Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kitt Eileen Reidy on 9th mo. 3, 2012 at 6:08pm

Thank you.  This means a lot to me.  Blessings to you and thanks for sharing your experiences.  

Timothy Bruffy said:

In my own situation, there was no group, no people, not even a doctor that I could trust to talk to. I could not always go places, because of the "figures" and "voices of many" speaking and uttering methods of suicide to me. I was "being followed" constantly. Paranoia was so strong then. (Now I just do not like to go places because it costs more than I could afford or from homeschooling etc.)

This lack of people to turn to did not hinder, in mine own situation, the healing process. The Almighty God and Father drew me to Him without another soul. I had no kind therapist or counselor, but I found one in the Great Healing Physician! There is where all of the many labels of diagnosis fell.

While not a Bedlumite that is lunatic, I do admit to being eccentric. Some of mine own making and not to be mixed with some sort of psychotic or mental condition. (Example: a friar's robe, a Dickens garb, or whatever.) That is just me. Just trying to cope with the difficulties of life by my own humour like that.

How did I get over the overly medicated stupor I was in? Nay, I did not use force, but became ill in a non-psychotic manner, was sent to a physician, and eventually got off of the intoxicating, debilitating medicines. I have the Lord of Light and the God of Comfort to thank always for that! He alone met the need of my condition. I had no meeting or group to attend at the time. I was too sick to go at one time. I had the "Thorazine shuffle," where ye cannot pick up one foot off the floor, but only slide it. Prolixin did likewise unto me.

My mind was clouded and polluted for years there. Even after coming off of the medicine, I was still under the side effects. They lingered heavily in my body for years. In the 5th month 1999, thrice I thought I would die from very bad seizures: Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome—or anti-psychotic drug related seizures, but I was not hospitalised from them. Like Epilepsy, these terrible seizures wore off. My body was burning hot. I was stiff as a chunk of granite. I sweated profusely. I gasped in breath, as breathing was difficult. They lasted for a duration of nearly an hour or more! My poor wife sitting there just watching, never knowing what to do but pray. . .

Yet my heat controlling mechanism in the brain is permanently damaged. So my journey away from this over dose of anti-psychotics and other medicines, is one that helps me to know who my true friends are. I have found that to be so, because some people do not like to even hear of mental illnesses and such.

I keep going on. I keep steadily onwards. I reach forth towards my wee family for support. I have also a few other friends and herein I have found Friends as well. So far, I feel as though no one has placed the Meidnung—shunning on me. I do not feel as if I am placed Im der Bann—In the Ban either. (At least not that I am aware of. And I do thank Forest for this post to "air" out some things that have been on my chest for a long time!)

Do not give up. I haven't. Ye need not either, Friend Kitt! Keep thy faith. Thou hast come through a lot of hardships making thee a better person. Stronger. Able to cope and endure. The trying of our faith worketh patience. . . God is able to see thee through. Keep up thy courage, I know I need to as well. Find out what works for thee, let the rest be. At least I'm not the only one here that hath been through this sort of treatment. Not alone. . . Thanks for sharing some of thy experiences!

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Permalink Reply by Timothy Bruffy on 9th mo. 3, 2012 at 9:34pm

Friend Kitt!

Thank thee for thy words as well. We should all seek to give and receive encouragement. Freely ye have received, freely give. . . Mat. 10:8. Just knowing someone else has "been there" and "witnessed" yea, and "gone through" some of the same things helpeth. Why? For I may then see myself as the Bedlum here, since everyone else is "sane."

Thank thee for really being able to understand in a personal way. Thou hast been through an ordeal of significance and hast been able to "walk away" like I have still alive! I know some that are not here due to the hangman's noose they made in the ignorance of their darkened estates. . . God kept me and thee alive. No suicide took our lives! That is something to give thanks for.

Blessings and peace to thee.

Thy humble Friend,

Timothy and wee family

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Permalink Reply by Timothy Bruffy on 9th mo. 7, 2012 at 8:45pm

This is one area I wish I never had to have ever gone through, but since it did happen, I see it working for some good area to make me stronger. Stronger in faith and hope in the Lord God and His Son Jesus Christ! Otherwise it is gruesome, hellish, and torturous! Unless ye have absolutely gone through it, ye don't know what it is like!!

Very glad and grateful to God that He allowed me to get off of that medicine that clouded my mind. I praise Him. I thank Him! He is worthy!! "Great God!! How Infinite art Thou! How poor and weak are we! Let the whole race of creatures bow, and pay their praise to Thee!"

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 7, 2012 at 11:50pm

I can't say a whole lot for suffering... but I can't see it existing without a purpose.

We hope to simply eliminate it, as though it lacked an intended purpose. And often, that leads to worse suffering...

Me, I'd vote for just making it go away. Great, when we can do that. But when it isn't that simple, what then?

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Permalink Reply by Marc Kivel on 9th mo. 8, 2012 at 12:27pm

As someone who has been on medications for some time, although not as deeply or as long as some Friends who have commented here, I am still waiting for a clear leading on the matter of psychiatric drugs and their proper use.  I offer these queries rather than advices....

At what point does a person's behavior prevent them from safely interacting with others and them self?  Should this be a general standard or specific to the individual and their context?

What is a Friend's obligation to another Friend to address changes in behavior?  What is a Meeting's obligation to a Friend whose behavior changes or becomes threatening?

Should there be a general standard of good treatment that requires complementary therapeutics (e.g. talk therapy with any course of psychiatric medicine?)

Should a Meeting offer Clearance and holding the Friend up in the Light as a complement to any medical support?

Should an Overseer or Care Committee be available to support a Friend in their daily living with their challenges?

Should a Friend under psychiatric care assent to making a Care Committee or Clearance Committee a party to their plan of treatment and their advocate with institutions or physicians?

Your leadings?

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Permalink Reply by Timothy Bruffy on 9th mo. 8, 2012 at 10:32pm

I humbly feel that dealing with health issues, it is wise for the individual to have choices of their own. Otherwise it will come across as dictatorship. No one would want someone else to choose their doctor for them. No one would like it if someone called their doctor or made choices for the person. I feel it would be best to leave that issue to the individual, their own doctor/health provider, and to God.

I was involuntarily placed in Danville's Mental Institution, and I would not wish for anyone to go there involuntary. It was nightmarish. I was in a room without a window and only artificial light. Involuntary—without thy choice or say in the matter.

In 1991, I was hospitalised at VA Baptist Hospital on Krise 6, the sixth floor of that unit. I was placed on one medicine then another and another. Lithium Bicarbonate made me so very sickly!! I was shackled to the bed, injected with Haldol, then put into a small carpeted room without a window or door knob! Outside the locked door, someone sat watching me constantly.

My suggestion would be leave out the dictation and just encourage the individual. Offer to help them in other ways. Offer to listen to them. Offer love, and prayer. Encourage them with the Light of the Word of God! This is my only plea. Also, the Golden Rule: "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them likewise." Just a few of my thoughts to thee about meetings and medical health care. . .

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 9, 2012 at 12:03am

Someone deleted a reply here, presumably the person who posted it. (I would not have done so.)

While lacking any personal knowledge of the circumstances... I agree with that person that when a Meeting committee, without a person's specific invitation, intervenes in their affairs in such a manner -- it has gone far beyond any just claim to understand whatever-it-is we mean by 'mental illness' or how such phenomena should best be addressed.

People, "mentally ill" or otherwise, simply don't always make good choices. They don't necessarily choose well on their own behalf -- But when they happen to choose badly, that is simply how life works -- While even a "good" choice, made on another's behalf & against their wishes, does harm to them and to any friendship with them.

We have a right to make mistakes and suffer from them. We do not have a right to make someone else's mistakes.

I have friends who I believe have made, who continue to make very self-destructive treatment-choices. There simply isn't a good way to "deal with" this situation, except to remain friends, to pray that any mistakes including my own will be mitigated, that the eventual outcome will be according to God's good will. As Timothy says here.

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 9, 2012 at 10:16am

It looks like people are collectively hampered by a bad selection of metaphors, in trying to make sense of the wide range of conditions that can lead to someone being 'diagosed' and/or 'medicated'.

A helpful analogy: "Being on a skateboard" is not the same concept as "falling down" -- despite the fact that for me, they are equivalent conditions.

Back in the day, I knew a great many people who took 'pattern-enhancing' chemicals, almost entirely with beneficial, at worst neutral, outcomes. One friend, recently released from a State hospital, ran into old friends who gave her a dose of 'mescaline' (given the state of the black market at the time, probably 'substandard, weak LSD'). This led to her immediate, direct return to the 'hospital'.

There are at least three dimensions to be considered:

1) To what degree is a person in a state of 'overdrive': somewhat overwhelmed, emotionally-volatile, perceiving outside the range of 'normal psychological functioning'? This could arise from chemical toxins, internal metabolic disruptions, fasting or meditation... and depending on other factors, be a condition to be sought-after or desperately fled.

2) What's the emotional tone? -- 'stoned' aka 'astounded', calm, or 'freaked out'?

3) To what degree is a person "in touch"? This is crucial; and it can vary all over the scale despite where they are on those other two dimensions.

A friend who abruptly 'went off his meds' (These things are addictive!) was trying to play chess with me while insisting that "P-K4 means 'Let's go to Mischa's house!' " Was perfectly competent to drive himself to the hospital, although I went along for company and to make sure he got there. Did not impress the staff as 'needing hospitalization' (although most of his friends were pretty sure!) until he decided he needed to 'tap' one of them to make himself clear.

I have been "talked down from" an extremely bad LSD trip... which did not mean that the floor stopped wriggling before the stuff physiologically wore off. (I'd taken some alone, took some more because "This isn't working", then got desperately lonesome and wandered off into one of those nights when the police were teargassing everything in sight, found refuge in the lobby of the Berkeley Inn, where the guy at the desk was a moonlighting ex-medic.) The LSD neither facilitated nor prevented him in helping me deceive myself (enough to bear with the anxiety & discomfort for the duration.) What it did add, I believe, was awareness that I was, in fact, defending my emotional stability by self-deception.

I was able to look back on this later, say "Hmmmm!!!" and recognize what I'd been doing & how. Another person I talked to later about their own experience -- was evidently still clinging to ideas he'd needed at the time, years before -- went on thinking he needed to continually stave off what he felt to be imminent terror.

I firmly believe that there are "normal" people who have never taken a funny pill, or had an odd experience in their lives -- whose mental functioning and belief systems are as resolutely "out-of-touch" as anyone they'd consider "nuts". That at some level people are struggling with very similar issues, whether they 'self-medicate,' have 'medication' imposed upon them, or simply muddle on...

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Permalink Reply by Ray White on 9th mo. 19, 2012 at 8:28pm

All I can say is I am so grateful for the drugs I finally decided to take.  I have been wandering in a dark depressive cloud for years...afraid of mental health drugs as I saw myself as a "weak" person to give into them.....but my life slowly spiraled out of control to the point I had unbelieveable panic and anxiety attacks that were mind numbingly crippling.  I hated each day.....now....I have found the joy of life again.  I am able to practice deep breathing exercises to control the panic and anxiety that was so amazingly incapacitating. 

They were a God-send.....they saved my life.

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 19, 2012 at 10:56pm

Ray White said:

All I can say is I am so grateful for the drugs I finally decided to take.  I have been wandering in a dark depressive cloud for years...afraid of mental health drugs as I saw myself as a "weak" person to give into them.....but my life slowly spiraled out of control to the point I had unbelieveable panic and anxiety attacks that were mind numbingly crippling.  I hated each day.....now....I have found the joy of life again.  I am able to practice deep breathing exercises to control the panic and anxiety that was so amazingly incapacitating. 

They were a God-send.....they saved my life.

That happens too.

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Permalink Reply by Ken Baxter on 9th mo. 28, 2012 at 11:11pm

Please allow me to add my own experiences to this thread.  My own use of psychoactive drugs, mostly legal, has been varied. Currently, I am finding buproprion useful in dealing with depression; however, others I have found to be negative in varying degrees. I suspect the larger lesson on drugs for mental health improvement comes from students I taught over a 30-year career.

The public really doesn't have a clue about the amount of mental health problems confronted in the classroom. These are kids who desperately need help but ours is a culture that offers few resources with often tragic results. My observation was that kids who received professional help often benefitted and this was often due to a medication. Sometimes the change was practically magical. Very immediate and drastic. Sometimes this would last and sometimes the positive would wear off and that situation had to be dealt with. There was also a not insignificant number of these young people on which nothing seemed to help whatever demons their illness was throwing at them. And, of course, many many received little help at all. 

People in the helping professions mostly want to help and possess varying degrees of expertise and ability. But they exist in a societal substrate of Big Pharma and Vulture Capitalism that are powerful forces making it an uphill battle. The awareness and willingness to wage that uphill battle are a major reason I so value my participation in the Quaker community.

I've personally been extremely fortunate to have received help from VA as a PTSD veteran. This has changed my life and I intend to do what I can to engender similar opportunities for others. Sharing with others, whether in a group or a blog, can be a powerful thing. May you all go with God.

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