Living with Dual Diagnosis

Being dual diagnosed and having to maintain sobriety is something like climbing a tree with leather shoes on.  You can’t make mistakes in keeping up with your symptoms as you realize what your mental illness is about and you can’t backslide when it comes to relapsing when it comes to drugs and alcohol.  With the 12 steps of A/A and N/A to guide you, you must also look into the guidelines of psychotherapy and how you want to continue to grow beyond the misery you have lived in.  I look into my own life right now and feel slightly down trodden as to how my survival will continue, how I will live without fear or remorseful feelings. My problem is common with many people through the world, and that is looking for work and having not very much in order to live on or provide for loved ones.  Depression is a part of dual diagnosis, as well as schizophrenia and manic-depression, how well many consumers have felt the grasp of these illnesses, yet not so much when having to live on only so much because you are lacking an income or even worse a home to live in.  I began to see that those on social security or other means of an income provided by the government are much more the better off than those struggling without any source of income or housing.  I must maintain, obtaining my medications, seeing a therapist, gain employment and maintain a place to live besides other necessities in order to say, I am living.  I see other people slipping into other worlds, using drugs and alcohol because they could not find their way back into society by working, often times living in resentment because they cannot find peace nor do they have resilience.  Living with a dual diagnosis is virtually the same, having to climb a slippery tree and not look down from where you are, such as crossing a street and not looking back, the feelings the same, trying to overcome the hurdles which are boundaries before you.  I want to feel as if I have overcome my mental illness, yet as long as I know that I could lose my motivation in keeping my strength, I know I will be dependent upon the system to keep me climbing with some success.

There have been some intense feelings about my dilemma of  losing my job and having to search for another, or live off unemployment for a short while and those feelings are the very ones I have been diagnosed with.  Yet the smiles and laughter I once had seem to have highs and lows as well with me as well and all that I perceive makes me that much more closed about what is right in maintaining not only being my mental strength but my self-esteem as well.  

Written by Donald S

Modern Change through Therapy

What is Psychotherapy? Psychotherapy is defined as a sort of process of dialogue and conversation between two people. There are different schools of thought on psychotherapy each dealing with the psyche and the body. A psychotherapist cannot judge his patient’s personality and the client has his individuality in his own right and must be allowed expression without judgment by any doctor’s assumption. There is the connective belief of Religion, being a form of Psychotherapy, which treats the sufferings of the individual client’s soul and the suffering of their body caused by their “soul”. Yet many clients don’t have such beliefs so the reason of the therapy is to enable the client to “latch” onto the unconsciousness in their psyche allowing a melding of their personality and remove the negative thoughts they have harbored.
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I have a psychiatrist, yet the clinic I attend has both psychiatry and psychotherapeutic methodologies. As I have attended many years of structured sessions with my doctor, I have done a lot of thinking. Being a recovered drug addict and alcoholic the thoughts I have dealt with had led me to understand, I had no connection with Religion or spirituality within myself. In other words, I had no wholeness or morals and lacked understanding. There are stages a client goes through when seeking independence from their illness, one of the stages is coming out of one’s self and reaching a mode of education of not only the self but the world around yourself; you become transformed through self education and understanding.
I began to adapt a philosophy totally different from the “street life” I had lived. I began to understand, that respect is an earned reality of beingness, not a choosing of some “heathen” attitude to make you wealthy or enamored. My troubles slowly faded away as I gained a bit more wisdom and began to reach inside for true spirituality. There is a difference between the mind and the brain, (psychotherapy), (psychiatry) and I have learned that I have my own convictions and must always be open to ideas which are positive.
Written by Donald S.

Changing Your Mind in Recovery

There was a time when Mental Health meant nothing to me. I did not consider myself mentally ill, while drowning in alcohol and running the streets until all hours passed and using drugs till I had to become drunk again. All the while, I believed I had no mental problems, not one. After coming into contact with mental health counselors and doctors, I felt I wanted go straight, quit drinking and using illicit drugs, yet something else inside me kept telling me I needed my freedom, I needed friends to understand me and how I saw the world. I turned away from the mental health center, not realizing till I tried twice again to get help that I needed help; I understood I was alone in my beliefs and there was nothing concrete or real about them.

This scenario happens to many people, especially to dually-diagnosed and manic depressive individuals. We seek help or are offered a helping hand, yet down the line we turn and run for what is more comforting as we believe life has been for us or can be by more arcane ideas, other un-orthodox beliefs.

When seeking help, we should understand at first sight that our ideas have caused us troubles as have the ideas of those we trusted we have followed, into the early morning hours. We don’t walk away from the table when the cards are right, we follow through with our understanding that we cannot fail in our direction of not taking a drink or other avenues which my start us on the road of destruction. We must learn what causes self self-destrcrtion and learn to turn our back to it instead of turning over the losing card. In turn we must be brave and face what “evils” lurk within, and turn our worthless dreams into the bounty of ideas which give us positive growth.

Following the precepts of Mental Health, and psychotherapy, not to mention other schools of thought, we are able to change our negative ideas into positive and good works which not only help us to lead a better life; yet let our peers know as well that we have a keener understanding, and a willingness to share a new life, one of which we have inherited. Determination is what you are seeking to overcome the obstacles which cause the backsliding attitude which causes failure, which keeps you turning in different directions. To become strong and to live again, with peace of mind, you must look into your thoughts and know that they can be soothed and you can be freed from the pain to change the obstacles, which have caused you to live within

The Looking Glass

After many years of an association with MHCD (Mental Health Center of Denver), I began seeing a side of me they had noticed years before. I saw that I really had an illness which kept me from understanding what reality was about and which had kept me without respect not only for other people, yet for myself as well. I began to understand what my life was all about, my well being, the shambles of my mind the destitution I was living in; it was enough to shake my head in shame. I asked myself a question, “Where have I been?” Many people haven’t had the chance to see themselves, others only through glass and others haven’t the ability to make the change from what causes the debilitating blow because of an illness. There are many emotions to sort through when you are living with a mental illness, that’s one of the reasons I came to respect those who work in Mental Health in the fields of psychotherapy, and cognitive therapy. They are guiding the forlorn into that other majesty called reality, without faltering; without shame, without disrespect.
Psychotherapy is made up of a series of techniques which are used for treating emotional and psychiatric illness’ in other words your mental health. It is used to help the client, patient or consumer, understand what makes them feel weak or strong, positive or negative. Clients involved in psychotherapy can identify their feelings and their way of thinking in order to “deal” with the difficult aspects of reality. As a consumer in Recovery, I began reaching for reality, realizing my weakness and through many methods of communication and the use of psychotropic medications; I was able to alleviate some of the stress and negative emotions I was having without the use of street drugs or alcohol. Reality became a picture of motion and words through the sessions I had with my therapist and others associated with my recovery through the mental health system, by means of psychotherapeutic methods which have been in development since the 19th century. Many practicing psychologist and therapist agree to an extent that the most effective treatment for mental illness and other problems involves a combination of medication and psychotherapy as well as cognitive therapy. “We feel by what we think”, and with the in depth conversations and sincerity a person is able to live as an individual with strength of mind, overcoming the draught of negativity they have associated with during their illness.
Written by Donald Sammons