" isn't the emotional distress itself. It is the "treatment", the punishment, they receive for rebelling against unnatural, disabling life situations. So, "psychiatric disability" isn't that misleading a term anyway: disabled by psychiatry.
Friday, 10 April 2009
Reply from Kevin Siers
Thanks everyone for your comments on my previous post. In the meantime, I got a reply from Kevin Siers, where he writes, that his intention was not to scapegoat people in emotional distress, and that he didn't design the cartoon "with a professional's understanding of what mental illness is."
Well, that's the big problem here. That there a) is no true understanding of what "mental illness" is, and that b) the only "understanding" that the cartoon reflects, is the misunderstanding, promoted by the mh system, and distributed by the mainstream media - the Charlotte Observer, for instance. The problem is, that, while everybody is busy scapegoating the "mentally ill", they too are kept from becoming aware of the real terror: the terror of our society itself.
So, what we've got here, is Joe Public's ignorance and the consequential prejudice - that inevitably scapegoats, intended or not. How did Albert Camus put it: "The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding." Ignorance, unawareness, unconsciousness... What we've got here, is an excellent example of the evil our unconscious society continuously does, in the name of good.
Now, Kevin Siers also writes, that our letters to him "continue to be food for thought." I certainly do hope so! It truly is time, both for him and society in general, to wake up and face its own violence. Otherwise, we will never be able to prevent the terror from happening, no matter how restrictive gun laws.
Well, that's the big problem here. That there a) is no true understanding of what "mental illness" is, and that b) the only "understanding" that the cartoon reflects, is the misunderstanding, promoted by the mh system, and distributed by the mainstream media - the Charlotte Observer, for instance. The problem is, that, while everybody is busy scapegoating the "mentally ill", they too are kept from becoming aware of the real terror: the terror of our society itself.
So, what we've got here, is Joe Public's ignorance and the consequential prejudice - that inevitably scapegoats, intended or not. How did Albert Camus put it: "The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding." Ignorance, unawareness, unconsciousness... What we've got here, is an excellent example of the evil our unconscious society continuously does, in the name of good.
Now, Kevin Siers also writes, that our letters to him "continue to be food for thought." I certainly do hope so! It truly is time, both for him and society in general, to wake up and face its own violence. Otherwise, we will never be able to prevent the terror from happening, no matter how restrictive gun laws.
Sunday, 8 March 2009
"Thou Shalt Not Be Aware"
What I would add to this video is how "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" not only applies to abuse/mistreatment in families - and not being unconditionally loved by your parents to me equals to child abuse/mistreatment, just as the denial of the truth does - but just as much to a society, that only "loves" (i.e. accepts) you under the condition that you live up to its norms and values. Which, in regard to our modern western civilization, means that you have to be the perfect consumer/producer in order to receive society's unconditional love, its acceptance.
Well, and I'd like to add, that psychiatry of course not only covers over the abuse/mistreatment performed by single private persons, families - while society as a whole would condemn abuse/mistreatment - but indeed covers over the abuse/mistreatment, that pervades society on all levels, and that is the foundation of consumerism: "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" that modern western civilization's norms and values are thoroughly unnatural, destructive, and abusive, and thus inhumane - causing inhumane suffering, both physically and psychologically. "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" that it is modern western civilization, who suffers from a chronic imbalance - of power. "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" that it is perfectly natural and healthy to react "crazy" to "normality", i.e. to the real insanity.
If society truly and honestly were dismissive of oppression, betrayal, fraud, exploitation, abuse, mistreatment, etc., psychiatry as a societal institution would never have been established. Instead people, who'd been exposed to these assaults, would be offered real help, not punishment and additional assault.
Read also Gianna's post on this video.
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
"Is it time for ISPS to remove the term 'schizophrenia' from its name?"
Some more thoughts about the ISPS, and about diagnoses, human nature and power imbalances in our egocentric culture.
So, looking at the ISPS Denmark, basically, what have we got? A semi-professional* organization, who, in spite of what its name might suggest, doesn't really regard psychological treatments as having the potential to, successfully replace medical treatment of extreme states of mind, but merely sees these psychological interventions as a means to get people, successfully, hooked on psych drugs. For life.
The Danish - and obviously also the Swedish - group consists, as I say in a comment at Gianna's blog, of a bunch of drug pushers, whose aim it is, to consolidate the "patients' " compliance to the drug "treatment" by massive indoctrination. Which, in their terminology becomes "dialogue". Well, yes, as a matter of fact and undeniably it is a good thing to know at least the basics of psychology if you want to make your indoctrination as efficient as possible. It's called "mind control", and, yes, it has got everything to do with psychology.
_______________
The ISPS' central, international organization recently launched "Psychosis", a journal with articles related to psychological treatment options for extreme states of mind. The table of contents reflects two things:
1. the wide range of - fundamentally - different views on so-called "psychosis" inside the ISPS, and
2., as I point out in a comment on Gianna's post on the journal, and especially on one - great! - article featured in its first issue, the power balance between the labelling and the labelled. Or maybe I should say: the somewhat grotesque power imbalance between those two groups. Again, we here have a medium, that chooses to give about 90% of its space to professionals theorizing about the experience, and about those, who have/had it.
Well, at least it seems, it's not 100%... And, and this is really groundbreaking!, the journal doesn't advertise. No Zyprexa, Risperdal, Seroquel, or whatever else ads. Incredible! Congrats on that one, ISPS!
But - no, I'm not finished with you guys! - the journals name is "Psychosis". What exactly is "psychosis"? Let me tell you:
"Psychosis" is, just as any other psych label, the Establishment's - unfortunately widely successful - attempt to pathologize human nature - in favor of the culture represented and promoted by the Establishment.
Most people aren't aware of the fact, that natural does not equal to normal. Be sure, it so doesn't! Actually, the more our culture moves away from what is natural, the less these two adjectives do equal. Thus, driving a car is completely normal, although it isn't the least natural. It's a cultural phenomenon. It is judged by cultural norms and values as being normal.
While in nature things just are, or are not, without becoming judged, in culture things become measured and judged by the at any time given cultural norms and values. So, the things that in nature just are, in culture become normal, or abnormal, worthy, or unworthy, good, or bad (mad??), etc. And the more a culture moves away from nature, the more things it measures and judges in this way. And the more rigorously it divides normal from abnormal, worthy from unworthy, good from bad, etc .
It is the ego that makes us cultural beings, in addition to being natural beings. It is the ego that needs to measure and judge, in order to delimit itself from the oneness, that nature is, in order to define itself as a unique individual. Or as a unique, individual culture. And when the ego rules, as it does in an ego-centered culture like our modern, western civilization, it will do everything imaginable to make the distinction between itself and the other as pronounced as possible. It will do everything imaginable to alienate the individual from its human nature, from the oneness with nature in general.
For instance by judging perfectly natural phenomena as abnormal. Or as strange, like in "alienation" (i.e. distinction, or split, schizm, like in "schizophrenia" - who is really "schizophrenic" here???) - from nature.
While anyone can relate to and identify with (identification = oneness) emotions and states of mind like anger, fear, confusion or joy, and quite easily can understand for instance "extreme confusion", because they've experienced confusion themselves, it gets a whole lot more difficult, if not impossible, to relate to, identify with, and thus to understand "schizophrenia" or "psychosis".
While anger, fear, confusion, joy etc. are viewed as normal by our culture, the extremes of these emotions aren't described as lying end to end with, and as, indeed, being basically the same in their nature as the as normal judged intensity of these same emotions, but as diametrically opposed to it, as abnormal, strange, unintelligible, pathologic, sick. And in order to ram this home, in order to cement it in people's perception, the extremes got renamed. With pathologizing labels. "Psychosis". Meaning: not to be understood. Or: meaningless. While it is our nature to always and in everything look for meaning, for oneness, our culture has created the ultimate tool to alienate us from our own nature by creating the concept of "mental illness" (i.e. meaningless behavior, thoughts and emotions) to describe our own nature with.
"Is it time for ISPS to remove the term "schizophrenia" from its name?" Well, that depends. It depends on whether we, humanity as a whole, want to continue on our egos' and culture's path of increasing alienation from (our own) nature, on our egos' and culture's path of regression**, deeper and deeper into unconsciousness, or if we can overcome this culture's narcissism, realizing and accepting that there is nothing strange, meaningless, nothing "schizophrenic" or "psychotic" to (human) nature. Realizing and accepting that we all just are.
_______________
As my above jottings show, removing the term "schizophrenia" from ISPS' name, and replacing it with another pathologizing label, won't do. The problem is, that, basically, what my train of thought leads to is, that neither a medical nor any other degree actually qualifies anyone to guide another individual through and out of extreme states of mind. That which qualifies someone for this task is only and solely being in touch with, and conscious of their own human nature, their true self.
_______________
* Membership is open both for professionals and non-professionals.
** Note the parallel to what is described as a "schizophrenic" mechanism.
So, looking at the ISPS Denmark, basically, what have we got? A semi-professional* organization, who, in spite of what its name might suggest, doesn't really regard psychological treatments as having the potential to, successfully replace medical treatment of extreme states of mind, but merely sees these psychological interventions as a means to get people, successfully, hooked on psych drugs. For life.
The Danish - and obviously also the Swedish - group consists, as I say in a comment at Gianna's blog, of a bunch of drug pushers, whose aim it is, to consolidate the "patients' " compliance to the drug "treatment" by massive indoctrination. Which, in their terminology becomes "dialogue". Well, yes, as a matter of fact and undeniably it is a good thing to know at least the basics of psychology if you want to make your indoctrination as efficient as possible. It's called "mind control", and, yes, it has got everything to do with psychology.
_______________
The ISPS' central, international organization recently launched "Psychosis", a journal with articles related to psychological treatment options for extreme states of mind. The table of contents reflects two things:
1. the wide range of - fundamentally - different views on so-called "psychosis" inside the ISPS, and
2., as I point out in a comment on Gianna's post on the journal, and especially on one - great! - article featured in its first issue, the power balance between the labelling and the labelled. Or maybe I should say: the somewhat grotesque power imbalance between those two groups. Again, we here have a medium, that chooses to give about 90% of its space to professionals theorizing about the experience, and about those, who have/had it.
Well, at least it seems, it's not 100%... And, and this is really groundbreaking!, the journal doesn't advertise. No Zyprexa, Risperdal, Seroquel, or whatever else ads. Incredible! Congrats on that one, ISPS!
But - no, I'm not finished with you guys! - the journals name is "Psychosis". What exactly is "psychosis"? Let me tell you:
"Psychosis" is, just as any other psych label, the Establishment's - unfortunately widely successful - attempt to pathologize human nature - in favor of the culture represented and promoted by the Establishment.
Most people aren't aware of the fact, that natural does not equal to normal. Be sure, it so doesn't! Actually, the more our culture moves away from what is natural, the less these two adjectives do equal. Thus, driving a car is completely normal, although it isn't the least natural. It's a cultural phenomenon. It is judged by cultural norms and values as being normal.
While in nature things just are, or are not, without becoming judged, in culture things become measured and judged by the at any time given cultural norms and values. So, the things that in nature just are, in culture become normal, or abnormal, worthy, or unworthy, good, or bad (mad??), etc. And the more a culture moves away from nature, the more things it measures and judges in this way. And the more rigorously it divides normal from abnormal, worthy from unworthy, good from bad, etc .
It is the ego that makes us cultural beings, in addition to being natural beings. It is the ego that needs to measure and judge, in order to delimit itself from the oneness, that nature is, in order to define itself as a unique individual. Or as a unique, individual culture. And when the ego rules, as it does in an ego-centered culture like our modern, western civilization, it will do everything imaginable to make the distinction between itself and the other as pronounced as possible. It will do everything imaginable to alienate the individual from its human nature, from the oneness with nature in general.
For instance by judging perfectly natural phenomena as abnormal. Or as strange, like in "alienation" (i.e. distinction, or split, schizm, like in "schizophrenia" - who is really "schizophrenic" here???) - from nature.
While anyone can relate to and identify with (identification = oneness) emotions and states of mind like anger, fear, confusion or joy, and quite easily can understand for instance "extreme confusion", because they've experienced confusion themselves, it gets a whole lot more difficult, if not impossible, to relate to, identify with, and thus to understand "schizophrenia" or "psychosis".
While anger, fear, confusion, joy etc. are viewed as normal by our culture, the extremes of these emotions aren't described as lying end to end with, and as, indeed, being basically the same in their nature as the as normal judged intensity of these same emotions, but as diametrically opposed to it, as abnormal, strange, unintelligible, pathologic, sick. And in order to ram this home, in order to cement it in people's perception, the extremes got renamed. With pathologizing labels. "Psychosis". Meaning: not to be understood. Or: meaningless. While it is our nature to always and in everything look for meaning, for oneness, our culture has created the ultimate tool to alienate us from our own nature by creating the concept of "mental illness" (i.e. meaningless behavior, thoughts and emotions) to describe our own nature with.
"Is it time for ISPS to remove the term "schizophrenia" from its name?" Well, that depends. It depends on whether we, humanity as a whole, want to continue on our egos' and culture's path of increasing alienation from (our own) nature, on our egos' and culture's path of regression**, deeper and deeper into unconsciousness, or if we can overcome this culture's narcissism, realizing and accepting that there is nothing strange, meaningless, nothing "schizophrenic" or "psychotic" to (human) nature. Realizing and accepting that we all just are.
_______________
As my above jottings show, removing the term "schizophrenia" from ISPS' name, and replacing it with another pathologizing label, won't do. The problem is, that, basically, what my train of thought leads to is, that neither a medical nor any other degree actually qualifies anyone to guide another individual through and out of extreme states of mind. That which qualifies someone for this task is only and solely being in touch with, and conscious of their own human nature, their true self.
_______________
* Membership is open both for professionals and non-professionals.
** Note the parallel to what is described as a "schizophrenic" mechanism.
Friday, 20 February 2009
Take These Broken Wings. Recovery from Schizophrenia Without Medication. A documentary by Daniel Mackler
Last month, Gianna had a post on her blog, announcing New York-therapist Daniel Mackler's documentary Take These Broken Wings. Recovery from Schizophrenia Without Medication.
I'd been visiting Daniel Mackler's website a couple of times in the past, and thought 'I need to get hold of this, it can only be awesome.'
And awesome it is! The film's main interest is to show that recovery from what psychiatry calls "schizophrenia" is possible, that "schizophrenia" is not per se a lifelong, chronic condition, that needs lifelong - and, by the way, often chronifying - medication. And, in fact, as the documentary looks at both the scientific data, reported by Robert Whitaker, the stories of Joanne Greenberg and Catherine Penney, told by themselves, and the experiences of several professionals, among them Peter Breggin, Ann-Louise Silver, Bertram Karon and Daniel Dorman, it becomes, once more, clear that recovery, full recovery, from "schizophrenia" isn't only possible, but should be expected as a matter of course.
There are especially two among the many aspects in regard to treatment and recovery the film mentions, that are intriguing to me: the difference in quality of a recovery, that is achieved without drugs, compared to a "recovery" on drugs - if at all a recovery, that still requires maintenance medication, can be termed as such - on the one hand,
and the stark discrepancy between today's "best practice" and the kind of help for people in crisis, Peter Breggin among others, advocates for, on the other.
What does it tell me about our society in general, our culture's preferences, that we, in spite of a fundamental lack of proof for its efficacy and in spite of the fact that alternatives, that have been proven to be efficient, are available, nevertheless continue to almost exclusively treat "the most vulnerable people" in the most inhumane way imaginable?
Although the film focusses on psychotherapy as treatment, Daniel Mackler acknowledges, that this is not the one and only way to recover from "schizophrenia". All roads lead to Rome, one might say. All but one.
Just as the stories of most - if not all - people diagnozed with "schizophrenia", also Joanne Greenberg's and Catherine Penney's stories are stories of childhood trauma, while their recovery stories are those of becoming aware of the trauma, working it through, understanding it - and their reaction to it. And, obviously, there are many ways of becoming aware and understanding. While there is one way, that more efficiently than anything else suppresses, even reduces, awareness and understanding, and turns out to be a dead end in the long run: lifelong "maintenance" medication, in combination with the conviction, that "schizophrenia" is a chronic, biological brain disease, caused by a chemical imbalance, its "symptoms" thus being completely without meaning, and not worth being subjected to a closer investigation - with the guidance of a psychotherapist for instance.
Take These Broken Wings is a brilliant defence of not only psychotherapy, but all alternative approaches to crisis, that aim at understanding rather than at the mere suppression of "symptoms". At the same time it manages to, convincingly, debunk the medical model, while it navigates successfully around the trap of carrying on an aggressive controversy against psychiatry, or glorifying crisis as such.
The cutting of Take These Broken Wings with rather rapidly alternating sequences from the various interviews, that serve as the film's basis, and its subtle humour and poetic choice of images, make Take These Broken Wings also on an artistic level a treat to watch.
If there is one thing about this documentary, that is a little disturbing in my opinion, it is the collision of its philosophy with its terminology. And since I regard language as extremely important - as a means of identification - I couldn't but had to let Daniel Mackler know about my concern:
"The whole concept is so refreshingly non-pathologizing, and then, anyway: 'mental illness', 'schizophrenia', 'the schizophrenics'.
I'd so like to see that label abolished. And the pathologizing of these states of mind, it inevitably comes along with, no matter what. In retrospect, I realized, that all that had happened to me was nothing but a somewhat 'exaggerated normality'. With the extent of exaggeration of my reactions perfectly corresponding to the extent of exaggeration of the circumstances, my experiences were a belated reaction to. That seems pretty natural, even healthy to me. Not at all ill in any way. I'd say, it would have been 'ill' to react less exaggerated. The question is, if 'illness' is something that threatens one's - physical or mental - health (like the traumatizing abusiveness of our civilization), or if it is one's natural, self-preserving reaction to the threat, that is the 'illness'. And where would one draw the line between 'normal' confusion, fear, anger, and 'schizophrenia', i.e. a whole lot of confusion, fear, and anger? Personally, I wouldn't venture to think, that I ever could. Joanne Greenberg says at some point, that 'every schizophrenic knows how sick he is,' and that she thinks, 'he knows how far he is from the center of his own being.' Well, when I look around, I see almost nothing but people, "normal" people, who are miles and miles away from the center of their own being. They're just not aware of it. If 'schizophrenia' exists as an illness, these people are the 'healthy' ones, while those, who are becoming aware, are the 'sick' ones. Definitely. But if being this far away from the center of one's own being is the real illness - and I tend to believe that - then the so-called 'schizophrenics' are the ones, who actually are recovering from this illness called 'normality'.
This maybe sounds a bit far-fetched, but nevertheless I think, it hits the nail on the head: one of Germany's leading experts in horses once said, that there is no horse, who is too sway-backed, too short-legged, too nervous, or too whatever. There only are horses who are sway-backed, short-legged, nervous, etc. Now, 'schizophrenia' sounds to me like 'too afraid, too confused, too angry'. While I think, there is no such thing as 'too' in regard to (human) behavior, in regard to (human) emotions and reactions.
To me, having to label myself explicitly (for holy, indispensable insight's sake...) was maybe the most painful experience throughout the whole therapy process. Just as I'd thought that eventually someone was really seeing me, this someone asked me to close my eyes to myself, to explain myself away, instead of to become aware of myself. Anticlimax."
Well, there is an explanation for the film's choice of terminology. And there also is this guy, at Washington Square Park, who says: "It's a gift, not a mental illness, a gift." He's right. That's what it is.
You can order the film here, and watch the trailers and more clips at Daniel Mackler's YouTube channel.
I'd been visiting Daniel Mackler's website a couple of times in the past, and thought 'I need to get hold of this, it can only be awesome.'
And awesome it is! The film's main interest is to show that recovery from what psychiatry calls "schizophrenia" is possible, that "schizophrenia" is not per se a lifelong, chronic condition, that needs lifelong - and, by the way, often chronifying - medication. And, in fact, as the documentary looks at both the scientific data, reported by Robert Whitaker, the stories of Joanne Greenberg and Catherine Penney, told by themselves, and the experiences of several professionals, among them Peter Breggin, Ann-Louise Silver, Bertram Karon and Daniel Dorman, it becomes, once more, clear that recovery, full recovery, from "schizophrenia" isn't only possible, but should be expected as a matter of course.
There are especially two among the many aspects in regard to treatment and recovery the film mentions, that are intriguing to me: the difference in quality of a recovery, that is achieved without drugs, compared to a "recovery" on drugs - if at all a recovery, that still requires maintenance medication, can be termed as such - on the one hand,
and the stark discrepancy between today's "best practice" and the kind of help for people in crisis, Peter Breggin among others, advocates for, on the other.
What does it tell me about our society in general, our culture's preferences, that we, in spite of a fundamental lack of proof for its efficacy and in spite of the fact that alternatives, that have been proven to be efficient, are available, nevertheless continue to almost exclusively treat "the most vulnerable people" in the most inhumane way imaginable?
Although the film focusses on psychotherapy as treatment, Daniel Mackler acknowledges, that this is not the one and only way to recover from "schizophrenia". All roads lead to Rome, one might say. All but one.
Just as the stories of most - if not all - people diagnozed with "schizophrenia", also Joanne Greenberg's and Catherine Penney's stories are stories of childhood trauma, while their recovery stories are those of becoming aware of the trauma, working it through, understanding it - and their reaction to it. And, obviously, there are many ways of becoming aware and understanding. While there is one way, that more efficiently than anything else suppresses, even reduces, awareness and understanding, and turns out to be a dead end in the long run: lifelong "maintenance" medication, in combination with the conviction, that "schizophrenia" is a chronic, biological brain disease, caused by a chemical imbalance, its "symptoms" thus being completely without meaning, and not worth being subjected to a closer investigation - with the guidance of a psychotherapist for instance.
Take These Broken Wings is a brilliant defence of not only psychotherapy, but all alternative approaches to crisis, that aim at understanding rather than at the mere suppression of "symptoms". At the same time it manages to, convincingly, debunk the medical model, while it navigates successfully around the trap of carrying on an aggressive controversy against psychiatry, or glorifying crisis as such.
The cutting of Take These Broken Wings with rather rapidly alternating sequences from the various interviews, that serve as the film's basis, and its subtle humour and poetic choice of images, make Take These Broken Wings also on an artistic level a treat to watch.
If there is one thing about this documentary, that is a little disturbing in my opinion, it is the collision of its philosophy with its terminology. And since I regard language as extremely important - as a means of identification - I couldn't but had to let Daniel Mackler know about my concern:
"The whole concept is so refreshingly non-pathologizing, and then, anyway: 'mental illness', 'schizophrenia', 'the schizophrenics'.
I'd so like to see that label abolished. And the pathologizing of these states of mind, it inevitably comes along with, no matter what. In retrospect, I realized, that all that had happened to me was nothing but a somewhat 'exaggerated normality'. With the extent of exaggeration of my reactions perfectly corresponding to the extent of exaggeration of the circumstances, my experiences were a belated reaction to. That seems pretty natural, even healthy to me. Not at all ill in any way. I'd say, it would have been 'ill' to react less exaggerated. The question is, if 'illness' is something that threatens one's - physical or mental - health (like the traumatizing abusiveness of our civilization), or if it is one's natural, self-preserving reaction to the threat, that is the 'illness'. And where would one draw the line between 'normal' confusion, fear, anger, and 'schizophrenia', i.e. a whole lot of confusion, fear, and anger? Personally, I wouldn't venture to think, that I ever could. Joanne Greenberg says at some point, that 'every schizophrenic knows how sick he is,' and that she thinks, 'he knows how far he is from the center of his own being.' Well, when I look around, I see almost nothing but people, "normal" people, who are miles and miles away from the center of their own being. They're just not aware of it. If 'schizophrenia' exists as an illness, these people are the 'healthy' ones, while those, who are becoming aware, are the 'sick' ones. Definitely. But if being this far away from the center of one's own being is the real illness - and I tend to believe that - then the so-called 'schizophrenics' are the ones, who actually are recovering from this illness called 'normality'.
This maybe sounds a bit far-fetched, but nevertheless I think, it hits the nail on the head: one of Germany's leading experts in horses once said, that there is no horse, who is too sway-backed, too short-legged, too nervous, or too whatever. There only are horses who are sway-backed, short-legged, nervous, etc. Now, 'schizophrenia' sounds to me like 'too afraid, too confused, too angry'. While I think, there is no such thing as 'too' in regard to (human) behavior, in regard to (human) emotions and reactions.
To me, having to label myself explicitly (for holy, indispensable insight's sake...) was maybe the most painful experience throughout the whole therapy process. Just as I'd thought that eventually someone was really seeing me, this someone asked me to close my eyes to myself, to explain myself away, instead of to become aware of myself. Anticlimax."
Well, there is an explanation for the film's choice of terminology. And there also is this guy, at Washington Square Park, who says: "It's a gift, not a mental illness, a gift." He's right. That's what it is.
You can order the film here, and watch the trailers and more clips at Daniel Mackler's YouTube channel.
Thursday, 29 January 2009
Self-actualization is a disease
If you haven't heard it yet: HealthCentral has bought Wellsphere. As I commented on Gianna's blog, I'm just glad, I didn't take the bite!!!
Well, since I couldn't remember to ever have visited HealthCentral's website, I went there tonight to have a look at it - I became even more glad, I didn't join Wellsphere - and came across a very interesting article.
Obviously, if ever you get into a situation where you'd need to reconsider your life, your identity, your being in this world, for instance because you were traumatized and thus didn't get the chance to establish a secure relationship with your true self, forget about ever being given the chance! Your self-reflections, your "focus on the self", aiming at healing and becoming more whole, are symptoms of a brain disease.
"Whitfield-Gabrieli found that in the schizophrenia patients, the default system was both hyperactive and hyperconnected during rest, and it remained so as they performed the memory tasks. In other words, the patients were less able than healthy control subjects to suppress the activity of this network during the task. Interestingly, the less the suppression and the greater the connectivity, the worse they performed on the hard memory task, and the more severe their clinical symptoms.
'We think this may reflect an inability of people with schizophrenia to direct mental resources away from internal thoughts and feelings and toward the external world in order to perform difficult tasks,' Whitfield-Gabrieli explained."
And what is, essentially, the big problem with "focussing on the self" and "an inability of people with schizophrenia to direct mental resources away from internal thoughts and feelings and toward the external world in order to perform difficult tasks"?
Yeah well, first of all, you might find out, that you actually were a victim of mistreatment and/or abuse, and secondly, it's unlikely that you will be a good consumer while your focus is directed toward your "internal thoughts and feelings" instead of "toward the external world in order to perform difficult tasks," like consuming...
Philosophizing about yourself, your self, discovering abusive mechanisms in your own upbringing and in the world you're living in, and failing to be a good consumer is undesirable as it is a disease. So, go and get an appointment with a shrink, so you at least can be a good consumer in regard to the mental illness industry and Big Pharma!
Well, since I couldn't remember to ever have visited HealthCentral's website, I went there tonight to have a look at it - I became even more glad, I didn't join Wellsphere - and came across a very interesting article.
Obviously, if ever you get into a situation where you'd need to reconsider your life, your identity, your being in this world, for instance because you were traumatized and thus didn't get the chance to establish a secure relationship with your true self, forget about ever being given the chance! Your self-reflections, your "focus on the self", aiming at healing and becoming more whole, are symptoms of a brain disease.
"Whitfield-Gabrieli found that in the schizophrenia patients, the default system was both hyperactive and hyperconnected during rest, and it remained so as they performed the memory tasks. In other words, the patients were less able than healthy control subjects to suppress the activity of this network during the task. Interestingly, the less the suppression and the greater the connectivity, the worse they performed on the hard memory task, and the more severe their clinical symptoms.
'We think this may reflect an inability of people with schizophrenia to direct mental resources away from internal thoughts and feelings and toward the external world in order to perform difficult tasks,' Whitfield-Gabrieli explained."
And what is, essentially, the big problem with "focussing on the self" and "an inability of people with schizophrenia to direct mental resources away from internal thoughts and feelings and toward the external world in order to perform difficult tasks"?
Yeah well, first of all, you might find out, that you actually were a victim of mistreatment and/or abuse, and secondly, it's unlikely that you will be a good consumer while your focus is directed toward your "internal thoughts and feelings" instead of "toward the external world in order to perform difficult tasks," like consuming...
Philosophizing about yourself, your self, discovering abusive mechanisms in your own upbringing and in the world you're living in, and failing to be a good consumer is undesirable as it is a disease. So, go and get an appointment with a shrink, so you at least can be a good consumer in regard to the mental illness industry and Big Pharma!
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
"I don't believe in hope" - Some thoughts about hope, powerlessness and recovery
There's a lot of talking about hope. Right now, while I write these lines, people all over the world sit glued to their TV, watching their hope, personified in Barack Obama, coming into power. And Obama himself is talking about hope.
Power - one person's power is another one's powerlessness... Just a thought.
Hope is something you have when you identify as powerless, as the victim.
"I don't actually believe in hope. I think, hope is a very very very very bad thing. Because hope, what it really means, what it really is, is a longing for a future condition over which I have no agency." -Derrick Jensen, on Madness Radio, "Environmental Insanity w/Author Derrick Jensen".
Don't hope, that Obama is going to save you, and the world. Don't hope, that the professionals are going to solve your problems for you. Don't hope for the future. Don't hope for recovery. Be. Now.
Power - one person's power is another one's powerlessness... Just a thought.
Hope is something you have when you identify as powerless, as the victim.
"I don't actually believe in hope. I think, hope is a very very very very bad thing. Because hope, what it really means, what it really is, is a longing for a future condition over which I have no agency." -Derrick Jensen, on Madness Radio, "Environmental Insanity w/Author Derrick Jensen".
Don't hope, that Obama is going to save you, and the world. Don't hope, that the professionals are going to solve your problems for you. Don't hope for the future. Don't hope for recovery. Be. Now.
Saturday, 10 January 2009
More misconceptions, some thoughts about delusions, suicide, and about true suicide prevention
The following are two, slightly edited, replies to a discussion at Beyond Meds. - You have to be a member to view the discussion, so, join! - Gianna suggested, I should post here too, and I decided to post both replies.
1. There's this (mis-)conception, that, whenever it just gets "weird" enough, i.e. no longer easy to get, there must be something really really wrong with a person's head, in a biological way. That idea serves as some kind of "explanation" whenever someone's behavior no longer can be understood and explained without effort in relation to the at any time adopted idea of "normal" human behavior as such. It's not an explanation, though. It's explaining away. What we don't understand, we fear. "Beware of the unknown" is a natural reaction/defence and survival mechanism. Especially of prey animals. And humans are both, predators and prey animals. So, we prefer to explain the unknown away, in order to keep it at a safe distance. One of several reasons why the biological model is so attractive to the majority.
The suffering that people in distress experience is caused by a lack of understanding, a lack of self-/consciousness. Partly the suffering is caused by a lack of understanding of themselves, or of what is happening to them, and partly by a lack of understanding from their surroundings. The fact, that people who receive understanding, empathetic, support, that focusses on helping them to understand their experiences while going through a crisis, usually don't suffer to the same extent as those who don't, who only receive drugs to get numbed out on, and maybe even traumatizing, coercive, "treatment" into the bargain, and that the former fare remarkably better in the long run than the latter, proves this.
Somehow, this is where I see a connection to what you say in your post here. Explaining away seems the safest and easiest way out. But it leads inevitably to more and more suffering. In a qualitative as well as in a quantitative sense. We want perfection. We want to be able to (and we are expected to) perfectly fit the mould. And whenever we don't, we panic. And/or those around us do. Something must be profoundly wrong with us. Let's get it fixed, so we can, perfectly, fit the mould again. What we miss in our tireless struggle to be "perfect" - perfect according to the cultural norms and values of our time (!), that is - is that our imperfection is just perfect. In its imperfection. We are not meant to fit a certain mould. We are meant to just be. Real perfection isn't something that can be defined in terms of "different from". Real perfection is the unity of all dualities. Thus, our culture, while desperately chasing what it supposes to be "perfection", actually loses the real perfection more and more out of sight.
_______________
2. Whenever you want to die, if it's that you think the thought, or if it expresses itself as a voice, telling you to kill yourself (hearing voices is nothing but thinking aloud), you don't want to end being as such. You want to end what is, and make something else be. Death is a symbol for transformation. And the language of the unconscious is pure symbol language.
I don't know if you're familiar with it, but the Delphic Oracle from the Greek mythology for instance never answered any question other than in a more or less symbolic way. You got an answer to whatever your question, but you had to figure out the meaning of the answer yourself. Or: you actually gave the answer to your question yourself. Your unconscious, your intuition, did. The Delphic Oracle is the unconscious projected into the world.
Today, we live in a culture that isn't especially conscious of the unconscious. We are not conscious of symbolism in the same way other cultures are/were. What counts is the literal, the hard facts, science, "rational" thought (with "rational thought" being the kind of thought that is easy to get for everyone else, because everyone else thinks in the same, normative, way). Well, and things like traffic signs. But if I were an adviser, let's say of the Danish Prime Minister, he came to ask me my opinion about his campaign for the next election, and I'd say: "Make your own nature, not the advice of others, your guide in life," I'd probably lose my job, and be regarded, at least, a weirdo.
So, the question always is whom or what you really want to die when you contemplate suicide. One thing is for sure: it is not yourself. Your self (it's not a typo) is who/what you really are, and that is being, life. Life can't die. Death is a part of life, not the opposite. And life is transformation: something ends, "dies", something else begins. Every moment. Life is constant arrival and departure. Nothing actually is stable. There can be balance, but not stability. Total stability (like in "mood-stabilizer"), total unchangeableness and predictability, is a myth. And our culture confuses it with "perfection" - and chases it.
Some people want their outer form, i.e. their body, to die. People who suffer from a terminal illness, for instance. What most people in an existential crisis want to die though, is not the outer form either. It's their ego, i.e. who they think they are, and who they think, others think they are. Nevertheless, the ego partly manifests itself in the outer form of someone. That is, the body becomes a symbol for the ego. There you are: instead of letting go of your ego, and become who/what you really are, you interpret a symbol literally and consequently "let go" of your body, and,voilà: suicide. Literally. And since our culture is as unaware of symbolism as it is, chances are, that you won't find much help among this culture's members (in the mh system) to figure it out. Because everybody probably will interpret in the same literal way as your own thoughts do.
I eventually figured it out, because of the "delusion" that the real me wasn't a human being, but, well, something along the lines of a dryade, i.e. a spirit, nameless, ageless, without a history (all that ever had happened in my life, hadn't happened to me but to the body, the true me was caught in), immaterial, although caught in a - material - body. And what the real me wanted, wasn't to die, but to become free - of this body that represented an ego, a self-image, I've never felt less connected to than during crises.
Another aspect of this are "out-of-body-experiences", that usually also just are explained away as meaningless symptom of a brain disease.
Now, it's characteristic for our culture that people identify with their body, their thoughts, their mind, their life-story, their ego. Our culture teaches us to do so. In eastern philosophy though, there's another dimension beyond this formal, material one: the space wherein the formal, material expresses itself. Who/what you really are, your "true self" with Laing, is this space. So, the "delusion" actually wasn't a delusion, but the very truth.
Eventually, I figured, that letting go of the identification with my body, my ego, my thoughts, etc., meant the freedom, I'd thought, I only could gain through letting go of my body itself. A symbolic suicide, not a literal one. Or: an "egocide", not a suicide. That is the end of suffering. - That is not to say, that I don't suffer anymore. Nothing is forever. "Enlightenment" neither. It is extremely tempting to identify with the ego. Especially in a culture that worships the ego as our culture does. I yield to this temptation, time and again, and then I suffer. But existential suffering is human. It's not an illness. On the contrary, the way to "redemption" often goes through an awful lot of suffering. Without suffering, there would be no need to change anything, no need to develop and grow. Thus, existential suffering actually is more like a blessing than the curse, our culture wants to make it be.
As mentioned, usually people don't get any real help. (Since the "helpers" don't have a clue themselves, how could they help anyone to understand, what they haven't even understood themselves?*) The idea, that existential crises would be brain diseases prevents understanding just as the drugs do, whose prescription and administration only and solely is justifiable when what really is a wake-up call is defined a biological illness of the brain.
The trouble is, that the more your true self has been oppressed, the more you've been asked to identify with and as a false self (who/what others want you to be, but who/what you are not), the deeper the split between who/what you really are and this false ego-identification obviously becomes. The deeper the split becomes, the more you will suffer, and the more you suffer, the louder the wake-up calls will be. Whether you get a label of "OCD", "depression", or "schizophrenia" is not a question of suffering from distinctly different conditions. It's a question of the extent to which someone suffers, and the volume of the wake-up calls, they consequently receive. So-called "psychosis" being the loudest possible wake-up call. And they won't cease coming in, the wake-up calls, before you actually listen to them, and do wake up. This is why the drugs have a chronifying effect on crisis. It will inevitably happen again and again, until the day, you understand. And there is no drug strong enough to silence the unconscious. Drugs can't even target the unconscious. All they do is reducing consciousness. The unconscious is almighty and unassailable. You can't fight it and win. All you can do is turning it from being your master into being a tool of yours, by becoming conscious of it.
* It's actually quite funny, that a lack of ability to interpret things in a symbolic way is listed as a "symptom" of "schizophrenia", while the "experts' " ability to recognize a symbol as a symbol when it's staring them right in the face, equals to zero...
1. There's this (mis-)conception, that, whenever it just gets "weird" enough, i.e. no longer easy to get, there must be something really really wrong with a person's head, in a biological way. That idea serves as some kind of "explanation" whenever someone's behavior no longer can be understood and explained without effort in relation to the at any time adopted idea of "normal" human behavior as such. It's not an explanation, though. It's explaining away. What we don't understand, we fear. "Beware of the unknown" is a natural reaction/defence and survival mechanism. Especially of prey animals. And humans are both, predators and prey animals. So, we prefer to explain the unknown away, in order to keep it at a safe distance. One of several reasons why the biological model is so attractive to the majority.
The suffering that people in distress experience is caused by a lack of understanding, a lack of self-/consciousness. Partly the suffering is caused by a lack of understanding of themselves, or of what is happening to them, and partly by a lack of understanding from their surroundings. The fact, that people who receive understanding, empathetic, support, that focusses on helping them to understand their experiences while going through a crisis, usually don't suffer to the same extent as those who don't, who only receive drugs to get numbed out on, and maybe even traumatizing, coercive, "treatment" into the bargain, and that the former fare remarkably better in the long run than the latter, proves this.
Somehow, this is where I see a connection to what you say in your post here. Explaining away seems the safest and easiest way out. But it leads inevitably to more and more suffering. In a qualitative as well as in a quantitative sense. We want perfection. We want to be able to (and we are expected to) perfectly fit the mould. And whenever we don't, we panic. And/or those around us do. Something must be profoundly wrong with us. Let's get it fixed, so we can, perfectly, fit the mould again. What we miss in our tireless struggle to be "perfect" - perfect according to the cultural norms and values of our time (!), that is - is that our imperfection is just perfect. In its imperfection. We are not meant to fit a certain mould. We are meant to just be. Real perfection isn't something that can be defined in terms of "different from". Real perfection is the unity of all dualities. Thus, our culture, while desperately chasing what it supposes to be "perfection", actually loses the real perfection more and more out of sight.
_______________
2. Whenever you want to die, if it's that you think the thought, or if it expresses itself as a voice, telling you to kill yourself (hearing voices is nothing but thinking aloud), you don't want to end being as such. You want to end what is, and make something else be. Death is a symbol for transformation. And the language of the unconscious is pure symbol language.
I don't know if you're familiar with it, but the Delphic Oracle from the Greek mythology for instance never answered any question other than in a more or less symbolic way. You got an answer to whatever your question, but you had to figure out the meaning of the answer yourself. Or: you actually gave the answer to your question yourself. Your unconscious, your intuition, did. The Delphic Oracle is the unconscious projected into the world.
Today, we live in a culture that isn't especially conscious of the unconscious. We are not conscious of symbolism in the same way other cultures are/were. What counts is the literal, the hard facts, science, "rational" thought (with "rational thought" being the kind of thought that is easy to get for everyone else, because everyone else thinks in the same, normative, way). Well, and things like traffic signs. But if I were an adviser, let's say of the Danish Prime Minister, he came to ask me my opinion about his campaign for the next election, and I'd say: "Make your own nature, not the advice of others, your guide in life," I'd probably lose my job, and be regarded, at least, a weirdo.
So, the question always is whom or what you really want to die when you contemplate suicide. One thing is for sure: it is not yourself. Your self (it's not a typo) is who/what you really are, and that is being, life. Life can't die. Death is a part of life, not the opposite. And life is transformation: something ends, "dies", something else begins. Every moment. Life is constant arrival and departure. Nothing actually is stable. There can be balance, but not stability. Total stability (like in "mood-stabilizer"), total unchangeableness and predictability, is a myth. And our culture confuses it with "perfection" - and chases it.
Some people want their outer form, i.e. their body, to die. People who suffer from a terminal illness, for instance. What most people in an existential crisis want to die though, is not the outer form either. It's their ego, i.e. who they think they are, and who they think, others think they are. Nevertheless, the ego partly manifests itself in the outer form of someone. That is, the body becomes a symbol for the ego. There you are: instead of letting go of your ego, and become who/what you really are, you interpret a symbol literally and consequently "let go" of your body, and,voilà: suicide. Literally. And since our culture is as unaware of symbolism as it is, chances are, that you won't find much help among this culture's members (in the mh system) to figure it out. Because everybody probably will interpret in the same literal way as your own thoughts do.
I eventually figured it out, because of the "delusion" that the real me wasn't a human being, but, well, something along the lines of a dryade, i.e. a spirit, nameless, ageless, without a history (all that ever had happened in my life, hadn't happened to me but to the body, the true me was caught in), immaterial, although caught in a - material - body. And what the real me wanted, wasn't to die, but to become free - of this body that represented an ego, a self-image, I've never felt less connected to than during crises.
Another aspect of this are "out-of-body-experiences", that usually also just are explained away as meaningless symptom of a brain disease.
Now, it's characteristic for our culture that people identify with their body, their thoughts, their mind, their life-story, their ego. Our culture teaches us to do so. In eastern philosophy though, there's another dimension beyond this formal, material one: the space wherein the formal, material expresses itself. Who/what you really are, your "true self" with Laing, is this space. So, the "delusion" actually wasn't a delusion, but the very truth.
Eventually, I figured, that letting go of the identification with my body, my ego, my thoughts, etc., meant the freedom, I'd thought, I only could gain through letting go of my body itself. A symbolic suicide, not a literal one. Or: an "egocide", not a suicide. That is the end of suffering. - That is not to say, that I don't suffer anymore. Nothing is forever. "Enlightenment" neither. It is extremely tempting to identify with the ego. Especially in a culture that worships the ego as our culture does. I yield to this temptation, time and again, and then I suffer. But existential suffering is human. It's not an illness. On the contrary, the way to "redemption" often goes through an awful lot of suffering. Without suffering, there would be no need to change anything, no need to develop and grow. Thus, existential suffering actually is more like a blessing than the curse, our culture wants to make it be.
As mentioned, usually people don't get any real help. (Since the "helpers" don't have a clue themselves, how could they help anyone to understand, what they haven't even understood themselves?*) The idea, that existential crises would be brain diseases prevents understanding just as the drugs do, whose prescription and administration only and solely is justifiable when what really is a wake-up call is defined a biological illness of the brain.
The trouble is, that the more your true self has been oppressed, the more you've been asked to identify with and as a false self (who/what others want you to be, but who/what you are not), the deeper the split between who/what you really are and this false ego-identification obviously becomes. The deeper the split becomes, the more you will suffer, and the more you suffer, the louder the wake-up calls will be. Whether you get a label of "OCD", "depression", or "schizophrenia" is not a question of suffering from distinctly different conditions. It's a question of the extent to which someone suffers, and the volume of the wake-up calls, they consequently receive. So-called "psychosis" being the loudest possible wake-up call. And they won't cease coming in, the wake-up calls, before you actually listen to them, and do wake up. This is why the drugs have a chronifying effect on crisis. It will inevitably happen again and again, until the day, you understand. And there is no drug strong enough to silence the unconscious. Drugs can't even target the unconscious. All they do is reducing consciousness. The unconscious is almighty and unassailable. You can't fight it and win. All you can do is turning it from being your master into being a tool of yours, by becoming conscious of it.
* It's actually quite funny, that a lack of ability to interpret things in a symbolic way is listed as a "symptom" of "schizophrenia", while the "experts' " ability to recognize a symbol as a symbol when it's staring them right in the face, equals to zero...
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Living Now
Did I just say, I probably wouldn't post for a few more days? Uhm, well, I came across this video, ten minutes ago. Really like it. I guess, the peace and calm about it is exactly what I need right now. And it's just so true.
Living Now
Living Now
Saturday, 9 August 2008
Mind-altering drugs, brain damage, meditation and therapy
I came across the video I posted on Tuesday while I actually planned to post the one below. The short excerpt from a talk by Eckhart Tolle (the full talk is here - or well, it was; unfortunately it isn't anymore) seems to me both a good introduction to clarify some unfortunately very common misunderstandings in regard to psychiatric drugs and meditation and its potential to lead to enlightenment - as well as in regard to therapy and its potential to lead to full recovery - and at the same time it sums up the answer to the question whether or not it is possible to recover from emotional distress using drugs, psychiatric prescription drugs, or any other mind-altering drugs.
The concise answer, given in the Eckhart Tolle talk, is no, it is not possible to recover from emotional distress while under the influence of mind-altering drugs. Simply because these drugs prevent the individual, who is under their influence, from getting in touch with his/her true self, from becoming aware and conscious. All mind-altering drugs "work" by enhancing unconsciousness. They stand like an impenetrable wall between the individual and his/her true self.
Although any spiritual teacher knows this just as well as Loren Mosher, for instance, knew it, most mental health professionals, psychiatrists, psychologists or other, seem never to have heard about it. How else would it be possible, that, no matter what kind of emotional distress, the combination of psychotropic drugs and therapy, the combination of two treatment measures, whose aims are diametrically opposed to each other, is promoted as the best treatment option by the system? But, well, in contrast to spiritual teachings, that not only acknowledge the possibility of full recovery, or enlightenment, with a spiritual term, but aim at exactly this full recovery or enlightenment with everything they teach, the mental health system often still denies full recovery to be possible at all.
The consequence of this denial of the possibility to achieve a higher level of awareness, consciousness, which in its turn is a consequence of psychiatry's concept of chronic, biological brain diseases, is that the mental health system aims at the very opposite of what a spiritual teacher would aim at, thus trying to reduce the individual in crisis' increased and increasing (or awakening) awareness, consciousness by all means. Not only "back to normal", but, even more sadly, most often to a level far below "normal", and just as often permanently, through "maintenance medication" with highly toxic chemicals, that not only reduce the brain's capacity while the individual is taking the drugs, but that also cause brain damage, thus reducing the brain's capacity permanently and to an increasing extent the longer the drugs are taken.
So, if you are awakening, if you are going through a crisis that is, beware of mind-altering substances, especially of dirty drugs such as all psychiatric drugs, whose brain damaging potential is somewhat greater than that of pure, natural substances (such as the "leaf").
Here is the video by Jane, who gives an answer more detailed and outspokenly related to emotional distress (so-called "mental illness") than Eckhart Tolle does:
"Meditation, spirituality and drug effects"
Related posts at Jane's blog:
"Drugs and meditation"
"Meditation videos, you asked, I delivered"
"Geodon lies"
Related video by Jane:
"Antipsychotics cause brain damage"
The concise answer, given in the Eckhart Tolle talk, is no, it is not possible to recover from emotional distress while under the influence of mind-altering drugs. Simply because these drugs prevent the individual, who is under their influence, from getting in touch with his/her true self, from becoming aware and conscious. All mind-altering drugs "work" by enhancing unconsciousness. They stand like an impenetrable wall between the individual and his/her true self.
Although any spiritual teacher knows this just as well as Loren Mosher, for instance, knew it, most mental health professionals, psychiatrists, psychologists or other, seem never to have heard about it. How else would it be possible, that, no matter what kind of emotional distress, the combination of psychotropic drugs and therapy, the combination of two treatment measures, whose aims are diametrically opposed to each other, is promoted as the best treatment option by the system? But, well, in contrast to spiritual teachings, that not only acknowledge the possibility of full recovery, or enlightenment, with a spiritual term, but aim at exactly this full recovery or enlightenment with everything they teach, the mental health system often still denies full recovery to be possible at all.
The consequence of this denial of the possibility to achieve a higher level of awareness, consciousness, which in its turn is a consequence of psychiatry's concept of chronic, biological brain diseases, is that the mental health system aims at the very opposite of what a spiritual teacher would aim at, thus trying to reduce the individual in crisis' increased and increasing (or awakening) awareness, consciousness by all means. Not only "back to normal", but, even more sadly, most often to a level far below "normal", and just as often permanently, through "maintenance medication" with highly toxic chemicals, that not only reduce the brain's capacity while the individual is taking the drugs, but that also cause brain damage, thus reducing the brain's capacity permanently and to an increasing extent the longer the drugs are taken.
So, if you are awakening, if you are going through a crisis that is, beware of mind-altering substances, especially of dirty drugs such as all psychiatric drugs, whose brain damaging potential is somewhat greater than that of pure, natural substances (such as the "leaf").
Here is the video by Jane, who gives an answer more detailed and outspokenly related to emotional distress (so-called "mental illness") than Eckhart Tolle does:
"Meditation, spirituality and drug effects"
Related posts at Jane's blog:
"Drugs and meditation"
"Meditation videos, you asked, I delivered"
"Geodon lies"
Related video by Jane:
"Antipsychotics cause brain damage"
Tuesday, 5 August 2008
"There is another way of becoming free"
Unfortunately, the video, I'd posted here, is no longer available at YouTube. It was a short excerpt from a workshop with Eckhart Tolle, where he talks about the potential of psychoactive substances, like alcohol, to "calm down the noise machine in the head" for some time, and thereby to provide some temporary relief from the suffering it is to be an ego-identified individual in our modern, western society. "But there is a price", som han siger, "The price is, you're moving towards unconsciousness. But on your way towards unconsciousness, you feel a little better. So, drugs, whatever they may be, smokes... - Take a smoke! - Of course, pot isn't a drug. It's a leaf. So, the leaf can give you some relief. But the price you pay is that you move towards unconsciousness. There is another way of becoming free..." (my italics)
Thursday, 26 June 2008
A sacred process II
Some more thoughts in the wake of Sean Blackwell's video and his latest blog entry.
Make sure to read the "Introduction to my new book..." at Sean's blog, where he takes on Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind. Those of you who've been to read Chauncey's analysis of Jill Bolte Taylor's TED Talk, also will have found him praise Kay Redfield Jamison whom he contrasts to Jill Bolte Taylor - in regard to style.
When it comes to contents, both are pretty much the same: both talk about crises being biological illnesses, brain diseases, that are incurable, chronic illnesses, and that need lifelong "medication" in order to be kept under control.
If you've been around this blog only for a moment, you'll know that I strongly disagree with this point of view as there's no evidence so far for crises to be biological illnesses, and as I see that this mainstream-viewpoint actually has stripped and still does strip "countless people of hope for a truly better life, medication free", as Sean writes. Indeed, I find it morally irresponsible by the mental health system to, continuously, make a claim like that, into the bargain often in a way that suggests it were a proven fact rather than a mere hypothesis, a mere theory, and I wish there were more professionals like Ron Unger who'd dare to speak up and challenge the system concerning this matter.
Sadly, I haven't encountered as much as one single professional, psychiatrist, psychologist, or any other, here in Denmark yet, who has shown to be as courageous as Ron (and a number of other professionals abroad). Not even the "brilliant (though not perfect...) guidance". Let me know if you have. I'll be happy to do a piece on him/her!
Now, I can't blame Chauncey for his praise of Kay Redfield Jamison as he, as far as I know, has no personal experience of "madness", his opinion on the matter (whatever it is) thus of course being a result of the information that is immediately available to the public. Which is the mainstream information, stating that extreme states of mind are due to brain diseases. Thus Kay Redfield Jamison's book An Unquiet Mind is published by Macmillan, Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight by the Viking Penguin Group, and both can easily be found at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, while Sean Blackwell's book A Quiet Mind is published by and can only be purchased through Chipmunkapublishing, a small though significant, British underground publisher, specialized in books about mental health and well being.
Well, and although I do not at all agree in neither Jill Bolte Taylor's nor Kay Redfield Jamison's conception of crises to be biological diseases, I nevertheless widely agree to Chauncey's criticism of Jill Bolte Taylor's TED Talk. At least as far as style is concerned.
In regard to contents, I will certainly read Sean's book. I'm actually looking very much forward to it. While I think, I will spare me the doubtful pleasure of reading Kay Redfield Jamison's book. I've read several books of that kind, and the reading always left me with extremely unpleasant feelings of despair and powerlessness.
As for Sean's call for people to share about their experiences with extreme states of mind, I find it just as important as he does, in order to reduce the public's ignorance and fear of these states, that unfortunately only has been increased by the mainstream conception of these states to be caused by biological illness, thus being nothing but meaningless and unpredictable (and thus dangerous) "madness" (that would have to be fought and suppressed at any price). Although I also find it quite challenging to share such a deeply personal experience publicly, I have considered doing so for a while, and will share at least some of it in time to come.
Make sure to read the "Introduction to my new book..." at Sean's blog, where he takes on Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind. Those of you who've been to read Chauncey's analysis of Jill Bolte Taylor's TED Talk, also will have found him praise Kay Redfield Jamison whom he contrasts to Jill Bolte Taylor - in regard to style.
When it comes to contents, both are pretty much the same: both talk about crises being biological illnesses, brain diseases, that are incurable, chronic illnesses, and that need lifelong "medication" in order to be kept under control.
If you've been around this blog only for a moment, you'll know that I strongly disagree with this point of view as there's no evidence so far for crises to be biological illnesses, and as I see that this mainstream-viewpoint actually has stripped and still does strip "countless people of hope for a truly better life, medication free", as Sean writes. Indeed, I find it morally irresponsible by the mental health system to, continuously, make a claim like that, into the bargain often in a way that suggests it were a proven fact rather than a mere hypothesis, a mere theory, and I wish there were more professionals like Ron Unger who'd dare to speak up and challenge the system concerning this matter.
Sadly, I haven't encountered as much as one single professional, psychiatrist, psychologist, or any other, here in Denmark yet, who has shown to be as courageous as Ron (and a number of other professionals abroad). Not even the "brilliant (though not perfect...) guidance". Let me know if you have. I'll be happy to do a piece on him/her!
Now, I can't blame Chauncey for his praise of Kay Redfield Jamison as he, as far as I know, has no personal experience of "madness", his opinion on the matter (whatever it is) thus of course being a result of the information that is immediately available to the public. Which is the mainstream information, stating that extreme states of mind are due to brain diseases. Thus Kay Redfield Jamison's book An Unquiet Mind is published by Macmillan, Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight by the Viking Penguin Group, and both can easily be found at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, while Sean Blackwell's book A Quiet Mind is published by and can only be purchased through Chipmunkapublishing, a small though significant, British underground publisher, specialized in books about mental health and well being.
Well, and although I do not at all agree in neither Jill Bolte Taylor's nor Kay Redfield Jamison's conception of crises to be biological diseases, I nevertheless widely agree to Chauncey's criticism of Jill Bolte Taylor's TED Talk. At least as far as style is concerned.
In regard to contents, I will certainly read Sean's book. I'm actually looking very much forward to it. While I think, I will spare me the doubtful pleasure of reading Kay Redfield Jamison's book. I've read several books of that kind, and the reading always left me with extremely unpleasant feelings of despair and powerlessness.
As for Sean's call for people to share about their experiences with extreme states of mind, I find it just as important as he does, in order to reduce the public's ignorance and fear of these states, that unfortunately only has been increased by the mainstream conception of these states to be caused by biological illness, thus being nothing but meaningless and unpredictable (and thus dangerous) "madness" (that would have to be fought and suppressed at any price). Although I also find it quite challenging to share such a deeply personal experience publicly, I have considered doing so for a while, and will share at least some of it in time to come.
Wednesday, 25 June 2008
A sacred process
Sean at Bipolar or WakingUp?! posted the below video on YouTube yesterday. I just love it. Absolutely awesome! Well, and what he says about "mania" applies just as well to any other kind of "psychosis": it's a sacred process.
Here is Sean's video:
Here is Sean's video:
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
A New Earth
Today, I got a link to a web-event at Oprah Winfrey's - uhm, yah, the Oprah. Me neither, I'd never... But as I said to a friend recently: Life is full of surprises - site, that I'd like to share here.
It's sort of a web-book club, on Eckhart Tolle's book A New Earth, with Eckhart Tolle and Oprah as hosts. I've watched the 1.part, and will definitely hang on to the bitter end. Check it out!
It's sort of a web-book club, on Eckhart Tolle's book A New Earth, with Eckhart Tolle and Oprah as hosts. I've watched the 1.part, and will definitely hang on to the bitter end. Check it out!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
