I haven’t written or posted anything in a few days. At first I was just in shock from the terror attacks. Then I have been reading everything I can find, all the news reports, all the historical data, the commentary, anything I see that has to do with the events in Paris. I still don’t know what to say. Of course I condemn them, the acts, the people who perpetrated them. No matter what’s been done to the Middle East, and there has been a lot, such as the destruction of Iraq for no reason, such as the Palestinian issue, such as many things, why is IS the result of that? What I mean to say is no matter what happens to a region, why are cold hearted, deluded, murderous young men the ones to rise and take control of areas? Why IS? Why couldn’t it have been loving, peaceful minded, constructive people who took over? As I write this, I also come up with possible answers to that question. There is poverty, no education, no food, lawlessness. But many people are experiencing the same things and only a few of them join or become IS. So then what? Mental illness that is untreated, not even recognized? Who could set a living human being on fire? A sane person? Not by my definition. But if it is mental illness, then which one is it and what is the treatment? I don’t know. I have no answers. I just know I am beyond upset, beyond upset. My condolences go to the families of all those lost in the attacks. Are there going to be more? We are all fearful. I went to see the Bond movie, and for the first time in my life, I wondered if someone would blow themselves up or shoot me there. Also most of the objects of these attacks are other Muslims. People in Lebanon, Syria, Nigeria, Kenya, Pakistan. It’s awful, it’s heinous, it’s mad. What can we do, I don’t know. Rewire these mad people’s brains? If only.
Posts
Aujourd’hui, hier, et demain, je suis une Parisienne
Finding Alice’s ‘Wonderland’ in Oxford
“Alice in Wonderland,” a story very close to my heart, as in my first full blown manic phase, I WAS Alice, was written by an Oxford Mathematics lecturer for the daughter of the Dean of Christchurch College. The little girl’s name was Alice.
I always thought Lewis Carroll must have been on hallucinogenic drugs when he wrote “Alice in Wonderland” but he wasn’t. He wasn’t even Lewis Carroll! He was a Mathematics lecturer at Oxford named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He was a brilliant story teller, a mathematician, a great photographer, a man with a vivid and amazing imagination! Below is a very detailed history (from histoire in French, meaning story) of the writing of Alice in Wonderland. Fascinating. The pictures included in the article are beautiful, clear and serene.
NEW DEVICE COULD RESET BRAINS OF VETERANS WITH PTSD
http://abc7.com/health/new-device-could-reset-brains-of-veterans-with-ptsd/1079871/
WESTWOOD, LOS ANGELES (KABC) —
The horror of combat is something many veterans live with, but a new study at UCLA is underway to see if administering mild electrical currents into the brain can reset its networks for those dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.
One Gardena veteran said this new research is giving him hope.
On May 3, 2006, retired Army Sgt. Ron Ramirez was on night patrol in Iraq when a roadside bomb blew up under his truck.
“I saw a bright light. I couldn’t see and I couldn’t hear,” he said.
The machine gunner suffered a traumatic brain injury and a perforated ear drum.
While his body has healed, “invisible wounds” continued to haunt him.
He’d have night terrors and couldn’t sleep. His violent outbursts scared his 12 and 13-year-old daughters and everyone he was close to.
“I would yell. I’d throw things. I couldn’t see it,” Ramirez said. “Everyone else told me there was something wrong, but I couldn’t see it.”
Ramirez said he tried to avoid people as crowds over-stimulated him and noises often set him off.
A year after the explosion, he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and psychotherapy and medication did little to alleviate the anxiety, nightmares and anger.
Soon after, Ramirez heard about a new study for veterans with PTSD.
Researchers at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience are studying how stimulating a nerve on the side of the face, called the trigeminal nerve, might reset brainwaves.
Dr. Andrew Leuchter said TNS therapy has been used to treat epilepsy and depression, but it holds great promise in treating chronic PTSD.
According to Dr. Leuchter, the brains of people who go through a traumatic event in some ways get rewired.
“What we’re doing with TNS is we’re sending electrical signals that can help reset the function of the brain networks that can help them get over their illness,” he said.
Doctors say many people don’t realize that the language of the brain is electricity, and it doesn’t take a lot to make a change.
The current of this device is similar to that of a nine-volt battery.
Researchers say from what they can tell, it’s very safe, very effect and has very few side effects.
Dr. Leuchter is working with the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System to recruit more veterans who’ve served since 9/11.
Half of the vets will receive the treatment, while the other half will get a fake TNS patch to test the placebo effect.
Meanwhile, Ramirez continues his treatment as he places an electrode on his forehead and sleeps with the device.
After using the TNS therapy for two months, Ramirez said he feels like he can win his family back.
“It gave me more confidence,” he said. “It gave me a sense of happiness.”
For veterans interested in learning more about this trial, they can go to brain.ucla.edu and click the “contact us” link to get more information.
Insights from feeling awful
FEELING BETTER! (video)
Hello my dear Blog fellows, my friends, my family, my readers! Yes it’s a miracle! A Seroquel miracle! Increased my dose from 100 mg to 150 mg and it did the trick. I do feel almost back to my normal cheery self. The gloom and doom is gone. Whew! I am breathing a sigh of relief and gratefulness!
Feeling Better!!
https://www.facebook.com/samina.raza/videos/10153319289537711/
Hello my dear Blog fellows, my friends, my family, my readers! Yes it’s a miracle! A Seroquel miracle! Increased my dose from 100 mg to 150 mg and it did the trick. I do feel almost back to my normal cheery self. The gloom and doom is gone. Whew! I am breathing a sigh of relief and gratefulness!
Must be the season
This blogpost, posted by Hannah Crowley on Healthyplace.com, took the words right out of my mouth! Feel like a fraud, feel like I am not good enough, all that is spot on. Now just waiting for the recovery after the relapse. How can this happen to me over and over again? And yet, each time it happens, it feels like it will never end, It feels like I’ll never get better, the hopelessness, the shame, the self blame and recrimination, the gut wrenching heartbreak, not pretty. Just waiting it out, don’t feel good enough to do much else. Tomorrow, I will go to the gym, tomorrow, I will feel better, tomorrow, I will be me, I promise.
http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/toughtimes/2015/11/09/mental-illness-relapse-recovery/
Is Mental Illness Relapse a Part of Recovery?
A mental illness relapse tricked me into thinking I was a fraud. As the author of the blog entitled Getting Through Tough Times, I am required — by the very delineation of the phrase — to speak about my own tough times. It’s my job to share obstacles I have overcome and urge other people to do the same (Mental Health 101: Developing Coping Strategies). But recently I’ve felt like a fake, a fraud. I’ve sat in front of a computer screen with my fingers poised above the keys, ready to type a stream of words that sound fancy and wise, and I’ve stood in front of a camera with a bunch of rehearsed clichés, prepared to spout them out robotically.
But I could never go through with it because I was struggling with my own form of mental illness relapse. And for those with a history of mental illness, that is what struggling so frequently means (Anatomy Of A Mental Illness Relapse).
I Felt My Mental Illness Relapse Coming On
Over the last few weeks, I’ve gone through a series of “tough times” that have left me reeling. Somehow I’d trained myself to believe that I was invincible; that I was no longer drastically affected by pithy little “bumps in the road” or any type of mental illness relapse. As an individual designated to helping others, I felt that I wasn’t allowed to struggle. That somehow struggling made me a counterfeit blogger (Denial Keeps Those With A Mental Illness From Getting Better).
But I was wrong. Every individual is not only entitled to face adversity, but we should expect it — and if we can, we should embrace it. Breaking away from the passé injustice of life, I believe that hardship only highlights our strengths. Instead of retracting into an introverted mass of reticence and self-flagellation, we can take comfort from the age old idiom that where there is life, there is hope.
Mental Illness Relapse Is a Part of Recovery
Mental illness relapse doesn’t have to manifest itself physically, or drastically. It can be a series of distorted thoughts, a heightening of anxiety or the brutally incessant urge to cut. It can even just be that dark, destructive thought that “I am not good enough for this.”
But I am good enough. And today I am going to take my own advice. I’m going to toss aside the masochism and work through the darkness. And if I can get through to just one individual — this will all be worth it. Because “every wound leaves a scar, and every scar tells a story. A story that says I have survived.”
In the moment
Yes, this, this is the feeling! To be young, innocent, in the moment, with a faithful companion, engaged in what you’re doing, and when you see something fun, jumping in with both feet!
The little boy walking his faithful dog, upon seeing the puddle, jumping in, how sweet and joyous! So much fun, he does it again and again, first cautiously, then confidently, with a running start, fun, fun, fun! And the dog, equally as adorable, he stands and waits for his little master, all the while with a look of “Are we doing something wrong?” on his face, a look of “Oh boy, this might get us in trouble!” But still waiting steadfastly for the little boy.
And the mother or the father who is filming this heavenly little vignette, is patient, positive and allowing this little boy to have fun instead of dragging him away because his shoes and socks might get dirty.
A moment of pure fun, pure perfection, simple, yet so much more. How many of those are we allotted?
25 Things Only Someone with Bipolar Disorder Would Understand
This is from Healthline.com, they actually asked me for my feedback, which I gave them. It is funny, and it takes away the catastrophizing that we intensely emotional people who have bipolar d/o do. It was a much needed reminder for me that everything isn’t always awful. It was a reminder for me to stop taking everything so seriously and take it easy! That really things are fine, only my intensely emotional brain tells me they are not. This was a very welcome reminder to laugh and have fun. There’s a novel concept. Fun! No, it really isn’t, I am a lot of fun normally, just wish that was all the time. Anyway, everyone can enjoy these cartoons and jokes, especially we who have BPD. The fun side to mental illness, that might be the real novel concept, haha. And humor really is the best medicine! And I’m still laughing at #4!!!
http://www.healthline.com/health/bipolar-disorder/would-understand#1
25 Things Only Someone with Bipolar Disorder Would Understand
Learn to laugh along with your condition.
1. You can tell when you had a manic episode by looking at your credit card bill.
2. Even though you live on your own, it often feels like you’re waking up with a stranger.
3. You have so many racing thoughts you should be a NASCAR analyst.
4. You don’t suffer from a sense of superiority – you’re remarkably modest for an emperor of all humanity.
5. You just realized people can drink beer for fun, not because they’re self-medicating.
6. Every morning you wake up thinking, “today is going to be a great day. Just not for me.”
7. Family members have mistaken you for the Incredible Hulk.
8. If someone is described to you as “moody” you think to yourself: amateur.
9. You eat fear for breakfast.
10. You don’t know the meaning of “psychosomatic,” because you can’t concentrate on reading a word that long.
11. Your cat would describe you as the aloof and needy one.
12. Your psychiatrist spends so much time balancing your moods she now has a side job as a professional juggler.
13. You remember when Prozac was cool.
14. When you’re down you watch “America’s Most Wanted” and cry out: “Why does nobody want me?”
15. Your depressive spells make you forgetful, which is a shame because if you thought about your manic stages it might cheer you up.
16. You wonder how someone who feels so empty can put on so much weight.
17. When you’re manic, nothing makes you angrier than someone suggesting you’re irritable.
18. Manic episodes give you a heightened sex drive, which makes it unfortunate you can’t maintain any relationships.
19. You can’t sleep at nights, which would be OK if you had more insomniacs for friends.
20. Your depressed self probably wouldn’t be so depressed if your manic self didn’t make so many commitments for it to keep.
21. If you could cycle as quickly as your moods, you’d be the next Lance Armstrong.
22. You meet the same person at two different parties and have to convince them you’re not your pain-in-the-ass twin brother.
23. Friends say you’re the life and soul of the party, but you avoid parties like the plague.
24. You’ve cried on the pizza delivery guy’s shoulder.
25. You’ve been told the warranty on your car does not cover existential crisis.
