3rd attempt to post.
Moreno,
I always appreciate your input.
Moreno,
2. The human mind involves genetics and social conditions. I firmly believe, along with you, that economics and politics do little to help and much to hinder. I’ve read that to be stable a human needs safe relationships with self, home environment and work or leisure environmental postive feedback.
That seems like a problem beyond the alternative treatments. IOW one could argue against pharmaceutical solutions using precisely the same logic - that it stops people from using less invasive/side effect laden methods that might work for them. When in fact, different methods may work for different people and an alternative method that works for some should be out there.
That’s very true, moreno, but no matter what approach is used, the docs have to go beyond the accepted labels–and they don’t. They really can’t. They’re time and funding constrained. Medicare and Medicaid patients are usually given the least amount of care–often just enough to send them out onto the streets again–unless they have an advocate.
And the MI patient has to work as hard as any advocate. Oftentimes, they simply can’t.
How can this be addressed?
I’m not quite sure what you are saying here. Many alternative treatments are not covered by insurance. Though they may be affordable to many people anyway, some being rather inexpensive - the rotation diet for example is free. Allergy testing could probably be afforded by most working people. More ongoing approaches, say involving non-mainstream therapies, are likely out of reach, but then many alternative psychotherapeutic approaches have licenced practitioners, so there may be a chance for most people who are insured.
Any patient/client is already stressed and to some degree overwhelmed and so, yes, adding in taking responsibility for making choices of treatment, pushing for coverage, seeking new treatments, rejecting treatments can add to this. If it is too much, it’s too much. I could go into societal level changes that I think would be good, but seems moving away from where we are in the thread.
Not moving away from the thread at all, Moreno. Any help is appreciated. What societal level changes would you recommend? Such advice may help us MI sufferers, if only as a defiant attitude toward insufficient treatment.
And what are the alternative psychotherapeutic approaches and of what does the practitioners’ licensing consist? What’s their success rate? Sincerely, a lot of us would like to know if there’s anything out there beyond flim-flam.
i am lucky…i see a psychoanalyst and i can pay cash…i take an anti-depressant also…right now i am not depressed…
but i understand that most psychiatrists make their living by seeing patients for 15 minutes and prescribing medication…i am not sure of this…
and i understand that funding for clinics is being voted down…
Thanks, turtle. My HMO allows me a half hour with a counselor. My mind is usually full of at least a few hours of garbage. Oh, well.
I, too, wish there were some way we could get politicians to at least understand mercy. Glad to hear you’re feeling better. I hope it lasts awhile. The meds do help, as does the doc. And keep going on your “depression” post. I think you are getting some decent responses there.
Here, I’m trying to move on into bipolar disorder, and am quite confused by what I’m reading.
Anybody diagnosed as bipolar out there?
J.'s in a manic phase–yep, it happens to those diagnosed as schizophrenic also–the heights of heaven and the depths of hell. Depression and bipolarism are characterized as mood disorders. I’ve days of euphoria and days when I’d rather be dead.
The alarm went off at 11am today. I had a 1pm dental cleaning appointment. I started to wake up before then, waiting for the alarm–you know you have to get up, right? so you set your internal alarm accordingly. I also wanted to get a ‘happy card’ for my nephew–a psychologically battered child who sent me a Christmas card to say he loved me very much. (He said that, not the card.)
So I had reasons to get up–even though I hadn’t gone to bed until 3am.
I drove my little stick shift car to the dentist–by myself–then to the store for the card and some jam for my husband’s morning toast–then home. It felt so good–and I felt so good–I may even take a walk tomorrow!–if I can get out of bed before 2-3 pm and still feel as good as I did today!
I know nothing about bi-polar disorder or schizophrenic disorder (?) other than they only seem to be controllable with drug therapy–lithium (?). You seem to want another answer–but what if there is no other answer? Will you be satisfied with no other answer?
Treatment can only go as far as the patient allows it to go. Treatment can only go as far as the patient agrees to it and allows it to happen. Treatment is one hell of a lot of work for the patient. Drugs and talk therapy are only there as aids for the patient. Actual cure can only come from the patient, and that ‘cure’ may mean acceptance of a continued life on drugs. So!?–If drugs help you to cope and make you feel better because, with them, you are able to cope, why look any farther. Really, why look any farther? Are you looking for further developments in pharmacology or some sort of magic wand, sometime in the future?
Accept what is available, feel better as a result, and hope for something better in the future. It’s your life–and your life is finite. Do what you can to enjoy it while you can–be as productive and as happy as you can be, no matter what it takes. --Liz
Liz,
It’s good to hear you had a good day and that turtle is feeling better also. I, too, am realizing good thoughts and events. Maybe it’s because the three of us have made it through the holidays and our relief is something like a little air let out of an over-inflated tire.
What more do I want? Advocacy, for the human rights of MIs. A grass roots protest, such as the 1% are doing in major cities in the US. We who suffer MI are a much larger percentage of the population. We can make a louder objection to the status quo, if we could only get together.
My friend B. says about J. exactly what you say. Remember the old Flip Wilson line, “What you see is what you get.”? What I see of J. may be all she is capable of doing. But, to admit that is to give up hope, without which we depressed folks cannot carry on. Right now she’s euphoric and affectionate. Doesn’t that set some sort of precedent? Some sort of realization that she has that possibilty within her, that right to be happy? Unless she’s on an alcohol binge, around me she is less delusional. The healing from inside is only possible when complemented by empathy and compassion from outside.
So, I didn’t take my walk. Why? Because I’d put off doing my laundry until I had no clean clothes to put on. I could have put on dirty clothes, but I needed to take a shower and I couldn’t put dirty clothes onto a clean body. So I didn’t take my shower, either. No clean clothes, therefore no shower, therefore no walk. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
It was a beautiful day–there was sunshine, although it was cold. I can deal with cold, just not with dirty clothes on a dirty body.
I am a child of war. Possibly, we all are. Depends on what war is to you. I’m a child of constant war; there’s never been peace in my life. Korea, Viet Nam, the Cold War, Bosnia, Iraq/Iran, Afghanistan. Hey, Nephew, print out your injuries from Afghanistan and hand that list to your docs when they ask. I need to do the same for my past surgeries.
There just doesn’t seem to be an end to it all.
But, if I go to bed soon (it’s 5am now), I may be able to get up in time to take a shower, put on clean clothes, and take a walk before dark comes again. I hope I can do everything–but I may have to skip the walk.
Getting back to the future of treatment: Have there been studies done for PTSD that go beyond the studies of war veterans? Can’t PTSD exhibit in anyone who’s gone through any kind of trauma? Can that ‘trauma,’ which is individual to the sufferer, be categorized?
A grass-roots advocacy group, imm, would only be successful if people were able to accept MI as possibly, probably, even certainly, a disease. Most people don’t accept alcoholism as a disease–or drug dependency–or any number of things–as diseases, which should be treated as diseases.
What we need to do, imm, is press for more of our tax monies going into studies the results of which can then be disseminated to the general public in the form of a comic book that may educate them. Skip on the ‘studies’ part–we have too many of them already and they only delay action.
Nothing can be done without the money to do it. And nothing can be done, imm, about advocating for MI unless the majority of the tax-payers are able to accept MI as a disease.
Oh, yes. they have studied sexual abuse survivoris, people who have been tortured, car accident victims, victims of violent crimes, you name it. The Vietnam war gave American psychiatrists, psychologists and others a pool of people with severe PTSD and studying this pool of people provided many breakthroughs and also a mainstream acceptance of PTSD. (other people have known about this for a long time)
Then perhaps psychiatrists need to come up with a better definition of ‘trauma.’
That was a rather nasty and snide remark. My bad.
I don’t see any change in the future of treatment for those people who cannot afford to go to a psychiatrist once or twice a week or who cannot afford the amount of testing needed to accurately diagnose MI in all of its myriad forms. That’s why I said what I said, above.
For example, if I went to my doctor and said, “I believe I have a severe anxiety disorder that’s been caused by both psychological and physiological stress–‘trauma’–I’ve endured for most of my life,” he’d probably think to himself, “Oh, god, another googler!” If I then went on to say that I believed I was suffering from a form of PTSD, he’d probably think, because he’s human, “Not just a googler, but a self-diagnostician, as well.” This would be a private doctor.
If I went to a public doctor in a public health institution, I wouldn’t be given enough time to say even that. If I had even 15 min. a day for 5 days, I wouldn’t have enough time–especially not if I were in a depressive state at the time. When someone is depressed, they can’t focus–they don’t know–that’s why they’ve checked themselves into the hospital, for goodness sake! But it’s that sort of treatment, foisted on people who can’t pay for proper treatment because they either have no insurance or are under-insured that give MI a bad rep.
I won’t rant any longer. Thanks for listening.
Thanks Moreno and Liz,
PTSD is a symptom common to folks who suffer from schizophrenia, bipolarism or major depression. In my instance, watching my dad wash my mothers wrists in a pan of cold water turned red may have exacerbated my natural tendency to have negative ruminations owing to physical pain, dreaming or awake. I was ten.
What’s happening now is that the DSM IV is like a constitution with specialists adding amendments by writing their own books. I haven’t enough lifetime to read all that material.
Although I sometimes dislike dictionary definitions, I love etymology. The latter proves that words are organic, not static. Definition of “trauma”-- "An emotional shock that creates substantial and lasting damage to the individual, generally leading to neurosis. " The Greek prefix “trau-” means wound or hurt.
Thus the only changes in the Greek usage to that in the current psychiatric definition have to do with substantial and lasting. So how do we describe substantial?
If you are really in trouble you can go the emergency room route, this can lead to at least a short term stay, with meds. If someone says they are thinking of killing themselves and look the least bit serious, they will likely be put under observation. Longer term one can try to get a disability - SSI. Not that that is an easy process. Often states have clinics that have to take on people who reside in this or that country, this can also lead to both counseling and prescriptions - not sure if the meds will get covered by the treatment should get covered, at least in some areas.
Sure, but if there is the slightest justification for it, he or she should refer you to someone. Just because you self-diagnose does not mean you are wrong.
Most depressed people could manage to get across that they went through trauma, if they remember and are willing to consider it important themselves.
I mean the US health care system is a mess in many ways, but there are options and routes to getting treated.
We can’t. I’m trying to explain that. Trauma exists on many different levels and what may be traumatic for one person may not be at all traumatic for someone else. If, however, an experience changes the chemical responses to various stimuli within your brain, to the detriment of the development of ‘normal’ (within the bell curve, normal) responses to fear and anxiety, then I’d call it traumatic.
But it doesn’t need to be a single experience. I was a low birth weight baby–just around 5 lbs. I had whooping cough at 11mo. I weighed 12 lbs. when I was 14 mo. old. We had no real home until I was 4yrs. old. My Father was away for most of the first 3-4 yrs. of my life.
I’m genetically predisposed to weaknesses in my response to stress, since both my parents suffered from anxiety. But none of this is meant to be an excuse for who I am, because I’m a lot more. Rather, it’s meant to be an example of an acute anxiety disorder which, in my case, could probably stem from traumatic experiences.
See, I can deal with things if I can find reasons. Those reasons don’t even need to be ‘real reasons’ as long as I believe them to be. Does this make sense?
I can accept myself as outside the bell curve in terms of normalcy. I’m outside the bell curve when it comes to intelligence on the one end. I’m outside the bell curve when it comes to dealing with stress on the other end. So I’m not ‘normal.’