I accidentally recorded my Zumba class in time lapse mode! Haha, it looks really funny.. It was a lot of fun, can’t wait to do it again!
DEA Approves Ecstasy For Anxiety, MDMA Trials Begin In California
Wow! I wonder what my psychiatrist will think about this one, he won’t even prescribe me benzodiazepines for my anxiety! Might be a good idea to move to Marin right about now!
They used to use LSD and mushrooms as psychotherapeutic drugs in the 1950’s. They claimed, among other things, to recover memories this way, I’m not sure if they were recovering or perhaps more like creating memories with the help of hallucinogenic drugs. Don’t know, will have to wait to hear what the results of this study are.Very curious as to what it will show. Also they say that there are no longterm associations between psychedelic use and mental illness. However, if a person with eg schizophrenia genes, uses hallucinogenic drugs, the schizophrenia will be unmasked and that person will develop schizophrenia, that is quite commonly known. So that is something they’d have to be careful about. Well, we’ll have to see.
http://www.decodedmagazine.com/dea-approves-ecstasy-for-anxiety-mdma-trials-begin-in-california/
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has approved the first clinical trial of MDMA to treat anxiety and other psychological illnesses, amid a growing resurgence in therapeutic psychedelic drug usage in the medical community.
Aljazeera.com reports:
“The tide has changed for psychedelic research,” said Brad Burge, the communications director for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a California-based nonprofit research group that studies medicinal uses for psychedelics and marijuana and is sponsoring the study. The DEA approved the project on Friday, he said.
Unlike Ecstasy or Molly — names for MDMA sold on the street and often mixed with dangerous adulterants — pure MDMA has been proved “sufficiently safe” when taken a limited number of times in moderate doses, MAPS says on its website. The DEA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
MDMA can be useful in psychotherapy for people suffering from anxiety due to life-threatening illnesses because it produces in users a sense of calm, trust and confidence, Burge said. Unlike psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin, MDMA does not produce hallucinations, he added.
The clinical trial will be held in Marin, California, in a psychologist’s office, as opposed to a hospital setting, Burge said. The patients will lie on a couch with a therapist nearby for support and conversation.
In the trial, 18 subjects diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses will attend months of psychotherapy, with MDMA being used in a few sessions in order to facilitate the process, he said. The outcome will be measured by whether using the psychedelic helps reduce people’s anxiety, which will be determined at the end of the sessions by the patient’s feedback and the therapist’s assessments.
Researchers hope that using MDMA alongside psychotherapy will let subjects confront their situation more clearly and allow the positive steps they take during the therapy to “stick,” Burge said.
“It opens them up and makes them more comfortable with the therapist while reducing fear and making them more able to talk about difficult emotions.”
If the pilot is successful, MAPS plans to continue with further studies involving more subjects and different approaches. For now, researchers hope to establish basic safety and effectiveness, he said.
The trial is part of a larger $20 million plan to make MDMA an FDA-approved prescription medicine by 2021, Burge said. MAPS is the only organization in the world funding MDMA-assisted psychotherapy trials, he added. The institute has carried out successful pilot studies of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder, adding to the drug’s scientific credibility, he said. Other research by the institute includes ayahuasca-assisted therapy for drug addiction, LSD for cluster headaches and psilocybin for nicotine addiction.
Researchers hope to back up growing evidence that psychedelics have legitimate therapeutic uses — and to counter the narrative that has demonized them as mind-destroying drugs.
“That’s what the really good science shows, despite decades of propaganda and government misinformation,” Burge said. “Just a couple weeks ago, a phenomenal study showed that there are no long-term associations between psychedelic use and mental illnesses.”
That study was published this month in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. In addition, a recent report by Johns Hopkins Medicine, a leading U.S. medical institution combining the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Hospital, showed that the use of psychedelic drugs — primarily psilocybin and LSD — could reduce psychological distress and suicidal thinking.
500 Posts for bipolar1blog!
Wow, I’ve posted 500 times on bipolar1blog and now i have 500 posts! Pretty amazing! Not surprising though as I post quite frequently, but still a milestone and a testament to my dedication to this blog. Hope all my readers have enjoyed reading them as much as I have enjoyed posting them!
Living Life On My Own Terms
Crocuses are such harbingers of hope. When they appear, you know that winter is about to be over and spring is about to come.
I would like to get a handle on my abandonment issues and the ensuing anxiety and extreme fear of loss so that I can live life on my own terms.
I would like these issues (resulting from awful things that were done to me way back in the past) to NOT have any effect on my present life, moods, or actions. I am sick and tired of being controlled by something that happened years and years ago.
To get control of my life and live it on my own terms, this is what I am hoping, and expecting therapy and work on myself will accomplish.
Tomorrow I have an appointment with my therapist, Anna. I will share what happens in my session.
However long it takes, I am in it to win it, haha. No seriously, I am in it for however long it takes to heal myself and get control of my moods, emotions, actions, and ultimately my life.
Amen.
Byron Hamel: “I Am A Killer”
Why I’m Not A Total Piece of Shit by Byron Hamel
Choice.
There are times in our lives when we have choices, and times when we do not.
When we are children, we are led by those in charge of us. They tell us to do things. Mostly, we do what they say. We believe what they believe, and behave how they behave. We observe, and emulate. It’s part of how we learn. It’s human nature.
A mother is like God to a child. Her will is destiny. Fate. “Do it, now” says the father. And the child does. The master teaches the apprentice. This relationship between parent and child is a sacred trust. A way to maintain safety, build character, and establish vital life habits and skills. IF -and I mean a very big IF- the parents use their power correctly.
Essentially, as children, we are led. And we follow. When we are led poorly, bad things can happen.
Choices are steered by forces and circumstances beyond a child’s control or understanding. Children neither possess the reasoning, nor the physical requirements to take command of their own lives in any responsible way. Their views of the world are filtered through rules, limits, directions…
As children, we are sheep. And we are vulnerable. We are as helpless against the wolves as we are against the shepherds. And that is why so many of us are taken advantage of as children.
We can not fight back when adults hit us. We WILL not fight back. We just get hurt. And that becomes the reality of our lives. If we are threatened into silence or submission, we will usually concede. We will usually be victimized until, by some happy accident, a caring person intervenes.
The choice to end parental abuse is not our own. Not while we are kids.
If we are lucky or clever enough to escape our abusive situations alive, we become adults. And then we are called upon to make our own choices. To behave in responsible ways of our own choosing.
But how? How the hell do we know what to do, if nobody ever taught us correctly?
Maybe we learned when we were little that the correct way to respond to somebody denying us what we want is to punch them in the ear. Perhaps we were taught that unsolicited fondling of another person’s genitals is the appropriate way of showing love. It could be that we were beaten every time we expressed emotion, and therefore grew to hold our feelings inside, fearing punishment.
Now that we are adults, our understanding does not magically shift on it’s own. If our minds and hearts become corrupted, they remain corrupted until we change them. And change takes work. Change takes wisdom.
But we are lost. We truly have not been led to a place of responsibility. But here we are, tasked with being adults. Surrounded by other people who seem to be doing just fine. But we’re not like them, are we? We don’t GET IT. We still need to learn all that very basic stuff.
And there’s a lot of it.
We are left to lead ourselves. To teach ourselves. But we haven’t been trained to lead. And we don’t possess the knowledge to teach.
So what do we end up doing? Well, we follow. If we do not take control, we continue doing the things we learned how to do, the way that we learned how to do them.
And that is not a good thing. It is a bad thing. It is what monsters are made of. But we’re not monsters. We’re just grown up kids who got a raw deal. And now some new kid is smiling up at us. And we are God to that kid. That kid is our chance to do the right thing. That kid is why we are not going to follow. We are going to choose for ourselves.
We the abused stand on the edge of decision. And we need to make a vital choice. We can do the difficult thing, and learn how to parent properly. Or we can do the horrible thing, and continue the cycle of abuse. We the abused to do not have the luxury of inaction. We must choose. One, or the other.
Now that we are the adults, we have the power to choose. We can end parental abuse before it even begins for our own children. It may seem impossible to you. That makes sense. Ending a cycle of abuse is hard to do. And I mean VERY difficult. But the alternative is the continuation of abuse. And that is worse. Further, it is unacceptable. It is inadmissible.
We need to take control. We need to take the reigns, and choose for ourselves. We need to parent ourselves. Correct our damaging beliefs and behaviors. We need to become the source of love, safety, wisdom, and security that we wish we had when we were children.
This does not happen overnight.
It will take time. We will need help. We will need, perhaps, medication and therapy. We will need to be kind to ourselves. Patient and persistent. If we are to succeed in this, we need to learn to love ourselves in all the ways that we were not loved as children.
With this effort, we find our voices. We make our own choices. We take our own actions. We refuse to emulate the wills and ways of those who damaged us.
Choice.
I made a good one. I make good choices every day.
That is why I’m not a total piece of shit.
————-
BIO
Byron Hamel was raised by a violent man who got the death penalty for torturing and killing a baby. As a result of his upbringing, Byron dedicates his life to fighting child abuse. He lives with Complex PTSD, Depression, and Anorexia. Despite his obstacles, he’s an amazing dad to his two lovely daughters.
An award-winning Canadian journalist, and television producer, his documentary film, “A Breaking Cycle”, is a powerful journey into the world of tough bikers who protect abused kids.
Byron is currently writing for his blog Trauma Dad, and his book “I Am A Killer”, to be released in 2016 by the Gravity Imprint of Booktrope Publishing. This post is an excerpt from his work in progress. His writing challenges readers with both depth and simplicity. It’s raw and funny, but leaves you feeling hopeful and inspired.
https://www.facebook.com/traumadad
Learning to ride the waves of anxiety
Just got back from Buffalo last night. Even ordinarily, this is a depressing, and horribly anxiety ridden time for me. All manner of fearful, depressing thoughts swirl inside my brain. So with this abandonment thing going on, I was very afraid, I mean actually afraid for myself, that I wouldn’t be able to handle it. But I am riding the waves of anxiety. Sometimes it feels like my chest cavity is full of hot red pepper, sometimes it’s so intense that it literally feels like a gut punch. But I know it is only anxiety and I ride it out. I tell myself it is only a wave of anxiety and it will pass. The thoughts, which are all fears for my son and his future, I try to keep at bay. I am also reading a wonderful book called “The Journey From Abandonment to Healing” by Susan Anderson. This book has given me so much hope that I have the power to recover and live my life without the constant fear of being abandoned. It tells of people who have recovered, therefore if they could do it why the heck wouldn’t I be able to? Of course I will. And now I’ll ride the anxious waves and try to send them love.
Pretty Amazing!
I’ve seen this before and was pretty amazed by it. This is so inspirational to me, I wanted to share it with all of you. Don’t ever give up!
‘Touched with Fire’ explores bipolar disorder
The movie “Touched with Fire” (also the title of Kay Redfield Jamison’s book) is coming out on Feb. 12th. The synopsis and comments of film maker Paul Dalio are hopeful, especially this “If I had any hope at all that there was any chance, any possibility that I could be happy and full of creativity, and even better than I was before, which now is the case, I would fight.” Hope, that is the one thing we all need and the one thing that sustains us, whether we have bipolar disorder or not.
“Set to be released on Feb. 12, Paul Dalio’s new film, “Touched with Fire,” depicts Dalio’s personal experiences with bipolar disorder. The title of the film is taken from Kay Redfield Jamison’s 1996 book, “Touched with Fire,” which explored how many of the greatest artistic minds in history had bipolar disorder. Jamison herself acknowledges having bipolar disorder since early adulthood. Dalio explains that the book helped him see himself not just as an individual with a “defect” but as having a gift that taps into something that most people can’t. “Touched with Fire” takes Dalio’s personal experiences with bipolar disorder and uses two characters, Carla and Marco, to contrast the different emotions Dalio has felt toward bipolar in his life. The love story between these two characters is a metaphor for Dalio’s “love-and-hate relationship with bipolar: the way they bring out the romance in each other, but also the devastation in each other, and the way they have to reconcile those two things.” He stated, “The journey that I went through that I think a lot of people with bipolar go through is that you get it and you’re lost, but then you easily romanticize that fire ultimately to your own destruction. It ultimately takes most people repeated devastations to let go of the mania. What I wanted to do was have that journey of how they learned that they can have real meaningful emotions and sustain them. My hope is that people are able to watch the film and see where Marco and Carla make mistakes and know that they don’t have to make them themselves.”
One of the biggest themes throughout the film is the relationship that the two main characters must manage with their parents and offers glimpses into each person’s actions. Dalio describes how his family would frequently talk him out of suicide when he was in the midst of a depressive episode. “It was very draining on them, but they really struggled to try and give me hope. The best a family can do is to give hope to their family member, but ultimately it has to come down to the individual. The loss of hope – in my own experience – was the only time I had thoughts of suicide. If I had any hope at all that there was any chance, any possibility that I could be happy and full of creativity, and even better than I was before, which now is the case, I would fight.” Dalio stated that his goal for the film was to show a truthful situation between individuals and “well-intentioned parents.” “The truth is, even well intentioned parents, don’t always know what to do. They are dealing with a situation that there is no perfect guidebook for. My hope was to create characters that the audience could see themselves in. If there were any well intentioned parents in the audience, that they could not only see themselves in the parents, but also through their children’s eyes. That they could at least be able to understand their children enough so they could understand where they are coming from so that they can communicate with them.” Dalio’s final thoughts include describing bipolar disorder like a pendulum, and using exercise, meditation, and a low-sugar diet along with his prescribed medications to help manage the emotional swings. According to Dalio, “True happiness is having an appreciation of the darkest and brightest emotions and being able to experience both of them equally.””
If by Rudyard Kipling
This is one of my all time favorite poems, perhaps the most favorite. There is so much strength, resolve, determination, understanding and optimism in it. I cry every time I read it, yet love it all the more after each reading. For my readers, friends and family.
_____________________________________________________
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Abandonment
There is a well adjusted, normal child. He is sitting at his desk, coloring in a book. This child’s mother says “I’m going to the store and I’m in a hurry so this time you can’t come.” He says “Fine” and goes back to coloring.
There is another child. Her mother is also going to the store and says to her “I’m going to the store, this time you can’t come, I’m going to be going to a work party after.” The child gets alarmed, and says “Please can I come?” Mom says no. The child is now upset, and tells her mom that she’ll be really good if her mom takes her. Mom still says no. The child is now agitated and upset and runs over to her mom and begs to be take to the store. Then she wraps herself around her mother’s leg and will not let her mother leave. This is an abandoned child.
How do you heal the abandoned child? How do you heal the hurt, the fear, the terror of abandonment?
Well I did a search on “How to heal abandonment issues?” and here is the link to the search: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=how%20to%20heal%20abandonment%20issuesand I got many articles, a few look very interesting like two below: 1) https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-many-faces-addiction/201006/understanding-the-pain-abandonment 2) http://www.outerchild.net/book/export/html/5 and
Of course I will be going to my therapist and talking to her about all this as soon as I get back to Louisville.
I will blog about the process. Stay tuned. Same Bat Channel, same Bat time.
And Zumba helps inordinately
Bipolar1Blog 