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ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Recovery, Repairing Oneself, and Comparing Oneself

Jack Bragen
Thursday January 19, 2017 - 08:59:00 PM

Psychiatric medications often lessen symptoms of a mental illness, but usually do not eliminate the problems completely. A person with a psychotic disorder often must use a number of additional strategies to remain on an even keel.  

While medication may rid me of about ninety percent of my acute symptoms, I still have the ten percent left (still a lot) that I have to address somehow. 

In the recent past, I've suffered from low-level psychosis, and this has impacted numerous areas of my life. I've had a severe anxiety disorder as well, and this can make it much more difficult to sift through thoughts and weed out the bad ones.  

I've realized lately that my thinking needs a tune-up. Looking at thoughts and evaluating them is a valid thing for any human being. And for someone who suffers from a low level of psychosis, it is vital. If unable to look at thoughts and ponder them, it could mean too much or too little medication, it could mean that the disorder has wiped out this capacity, or it could merely indicate that this capacity hasn't been exercised enough.  

Not being connected enough to reality can be detrimental to numerous areas of life. The first step is to gain the clarity necessary to realize that the thinking is unclear.  

Donald Trump said, "I know things other people don't know." This is an indication, among many, that Trump suffers from low-level to moderate psychosis. The difference is that I know I have a problem and President Trump does not. Another difference is that Trump, by the time you read this, holds the most powerful office on Earth. I am just a freelance author and I am not in a position to do much damage, should my thinking go way out into left field.  

I also strive to clear up my misconceptions by means of communication. If I am not sure whether something is real or not, I check it out; I ask the person who has access to the facts, or I might ask my wife or a therapist, neither of whom, I hope, live in psychosis.  

On planet Earth, we have a number of men who hold power of the highest magnitude who are also unstable, who suffer from severe narcissistic disorders, and who believe they must be in a position of dominance. Warped dictators have taken over, and this doesn't speak well for the short-term prospects of life on our planet. This is enough to traumatize any sensitive individual, much less a sensitive person who suffers from a psychiatric condition. So, it is challenging to hang on to sanity.  

I am taking a little bit of a break, in which I continue doing this column but have not pushed quite as hard in other areas of my writing--areas in which the work is much harder and that contain no promise of gratification. At the same time, I am trying to do a tune up on my mind, and this is while I continue to handle basic responsibilities of living as a disabled, middle-aged, low-income, married man. I might also try to get out of the house a bit more, and open up my vistas a bit more. I've been in quite a rut.  

When the spring comes, it might be time for another massive fiction push, or perhaps work on another book (which will probably be self-published). 

In the traffic school that I attended when I had my most recent speeding ticket (It was in 1988 or 89) the instructor said something that stuck in my memory: "Stress will kill you." And it is very stressful just to be in one's own head with a ton of thoughts rattling around. In order to connect with reality, sometimes a person needs to get a firsthand look.  

If I were in a psychiatric ward right now, I would make myself play ping-pong. (Most psych wards have a ping pong table. And those that don't have one should have one.) All work and no play makes Jack sick.  


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