Doctor, please undiagnose me

I just had one of those, yes, yes, yes moments and for the first time it had nothing to do with sex. I read a blog entry by Corrina West who I discovered on the wonderful Mad in America website. She had written a piece called What a new role for psychiatrists would look like and it included a link for undiagn

Mad in America (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

ose me. This is what I found when I followed the link:

The UnDiagnosing Emotional Distress alternatives say:

Undiagnosing Emotional Distress. Sometimes it’s not genetic. Sometimes it’s:

• Past trauma experiences
• Lack of social connections
• Job fit or career goals
• Grief
• Loss of hope
• Disconnection with our creator
• Drug Use
• Nutrition, exercise, or sleep habits

I almost leaped out of my seat because everything she listed except for the thing about the creator matched the things I have experienced. In my earlier blogs about the onset of my distress, I talked about many of these things. I had lost hope, my sleep had been out of whack, I had used drugs and I had a mismatch of career choices. I was not good enough in doing the the things for which I had prepared in college and I needed to learn something new.

In my new role as a certified peer specialist I think back to the old Fleetwood Mac song Landslide. “I climbed a mountain and I turned around. ” The hardest part was convincing myself I wouldn’t start falling backward. I have begun handling the seasons of my life as I grow older. Can you imagine how refreshing and liberating it would be for a psychiatrist to talk with you about not being a patient but a fully emerged human being? I have an appointment scheduled next month at the VA  where I intend to give my psychiatrist an opportunity to do that very thing. Doctor, doctor, give me the news. I’ve got a bad case of doing well And I want some more.

Hypnotized (Fleetwood Mac song) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Related articles

• What a new role for psychiatrists might look like (madinamerica.com)

Found a new supplement

Health food store (Photo credit: PR®)

Prescription placebos used in research and practice (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Prescription placebos used in research and practice (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Readers of this blog will remember that I started taking SAMe late last year with excellent results. However I have found the supplement a little expensive. It was better than the placebos from the drug industry I had been taking but wow a 2 week supply could set me back a few dollars. With that in mind I called a local health food store and asked about their recommendations.

The fact that health food store was so nearby was remarkable, too. It is conveniently located next to a liquor store. The person I spoke to at the store recommended deproloft-hf  which has a lot of B vitamins  and other interesting ingredients. The list of ingredients includes something called GABA that I intend to investigate a little further. I am hoping that readers will have had more experience than me with supplements in general and this particular compound.

I want to be able to have the excitement and fun that was available before I began slowing down my thoughts. I don’t want to race until 3 AM but I also don’t want to feel numb. There ought to be a happy middle ground available that says, it’s okay to kiss your girl friend. Stay out and have a good time for the weekend? No problem. Gotta work on Monday. We got your back, bro.

With that in mind, let the comments fly. Who likes supplements and who prefers not taking supplements or medications?

 

Related articles

• Omega 3′s Effective for ADHD (gregorypippertmd.com)
• Aging slowed in mice with supplement mix (adamhuber888.wordpress.com)

Life Without the Placebos

Followers of this blog will recall reading about my decision about 10 weeks ago to completely abandon the mood stabilizer and the anti depressant I had been taking for several years. The people in my care team, including my psychiatrist, my nurse practitioner and my immediate family were aghast at my decision. They remembered a lot of the problem that had arisen in the past after I abandoned the safety net provided by chemicals. Nonetheless, I stuck to my rights and to  me it has been the best decision I ever made.

Is this something that everyone could do? Probably not. For one thing I have a a lot of coping strategies. I’m highly educated, work experience in several fields, access to resources in person and over the Internet, a pet and a lot of self-understanding. I have people in the programs where I work who complain about their medications and the length of time they have been taking them. However as soon as they remove these medications from their symptoms they begin to deteriorate. To a certain extent their bodies have been trained to look for these medications and their minds keep asking, where’s the stuff?

Even the most ardent mental health advocates usually  recommend a gradual approach to weaning yourself off medications. This process involves finding other strategies, such as one might develop using a wellness recovery action plan. I developed my plan several years ago and I have helped others. These plans cover many different areas such as exercise, coping with environmental triggers, friendship, employment and romance.

When I moved into a clean and safe duplex recently it was a direct result of the success of my wellness plan. My mind responded positively, too, saying, “I like that, give me some more.”  In other words, now that I have a nice place, how about some company? I worked with a woman over the weekend who I have been dying to get to know for more than a year. As it happened, she moved recently and lives about ten blocks away from me. Walking distance, another one of the coping strategies.

I got a dvd player last week and hooked it up to my big screen television. I bought some dvds, watched one of them at home and decided I should bring it to work. My Internet provider ATT forced me into their rebranded service Uverse which sounds like something that the Unitarian Universalists would have created. It’s a little faster than my old service and works better with my blog. And the aforementioned pet, my little cat, has more room to roam around without getting underfoot. That was one of my pet peeves, pun intended, at my old place.

So you can just imagine with all of these things going on, how would ever have time to become depressed? So my advice, for those who want to replace those little placebos, is to get a life. Really, you’ll be glad you did.

Related articles

• The Placebo Drug Effects – Clinical Studies, Trials and Research With Anti-Depressant Drugs and the Degree of Effectiveness (ducknetweb.blogspot.com)
• Treating Depression: Is There A Placebo Effect? (dfw.cbslocal.com)
• Inside “60 Minutes” placebo story (cbsnews.com)
• Is it mind over meds in depression treatment? (cherished79.wordpress.com)

I am officially non-compliant

Image via Wikipedia

Today I met with my psychiatrist for the first time since I stopped taking the anti-depressant and the mood stabilizer he had prescribed for me. In a radical break for freedom I decided that the blah listless feelings I was experiencing meant that the medications were not working. I wrote about my experiences on this blog, including my discovery of the food supplement SAMe. My family and my supervisor at work were skeptical but gradually they have accepted the changes I have made.

Now it will be up to the mental health professionals who are part of my care team to understand that the person they knew as a patient has begun taking charge of his own recovery. I encourage my peers to become much more active in advocating for themselves instead of following instructions like sheep. Is it really working, how does it make you feel and what is your quality of life are the kinds of questions I tell people they need to ask.

As a safety precaution I told the psychiatrist that if I felt uncomfortable symptoms re-appearing I would consider taking the medications once more. I think that if the case managers I see every day realized that the pleasant and helpful peer specialiast with whom they just conversed was a radical in taking charge of his life, they would be scandalized. I hope one day that they will be pleased.

Choices, for one and all.

Image via Wikipedia

Related articles

• What Makes a Good Psychiatrist? (psychologytoday.com)

Things I Left Behnd in 2011

Image via Wikipedia

Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

It has been 2012 for damn near an hour in the Central Time zone and I thought I should take about my new series: things I left behind. Stuff that got too heavy to carry like, guilt, grown ass lazy sons and daughters, what  I used to be and the idea that I was anything less than magnificent.  Let’s make a list so you know I’m traveling light. Put on your intergalactic walking shoes because this will be a trip.

1. Depression. It entered my life during the 1960s and continued to pester me to different degrees until fairly recently. With depression my first impulse was to remain home, whether or not I had money. And when I was out trying to enjoy life, depression sat nearby watching and waiting for me to slip up.  as Simon and Garfunkle once said, “hello, darkness, my  old friend.”
2. Mind reading. I once heard about a book “It would be so nice if you weren’t here” by an actor named Charles Grodin and for some reason the title resonated with me. At some point I decided that people didn’t want me to see me and i found ways to start disappearing. The clues that I uncovered about not being wanted were very discreet but now I realize they were all  fabricated by low self-esteem. I’m here, world, deal with me.
3. Let me tell you what I was.  Oh, yes here he comes again, one of those yesterdays. In 2012 I am responsible for being ready for what lies ahead.
4. First Christmas Away From Home. Actually, it’s #30. I left Buffalo in 1981, having grown  up in the world of church basement coffee houses and protests. One of the things I savored was  hearing those  old folk tunes. Not surprisingly I sought out the same environment here in Milwaukee. Yesterday I went back to  the 19th Street coffeehouse where I heard a friend Sandy  Weisto sing First Christmas Away From Home. It was very meaningful and touching.

Why not take something that works?

I have been judging whether or not medications worked solely on the basis of what kind of results I personally achieved. I figure if I am able to work and maintain myself then the drugs must be working. To a certain extent that makes sense. However I have become concerned that some medications don’t actually work. Am I experiencing the dreaded placebo effect? On my previous blog entry I spoke of feeling depressed in spite of faithfully  taking an anti-depressant. So, why keep taking it?

I  was working, feeling good, and received a raise. So it must be doing something. What i began to sense was dissatisfaction with my quality of life. Like  Simon and Garfunkle said, “Im empty and aching and I don’t know why.” I have set some priorities for my life and yet in the daily work toward achieving them I lacked joy. Is that what we seek when we take anti-depressants?

So many millions of us are taking these pills and I’m curious about whether we are actually feeling better. And what do we mean by getting better? Today I laughed out loud several times. I enjoyed talking with people and going about mundane tasks. I felt more deeply present than I had been for some time. I am still looking for relief from a few minor issues in my feet. I used to take aspirin and rub pain relief cream on my feet regularly and now I don’t have to do those things.

I  can feel that something has  shifted because I substituted a couple of supplements for one medication. I am going to pay attention to my body and think about the kind of answers that I am receiving. Soon I expect to resume my exercise routine. Today’s message for my consumer friends is to ask, are you feeling better today than before you began taking whatever medication you are looking at right now? How can you tell that it’s working? Does taking the medication bring you joy?

Related articles

• anti-depressants for people who can’t take them? (ask.metafilter.com)
• Au Naturel…. (unabashedexploration.wordpress.com)

Am I Still the Same?

Image by soonerpa via Flickr

Image via Wikipedia

This is my first full day of using the supplement SAM-e for depression. I found  out about it on the Dr. Oz show Monday and decided to give it a try.  I  have lived with depression for many  years. Apparently this is something that runs in my family. I have been using a prescription medication for the problem. But after some initial dramatic mood improvement I find that the blahs have returned. It  seems that my enjoyment, my get up and go had gotten up and left.

Yesterday I went to Walgreens after work and bought their store brand. SAM-e can be expensive. One reason I was curious about this supplement is that I suffer from some aches and pains which I hoped it would reduce. I took a pill  yesterday before eating lunch and took a calcium pill behind it. Today I took them first thing in the morning after a very sound sleep.

I decided that since I had not written anything for a week I would use my blog to let people know about this change. I will let people know about this as I go along. Will I be the same or will I start acting wacky again?

Related articles

• Soooo….72 Hours Off Meds = ? (pennicash.wordpress.com)
• Natural Alternative Treatments: Not prescriptions! (fufibro.wordpress.com)
• Steve Harvey After Dr. Oz Show “The Families Dependent On Me, So My Wife Forces Me To Dr.” [Video] (bossip.com)