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Any form of mental disorder
in which the individuals contact with reality
becomes distorted
is labeled psychosis.
Reality is defined in the dictionary
as a state of things as they are
or appear to be
rather than as one would wish them to be.
However,
what we think of as reality is limited
by our cultural and personal beliefs
and varies across the world and over time.
EVOLVING MINDS
Psychiatry treats mental illness
with medication aiming to bring people back to a perceived
sense of normality.
Hhow do you see reality?
Itís a profound question to start off with.
How does anyone see reality?
According to Buddhist understanding
no-one actually sees the true nature of reality.
Because of certain delusions in our minds that obscure actual reality
that exists that is existent nature.
A simple example such as food,
which is an easy example to understand, some foods
we love, some foods we hate.
We think the food that I hate is disgusting from the sight of the food,
thereís something there that is horrible.
If that were true then everyone would have that same experience but they donít,
they have completely different experiences.
So what is actually there?
Is there anything that is there?
We start to investigate
and you actually canít find anything at all
because it just is an appearance to mind.Just as in a dream.
Hhmm, all this thinking about food is making me hungry.
So what is the connection between what we eat and how we experience reality?
I think thereís a very obvious connection, people always say you are
what you eat but it really is true that
all the food that you eat makes
the bits of your body and gets your body to work.
So the foods that we eat
as far as they relate to the brain, some foods that we eat
make the structure of the brain,
like essential fatty acids,
things like almonds,sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, they
provide nutrients that
make the structure of the brain.While other nutrients that you find
in vegetables or proteins,
these are the neurotransmitters which are the brainís messengers.
So you have all the different parts of the brain as well as the different chemicals
that send messages all around your brain and to your body.
So just like you need calcium to build bones,
you need these kinds of foods for your brain to work properly.
I specialize in the area of mental health and I would say
a vast majority of my clients, over 50% have some type of schizophrenia
or some psychotic type of illness.
The rest suffer from depression, manic depression, obsessive compulsive
disorder, and all these different types
of mental health problems
can be caused
by a variety of factors which can be manipulated through nutrition.
I wonder how many of us keep the right balance of nutrients
to ensure optimum mental health?
The average diet is deficient in
really important nutrients for the brain.
One of the key nutrients for the brain is zinc
and any survey done on peopleís diet is notoriously low in zinc.
And the kind of places that you find zinc are in pumpkin seeds or oysters.
And how many people eat much of this?
So pumpkin seeds are really important for eating to have
enough zinc for your brain. Zinc isparticularly associated with
depression.
Fancy a nut?
Under the 1983 Mental Health Act,
people can be detained and medicated against their will.
This is known as being sectioned and can only be enforced in the interests of the
patients own health or safety
or with a view to the protection of other people.
Contrary to popular belief,
most psychotic people are not violent.
According to government statistics you are 13 times more likely to be killed
by a ësaneí person youíve never met before
than by someone with a mental health diagnosis.
Despite this the government wants to bring in new laws to increase compulsory
detention and introduce forced medical treatment in the community.
Under the current act a person can only be forced to take medication whilst in
hospital.
Under the proposed reforms anyone who refuses whilst in the community can be
forcibly medicated.
Peopleís human rights are violated every day in these hospitals,
all the time and they go unrecognized.
The things on the back of the T-shirt express
very clearly what happens to someone once theyíre linked in with the mental health system as it stands.
A lot of discrimination,
control, social control, mind control.
Through experience Iíve realized that there is really no care and treatment
of mental health
as such that
is beneficial, most of it is
locking people up on wards and
diagnosing them
with a mental illness and feeding them drugs and injecting them drugs and then
they come out back into the community but maybe worse off than they were at the start.
We are demanding the right to be listened to.
We are reclaiming our own voices.
We have witnessed and experienced
injustice in psychiatry
We are demanding the right
to have choice about our lives. We are the public!
The medical model pigeonholes people.
People donít see the person anymore they see the diagnosis. so i mean i bought by
I was given a diagnosis of schizophrenia and people stopped seeing Rufus,
they started seeing schizophrenia.
I think
all diagnoses of schizophrenia are misdiagnoses. I think
that the diagnostic system
is only useful for professionals to categorize people.
Coming off the medication you go through a withdrawal
psychosis
or mania
and theyíll say itís the illness coming back and you need to be back on your medication.
When in fact itís more complicated than that.
Itís about your body trying to get used to not being on the drugs again.
Coming up after being suppressed
you go through a sort of mania. And I was lucky that I was
with friends and they didnít panic and
call the doctors out. So I was able to go out walking late at night and
wake friends up and tell them crazy ideas and people didnít catastrophize it
into saying
youíve lost it and you need to be back in hospital.
Iíve been a psychiatric patient and I am now a clinical
psychologist
So Iíve been on both sides and Iíve been forced to take medication that I didnít
want to take.
I think we can use compulsion a lot less, Iíve found Iíve been on the ward
and been able to negotiate with people.
Iíve done
three things with them, given them feedback about how they are coming across,
given them
a range of options about how to
control their moods and whatís going on for them and
taken their concerns seriously and acted on them.
When you do these three things
you reduce the need for compulsion
significantly.
Iíve been sectioned and labeled psychotic.
When I was in that state I felt a profound feeling of connection with everything,
that I could communicate telepathically with others
and felt my boundaries dissolve.
What youíve been describing seems to be an ego loss,
when you loose that boundary between self
and other.
And itís precisely what weíre trying to do in Buddhist meditation,but
weíre doing it on a very gradual
basis in controlled environments.
Thatís what we want to begin to experience
completely.
Searching for more information on the connection between psychosis
and spirituality
I came across the Schizophrenia and Shamanism website.
Intrigued I went to go and find out why it was set up.
What were the experiences that
led you to set up the website?
Well
Iíd gone psychotic myself
and
been sectioned, gone through all of that, put on medication, very much against
my will,
and then Iíd gradually weaned myself off the medication and
a few months later I went psychotic again. I didnít want to end up in hospital again so
I actually ran away
and found the space and the time
to really build up
some techniques that helped me to cope with the psychosis and ultimately to get
through it and back to ordinary reality.
And I felt that I really wanted to set up the website
to give that information to people who might want it so that if they were in a
similar situation
theyíd be able to try these techniques and they might work for them.
What is Shamanism?
Itís a way of
moving in between different realities,
generally with the purpose of
causing change in ordinary reality,
mostly for healing, really, historically.
Whenever the apprentice shaman has come into contact with western medicine
theyíve always been diagnosed as being schizophrenic and stuck onto
anti-psychotic medication.
Anti-psychotic medication
is used by psychiatrists in an attempt to shut people down.
It has been described as chemical lobotomy and its use can lead to depression
and even brain damage.
Haliperidol, a drug Iíve been forced to take whilst in hospital
was used by the Soviet Union on political dissidents
to induce a state of apathy.
The drug was administered
at the start of each days exercise. The British Government experimented
on the military
using mind altering drugs to manipulate their reality.
This footage shows what happened when soldiers were given LSD.
Fifty minutes after taking the drug, radio communication had become difficult
if not impossible but men are still capable of sustained physical effort.
However constructive action was still attempted by those retaining a sense of
responsibility in-spite of physical symptoms.
But one hour and ten minutes after taking the drug
with one man climbing a tree to feed the birds,
the troop commander gave up
admitting that he could no longer control himself or his men.
He then relapsed in to laughter.
So why are some drugs legal and others illegal?
I suppose perhaps ultimately itís for control of the populus.
Perhaps thatís why alot of drugs are made illegal
because however many deaths there might be
every year to psychedelic drugs, and Iíd be surprised if itís any to be honest,
there are thousands more on account of alcohol.
So it canít be that they are trying to protect us from ourselves.
So perhaps they just want control over us. They want to control
the way that we feel,
what our values are.
What are you doing Mel?
Iíve lost my mind! But Iíve found this book!
The editor of this book
uses the term transliminal to encompass both psychosis and spiritual experience.
She believes that reality can be divided into two states, the ordinary everyday and
the transliminal.
When you go
into the transliminal
itís a place where
you loose the bit of the mind that chops things up, that discriminates,
that makes the boundaries,
which is really useful for everyday life.
And without that it feels wonderful,
it feels
liberating
and amazing.
But don't be too led astray by it.
the uh... the ordinary world is still the one weíve got
to operate in,
itís still vitally important,
and people who want to throw the ordinary world over for this sort of
super reality, thatís dangerous, thatís not helpful.
So I would say to learn to
navigate between the worlds, to learn to navigate between the realities.
To honour both and to become aware
when things are becoming dangerous.
If I meet somebody who has had experiences which are obviously
spiritual experiences and which are really important to them but which then led on
to unpleasant persecutory experiences.
I am probably about the first person who will validate the good
experiences and say, ìYes that is important, and yes thatís
in line with the great spiritual traditions.î
And I think thatís quite important for people because things that have been
really meaningful in their lives, I think thereís a bit of a danger
that the medical system rubbishes it
by saying ìWell thatís just part of your illness.î
So the first thing I do is to try and undo some of that damage.
And I usually negotiate a language with people. Concepts like shared reality and
non-shared reality I find helpful. People can usually realize when they are
operating from something
that medically would be called a delusional system.
Though they themselves are very convinced about it, they do recognize that not
everybody sees it in the same way.
So, how can I prepare myself for traveling in other dimensions?
Be in touch with other people
who are interested in this sort of thing.
A spiritual tradition is helpful for this,
I would go for a sort of grounded
spiritual tradition, it doesnít matter which one,
but I think that can be helpful.
I think that when
you know
that youíve got a danger of going too far
into the transliminal and getting lost there,
I think to note down the danger signs for yourself,
make a list of
ten signs
of what
tends to happen
when things start to go pear-shaped.
Think how many have to be in place before you really do need to start
to take action to shut yourself down
rather than get yourself
shut down officially.
One thing that I used to do was stick up messages here
and there saying ìDo you feel a particular thing,
well,guess what,
maybe this has happened.î
And that can be enough to shock me into realizing that
I have actually gone psychotic, I have
started experiencing that.
And then
as well as those
stickers saying ìare you feeling this way, are you experiencing this,
Iíd have other ones saying, ìWell
how about trying a bit of this.î
So that
even if Iíd completely forgotten my methods of coping, Iíve got them stuck up
all around the house (Think youíre Jesus? Go *** a drum!)
just to remind me of what I need to do to get through it. The best thing you
can do first of all is get rid of the general chitchat in your mind,
meditation, something repetitive like
drumming, and just gradually build it up fro there.
And youíll find your way.
The thing that works the best for me is drumming,
repetitive drumming on hand drums.
The reason I thought of it was through reading about Shamanism and seeing the ways
that they cope with it and trying them out myself.
And it doesnít even need to be on hand drums, you can just do it on your legs.
But you have to get completely into it
and just let
yourself go with it.
It totally stops the voices in your head and by that I donít just mean
the disembodied
beings that people that are allegedly schizophrenic tend to hear.
I also mean the general chitchat that you get in your mind, the internal chatter
if you like, that everybody experiences, if you just
stop talking for a minute there it is, itís going. And drumming stops that,
and so it frees you from that and it enables you to go further.
Youíre no longer stuck in that place. You can go somewhere else.
And where you then go to is sometimes a matter of choice, sometimes you
get taken there.
But at least youíre moving, youíre progressing.
Just remember folks, an apple a day keeps the doctor away!
In my experience,
maintaining uh... an even blood sugar balance
is the best way
of trying to maintain an even mental health throughout the day.
So what is blood sugar?
Circulating in the blood weíve got between 1 and 2 teaspoons of sugar.
This feeds the brain and gives the body energy,
it maintains everything, and the body is really boring and it wants that blood sugar
level to be nice and even throughout the day.
Now that way we eat is,
we eat something in the morning,
a sugary cereal, we have a cup of tea with sugar or a biscuit
and the amount of sugar in the blood shoots up very quickly.
This causes the body to panic and
the body releases insulin
so that it brings the blood sugar level down, but when it does,
it drops it too low
and this is when people get that mid-morning slump.
That feeling of lack of concentration,
people feel ratty,
irritable, depressed
and then they reach for the chocolate bar,
this is what I need to bring it up, and theyíre right,
a chocolate bar will bring it up
but it will bring it up too high again.
And then up it goes,
the body again has to over react and it says
ìstop, stop, thereís too much sugarî, it readjusts to bring it down again and
we feel really tired. In addition,
most psychotic medication
also has this impact on blood sugar, of causing it to fluctuate.
So by eating sugary foods, it only compounds the side effects
of the medication.
So what are the other ways that we can maintain our blood sugar?
Okay.
First of all letís look at the bad foods.
Even coffee and tea,
even without sugar
can cause blood sugar levels to rise.
And of course, sweets, chocolates, donuts, biscuits,
all these things
are things to be avoided.
Alternatives to coffee and tea,
are herbal teas.
Probably the most important thing to do in balancing blood sugar is to snack
throughout the day.
But weíre not talking about
eating lots of biscuits
throughout the day, itís got to be special foods and we really want to combine
protein and carbohydrate a little bit every day.
Start the day with
a bowl of cereal,
a low sugar cereal is
the best
and you can always tell that by looking on the side at the nutritional information, look
at how much sugar there is and compare all the different cereals and try to find
the one with the lowest sugar and donít add any.
So some cereal,
and add a bit of protein by adding some seeds, these are sunflower seed,
they have protein in,
when you put a handful of that on the cereal in the morning
thatíll give you a good start to the day no matter what time you wake up,
itís good to start with something like that.
Then get ready to have
different snacks throughout the day, if youíre going to go out
bring an apple
and put some almonds in a bag,
here you have some carbohydrate again and protein in the
form of some almonds. You donít need to eat a lot of food,
but every 2 hours, just eating a little bit like that throughout the day
makes a tremendous, absolutely tremendous difference.
When
Iím in a psychotic state
I realize just how magical, meaningful and
mystical life really is.
(Special Thoughts)
However this feeling of openness can leave one feeling vulnerable.
Now that sense that
the person is under threat
might be real or it might not,
it might be something out of the memory or something.
And
the state of high arousal doesnít help the person to sort out whether itís real
or not
because in such a state the
mind goes into tunnel vision
and people are only really looking for threat. So you can get into a vicious circle there.
So switching that off is really important,
and a very simple way to do it, when
your bodyís getting ready for action you breath in more than you breath out
which is what you need to do if youíre going to do something very active.
So see to it that you
breathe out more than you breathe in, long, slow out breaths,
relaxing on the out breath. And I teach that to people.
Itís very simple.
Gardening is a really good way of grounding as you are literally earthed.
If you havenít got a garden,
allotments can be rented very cheaply from your local council
or you can simply sow seeds in a flowerpot or window box and watch them grow.
Not sleeping
is a sign that things are getting out of control very often for
very many people. So that where a person canít sleep and things are
racing I would suggest
not getting too hung up on sleep
but being really keen on rest,
even if itís boring and
you could be out there changing the world.
Put on some chill music and
just rest throughout the night even if youíre not able to sleep.
If youíre feeling tense and agitated
massage can be very helpful.
Some people also find aromatherapy, acupuncture
and herbal medicines to be of great benefit.
Go for long walks,
not in any particular direction, but just where you fell like going at the time.
If youíre in a city try and get out to the country,
and just walk
and walk
and notice everything on your path.
Try and
get rid of the general
chitchat in your head
and donít blame yourself for everything,
youíre doing the best that you can.
As well as being good for you, some food can even send certain people mad.
Another really
important factor
for a lot of people with mental health problems and this is in particular for
psychotic uh...
kinds of conditions as well as depression,
are food allergies and food intolerances.
there's a um... professor at the University of Sheffield,
Professor Hadjivassiliou
and he has found in his depression clinic
that 60% of the people coming in with depression
actually have an intolerance
to wheat.
So itís actually food allergies that
can also cause problems.
Can you tell me what the difference is between an allergy and an intolerance?
Oh thatís a good question.
You probably are familiar with people with a peanut allergy, within seconds of
just breathing in peanut oil in a restaurant or eating a peanut theyíre
being rushed to hospital.
The reaction is very immediate and very severe.
Whereas in intolerances
the reaction can take a couple of days and it can manifest in a variety of ways.
Sometimes people get a bit of skin problems, eczema from it,
or digestive problems,
or they feel very sleepy or very depressed the next day or they can have
a combination of these.
So if a person has
any kind of bloating
or skin problems as well as having a mental health problem then they really
should look into
whether or not they have a food intolerance.
And what are the common foods that people are intolerant to?
Probably the two
key foods that I encounter
are reactions to dairy products
and wheat products and these are common everyday foods so
itís quite
interesting that these are the foods that people have a problem with.
Wheat is found in
cereal, bread, pasta,
biscuits, croissants, baguettes, pizza,
those types of foods.
And dairy foods are things like
milk, cheese, butter.
I had one client who his psychotic episodes were brought on
by dairy foods,
and when he was 7 years old a doctor said to him
ìyou have a dairy intolerance,î
but no-one paid much attention to this and when he was 17,
18 he started experiencing
lots of psychotic episodes and was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
When he came to see me
I suggested that he stop
all dairy products completely
and he found
he didnít have any psychotic episodes
until 2 years later when he happened to
have a croissant that had a bit of butter in it
and all of a sudden all the psychosis came back.
Psychiatry uses medication to mask symptoms caused by irregularities in
brain chemistry. However
these bio-chemical imbalances can also be adjusted using nutritional therapy.
In order to do this
you need the guidance of a trained nutrition consultant,
because we can test through blood
and urine specific imbalances
in histamine levels, in vitamin levels, in various other
mechanisms in the body
that for some reason, through a genetic predisposition
cause an imbalance.
In a lot of cultures round the world
people
go into trances, get possessed by spirits,
hear their ancestors talking to them and thatís considered
a completely normal part of
life of their society.
Why do you think in our society itís not acceptable or normal?
I think historically itís probably because of
Christianity and the way that they took over from all the folk
beliefs. Iím not saying Christians are bad or anything like
that but historically Christianity did take over from the older
Goddess worshiping religions that were here beforehand. Weíve all heard about
the persecution of witches.
Itís only very recently that witchcraft has stopped being an actual crime.
Lots of people hear voices,
some pleasant, some unpleasant.
In our society itís considered acceptable to talk to God.
But what if God talks back?
A lot of people
that I see have never had a nice experience at all, they just have horrible
abusive voices and things like that.
That very often
is a re-run of abusive experience,
trauma, and
thatís what I would call a trauma based
psychosis. People have had very traumatic things happen to them
early on, theyíve put themselves back together again, picked up and gone on and
made their world
but then somehow the mind cracks along the fault line and all this stuff
comes out again. And if it comes out in a psychotic form rather than a neurotic form then
itís that
bit more difficult to deal with because it feels as if itís a voice
happening now
rather than
a memory or a flashback.
And also because of the supernatural gloss
that
everything in the transliminal gets, maybe the voice is that of the devil rather
than of the abuser.
Iím mixed race
and when I was
about 21 I started hearing these
terrifying voices that were very
racist and which made me at the time think
ìoh my god I must be really evil,
you know,
Iím really racistí,
these voices telling me to hate certain people walking down the street if
they were a different colour to me or even if
they were the same colour
as me.
But I realized that yeah, thatís not me, thatís just what
I have to get beyond,
thatís just the stuff thatís been put into me during my childhood
or whatever and thatís what I have
to get beyond or understand.
Donít take it personally first of all.
Itís not you as a person that the voices are having a go at, itís the you that you have to leave
behind in order to move on,
and
try opening up a channel of communication, try talking back,
and maybe explaining
that you donít find
what the voices are saying to be helpful.
Presumably that voice is here to help you, why else would it be hanging around.
If itís there for any other reason
just get rid of it, ask it to leave.
Or ask it to stay and help.
I would say that perhaps rather than trying to shut things out of your mind
if you really focus on them,
if youíve got a particular
being that youíre seeing all the time, rather than trying to run away from it,
stop and draw it,
totally immerse yourself in it and
try and recreate it and once itís on the page
itís not so frightening.
To remember places that youíve been
to remember the state of mind that you had
when you wrote that
rather
than writing a factual diary poetry can be a really good way
to remember these places and visit them again.
So what are three things that I could do to improve my mental health?
OK, Iíd say
the three most important things. Number 1. Get rid of all sugar and stimulants and
coffee and tea.
Get that out of the diet.
Number 2.
Have lots of variety of fruit,
vegetables, nuts and seeds.
And Number 3.
Take a good multi-vitamin.
The best way, if youíve been psychotic before
and youíre a bit scared of going that way again
but you still want to explore these realities
is to do it gradually and gently.
And how would you do that?
Personally I would do it by
drumming, repetitively on hand drums, and I mean for a period of a
number of hours. Quite often me and some friends would go up the woods and weíd do it there,
either on drums or just on a table top there. And if you keep
your paths to those other worlds open then they donít all build up and have
to force themselves on you.
Are there shamans in this country?
There are.
But there arenít recognized
shamans in the way
that you have recognized
osteopaths or something like that.
So anyone can call themselves a shaman
even if really theyíre not, so you do have to be aware of that.
Itís well worth contacting people if you know of one locally
and judge for yourself whether or not they can help you.
Having said that
there are characters that
youíll meet in other realities that will help you through.
You donít need to be apprenticed to a physical shaman
in order to learn the techniques and things to get through this.
Dream-beings,
beings from other realities will come and help you through.
When weíre under the influence of a heavy black cloud, deep depression
or psychosis,
try not to identify with it.
Try not to think this is me.
Because thatís the problem,
we think ìIíve gone mad,
I canít cope.
Itís just an appearance to mind.
Meditation is often recommended
as a way to calm and control oneís mind.
But just how do you meditate?
A very simple breathing meditation.
Sit comfortably any way you can, you donít
have to sit
cross legged or anything like that, you can sit on a chair, just be comfortable.
Close your eyes gently
and then try to locate the sensation of each breath
as you can feel it within the nostrils.
Itís quite a subtle physical sensation. And again, just breathing gently and
normally, youíre not trying to control the breath in any way at all.
uh... And then just simply
focus on that.
And what you find is that immediately you canít hold on to it,
the mind starts moving off somewhere else, another thought comes up and you get distracted.
But thatís ok you just bring the focus back onto the breath again.
Hold it.
You get distracted again, just keep on
bringing it back. Itís bringing it back thatís actually developing
concentration.
Once the mind stops going and you simply hold
the mind on the breath and pay no attention
to whatís going on in the rest of your
mind,
what you will find is
gradually those thoughts and feelings,
turbulence just begin to die down
and you are left with a feeling of extraordinary spaciousness in the mind.
To begin with,
concentration is not good
but youíll find that itís like a mental muscle that hasnít been used for very long so every time
you bring it back to itís object youíre exercising that muscle.
If you try to do that simple technique and try to do
maybe for ten or fifteen minutes every day for a week you find
that it will improve beyond recognition. Itís not too difficult.
The way we experience the world around us
is often limited by our social, religious, economic and political constructs.
So who is responsible for defining our reality?
I think we all have a responsibility to define reality.
Ok the powerful people and the media try, but
I was in London on 15th February,
I think there was a million,
2 million of us trying to define our reality then.
Today millions of people are saying not to war. No to the war that Mr BushÖ..
Throughout history, humans have always sought to explore and alter reality.
Such efforts are actively suppressed in our society,
notably by banning psychedelic drugs
and institutionalizing mystics.
However
we are still evolving.
I hope
that the future is one whereby we become more and more supportive of each
other and those of us that have found the way through
are there to help people that are still trying to find their way through
passing on techniques, advice, information,
just being there.
So what would you say is the purpose of being human?
I think itís a balancing act.
I think itís the rich diversity of being human
and our power to define reality.
What each one of us can do
is small
but we never
know what repercussions it will have.
We never know what
effect just our being has on other people.
I think we operate
in a web of connection, a web of being,
I think thatís more important than
amazing things that the individual does.
I see us as connected beings.