I am a mental health counselor myself and I am going through a lot of PTSD turning 49 on October 7th. Been misdiagnosed as bipolar and schizoaffective. Within my life I have witnessed, been involved with toxitiy in environment--I used to say in speeches as a mental health advocate, that I started my counseling career around 1964 when listening to my mother talk about the horrors of shock treatments she went through at the California State Mental hospital. Both parents were equally abusive with drug use and alcoholism and I was sexually violated by a family member at aged nine. I went into the mental health system as a client beginning in January 1982 and then experienced the worst period of my life for over 15 years going from on prescription to another, losing friends and grossly overweight by around 100 lbs by my late 30s. In 1990 a kidney infection and running away from my coercive, controlling parents (in heightened anxiety) led to me voluntarily to go to an emergency room in Portland Oregon. However, the staff looked at me as if I were psychotic and stapped me down against my will and did not allow me to go to the bathroom so I held it for 3 days. I was terrified afterwards yet it gave me the impudence to quickly finish up college because I knew I needed to do something about this. I graduated in 1993. However I wasn't equipped to find a job so I volunteered at Oregon Advocacy and the Mental Health Association of Oregon. Also I helped people navigate the system yet continued to find abuses, prejudices in the medical system. Therefore I began to attend conferences and make speechs such as in front of the Portland Police Bureau and the State Capital Building in Salem Oregon. In 2001, I was invited to the National Mental Health Association Conference in Washington DC where I told my story to a number of Congresspeople and Senators on Capital Hill--most listened intently and gave me liberal time. In 2006, I was invited back to Washington DC for the NMHA's Conference. In 2002 I was hired to run a dropin center which I did like a improvasational humor like Patch Adams along with music therapy. Later I became a case manager and continued to listen to others' stories of medical abuse such as what they experienced in psych wards like Oregon State Hospital (which again I internalized and later triggered me)> Also in 2006, I married the love of my life yet the marriage turned out to be traumatic and controversial from the start. For one thing, a jeallous co-worker accused me of stocking her child; the allegations were found to be untrue in court yet it led my professional career in jeaopedy. Additionally I experienced nightmears/night-terrors of being forced drugged and being slandered because I had been political. My wife did not understand and this led to additional arguments. Because of witnessing multiiple abuses within the medical field after long time affiation as a client, I left conventional medical system in 2005 to go strickly naturpathic. However, I was aware since going off lithium abuptly because of the beginnings of documented kidney damage, that my kidneys were possibly on borrowed time which caused additional traumas. By February of this year, lab and ultra sound tests proved that my kidneys were operating at less than 8% and that I needed to start dialysis, which I started in the hospital by late March. This further caused divisions between my wife and myself; a vacation we took in August in which I got sick with an infection and needed to be hospitalized in Southern Oregon led to my wife to be abuse in the long ride back home in the Portland area and she abruptly kicked me out of the house. So you can see how things pile up and lead to another and it becomes horrible when doctors dismiss things as delusional or they don't listen to you. To date, I have never conclusively believed that I have schizoaffective disoirder or bipolar yet suffer profoundly from the effects of accumulated trauma and abuse which has not been effectively dealt with effectively. As a matter of fact, I am having a hard time getting my insurance company to recongize my PTSD conditions which I feel is equivilent to those suffered from combat in war. As far as the dialysis is concerned, it is rough physically on me yet I continue to work full time. It allows me to clean up my system (which leads me to believe in accumulated toxins had been built up which had led to behavioral despire). I continue to look at alternative means for my own health care and as I continue to physically clean up I find more re-associations from the dis-associations of my life--many more aspects of 40 some odd years are making clearer sense to me now. I posted this because I need support as I have lost my family who did not believe in me as a spokesperson. It is extemely important that we, as an informed group, educate people to re-associate with their bodies and really question their own medical treatment before they wake up to diabetes, kidney failure or not wake up at all. As I am writing this, I am feeling the despire and anxiety of being more alone yet I have goals and purposes in mind. Incidently, I am now more physically active and my weight is around 145 lbs at 5'7". I need to get a public speaking career going as well as a writing outlet. Therefore I am posting this for inspiration and ideas to carry on uniquely.
Thanks for your post, Michael! I sympathize with you and what sounds like your long, hard rollercoaster ride through a number of tough symptoms. I'm glad you find therapy in writing and encourage you to keep it up! I would be very interested in hearing more about your opinion of music therapy for those with anxiety or other types of disorders.
In the meantime, here are some links to some info that might be helpful to you (at least I hope!)
Alternative Anxiety Therapeis
PTSD
And we also have lots of info on symptoms of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia if you're interested.
all the best,
Sofia
Hello Sopia,
Thank you so very much for responding to my post and especially putting up with my long ramblings as I spilled things out there along with mis-spellings and the like. I was feeling despite to be heard so I just put it out there this past weekend. Presently I am dealing with motivational issues as well as realing from the barrage of recent traumas--the loss of my marriage and step child as well as the horrible misunderstandings, and my chronic kidney failure with having to keep up with dialysis's physical drainings.
Tomorrow is my birthday and for the most part, I will spend it at work and later at the dialysis center uneventfully. I do have good support at work for co-workers who treat me with respect and avidly helped me though difficult situations yet professionally I could only go so far as to how much to disclose or vent. My wife was abusive and w/in the marriage she more or less kept me from friends; now that I am separated and surely headed for divorce, this is a very lonely time. I know that trauma from early in life leads often to a pattern of abusive relationships for many. For example, I found great comfort in alternative/holistic health such as accupuncture, Reiki, prayer and mediatation even crystal therapy yet my wife argued much with me regarding these practives. Hence I am utilizing this post.
Traditionally, over the past 26 years, psychotopics have had little positive effect on me and often determental effects. I was on lithium from 1983 to 1996 and it caused me to shut down intellectually and also was the precuser to my kidney failure around 11 years later. Psychiatrists for many years refused to listen to my pleas that certain medications were causing urinary pain and tried to pass it on to me as "fixation". This is one of the primary reasons I try to empower my clients to get in touch with their bodies and to really ask questions with all their medical providers. An example of someone I worked with, as a client, a few years ago in a dropin center was later complaining of extensive pain in her female areas. Her regular doctor kept saying that it was psychosomatic and refused to do tests. A medical provider at Cascadia Behavioral Health Care (where I work) intervened and insisted that the lady be given tests. Finally the lady was given tests and the result was cervial cancer! After a fairly long treatment this woman is now dead. That is why that at least I feel at least holistic practices at least listen!
I am a strong advocate of energy medicine such as the study of the charkas and meridans. There is some cool work being done by Dr Bruce Lipman on energy medinine and the Japanese Dr Emoto on the effects of spirituality/good-intentions and the positive effects on water (which the human body is mostly composed of). Reiki is the most profound spiritual/healing modality that I have come accross; I am a second degree Reiki attuned myself. In Reiki by lying on the table, the energy can be very calming--my usual shaking stops and I often have out of body experiences as well as re-associations with meanings in addressing my trauma issues. To me, this has been more effective that traditonal psychotherapy. However Reiki is expensive for me, around $50 a session so I can only afford it around 1x a month.
You asked about some of my own unique ways of therapy namely musical. I've employed much is light physical fitness groups. The main way I use it is buring CDs, downloading some songs, or use other regular CDs and coping (copy, paste on to word from an internet seach on a specfic song lyric, and then blow it up to around 14 font for it is easy to see). When coping the lyric simply highlight the lyrics therefore bypassing the obnoxious advertisments etc so when it is pasted on to word it is clean and easy to read. An added bonus is to add small drums, cymbols, tamberens (sp?), maracas, etc along with the encouragement to dance. I for one become quite animated in which I dance myself. Often we employ humor such as the song "Lean on Me" (for example) we might sing "Lean on me, and I'll topple over" or the song "Yellow Submarine" change the lyrics "We all live in a pink blimp". I love to keep them guessing. Often I have sang a song (often somewhat obscure) to someone who was experiencing internal stimuli and they were able to sing the lyrics back with joy. Speaking of joy, people were able to dedicate songs to each other (as if a gift) and I remember one time that a client broke down with tears of appreciation. By the way, most of the clients I serve are from the baby boomer generation so I was able to share my large music collection from the music I also grew up to enjoy. On other occasions (in the past) we have had guest piano players or simply we had fun singing songs accopello. On a few Cascadia events, we did karakote in which I would do a lot of the singing and spot some people in the audience singing along. Then I gently put the microphone up to them, encourage them to continue--help them with the tempo and/or lyrics and (often) then let them finish the song on their own. It is great for helping build up someone's self esteem such as helping someone ride a bike (at first training wheels, then hold it without the training wheels, then let them so with encouragement.