Urocyon: You are welcome and thank you for taking the time to read this stuff and comment so thoughtfully about your own experiences. Best wishes to you on your recovery.

Andy! Nice to see you in this corner of the blogverse again. You have my best wishes for your success in quitting. If you want more inspiration you can read hard science. I have a college text book on human physiology about twenty years old I bought at a used book store awhile back. It discusses how different systems in the body work. There was two sections which helped scare me into dropping my smoking down to a couple a day.

One was the technical stuff on how oxygen works with blood to run the body and the other was the technical babble about how your lungs and respiration work. The cold hard facts all laid out for the student is very bracing when you know how nicotine works in your body. If you are similary gifted with a highly visual imagination you might also be drawn to tears and anxiety as you read it.

Lex! I really enjoyed reading your recovery based modality. In fact it seems to be the very height of pragmatic common sense. It is far superior to the ‘get you balanced with meds’ modality.

I wrote in detail about my own experiences with recovery in my forthcoming memoir but I will text a little bit about it here.

After my final suicide attempt I did a lot of thinking. I realized that as a ‘dead’ person my life was over. I was in a position to start life all over again from the ground up.

While I was recovering from my OD I asked myself the same questions again and again. One of those questions was,

“What do you want?”

In the aftermath of my OD I found I could not lie to myself anymore. All my psychic defenses and internal mind games were down and I was vulnerable to direct linking with my subconscious mind and my spirit.

When I asked myself what I really wanted the answers came immediately and honestly. I wanted to left alone. Totally alone as much possible. Away from any social interactions for a long time. I wanted also to be able to smoke enough weed to keep the voices and flashbacks away. That was a lot of weed.

I didn’t want a million dollars or a perfect spouse or a the latest in styling clothes and shoes. I asked the Universe if that was really so much to ask for. When I asked myself what it would take to get those things I knew I needed to come back into the real world enough to get a job. There was no one on the planet that was going to give me room, board, food and money for pot.

Months later I finally got a good job that payed well that did not involve customer service. After awhile I could afford to live by myself in my own apartment. What money I had left over could either go to trying to get a car or to buy weed but not both.

Not having a car was such a load off my mind it helped diminish my stress load. It was one less thing that was bugging me. No more endless nickle and dime maintenance and breakdowns on the road and towing fees. No more insurance and registration and oil changes. No more getting pulled over because a tailight was out and I couldn’t afford to replace it. It was a completely avoidable stress and I redirected my money entirely into drugs. I got exactly what I wanted.

For six months I was completely satisfied to have a solid blue collar job and total privacy and isolation when I was not at work. I took public transportation or walked or biked to and from work. Every day I rolled and smoked one to two joints just to be able to stand other people without wanting to assault them or run away. Every evening I decompressed a hard days work at the factory and studiously relaxed for the remainder of the day and evening before bed.

That’s how I lived my life for half a year at least. At some point I began reading my old martial art and chinese medicine books and I began to feel a stirring of purpose and longing inside myself. I revisited the question. What did I want now? I wanted to become head over heels involved with all things holistic and spiritual. Why not? I was no longer part of the system or the rat race. I was not planning for the future. I was living one day at a time and I wanted to begin spending more of daily allotment of time practicing the things that mattered most to me since I was kid. Mind-body discipline.

After that my recovery took a new direction of self empowerment. That’s how I recovered. I asked myself honestly what I wanted then went about making that happen. Success breeds success which breeds self confidence.

The six months I spent hiding out in my apartment smoking pot continuously kept me safe from harming myself. It gave me time for the intensity of the various spiritual wounds I had to diminish a little. It allowed to sit and think and brood as I awaited for the inspiration that would lift me from my spiritual depression.

Anyway. I was very excited when I read you description because it’s a much wiser approach that can lead to real recovery. Thanks for stopping by.

Andy, I will read your post and Lex I will be checking out your site in a little bit.

Thanks everyone for commenting and your patience with my responses.

update edit: Andy I read your article and I thought it was very good. It was thorough and well considered. I couldn’t comment on it so I am doing so here :)

Something I wrote about smoking causing depression in 2006, but it’s not nearly as good as yours.
Smoking and Depression

I knew that a huge proportion of people on meds for schizophrenia/bipolar smoke–it’s kind of hard not to notice!–but only recently found out that dopamine has an awful lot to do with this. It made total sense that I got started into heavy tobacco and coffee consumption when I was on dopamine-tampering meds. Now, I’ve been off meds for several years but still smoke the equivalent of a pack a day (roll my own to avoid some of the additives) and drink a lot of coffee, probably to help me deal with the lasting effects on my brain chemistry. I sure did suspect that there were some, but apparently only got ready to deal with learning more about neuroleptic/SSRI nastiness recently. That’s been interesting, to say the least. :-|

Thanks for writing about your experiences. It gives me more hope that I really can get my brain functioning enough better not to need regular bursts of nicotine and toxins to blast through the lingering fog.

Before mental hospitals were comissioned by an executive order, everybody with mental illnesses just ended up in prison. The hospitals were an improvement to that, but they still focus way to much on stabilization and warehousing of humans rather than treatment and recovery. There are of course some shining examples that break the mold and some professionals who truly are commendable, but the hospitals are just so understaffed in a lot of cases that even staff members who are truly passionate and there to make a difference aren’t allowed to.

That’s why I tend to favor the Recovery Model; which didn’t start coming around until the later 90s so you probably never ran into it. It has actually become such a large movement that New Zealand mandated all mental health facilities take on a recovery-based approach within its borders, and they think Australia will be following its example in a few short years.

Basically recovery-focused clinics allow for self-driven recoveries and encourage the fact that those with severe and persistent mental illnesses can go on to recover and live rich, fulfilling, meaningful lives in regards to their relationships, employment, housing, and everything else. It tends to follow the American Clubhouse model of giving those on the path to recovery a sort of community center where they can recieve higher level education, employment opportunities, etc.

I was once speaking to a psychologist I work with about what is different about the recovery based approaches and he gave me this example…now at first it seems rather crude but it really seems to hit home at the end so bear with me :)

Suppose you have someone who comes in and is pathologically indifferent or negatory. They have lost their house due to spending all of their money on illegal narcotics, and needless to say are unemployed. Now a traditional approach would say, “OK, this is what you need to do. First…, Second…, and when you’ve done those, third…”

The problem there is that the motivation is all external and thus the consumer is more prone to relapses, because they aren’t changing for themselves.

Now take the recovery approach to the problem.

The clinician might say: “Well…what do you want to do” wherein the consumer replies they don’t want employment, they don’t want housing, they want to spend all of their money on drugs. So the clinician finds a way to turn what they are passionate about (whether that passion is constructive or not) into a method of recovering from their addiction.

For example, the clinician would say, “Ok…well you want to buy drugs, that means you need money, which means your going to need a job. And for a job and a place to collect SSI, your going to need a place to live. And to hold down the job, your going to need to be able to show up on time and work reliably, which means you can’t keep doing drugs, etc. etc etc.”

Ok he put it much more eloquently…but basically it is a concept of self-driven empowerment for improvement. It sounds like you were forced into a lot of things which 1) understandably leads to a ton of resistance and 2) is often far from constructive, and is actually often destructive if anything. Anyway that’s recovery in a nutshell…there is way way more to it, but if you’d like to learn more about it you can always check out my Mental Health Recovery Blog, which is more a free-wheeling discussion of recovery from the consumer and practitioner’s standpoint but it also has links to articles I’ve written as to what recovery actually means.

The active lifestyle and meditation concept is very interesting to me! A lot of consumers I’ve spoken to cannot stress enough the importance of both of these exercises! In fact, there is now a treatment plan called dialectical behavioral treatment that teaches a form of seated meditation for the point of self-reflection. And recent research is showing that exercise leads to the creation of a chemical known as brain derived neurotropic factor which can actually re-create brain cells. I just never knew how powerful such concepts could be!

I will definately read more into the link you sent over and your FAQ. If you wouldn’t mind, I’m starting to put together a piece as to why hospitals are definately not necessarily the best solution and I would love to quote some of what you said or get your take on it!

It will likely just be posted on the Recovery Blog or in an article I submit to ezineArticles or squidoo, but I will let you know!

Thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy day to share your experiences with me! I’ve gotten a lot of ideas from your comment!

Warm regards,
Lex Douvasa
Research and Evaluations Specialist
MHCD Research and Evaluations Department

Here are the answers to your questions taking it from the top.

“First you mentioned that you cured yourself of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia; do you believe this was through your meditation, self-introspection, and active lifestyle?”

In a nutshell, that’s it exactly.

Also, the facilities you were staying out, were they state hospitals?

No. I was in a city hospital psych ward once but the psych hospitals were private. My Dad’s insurance paid for the first one, the taxpayers of my home state paid for the second one.

Throughout all your experiences have you encountered a Recovery-based clinic?

I’ve never encountered a ‘recovery-based’ clinic. Frankly until you stopped by I had never heard of such a thing.

The thing is that my experience in mental health services occurred between 1989 and 1995. After that I never had anything to do with psychiatric services. No counseling or Pdocs, no inpatient or outpatient visits. I went it alone.

The first hospitalization lasted over three months. I happened when I was 14 after my first suicide attempt and it was where I got my Dxs. I actually went inpatient willingly because I wanted help. I was in for a real education about state of the art psychiatric care.

The second hospitalization was totally frivolous. My social worker forced me to go there with her under penalty of being arrested and transported by Sheriffs. She was negligent as a social worker and would never ever listen to me.

She was more than a little furious that I was discharged with a clean bill of health. I was not there to get help. I didn’t want any. I just did time there for no good reason before being shipped out of state to a group home.

The third and briefest hospitalization occurred after my final suicide attempt. I very nearly died and was brought into emergency via ambulance. After I was stable physically I got the mandatory one week observation period ‘upstairs’.

The first hospitalization was the only time I went inpatient willingly in order to get help. But I got nothing of the sort.

As soon as I was there I witnessed people going off and getting restrained. As I just spent 10 years in a home with child abuse going on and several other siblings with mental issues I was triggered and on guard.

I could not believe people were getting locked into the Quiet Room in the safety blanket. It’s assault and battery and has no mental health benefit but only traumatizes you more. I was in PTSD survival mode from the first day I was there.

Within a few weeks I finally ‘went off’ myself and after being threatened by a psych nurse I did some real damage to the adult staff there as they tried to restrain me and it was off to the Quiet Room for me. Added insult and psychological injury in addition to what I had when I walked in there.

About a week after that came the diagnoses and the resulting forced medications which left me befuddled, feeble, constipated, over weight and twitching in the face, mouth and shoulders.

I may have been only fourteen at the time but I knew that I was not being cured of anything. I was sick when I was admitted and sicker within a month of being there.

It was a total waste of my time. After that I could never be convinced that psychiatrists are people you go to get healed or that psych hospitals were safe, sane places to heal.

Because of the abuse, the chemical lobotomy that was my sentence as punishment for being mentally ill, the other patients and their behavior, the staff and their behavior I realized that psychiatric treatment only diminishes, dehumanizes and damages you, body and mind.

After what I experienced there I only entered these places, hospitals, group homes, residential facilities and the like under duress because I was a minor and had no choice.

I have never sought out psychiatric care as an adult. I knew it was it was pointless after what I went through in my teens. I knew that if I was ever going to have mental or emotional stability I would have to try alternative medicines and therapies.

I guess adults are able to bullshit themselves better than teens that having seizures, spasms, akathasia, dry mouth, uncontrollable drooling, fatigue, memory loss, cognitive dulling, night terrors, sleep walking, impotence and obesity are part of the healing magic of psychiatry and necessary if they want to become ‘well’ again.

(you can definitely quote me on that one)

For more information if you are interested I have an extensive FAQ that I’ve been developing. The ‘About Jane’ section is fairly complete and I have a few posts about how I recovered and one where I sort of structured the stuff that was important in my recovery here.

12 steps to bipolar recovery.<

Very interesting post! I had a few questions to shoot your way if you wouldn’t mind?

First you mentioned that you cured yourself of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia; do you believe this was through your meditation, self-introspection, and active lifestyle? I would love to hear more about the process you went through to reach recovery!

Also, the facilities you were staying out, were they state hospitals? I have recently been doing research into different mental healthcare facilities, especially those that are Recovery-focused (therein are following the new recovery-theory of mental healthcare rather than the old stabilization approach that a lot of hospitals seem to focus around).

Throughout all your experiences have you encountered a Recovery-based clinic? If not or if so I’d love to hear your take on what the experience was like and why the facilities you were at weren’t effective for you!

I would love to continue this dialogue either here, or perhaps I could quote you on my new blog, Mental Health Recovery.

Take care and I look forward to reading more! :)