Delusions

I was reading a small article that states “Psychosis keeps up with the times.” It talks about how delusions keep up with what is going on in the world at the present time. For example “…more patients after 1950 believe they are being spied upon is consistent with the development of related technology and the advent of the Cold War.” That is very interesting because my delusion when I was mentally ill was that there was a transmitter in my teeth that was reading my mind. One other person in the State hospital with me had the same delusion. I had that delusion after reading an article in the National Enquirer about them putting transmitters in people. I never asked the other person who had the same delusion as me where he received his delusion from. I guess you can come up with a lot of delusions when you are mentally ill. I would not believe that story when I was well, but it just stuck with me for some reason. When I was mentally ill a second time in the State Hospital, I was taking a typing program on and Apple computer. I had to ask them to take me back to my room because the words were jumping out at me. That has never happen again. Although I will always remember that day, because it is strange how modern technology can fuel delusions. Now that I am on medicine I know longer have those delusions. I can work on a computer without words coming at me and it is great.

How to Define Recovery

Some of the things that help people recover from a mental illness are you have to take responsibility for your mental health and behavior. You have to recognize your symptoms and know what triggers the symptoms. Some people recover with medication and some recover without it. You may not have symptoms if you take medication and it works well for a person. The same medication does not work for all people. That makes it hard, because I had a good friend in the State Hospital and he was doing good for two weeks. Then his medication stopped working and as long as I was there they never found any that worked for him. I do hope he is out and they finally found something that worked. Even though you may have the same diagnoses, what you go through is different. Employment helps a lot in recovery by having confidence and it also helps a person interact with others. Support from family and/or mental health counselor or psychiatrist. It could even be a good friend who knows you and believes in you. Stubbornness, or self determination in the fact that you can succeed even if you have a mental illness, and you will not let anything stop you from realizing recovery, and you would also have to have hope that your dreams and recovery will come to realization. Hope helps with everything whether it be recovering from a mental illness or hoping to get out of jail or prison. You have to hope that things will not always be bad. I have a lot to be thankful for also. I came a long way from learning that I had a mental illness and accepting that I did. Recovery is an individual thing and to know you can recover. Some who recover and go on to be psychiatrists and such wanted to make sure nobody went through what they did. Some were in college before their breakdown and went on to finish college. Others started after their mental illness and finished and are lawyers, mechanics etc. Some talk about what they went through and some others do not. Stigma I believe does not allow a lot of people who have recovered speak freely about it. Why speak out when you are going to be put down or ignored. Although the good side to speaking freely and openly about your mental illness is that you would advocate and show them that you have succeeded. That you did not let your mental illness keep you stuck in it. Finally you have to use your strengths to help you grow and recover.

Bonding with Reverence

Humankind has a common bond between one another, no matter the joy or ignorance we live. It is friendship. This bond is a bonding through respect and admiration and love for one another. I am aware that there are those that do not share these bonds with others, yet a large percentage of the peoples of this earth do have these two bonding traits, friendship and respect. Having friendship is having an ally, someone you know well, someone or many you share fellowship with. Respect holds friendships trust, being of honor, esteem and admiration.

I noticed even the lowliest of peoples share these qualities, even criminals and especially the disabled. Those of wealth and those without have regard and acceptance of others of their own station of others greater or lesser than. Friendship can happen in the twinkling of an eye or days there after a sharing comes into being. It’s the sharing of that which we value, through respect which causes us to grow with others we respond with.

It may take weeks even months before we care to share with someone we care to bond with , yet it’s a feeling of almost everlasting joy, it’s a smile we have revived with our reverence and our respect of which we share unceasingly. This what people in Recovery search for, a change in fellowship, where we won’t be left feeling denial because of our ideas, because of our changing attitudes because we wish to care and be cared about.

Written by Donald Sammons

How do you define Recovery?

Doing research I came across articles talking about when a person is recovered. The articles mention that you are recovered when you have no symptoms, you do not take medication, and you receive no mental health services. Then you are fully recovered. They do say that you may be in recovery if you do only one of the three. I do two I take medication and I see my psychiatrist or get mental health services. I have had no symptoms for years. I do not fit the criteria for being recovered. Yet I feel I am recovered, because I am doing better than I was before. I believe if you had mental distress and do none of the three above. Will you ever mention that you had mental distress? Could that be one reason there is so much stigma, because no one say’s I once had mental distress and now I am recovered? Would anyone believe them if they are doing good?