Rampant Dependence on External Solutions in Sz?

DX'd - Other
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One of the things I have observed to notice to recognize since joining this forum is the very high incidence of dependence on external solutions to internal problems. Having worked through a pile of my own (and still…), I’m not looking down my nose, however.

I spent most of my life believing in the b######t the common cult-ure handed to me. For example, “there’s a pill that will fix it” and “sex, romance and relationship will fix it.” So I kept on trying to fix my semi-psychotic bipolar hypomania with… pills (of one sort and shape or another, but drugs in general… including two-legged pills).

It never worked, but I kept trying because all I heard from the common cult-ure was, “No. This stuff works. Just keep trying.” So I kept repeating the same mistakes expecting different results.

But if I wasn’t well-equipped to deal with reality, what kind of two-legged fixes was I attracting? Well, duh.

What I see in so many of the posts here looks and sounds like what I did for so many years: Barking up the wrong tree. Sex, romance and relationships never solved my problems. They just distracted me from seeking the actual solutions to them.

Which, over time, proved to be coming to recognize, acknowledge, accept, own, appreciate and understand my fixations on others as my “pills” (as well as pills as my pills) so that I could jump out of that hopeless box.

I had to take my meds for the conscious, mindful purpose of remaining sufficiently stable to be able to do the cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral psychotherapies that slowly but relentlessly reduced my psychotic, anxious, manic and depressive symptoms over time.

If you read to this point and want to know how this happened in more detail, you’re welcome to ask.

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I think it is our instincts as humans to find external tools to solve our internal medical and mental challenges involving the mysteries of life and it’s many facets of inquiry. This external searching for solutions apart from ourselves was probably how mind was born or awakened in us early on in our evolutionary processes when we were realizing that external factors such as the Sun, air and water are those things that provide needed energy and the means for to support our bodies and we then could see ourselves from a second and even third person point of view and the searching expanded in an inwardly search as well. For we can realize that we are actually a product of external forces, ways and means as well as something more leaning towards what we consider to be of a spiritual based nature.

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human beings ( i am not one :imp: ) are a soup of chemicals.
what works for one human is not necessarily going to work for another.
if meds worked for sz we would all be cured and therefore this forum would not exist.
sz in my eye’s ( and i am not smart like you )…is simply a lack of neural pathways or mis-firing neural pathways…
paranoia…is a fear of the ’ now ’
ptsd…is the fear of the past
ocd…is the fear of the future…
and psychosis is an irrational, and out of control, conclusion to all the above.

"what door :mouse: mouse, you would like more sugar with your tea :tea: ! "
take care :alien:

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I am sympathetic to the idea that if you have a problem at the level of the mind, one should prefer to treat it at that level as well. While I think it obvious the mind is partially realized by the substructures of the brain, and can thus be influenced through medications working on that level, it is also constrained by the social superstructures we are engaged in. Then there is the mind’s reflective ability to take a stance on itself - this seems to be the target of your approach if I understand correctly. It seems to me this approach tries to adjust our pre-reflective attitudes towards the world as we experience it through reflective exercises. Though tough work this is very possible. But I think work on the other levels should not be neglected. I think our participation in social superstructures constrains the way the world is able to pre-reflectively show up - which is where many of our problems are located. I’m not sure what therapies work on that level but it seems vital to me. It would, on some conception of the mind, be an ‘external solution’ - but if you agree that our minds are intersubjectively constituted it is no longer so.

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Very interesting flybottle. i take the integral/holistic view - body/brain, mind/psychology/emotions, social/environmental, & spiritual/transpersonal, is all interdependent & interrelated. Current systems of treatment primarily focus on & target a theorised (unproven) brain pathology. The psychosocial is imo more important to address.

Leave aside psychiatric classifications & far from everyone experiences the same phenomena. It’s individual & complex. Across an integral range within the individual person & what they experience, there is imo great ranges, especially within the overall severity/nature & difficulties of the individuals experiences & their overall circumstances. Yes, personal responsibility plays a part, but there is great range in what actual/genuine understanding, help & support people receive. i don’t think blame should come into any of it all - some people do have easier lives & are ‘luckier’ than others.

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"Those people who, through their expression of pain or confusion, fall into the arms of the ‘helping professions’, perhaps becoming psychiatrically diagnosed as psychotic or neurotic or ‘inadequate personalities’, have in my experience almost all arrived at their predicament through an entirely comprehensible, rational and (of course with hindsight) predictable process.

If you run over a pea with a steam roller you don’t blame the pea for what happens to it, nor, sensibly, do you treat its injuries as some kind of shortcoming inherent in its internal structure, whether inherited or acquired.

Similarly, if you place the (literally) unimaginably sensitive organisms which human babies are in the kind of social and environmental machinery which we seem bent on ‘perfecting’, it can be no real surprise that so many of them end up, as adults, as lost, bemused, miserable and crazy as they do.

The only surprise, perhaps, is that so many pass as ‘normal’,"

David Smail
Taking Care

Is it Not the same with a plant - if a plant is sick or dying, do you blame the plant? Or do you not look to see what is wrong with it’s environment? Is it in a good location, fed properly, enough water & light etc. Are humans so different?

The problem is that so many people, especially authorities won’t address the social issues inherent within all this - to do so properly admits that the primary issue isn’t with the individual concerned - it’s better to blame different groups of people - how enlightened!

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In layman’s terms( in other words)( for you who don’t know what a layman is):… it doesn’t really matter how we say it because you all layman brains are just too un-educated to understand it anyway.

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Who is your reply to tobornottob12b? Does anyone have the full answer to these areas/questions?

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I am just in a amused state of mind this morning in just trying to laugh because I’m really having a difficult time with my negative delusion about going to hell. I was really just telling my joke to myself and all of us who really can’t put ideas so technically together. I know I just enjoy trying to sound more intelligent then I really am at times, but I have been told that I can also say some of the most profound ideas in the simplest ways.

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i don’t know to who you’re referring? Very frightening & horrible with the hell thoughts, i’ve had a lot of that as well.

i try & post material as simply as possible. Basically all my idea revolves around is that we’re mind, body & soul, within environment & that i think a whole person & as comprehensive understanding & approach as possible should be used. Much like the analogy of a plant - no one is going to blame a plant (or wild animal) for being sick/ill - how silly to do this with humans.

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I’m sorry if I offended you, but like I said my demons of self destruction hit me with a slam dunk of a delusion last night trying to make me break my three clean months of smoke free and alcohol free sobriety, so I joke a lot at this point because it’s much easier to become more agitated if I don’t laugh. I just ask God for four more years to live sober just so I can break my three year straight record after turning 50.

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It’s OK. It’s good to have a laugh & a joke. On-line communications can very easily become misconstrued.

Good luck with the sobriety. i’m just over 13 years clean/sober, despite a very occasional slip.

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Well thank you and congratulations on your keeping as sober as you can, but in all honesty I do not like to brag too much about quitting something I shouldn’t have been overdoing for such a long time to begin with. Just in stating it in an originally realistic way. It’s original to me anyway, but probably has been thought of before.

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i feel that sobriety is something to be rightfully very proud of. Addiction isn’t the fault of the individual.

A recent article on the subject of addiction that i thought was interesting -

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Oh yeah I’m plenty proud of myself knowing that I can have as much strength of will as any man trying to remain sober. In other words it means more to me because I am mentally challenged as well so putting this kind of pressure on myself by quitting is a true accomplishment in my life , but enough said already.

Yeah and know I’m laughing at the thought that “wow, I’m back to zero finally” hahahaha You know, zero as opposed to the negative numbers.

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The HuffPost article speaks to Edward Khantisan’s “self medication hypothesis of substance use disorders,” a landmark paper published in 1997, as well as Shaffer, H.; LaPlante, D., La Brie, R.; et al: Toward a Syndrome Model of Addiction: Multiple Expressions, Common Etiology; in Harvard Review of Psychiatry, Vol. 12, 2004.

Both papers support the observation that sentient beings raised in reasonably nurturing environments are less likely to turn to addiction (be it to illicit substances or to distractive behaviors not involving substances, e.g. sex, romance, relationship, exercise, food, work, Internet, etc.) than those who were raised in neglecting, abandoning, ignoring environments.

The position is well supported by even cursory observation of those in treatment for all forms of addiction.

BTW, the new post I hung on the book about ACT for Psychosis supports the notion that internal focus – rather than externalizing blame – “works” to upgrade quality of life for psychosis-suffering pts.

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**Wish I could get my son to “know” this! :confused: **

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Dude man…
…

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Yeah, unfortunately I’ve learned this the hard way. Two failed marriages and many intense, short romances. After my last last divorce I was left with very little worldly possessions, a sense of hopelessness and disillusioned with healthcare. I am such a victim…right.
I’m currently off meds and am coming out of a serious depression. The anti authoritarian in me is screaming "no more meds, meditation and self-discovery. I kicked the drugs and alcohol that have plagued me for the past 25 years and am left feeling everything and experiencing things as a child almost.
I remember you speaking about some workbooks on another thread and wanted some more info and possibly advice to work through this without anymore chemicals. I am eating better now and plan to go veggie/vegan again soon.
Thoughts?

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Classic insanity.