A Guide For Better Living | A Guide For Better Living |
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 Promoting an understanding of mental illness to prevent loss of control and loss of life.
INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE
Clearly, mental illness is a serious illness. Mental illness has destroyed many lives. Living with mental illness is very difficult when left untreated. It is to be hoped that this guide will provide some answers or methods and give some practical steps to follow for better living with mental illness. It can be dangerous and even harmful to think that problems and bad situations connected to mental illness are just part of everyday living. But mental illness and its conditions are of a very serious nature, that make living difficult but not impossible. Through self-discovery, life can be an adventure. Through self-discovery and through self-care and self-help, life can become manageable and optimal health can be maintained. Of course, there is a range of disease even within each specific diagnosis. But all mental illnesses share a personality disconnection where there is disorientation. There seems to be an unawareness of our true identity. This lack of self-identity is manifested physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. The body does not function properly: we can feel too hot, our blood pressure can be up, or our laboratory tests can be abnormal. We have problems processing information with mental distortion. We experience mood swings, anxiety, depression, and nervousness. We lose the acknowledgement of our spirit and our soul. Life becomes meaningless and we experience helplessness and hopelessness in all aspects of our being. These responses become exaggerated, prolonged and persistent. The more prolonged, these responses create a crisis, a stressful environment. When stressed to that extent, life becomes unmanageable. When stress levels are at that point of unmanageability, there is an overwhelming sense of loss of control. It is no wonder, that daily living becomes an overwhelming task. Just getting up in the morning, and getting dressed, taking a shower or bath become impossible. Daily functions are overpowering. This is a life out of control, in crisis, experiencing helplessness and hopelessness. We often lose our ability to work. We become dis-empowered. Despite how terrible it seems, there is treatment and recovery. Even though, we are in recovery, we can still experience relapse. Relapse is a time of backsliding into mental illness. At times there are no reasons or known cause for the relapse. We can experience major or minor relapses. With all relapses, we need to re-evaluate our circumstances and restart the recovery process. We can practice prevention and avoid minor relapses and turn major relapses into minor ones. Prevention is practicing self-care and self-help. We can avoid relapsing by paying attention to cues or warning signs such as general disinterest, insomnia, tiredness, excessive sleeping, poor hygiene, irritation, anger, disregard of the self and other. Illness, Disease, Disorder, Condition
Some similarities are common with all mental illnesses. At the core of all mental illness there seems to be a personality disconnection where there is disorientation. There seems to be an unawareness of our own true identity, where the true self is unknown. This lack of self-identity is manifested physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Mental illness can be manifested with physical symptoms such as weight loss or weight gain, fatigue, malaise, dizziness, palpitations, chest pain, even high blood pressure and more. Often it is easier to focus on these physical symptoms and not on mental illness. It is easier to think there is something wrong with our body, than to think that we are “losing our mind.” There are also problems with mentally processing information and mental distortion, where there is often a loss of reality. There are also disturbances of mood, where anxiety, depression, nervousness and stress are often experienced. Often there is evasion of responsibility where we think all our negative experiences are because of other people. We can fall into the trap of fault and blame so as to not look at ourselves. With mental illness these behaviors or responses described above are exaggerated, prolonged and persistent. This condition eventually leads to loss of control, crisis and the inability to manage our own lives. This response leads to powerlessness and hopelessness, and inability to manage life. Stress Producing Situations When reflecting on life, how many times have we heard: “Remember the good old days?” Are we saying that we feel more comfortable and are able to deal with the thing we know? The nature of life is that there is a constant struggle between the old and the new ways. Naturally, there is constant change. Life will keep changing with or without us. It is the challenge of change that is stress producing. Any change can produce stress. Change comes in different ways. These changes can be physical, social, situational or personal. Changes are the primary cause of stress. Other factors of stress are the unpredictability of any situation, lack of control in daily living and conflict over decision making. In fact, any event in our life can be stressful. But stress is a part of every day living. Stress can be positive or negative. Examples of positive stress occur when positive things occur in our lives such as buying a home, marriage, or winning the lottery. Stress can be positive when we accept and adapt to the demands of change. Examples of negative stress are death, losing a job or divorce. Negative stress is when we are overwhelmed by change. When stressed, life becomes unmanageable. Often, we have poor judgement when stressed. When we are stressed for long periods of time, we lose the ability to recognize that we are stressed. A stressed life becomes a normal way of life. But when stressed, problems left unattended can and do get worse. Helplessness and hopelessness, what awful feelings to have. Day by day life keeps getting worse. The hole keeps getting deeper and deeper and there seems to be no way out. This is a life out of control. Crisis drives our everyday living. Slowly stress starts to build. The lack of control and the inability to manage daily living creates a crisis. A crisis is when we feel powerless or unable to effect our problems. The thinking is no matter what action we take, it will not change anything. This loss of control affects our lives in many ways, like the inability to communicate and relate to others. As a result, our life starts to fall apart. When major stress takes over, life becomes unmanageable. The ability to function and be effective in handling ordinary problems is at an all time low. Crisis becomes the natural and normal way of living. Putting things off to the last minute and lack of self care, will lead to loss of control and an unhealthy life style. It is unknown if poor physical health affects our mental state or if our mental condition affects our physical health. The endless cycle of cause and effect can leave us very confused. At times we can even lose our will to live.
Our social structure places a high value on being productive. Who you are is defined by what you do. Function is related to productivity. To be a productive member of society, your contribution is measured by work. A large part of our identity is based on having a job, or a meaningful role. So what happens when we lose the ability to work due to illness? With mental illness, often a person is labeled as unpredictable, dangerous, lazy, unwilling to help one’s self, irresponsible and anti-social. Stigmatizing a person with these labels shows a total lack of understanding of mental illness. The fact is that no one is ever prepared to have mental illness. The attitudes' people have towards people with mental illness are very harsh. At this weak point of one’s life, it is very demoralizing to experience prejudice, discrimination, and social disconnection. To be thought of as useless, helpless and irresponsible is very disempowering. The task of getting well is compounded when we have to get past these attitudes. Your rights can also come into question. We do not put people in jail when they have a heart attack or other illness. When illness means jail you can see why people with mental illness are fearful of treatment. But it does not have to be this way. We can push for better, more respectful, and more responsive treatments. We can fight stigmatization.
Relapse is a sliding back from recovery to active mental illness. It is a recurrence of symptoms of mental illness after having a period of improvement. Relapses can be major or minor. In a major relapse we have to restart again. It is as the beginning of our diagnosis. Our life is completely out of control, completely unmanageable. At times we have to be admitted to mental hospitals to gain enough control in our lives to restart. We must avoid major relapses at all cost. Minor relapses are not as severe as major relapses. With minor relapses there is some regression. Often, there is a slow progressive decline and loss of function or control. If left unattended, or ignored, the decline or regression becomes worse and can become a major relapse. People who are in relapse usually behave badly. People usually end up adopting unhealthy life styles to find relief from their misery. Smoking, drinking, and drugging are some of the activities pursued to find relief. These activities do not work or fix anything. These activities are counter-productive. In the end, they make any illness worse. In addition, people in relapse who behave badly can end up in trouble with the law. Clearly, out of control behavior due to illness should not be seen as criminal behavior. This is not to say that criminal acts committed, when out of control, resolve your responsibility for your actions. The negative alternatives or behaviors are not something to look forward to. If we don’t do anything about our relapse, life can get worse, we could spend a lifetime in jails or prisons because all that’s seen is our bad behavior. Or we could spend our life in a mental hospital. Something else to think about is that we could have a homeless life. But despite this, major and minor relapses can be avoided when we practice prevention. There are a number of individual or personal cues, signals or hints that point to a relapse coming. Examples of some warning signs are disinterest in what brought you joy in the past, insomnia, tiredness and excessive sleeping, poor diet, poor hygiene, irritation, anger, disregard of self and others, depression, anxiety, impatience and lack of initiative. We must have constant guard and watch for the cues, we must resolve and deal with any and all problems immediately to avoid relapses. When we identify our total being, then we will acknowledge that because of our mental illness, we have experienced loss of ability, loss of control, loss of social interaction, and many other losses. When we acknowledge these losses, we grieve. Grieving is natural. It is unnatural not to grieve. On the other hand, the social model is based on the strengths and resources of the individual and that person and the community. Both systems of treatment can be beneficial. The goal is to get better, no matter what method of treatment we choose. With empowerment, any treatment method will be effective. Empowerment means having confidence in our abilities. To empower ourselves means giving ourselves permission to get better. To be empowered means that we choose to take responsibility of our lives. Empowerment is an action word. When applied on a social level, (social empowerment) empowerment is expressed in a group process. A group process is an action oriented, and growth producing. Through social empowerment, we can attain self-help. Self-care, on the contrary, is personal growth, individual improvement, and individual care. Self-care can be basic and must include: the total being, the body, the mind and the spirit. Self-care starts with wanting to get better. We need to address basic needs, such as food, shelter, and clothing. We have other needs such as hygiene, exercise, and relaxation that need to be met on a daily basis for a positive outlook on life. In conclusion, getting connected involves all aspects of the being, working together. It is a process that first recognizes the self, then grieves for the losses of abilities, control, self-interaction, etc. After grieving, there is an acknowledgement of our talents and abilities despite mental illness. By obtaining trust, trust in one-self and trust in others, we are able to seek treatment. With developing empowerment, we also work at our recovery. Empowerment is developed on two levels, social and personal. Social empowerment gives us the ability to seek and use self-help. Personal empowerment helps us maintain our self-care. Recognition of the Self A successful journey through life requires the balancing of our total being. Any major illness, including mental illness, upsets the balance. With a sick mind, body, and in poor spirit, where do we find the strength to regain our control in our life? The strength is in knowing who we are. Our total being includes the body, the mind, and the spirit. Conditioning starts early in life with what we are going to be when we grow up. This conditioning puts a great importance on becoming. We can become confused and set ourselves up with disappointment when we only focus on becoming and fail to recognize our total being. To put our total being to work takes an understanding of all the parts that make the whole body, mind and spirit. How then can we restore balance and get “all of who we are” to work in harmony? First, we need to have a good attitude towards health. The practice of a healthy lifestyle will improve our body functions. When the body functions are regular and balanced, it is easier to have a good mental attitude. A good mental attitude will promote happiness, contentment, and satisfaction with life. Happiness, contentment, and satisfaction will lead us to a higher good and to a place where we start to feel the power of hope. The spirit nurtures a healthy attitude towards our well being and gives the strength needed to go beyond what was thought possible. Every day we have to do all in our power to restore health and sanity. We deserve the benefits of respecting the total self. The use of all our gifts gives us a greater appreciation for life. The first time that I heard about the grieving process was in dealing with the loss of a loved one. Later on, I saw that the grieving process could also be used in dealing with serious illnesses and disabilities. The grieving process is an important step in overcoming personal loss, separation, and social isolation. The understanding, the knowledge and the insight of mental illness will help you in regaining the loss of control and restore ability. In trying to get better, I thought I was doing what needed to do to done such as seeing doctors, going for counseling and asking for advice. Yet I was still being overwhelmed with emotions. The feelings of shame, blame, fault, and guilt would not go away. At that point, I had to find out where these feelings were coming from. I found out that I had not accepted my loss of function and ability caused by my mental illness. I had not given myself permission to feel bad about the losses I was experiencing. We all have dreams and wishes about the future. When we feel that we failed to meet our expectations, disappointment and confusion take over, making healing and recovery harder to achieve. If the feelings of loss are not acknowledged and accepted, then the feelings/emotions of loss, shame, blame, fault and guilt have a way of coming back to bring you down again. How we manage these feelings/emotions of loss will have a direct impact on our mental health. When we are aware of the loss of our feelings, then we can acknowledge them and accept them and then move on. Accepting your illness does not mean that there is no hope for life to get better. What it does mean is that in overcoming these emotions/feelings one can move forward with life. Looking outward can be difficult when there is a lack of trust in others. Trust has two parts: trust in self and trust in others. First we have to be confident in our ability to be able to trust in ourselves. Because of the loss of ability due to mental illness, we lack confidence and lose trust in ourselves. When we feel unable from within, then we have to look outward for answers that will enable us to gain control and manage our lives. One does not have to give up control to have trust in others. In a confused mental state of being, we can always ask our heart for the truth. When we hear the truth, our heart knows it. Hope is nurtured with trust. Trust will improve our confidence and ability. With confidence and ability, our outlook on life is more hopeful. We can see that we are getting better, even our attitude towards life changes. Trapped in hopelessness will make our mental illness worse. In mental illness hope is the expectation of regaining control and ability. The ability to wish and make changes is the ability we need to take control of our lives. We need to nurture the desire to get better. Trust and hope promote the desire to get better. Trust does not mean surrender or giving up. It means having confidence in our ability and the ability of others. The Guide To Better Living would not be complete without further discussion of confidence. The first step in healing is the desire to get better. To go beyond wishing and wanting better health requires self-assurance in the choices we have to make. We must have confidence in building trusting relationships when seeking treatment. Trusting relationships are built on open and honest communication about our illness, condition, and feelings towards receiving help. Throughout the process of restoring health and sanity back into our lives, we will have to make treatment decisions. To get the best result out of treatment depends on the level of involvement one chooses. Accepting help for our mental illness takes faith in our decision-making process. Confused and lost, we will always question the decisions we make. This is why it is very important to start early to build a support system that will help us in making decisions. For our comfort level, it is important to “check it out” with others. We are not alone and we are not the first to have a mental illness. There are others who have experienced this illness and have valuable knowledge and insight that can help guide us through the treatment process. Treatment services are delivered in two different types of systems. One system is the medical model, the other is the social model. The western medical model is based on proven scientific knowledge, in an investigative manner. It is a process based on family and personal medical history, patient’s symptoms, laboratory tests and medical examinations to arrive at a diagnosis. A diagnosis is based on scientific studies, which demonstrate a successful outcome. Medical health care generally addresses the illnesses of the body. Psychiatry is a medical application to mental and emotional disorders. Both are based on scientific study that can be reproduced with the same conclusions. This system of care is known as the medical model. There are other models of care such as the social model of care. In the social model of care, our social condition is taken into account. Improving social conditions will enable a person to attain and maintain healthy lifestyles that make it possible for him or her to heal and recover from physical and mental illness. The social model is based on the strengths and resources of an individual and the community he or she lives in. The social model looks at behavior modification as necessary to make changes that promote a healthy life and take a preventive approach to illness. In a social model, one does more that manage symptoms. Social models look at the cause of illness. This is important in the management of our illness and helps our emotional growth. There are opportunities in the social model to address the multiple problems that come with mental illness. It is important to realize that some problems can not be solved with medication alone. For example, having stable living conditions will help move the recovery process forward. Restoring physical and emotional health is the beginning of the journey. Our strength on this journey will be in the improvement of all our living conditions and relationships, as well as our mental and emotional being. Regaining control is an important part of getting better. Having personal power can put you in control. Feeling in control will make life manageable and reduce the impact of mental illness. Having confidence in our ability and capability will promote personal power. We have a word that is used to describe personal power, that word is empowerment. To be empowered simply means that you choose to take charge of your life. Giving permission to act on problems is the first step in empowerment. To empower ourselves in illness, means giving ourselves permission to get better. Empowerment is an action word that can be applied to all of life’s conditions and situations. In mental illness, problems are two-sided. On one side we have the problem of physical and emotional illness; and on the other side, we have social conditions. Social conditions can be great barriers to overcome, since they are rooted in the negative attitudes people have towards mental illness. Working on recovery will make us aware of the social barriers and negative attitudes. We will realize that it is going to take more than us (individually) to make the social changes that are necessary to remove these barriers and attitudes. The work of changing attitudes and removing barriers is work that can best be done by all of us together. That is why I believe in social empowerment. Social empowerment is when like minded people get together in action to find solutions. This team approach will give us strength and make the goal of changing social conditions possible.
Self-help is self-improvement through a group process. It is self-discovery through socialization or through social empowerment. The group process became an action-oriented, growth-producing process. It was a great experience that helped speed my recovery process. A great burden was released in knowing that others had gone down this tragic path and survived. I felt comfortable admitting to others my problems and struggles. There are many types of groups available. Groups can be specific to a problem, illness or social condition. You can join a group for support. There are groups that come together to promote a cause. Some groups want you to participate in the improvement of health care and other life-related problems. The power in numbers is that it makes the big jobs possible. Group process can be used to organize social goals or any other task that its members identify as its purpose for action. Self improvement can be a benefit realized in the group process. There are four elements that help groups make things happen and will help you in deciding if this is a group that you will want to be a part of. The elements are mission, goals, teamwork and a sense of adventure. Self-help can be part of your self-discovery. As life gets better and we gain more control, we can now make time to do group work. Any effort that improves the human condition is time well spent. The most important part of putting our life in order comes in learning how to take care of our-selves. The most important person responsible for their health is the individual person. It is our responsibility to see that our life-needs are met. After many failures we realize that self-care has to be our first priority. To neglect the maintenance of maintain good health will effect us in one or more major ways. Self-care means we listen and pay attention to our body, mind and spirit. Taking care of our total being is the best way for us to regain control of our health. Self-care starts with our wanting to get better. When we want to get better, the things we have to do to promote our self-care will be easier. When we live with mental illness, motivation can often be a problem. How then do we motivate ourselves to practice self-care? A good way to start is in taking care of our body. There are some basic needs that have to be met, such as food, shelter, and clothing. Our focus in self-care is to go beyond daily needs and start the process of meeting our life-needs. Great motivators that can be used to help in the process of taking care of our body are hygiene and exercise. When we keep the body clean, it has an effect on how we feel toward our-selves and our comfort in being around others. Improving our appearance will restore confidence that will make it easier for us to interact with others. When we look good it says: “I like who I am.” It is also important to our physical health for our body to be kept clean. When we are organized with the care of our body, we will develop good habits and start the lifestyle changes necessary for recovery. Keeping our body clean is practicing prevention. Prevention is the first line of defense in self-care. Another prevention activity that has a motivating effect on us is exercise. Exercise will stimulate our body in two ways. One effect is that exercise will change our body chemistry. The other effect is that exercise moves energy through the body. The benefits we obtain from exercise are regular daily activity, discipline and improvement in physical ability. Exercise gives us a sense of well being and a renewed confidence in our ability to manage life. Self-care is living with an attitude. Constantly we need to pay attention to stress levels. Knowing how to manage stress is a good skill to learn. The best way to bring our stress level down is to learn to relax. There are many ways to relax. In choosing ways to relax, we will find out that some ways will work for us and others seem to just mask our problem with other stress and provide only temporary relief. Relaxation can be pursued in both positive and negative ways. Negative ways used to relax are the use of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. These methods provide only temporary relief from stress. Substance abuse is harmful to our physical and emotional health. Substance abuse makes any situation worse. Addiction and the bad physical effects of negative relaxation are too high a price to pay for any benefit we might think we are getting from these activities. Positive relaxation activities are those that promote good health and benefit us in ways that help us balance the ups and downs of life. Relaxation methods are most effective when they are simple and fun. One relaxation method that we can use anywhere is using the breathing techniques to relax. Also, having fun with physical activities is relaxing. Self-care is an important part of our well being. Well being is defined by a healthy relationship to the environment and the culture we live in. Taking care of our well being will have a wellness effect on our total health. Wellness can best be achieved by practicing self-nurturing. Self-nurturing is the practice of cultivating and adopting healthy attitudes that are action oriented. Wellness is the celebration of our good physical and mental health. Focusing on our wellness will help us think healthy and take our mind off the negative impact of illness on our life. Wellness means: “I am doing all in my power to restore health and sanity to my life.” There is a natural flow of benefits to wellness. Good health, happiness, and spiritual awareness are some of the benefits we get when we practice wellness.
Another reason mental illness is so difficult to live with is because of the medical care. First, there seems to be a shortage and lack of medical services. When medical services are available, the mentally ill have a hard time accessing medical care. Another problem with medical care is that the treatment is fragmented and impersonally managed. Mental illness is a difficult disease to live with because of its lack of credibility. Our own medical, social and psychiatric histories are often ignored and not accounted for by anyone we come into contact with. Still another reason this chronic medical condition is so hard to live with is that basic needs, such as housing and employment are not met. With regards to surrendering to mental illness, despite that our situation keeps changing, we need dedication and devotion to a healthy lifestyle. We must not give up. Even though we have relapses, we need to remember our dedication and devotion to recovery, to a healthy lifestyle. Relapses can be seen as an opportunity to improve our situations. We can improve and learn from our mistakes. My final thought is in regard to the idea that “Health is Wealth”. This is a good idea to nurture. Recognizing our strengths and capabilities will give us resources to cope and will give us the ability to act on the situations that our illness and disabilities have cast upon us. We have choices in this life. We need to take personal responsibility for our treatment, recovery and wellness. Taking responsibility for our well being takes courage. Take courage to accept your mental illness and other impairments. In short, the attitude we have can make a big difference. We can go through life having problems or having opportunities to get better. It is just how we choose to see the situation.
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