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Psych test – how to get sane in spite of your doctor.

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I make no bones about the fact that I go to a psychiatrist. I was diagnosed as bipolar about fifteen years ago and I take medicine for it. At least I admit that I need help and I take it.

Many years ago I was getting free health insurance. I wasn’t employed and we had a sort of state run system. Essentially, you got what you paid for. It was better than nothing. I’d had several different doctors when I lived in Chattanooga, but when I moved to Nashville I didn’t have as many choices.

The only doctor that was listed for mental health did not speak English as his first language. It might not have even been his second language. While I’m OK with a doctor knowing multiple languages, I feel it important that if you are going to be a psych doctor, your first language needs to be the same as the patient you are supposed to be helping.

There aren’t any non-language tests for the psych doctors. It isn’t like they can listen to your brain with a stethoscope, or hook you up to a machine to see how you are doing. They have to talk to you and listen to you, and be able to understand what you say. They need to also be able to understand nuance and idioms. All of this is lost if they don’t share the language.

One day the doctor said that if I “felt special” I should take this certain pill. I think he meant if I felt like I had special powers, because it was an antipsychotic medicine. But with what he said, he basically wanted me to feel like crap most of the time.

He sure succeeded with that one. One of the medicines he had me on was Depakote. What a terrible drug. It took me four hours to get to sleep, and then I’d sleep for ten and twelve hours. When I was awake I couldn’t concentrate on anything. There was no way that I could return to the working world or even consider going back to school on that medicine. If I kept taking it, then I’d have become indigent and perhaps homeless.

When I told him about these problems, he said “That’s normal.”

That isn’t normal. It might be the normal for the medicine. But it isn’t normal for a functioning human. Perhaps his goal was to make me a zombie. He was making good headway on that one.

One day he set me up with a graduate student and he wanted to give me a test. For some reason I knew the questions for the test and how to answer it. I guess I’d already come across them somewhere. I felt it was so tedious and insulting. I didn’t want to do it. I refused to take it, but he wouldn’t continue on the exam (or give me my prescription) unless I did it. So really, I had no choice.

As a last-ditch effort to get out of this pointless waste of time I pointed out that I was properly oriented as to day and time – I was there for my appointment. He wasn’t buying it.

The questions that I remember include: spell “world” backwards. Count backwards from 100 by sevens. Recite the president’s names in order, as far back as I can remember.

He also gave three words – perhaps they are pen, doorknob, and spoon. I had to repeat them back to him. But then about ten minutes later, after other questions, he asked me to say them again.

None of this had anything to do with if I could cope with reality. None of it had anything to do with how I was managing on a day to day basis.

I stopped going to this doctor after this. Because this was a state-run scheme, I didn’t have another option at the time. I slowly tapered off on my medicine and then just went on my own for a while. I did fine for a bit, but when I crashed, I crashed hard. I’d been self-medicating with pot and that seemed to do the trick for a while but then I decided to stop smoking that. It didn’t take long before things started to get really weird again and I needed help.

The mental health doctors I’d seen hadn’t taught me how to take care of myself. In fact, they had taught me how to be dependent on them. This is very common with medicine the way it is run these days.

In the meantime I found another doctor, and another kind of medicine. It was like a veil had been lifted from my eyes. I could sleep well, and I could think again. No crazy highs and lows.

But better, I had learned something about how to take care of myself. I’d learned that avoiding caffeine and sugar helped a lot. I learned that healthy eating and getting regular moderate exercise helped. I learned that making sure I get a decent night’s rest was essential. I learned that staying away from people and situations that agitated me was very calming.

No doctor told me this. They wanted to test me with irrelevant questions and give me pills that made me stupid. They didn’t care about me as a person or my future.

It is very hard to fight for yourself when your doctor is turning you into a zombie. Then again, when you are in your right mind it is hard enough to stand up for your rights against a doctor. There is the idea that they are the authority – they know best. They aren’t working with you to get healthy – they are dictating what pills to take. They are treating symptoms and not causes. They aren’t promoting health. They are treating diseases. They have it all backwards.

But when your mind is what is affected, it is even harder to stand up for yourself.

Doctors should ask these questions instead – What are you eating? What are your hobbies? What do you do for exercise? What do you do for a job? What do you read? What do you do when you hang out with friends?

All of these things can indicate if a person is off balance. Fix those and the person will stop having such wild mood swings. I propose that bipolar disorder is a reaction to being overstimulated in an unhealthy way. I propose that it isn’t a disease so much as a symptom of an imbalance in life. Fix the balance, and you fix the problem. Perhaps it is more common among highly sensitive individuals. Perhaps if doctors address the cause, they’ll find the cure.

In the meantime, we the patients have to take matters into our own hands and get going with taking care of ourselves.

still point

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Being calm is like being in a small rowboat on a large lake. The motorboats speed by. The waves hit the boat. They threaten to overwhelm it.

The energy from unhappy people is exactly the same. You can choose how it affects you. Do you stand up in your boat and jump up and down, angry that they disturbed your peaceful morning? Doing that only upsets it more.

You can choose to affect them by your actions as well. You can be a force for good by remaining calm. You aren’t adding to the ripples.

When a child falls, he will often look to his parents to see what to do. If they freak out, so will he. If they handle it calmly, so will he. Sick people need to see how to deal with bad situations by watching healthy people deal with them well.

The more peaceful I get, the crazier the world seems to get. It doesn’t seem fair. They should get peaceful along with me. Maybe with time. Meanwhile, I’m trying not to let them rock my boat too much.

This is the same as becoming sober. You don’t notice everybody is drunk until you stop being drunk. Then they are annoying. You don’t notice how everybody reeks of cigarette smoke until you quit smoking.

The trick is to stay calm. Stay sober. Stay peaceful.

Answer the anger with a smile. Don’t yield to it. To yield to it, to agree with it, to follow it is to feed it, to give it energy.

The feeling of anger can be like a bell, calling us to prayer. It can be a reminder to still ourselves and find our center. In this way, a bad situation is sanctified. In this way, pain is a teacher and a friend.

You neutralize a flame with wind or water.

I’m trying to be a calm presence at work, where most of the unbalanced people are. There is still a lot of griping, even though the unhealthy managers are gone. I’m starting to realize that some people aren’t happy unless they are unhappy. Being miserable is their normal. Happiness scares them.

But boy are they harshing my mellow.

Practice

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What is a “practice”? You may have heard this word before and wondered. People these days will talk about something that they do as being part of their practice. Your practice is anything you do mindfully and intentionally.

In the same way that you have to practice playing piano to get better at it, you have to adopt a practice for life to get better at it.

The interesting part is that there is not just one way to practice. Anything you choose mindfully can be your practice. You can have several practices and they can change over time. You don’t have to keep the same one. In fact, when your practice becomes stale is a good time to reexamine it. It may be time to change it. It may also be time to stick with it and dig deeper.

There are just as many practices as there are people. Gardening can be a practice. So can walking outside. So can painting, drawing, and writing. Eating vegetarian, or raw, or local can be a practice. Being part of a group class at the Y is just as valid a path as exercising at home alone to a video or making it up yourself.

The only constant to a practice is that it must be intentionally chosen. It can’t just be something you do because that is what you’ve always done. It can’t be something you do when you are bored. It has to be the exact opposite of an addiction.

How do you pick a practice?

First, think of where you want to go. If you don’t have a goal, you aren’t being intentional. Now, your practice may be the goal. You may find yourself opening up and growing just by adopting a practice.

A practice is like a map that gets you there. If you want to go to Cleveland and you have never been there you’ll either ask someone who has or you’ll get a map. The same is with a practice. Ask people who are good at what they do and enjoy it. Ask people you admire, either friends or experts (the two can be the same thing) what they did (or do) Read a book or twelve. Pray for guidance. Ask God/Source/the Divine to show you what direction you should go.

Then pick something and do it. It will be awkward at first. Give it some time. If it doesn’t feel like a good fit for you, try something else. You can’t get there if you have on the wrong shoes. Sometimes the practice works for someone else but it doesn’t fit you. That is normal. It doesn’t mean you are wrong. It means the practice is wrong for you.

Your practice may be to fully participate in your religion. Practice doesn’t have to be something new, it can be something old. You don’t have to take up a new habit or hobby. You can just do what you already do, but more mindfully.

You can find enlightenment through almost any path. Even doing a jigsaw puzzle can teach you a valuable lesson. Being open and childlike is essential. If your practice becomes like a job, then it isn’t a practice anymore.

It helps if your practice helps others. Sure, you need some inward focus too. You can’t help others very well if you are broken. If you are off balance and you try to catch someone else who is off balance you will both fall. But a practice that is all self-focused will be tight, like a flower bud that isn’t open. Flowers are made to open and be delightful. So are we.

Finding patience in a Monet painting.

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I came across a Monet painting recently and noticed the date. I was surprised to find out that it was completed over the course of four years. I’d always thought that I was a slacker if I didn’t finish an art project in a few days.

The painting is this –
Claude_Monet,_Saint-Georges_majeur_au_crépuscule

It is called “San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk”, or in the original French, “Saint-Georges Majeur au Crepuscule”. The dates are 1908-1912.

This looks like a pretty simple piece to me. This looks like something that could be knocked out in an afternoon. But then again, I’m not a famous artist. Maybe the trick is that he just makes it look simple.

I’ve decided to take this to heart. I’ve decided to be more patient with my art and with myself. This is a dangerous place to be for me. If I don’t push myself enough I won’t do anything. I’ll let projects sit half completed. I’ll start things and not finish them.

But then again, if I do things too fast, I’ll not have time to do them well. I’ll not take the time to let them digest, or ferment, or mellow. Some things are better if they are done slowly. Some things have to be done slowly if they are going to be done right.

I’m not in a race. I don’t have any assignments. Creating isn’t my job. There aren’t any deadlines. The only rules I have are ones I’ve created.

I’m reminded of Luke Skywalker about to enter the cave on Dagobah. The only thing he took in there was himself. Sometimes that is the scariest thing of all.

When I create, I take with me all the rules that I’ve been given of how things have to be and all the rules I’ve made up. I put limits on myself before I’ve even begun. I have expectations that prevent me from finding innovations.

Part of my practice this year is to not limit anything, anymore. It is to be open and trusting to what God is leading me to be and to become. Part of that practice is to encourage you to do the same.

The wind and the pine tree.

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I have a large tree in my back yard. It is a white pine. It is already three times taller than the house and looks like it will get even taller.

I’ve thought about having it cut down, but it provides a lot of nice shade. The only time I really start to worry about it is when there is a big storm with a lot of wind. Then it sways back and forth like a drunken sorority girl.

Part of the problem with this is that pine trees aren’t very flexible. Unlike a drunken sorority girl, when pine trees fall down they snap in half and are a big mess. They also have a habit of falling on houses – the trees, not the girls. When they go, they go in a big way and you are very inconvenienced.

I needed to do something with it for my peace of mind. There are a lot of windy storms here. I didn’t want to have it topped. That isn’t healthy for the tree. I called different arborists and decided on one who is a druid. No, I’m not kidding. There is an arborist in Nashville who really is a druid. Seemed to me like the best choice. I mean, who is going to know trees better than a druid?

He decided the best thing to do was to thin the tree. Imagine holding your hand flat in water with your fingers together. Then drag your hand like that through the water. There is a lot of resistance. Then open up your fingers and do the same thing. It will go through the water a lot easier. He planned on doing the same thing to the tree. The branches were thinned so now the wind passes through it rather than hitting it.

The tree is now better able to handle the winds. It is less likely to break. I feel safer, and it looks stronger.

I recently read a piece about anger. It pointed out several different signs that you are repressing your anger. Repressed anger is just as dangerous as a pine tree in a strong wind. It too can be a big mess to deal with. It too can destroy your home.

Several of my friends read this and commented that they noticed that they have a lot of those symptoms. Their response to it was to wonder what or who they were angry about or with.

It isn’t about the thing or the person that is causing your anger. It is about the fact that your response to a difficult situation is to get angry. Nobody causes you to get angry. It is a choice. It is a reaction. It is a response.

You are the tree. The wind is the adversity. Resist it, fight against it, and you’ll break. Let it pass through you and you’ll stand strong. It is all about approach and nothing about the situation.

I was given a good image at the retreat I was at a few weeks ago. Imagine you are in a rowboat on a lake. When a speedboat zooms by, you have the choice to just let it pass by and calmly ride out the waves until the lake goes back to being still. Shaking your fist and yelling at the driver of the speedboat doesn’t change the situation, and in fact it is likely to make you more upset. Let it pass by and not affect you. This way you will survive.

Smoke

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How’s that New Year’s Resolution going for you?

I know a guy who wants to quit smoking. Well, he says he wants to quit, but then he goes and smokes another cigarette. He says you have to “You have to wait until you are ready to quit.” He says you have to have a motivation to change. I’d think the fact that he’s already had a heart attack and is sick all the time would be a good motivation, but it isn’t enough for him yet.

He’s waiting for a kick in the butt. The only problem is that sometimes the thing that is big enough for the kick in the butt is so big that it, itself, cannot be easily kicked. Or emphysema. Or cancer. Or just plain old death.

He’s using this as an excuse. He’s using it as a cop-out. If he really wanted to quit, he’d quit.

I’m not being mean. I quit smoking when I went to the emergency at three a.m. with heart problems. My heart was racing. I felt terrible. Fortunately it was a fluke, but then I started thinking. What about the next time, when it is something serious? Then it’s going to be harder. Sure, I dodged the bullet this time, but what about then? If I keep playing Russian roulette with cigarettes, I’m going to lose one day. This isn’t a good game to play.

Nobody makes you smoke. Nobody holds a gun to your head and makes you light up. Nothing is weirder than watching someone say “I just can’t quit smoking” and see them light up another cigarette. It’s like seeing someone possessed.

This same guy walked away from an abusive family when he was 15. One cold night he saw his stepfather beating his mother yet again and he jumped in to help her. His stepfather started to beat him viciously, stomping on his back in an effort to kill him. He managed to get away, and that night resolved to leave. He put on everything he owned because it was freezing outside and walked several miles to town. He walked away from certain death.

He could use that same energy now. Cigarettes are killing him, just as surely as his stepfather was going to. The bad part is that nobody is forcing him to stay in this abusive situation. He’s doing this to himself, over and over. Every cigarette is stealing his life, minute by minute, year by year. Every time he smokes he is killing himself as surely as his stepfather was going to kill him that cold night.

When he says “You have to wait until you are ready to quit” he’s just lying to himself. He’s ready, he’s just afraid. He’s smoked so long he doesn’t know what to do with himself if he isn’t smoking. Just thinking about quitting smoking causes anxiety, and he’s spent so long dealing with his anxieties by smoking that he goes and has another smoke.

It’s an ugly circle.

It’s easier to stay in an abusive relationship than to leave it, right? Better to stay with the devil you know.

He says that he’s done so much damage to his lungs that there’s no turning back now. This is just like saying that you’ve already ruined your diet by eating a piece of pie – so you might as well eat the entire pie.

I’ve suggested that he go have a ten minute walk instead of having a smoke. He says he can’t go walk every time. He’s at work. Yet he doesn’t get that he takes time to smoke. I’m not saying to double up on breaks. I’m saying to replace smoking with walking. I’m saying to take a walk break instead of a smoke break. It clears your head and reduces anxiety. It does all the stuff that smoking does but without the bad side effects. It worked for me.

He brushes all of this aside. He says he’s not ready to quit. Actually, he is. He knows he should. He talks about quitting, but he’s waiting for a sign. He’s waiting for proof that he has to quit. The fact that he has kept on living is proof to him that he’s tougher than cigarettes. He’s dodged the bullet. He’s survived.

Soon that will change. It always does. Nobody wins with cigarettes.

Flame

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How does any change get done? Bit by bit. Piece by piece. It is totally impossible to make a sudden change for the better. Everything worth having takes a lot of time and a lot of effort.

Making any change is like starting a fire with a flint. You work really hard at the beginning, seemingly not doing anything. No flame is there. The desire is there, and the work is there, but there’s no flame. Then, suddenly, there’s a little spark. If you’ve prepared the area well with tinder, it will land on it and begin to burn. Then you have to have other small things to burn nearby. You have to protect that tiny little flame and feed it gently or you’ll lose it. Give it a huge log to chew on and it will die.

The same is true of good habits. You can’t go from nothing to something overnight. Start small. Add a little to it as you go. Build it up. Have patience with the process.

Just your desire to make a change in your life is a good start. It is the proof that you are working on it. But that is the flint.

Then you have to get some tinder nearby and a place for the fire. Have a few small tasks that you can do that will further your goal, whatever it is. Make sure they are small. Do a little of something. That will give you energy to do a little more.

You can’t make a fire just anywhere. You need to have a place for it. Likewise, you have to plan ahead and have a goal. You also have to know that you won’t get there immediately. This is normal and human. Wanting to do too much too fast will blow out the flame.

Sometimes the spark will fall to the side and not on the tinder. Sometimes things don’t go the way you meant for them to. Try again. Otherwise you’re going to be left in the cold.

Getting a lighter isn’t an option sometimes. Borrowing a torch from someone else also isn’t an option sometimes. Sometimes you have to start from scratch and you have to do all the hard work yourself.

Dishes

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wash

Sometimes, just getting the dishes washed is a big thing.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed with things around the house. The dishes are backed up. The laundry needs to be done. I need to pay the bills. When I go to do one thing, I find I can’t do it because there are three other things I need to do first. Just this morning I wanted to have some grapes with my breakfast. But I hadn’t washed the grapes yet. I looked at the sink, and the sink was full of dishes. It was going to be hard to wash them. And the drain rack was full too. Goodness gracious, it was all a log jam.

I certainly could have just washed the grapes around the dirty dishes. It isn’t ideal. Sometimes the grapes will drop into the sink and then they’ll sit there under the dishes and start to get slimy and gross. Then they’ll attract bugs. So that really isn’t a great option.

I could have let it all get to me and gotten overwhelmed. I’ve certainly done this in the past. But then there are more dishes, and more dishes, and they just don’t do themselves.

We have an understanding in our house that one person cooks and the other person washes the dishes. It seems pretty fair, but in reality the person who washes the dishes has it pretty easy. You have to cook every day. You don’t have to wash dishes every day. They can back up a little. The bad part is, they do back up and then it gets a little difficult to take care of it.

Then I have to break it down into pieces.

Alright. Start with something. Empty the drain rack. I need a place to put the dishes I’m about to wash. OK, that’s not too bad. That took three minutes.

Then I’ll look at the dishes to be done. Both sides of the sink are full. Not only are dishes from two (or three…) days in there, Scott used two pots last night because I wanted saffron rice and beans. So those have been soaking overnight to make it easier to clean them.

If only I’d washed them last night. They’d be done already. No soaking required.

But that way of thinking is a dead end. Saying “If only” doesn’t help with the right now. It helps a little for the future, so I can see what doesn’t work and try not to do it again. If I remember. But for right now, “If only” is a trap. Best to just notice it and then move along.

OK. I decide to wash some dishes. But then I’ll argue with myself that I don’t have a lot of time. This too is a dead end. It really only takes about ten minutes to do the dishes.

It is stunning how I’ll try to get out of doing what has to be done.

I create such resistance, and when I finally push through it and just do it, it isn’t nearly as hard as I was making it to be.

It doesn’t matter if you can’t do it all. Just do something. Even a little something is better than nothing.

Meditation on mindlessness.

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Every now and then I get stuck in a loop. I find myself doing something that I don’t want to do, and I’ve been doing it far longer than I should. It doesn’t make any sense. I’m an adult. I’m in charge of my life, right?

It sure doesn’t feel like it to me sometimes, and I suspect you might know what I’m talking about.

There are habits that I fall into that don’t do me any good anymore, if they really ever did to start with. Doing the same thing over and over feels safer than trying something new, even if the old thing is a dead end.

This is how I’ll end up eating a whole bag of potato chips in one sitting. This is how I’ll spend two hours scrolling through Facebook to see if anything is happening. This is how I smoked clove cigarettes and pot for ten years.

Mindlessness. It’s all mindlessness. It’s being on auto pilot. It is worse than death because at least with death I don’t have control over my actions. I’d like to think when I’m alive, I do.

The bad part is that when I get in these loops I usually know it. I’m aware of how badly I don’t want to be doing this thing but I’m still doing it anyway. Ten minutes later I’m still doing it. Ten minutes more and I’m still there.

It’s how I end up plodding through books that I don’t really enjoy. They aren’t for a class. They aren’t assigned. Most of the books I read I got for free or really cheap too, so it isn’t like I’m wasting money if I stop reading a book that is going nowhere.

Sometimes when I am stuck in a loop, I start to think like this and it helps me so I offer it to you:

Would Jesus be spending his time like this? What if he were here with me? Would I be doing what I am doing?

It works for food too – would Jesus be eating this? Is it healthy? Would I serve it to him? Wouldn’t I serve him good food, something healthy and tasty?

As for the state of my house, would I be embarrassed to have him over? Is it welcoming, or a mess? And what would we do? Would we sit around watching tv or checking updates on Facebook?

So, if I wouldn’t treat Jesus like that, why am I treating myself like that? I need to show myself the love that Jesus showed.

I sometimes get Scott to let me do something nice for him by talking him into the idea that it benefits me. I’m trying the same trick on myself. Instead of thinking about my own needs, I’m imagining what if Jesus were here. Would I be doing this?

Would I be treating my body this way? Would I be spending my time this way? Would I be talking to myself this way? Would I be living this way?

Now, understand that I wasn’t raised with a guilt and gloom image of Jesus. Jesus enjoys a glass of wine and playing board games. But he also values doing the real work too. It isn’t all fun and games either. There is a balance there.

What would Jesus do, indeed. I always hated those rubber bracelets. They seem so cheap, so trivial. I felt that the people who wore them didn’t have a grasp on the real Jesus anyway, because their Jesus was anti everything. The Jesus I know is about love.

I feel like Jesus wouldn’t waste his time but then I remember that he spent a lot of time alone, hanging out talking with God. So there was certainly some down time, but I can’t compare that to surfing the internet mindlessly or reading boring books or ignoring things that need to be done around the house or eating junk food.

I think what I’m trying to do is use Jesus as a reminder to be mindful. I’m not giving Jesus control. That isn’t what it is at all. I’m not trying to guilt trip myself into doing or not doing anything. I’m trying to come up with a trick that helps me get unstuck from a groove, a rut.

So far, when I remember to do it, it works.

Thanks for chips and salsa

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I went to lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant a few weeks ago. I’ve not been there for lunch in a while. Normally I eat lunch at work or at a buffet. I started to remember why I go to buffets.

The server was taking a long time to get to me to take my order. Then I’d have to wait for my food to be prepared. I started to get a little anxious. I don’t want to be late back to work. Well, I do want to be late, because I don’t really want to go back right away because I like luxuriating at lunch and not being ruled by the clock – but that wasn’t really an option. What I want and what I’m going to do are sometimes two different things.

So I started to freak out a little. We’ve got a new manager and I think it is important to get there on time. When is the server going to come? I started trying to spot him, or in fact any server. Somebody could take my order- it didn’t have to be my server. Things needed to start happening soon. Soon I wouldn’t have time to eat my meal in a calm fashion. Snarfed down food isn’t really great on your digestion.

And then I looked right in front of me. I have something to eat right here. Here’s the chips and salsa. It’s hardly a meal, but certainly something. I gave thanks for it, and started eating it. I started to calm down immediately. As soon as I did this, the server came and apologized for the wait and took my order. The moment I appreciated what I had, I got more.

This is the way, I’m learning. Give thanks for what you have, not what you want. Whatever you have, enjoy it and appreciate it, even if it is small. Be thankful.

Strangely, then things seem to open up – but that isn’t the point. Don’t be thankful so that you’ll get the next thing. Be thankful for the current situation, as it is, whatever it is. If you’re not happy now, you’ll certainly not be happy then. If you’re constantly wanting more, then you’ll never be content. So foster a state of constant thankfulness, and you’re already there.