Posted by Gringo on June 12, 1999, at 7:29:20
In reply to Re: So much talk of meds...Isn't there a better way?, posted by Trey on June 10, 1999, at 11:55:21
Hey there!
I warmly welcomed your posting here, dear Trey. It's been a long time since I've checked new threads on psycho-babble and now it was worth it. I just wanted to say thanks for starting this discussion and for the patience and calmness which somehow I can feel in your replies. So far, lucky (you/we?) it didn't turn to an ego-war-type discussion 'my truth against your truth'. As I am not native english-speaking person I cannot add too much in a way I could. Well, at least something.
As mentioned, there is possibly other kind of 'person' 'inside' every one of us. It's relatively easy to get in touch with that part of personality, though it still seems impossible to find it for most of the people. Material reality is real but it seems that people remain stuck in it somehow. This is not about typicall eastern-wisdom teaching (to liberate oneself is to give up material world). It's ok to make use of it, to live in it, to enjoy its pleasures etc. But it's necessary to realize it's not the only place to do that and it's also necessary to try to find these alternative realms and to benefit from them. Also as was said, these 'realms' doesn't lie somewhere 'in the skies' but within. This might sound strange or for someone familiar but still distant. Or it may sound familiar but in a way 'yeah, we heard it but these are just nice talks and I don't know of anyone who would get there...' Never mind. To finish that idea, most of us have found a sense of a life in material world without searching for more. This world should serve as a base for that searching and should not drag us down. I guess there is no discussion needed that it does drag people down, but discussing about that would lead me somewhere else. Seems like people became slaves of their own devices, their own system. I've heard hundreds of times sayings like 'yeah, how easy to say...try paying all my debts...try to give up those possessions in favor of your spouse...try to lose your children in a divorce...etc.' But that's only what we've created. Saying that 'this is natural for a human being' is wrong, though it's strong to say it like this and I expect someone arguing about it. Belief in this system leads to thinking that brain is a mechanical tool and mental disorders come from some kind of chemical unbalance. Comparing brain to pancreas or heart is very very simplified, I think. I think it's difficult to explain but somehow there is dual characteristic even to brain or to its functions. There is some kind of corelation between energy and matter (well, just remember that famous e=mc2) and maybe brain is that 'tool' that combines them. Just to mention, early childhood and birth traumas are stored in a body in a form of 'blocks' or 'blockages' which manifest themselves in *physical* pain when it comes to releasing them. ('Behind' (which isn't the right word to describe), somehow dualistic, behind these pains there is mental content of such traumas) Mental memories are manifested through physical pain and probably brain is that central computer which transforms and directs them. Bio-feedback therapeutists would give a similar example: they ask a question while holding patient's hands or other part of a body. Depending on a reaction of a *muscle*, therapeutist knows which way to go and what questions to ask to reveal the roots of traumas etc. Well, this is very simplified description of whole therapy but this was only to say that it's maybe not quite right to understand brain in such a simple way that it's a mechanical tool or body organ and that we can easily describe its functions and thus we certainly know where roots of the disorders are.
Someone before said that 'we are stronger than "normal" people because...'. Grof in one of his books wrote that most of the disorders are just the starting points of a journey that can have a very positive ending. And that most of the people with depressions are much closer to final solution than most of "normal" people. But the 'final solution' isn't getting back mentally to the state in which "normal" people(are there any?) are. Understanding the disorder as a challenge and the journey to a 'higher level of existence' is a primary condition to 'healing oneself'. Some people after going on meds will find some sort of balance, some people will not. Even finding that balance is a temporary root-reasons supressing. I know this may upset some people but this is partly my own experience. It's also necessary to say that start of a 'journey' is always spontaneous and cannot be forced to begin, i.e this is some kind of coincidence 'driven from above' which I cannot explain. Mostly such a 'journey' is individualistic, thus relying on a therapeut, meds or any other external means won't work too much. Simply, a road to heaven through hell. Final state of being is a positive person with somehow different attitude (cooperative and collective) towards life, nature, Earth and all the Universe. What is natural for human being is that he/she is open, loving, cooperating with others, able to switch from individual to collective consciousness and spontaneous, loving him/herself with much improved contact with his/her inner world as well as directing these feelings to external world. Such a person may become interested in spiritual paths (which in no way means he/she will convert to catholic or islamic or any other church). This description is certainly not complete, it's just one of the possible ones. Such is a potential of a human being, if some of you like it or not. It's just it's deep within and we're too 'blocked' to see or even to agree with it. There's sometimes a lot of 'muddy dirt' on us which prevents us from seeing our true nature. This 'mud' (sorry I haven't other words to describe) are traumas, early memories, bad life experiences (stored in a perfect human computer - body), chemical unbalances, whatever you like and sometimes people waste too much time(whole biological life) on supressing them and trying to become "normal" again(which is a reverse direction life strategy). It's better to work through them, release them and scrape all that 'mud' down.(these actions and experiences are not always pleasant and may be called 'hell' in that sentence above). Whatever comes out, cannot be bad. Such a state of existence is relatively easy to achieve, it's only that the efforts of today's science and *possible* misunderstanding of depressions made it more complicated because sometimes the most difficult step to make is to get rid of something in which I believed for thirty years. It's quite possible that people laugh at such ideas, doesn't matter.
All the best.
poster:Gringo
thread:7217
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19990601/msgs/7305.html