Back when I was battling with what a State Hospital labeled as schizophrenia, I had little reason to trust mental health workers. Prior to the catastrophic occurrences that rendered me a ward of the state, I had survived for seven years as a mental health professional. I knew what a lot of mental health workers said behind closed doors and in team meetings. I longed for a day in court where I could rectify everything that happened to me, but the mental health workers at the hospital simply rolled their eyes when I tried to share my story. At key points I was mocked. This is the story of how I’ve lived with mistrust for mental health workers ever since. 

Initially, as a mental health worker, I thought I was doing good work. But once incarcerated in a state hospital I realized how delusional I once had been. I had not realized how much I dehumanized mental health patients until I was one of those dehumanized patients. I saw the way the staff demeaned, mistreated and put themselves on a pedestal in front of me. And they took home good salaries for treating me this way. I initially decided not to return to work in mental health. 

My therapist of seven years had told my parents I would be in and out of hospitals the rest of my life while I was trying to escape to Canada to seek asylum. My parents believed her. Right before I was released from the longest three months of my life, my father begged me to stay in the safe hospital for another nine months rather than allow myself to be released. I had been restrained and punched in the back by staff because I was confused. I was seriously threatened by a veteran with a history of violence. I had received offers to join a gang and I was a person of interest among those connected to the local Mexican mafia. I survived dangerous and deplorable conditions. I didn’t need nine more months of this. I had devoutly followed this therapist for seven years and ignored the part of me that felt she was an ivy league snob who grossly underestimated me. Now I could see her as the mental health worker she really was, one that was there to control and suppress me. 

Control and Suppression:

Streeted to a Greyhound Bus Depot in snowy Montana, I made my way to sunny Fresno California. I did okay. I managed to find a job and establish an apartment until I ran out of meds at the end of the month. Hence my battle started with housing insecurity and underemployment. It would take years and years to return to secure professional employment with weekends off. Somehow on this recovery journey my mistrust for mental health workers never changed.

In Fresno off medication, I believed that the government sewed a tracker in my dog when the pound fixed her. I believed that the men who drove white trucks were in the mafia. I believed that all the oranges in the streets were left there to let me know that the mafia could take my life if I snitched. See, I had this unique knowledge about the reality of the drug war based on recent epiphanies I gained on my last social work assignment in Seattle Washington. I believed that my father was a high-profile crime boss on the east coast working under the umbrella of the society of friends (or the Quakers) and that he was funding this negative attention I was getting throughout Fresno to silence me and protect his fortune.

When my meager savings got low enough my aunt in the bay area offered me an arranged job at an Italian Delicatessen if I move to Antioch CA and endure a ten-mile bike commute and hour-long BART ride to work and back. Only then would my parents help me. And I had to see a shrink for 125$ an hour.

I was making 9$ an hour and the shrink made me see her two hours a week (250$) and she just could never understand why this might anger me. “Why sweat the small stuff,” she said. And she was very critical of me for giving my power away and letting the rich kids who worked at the deli bully me. “I too shop at AG Ferrari,” she said. So, this relationship didn’t exactly heal anything. I did learn to lie to her and compromise and balance my emotions.

Returning to Mental Health Work Without Blowing the Whistle:

Although it’s true I hadn’t wanted to go back into mental health, after ten months of poverty, isolation and deli work with this long commute, I changed my mind. Getting a new education was costly and I was desperate to get back control over my life. 

I returned to taking medication which enabled me to get a job in social services working with developmentally disabled individuals as the manager of satellite housing. After six months of this low wage work, I healed enough to return to mental health. The first job back in mental health I failed to attain because I had a panic attack in front of my clinical supervisor on the first day. They used me for three months and cut my per diem hours. Luckily, I landed on my feet and managed to get another per diem hire at an outpatient psychiatry program. 

I learned to hold my tongue around mental health workers. As I heard them compare the schizophrenic mind to that of a dog, I dealt with this by working harder and longer than them. I felt so afraid of falling into homelessness I blindly followed people I secretly did not like so that I could work. I saw a lot of things go on that I had used to speak out against. Now I had to accept them and prove that I would not again blow the whistle so that I could survive.

In early internships, which I maintained after the clinic hours to get the required five-hundred child and family hours necessary for California Licensure, I kept a low profile and did not disclose my history of madness to anyone. How was I to make healing relationships when I was forced to hide parts of myself that are vital to understanding my mission and purpose in life? 

I worked six years in silence. Half of this time I worked without any time off, seven days a week. In 2008, when I finally got my license, I started running a group called special messages in which I disclosed my history of madness and institutionalization to the clients so we could collaboratively share the contents of psychosis. It was at this point where other professional therapists I had largely ignored started to get my attention again. 

It wasn’t just because I was aware some of my colleagues were calling me, “crazy Tim,” behind closed doors that I left the job three years later. I knew what I was doing was unconventional and for that reason I produced extensive write-ups of my group curriculums to document what the clients and I were creating. Sure, colleagues took those write ups to the manager with concerns trying to get me fired. I really thought that the institutional mentality of the staff was unnecessary and possible to escape. In doing this I stopped facilitating the groups which were wildly popular and beautiful. I left for greener pastures. I took a pay cut and entered a county recovery project where they used recovery language.

Racing into the Arms of Recovery: 

As a Recovery Services Administrator working in the county’s pilot program merging three best practices called CHOICES, my lived experience was to be considered an asset. Even the author of the project admitted that he had once been in a cult. The organization I worked with were all peer counselors. 

But alas, I walked into a political bee’s nest and that the person who was going to get stung would eventually be me. The company that hired me was from Arizona and several people in the multicultural county were having issues with one of the owners and her openly color-blind views on race. Her attitude that race doesn’t matter, only qualifications, was not well received. I also heard enough of what she had to say to be offended and set boundaries with her. I would not promote her racial ideologies that were alienating her staff and the local professionals who worked with us.

But there were other players in the county who weren’t offended and who were willing to partner with the company owner, and they seemed to be giving her bad reports about me and my behavior in the team meeting. I worked against these negative senses of things while I was getting bullied in the team meetings, working towards a brighter outcome. The teams I was working on were often hostile and superior to my workers and I had a need to defend them and often faced a room full of people being unfair. 

It wasn’t long until the professionals in the county became very concerned about what I had to say about psychosis, enough so that one time the project director set up an ambush in which I was the target. All the professional therapists in the room were mad and wanted a client who as a gang member forcefully medicated and I pointed out that it was illegal to do so.  They all knew I was right. 

They accused me of being against medication and dangerous! 

I said, “Why would I be against medication? I take medication. I am for self-determination and choice.” 

One other professional saw this political ambush and pointed out it was unfair, and she got written up by her boss.

I left that job and the sixty-hour work weeks after a year and a half. I got demoted because the owner said it was dangerous to have me working with clients. She agreed with the recommendation of the director of the program that I was better off just reviewing charts.

I saw one of the other directors after I left. He couldn’t believe that I had found a job within Alameda County. 

I had gone back to the hospital where I had a supervisor who believed in my work and where others called me, “crazy Tim.” I didn’t tell this director that they barely let me back in the door as a per diem employee. I didn’t tell this director that they would work me a year-and-a-half before they gave me back my benefits. I just looked at his glaring eyeballs and said yes.   

Going Up the Food Chain: 

On the one hand, my recovery has brought me a life I never believed would be possible when I was incarcerated in the dank, Montana State Chronic Unit that was only heated to just above freezing at 40 degrees Fahrenheit. On the other hand, my ability to heal that original world view that mental health workers were there to control and suppress has not changed. 

As a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist I have been able to go up the food chain and study with experts to renew my license every two years. The focus of the field and my own studies has been understanding how to heal trauma, something that I believe is needed when people have experienced extraordinary experiences associated with psychosis. Indeed, using these training opportunities to help myself and others heal from trauma I hoped that I could change my relationships with my coworkers and thrive.

Fifteen years ago, I went to a twenty-four-hour CEU training in San Francisco with Bessel Van de Kirk, Ph.D. and he made fun of psychotic people three times and presumed that the audience had all been to school in Massachusetts.

A few years later, I went to an EFT Training with Dawson Church, Ph.D. He referred to people who were unable to benefit from EFT as being annoying and reversed. I was unable to benefit from the tapping and had let that fact be known. Others had told me that it was because I was too dissociated. Good Ol’ Dawson got bolder as the training wore on. “What is wrong with them,” he said, “they are unable to know when something is helpful; they should just let themselves be helped.”

In 2016, I was researching trainers from where I wanted to get my forty-hour EMDRIA training. I took a training course with Laurel Pernell Ph.D. She made fun of one of her subjects as not being smart. In fact, she failed to notice all the code-switching that indicated that he had clearly been born and bred as a mobster. As someone who experienced a year and a half of believing I was being harassed by the mob, I was outraged that she depicted him as being non-intelligent. She clearly had no kind of understanding of the lifestyle he lived or what it’s like to survive in those circles. 

A few years ago, I took an online PESI training course with Frank Anderson MD., and he made fun of people who heard voices. Now there may be some context to his comments that I am not capturing here. But by the time I had heard this it was just another microaggression put out by just another elite trainer.

Thus, in training I found elite trainers to exclude people who do not fit their “trauma” culture. This process of othering is passed down through the institutions into the mental health workers. It is passed on to the most vulnerable who must battle with it in their minds. I have found the best way to deal with it publicly is to be humble and submit to those in power even when it isn’t warranted. What becomes most important is to not internalize their sense of superiority so that it affects your own sense of self.

 I Have Survived:

So now that it’s been twenty-five years since I have been hospitalized in a state hospital, I work part-time at the hospital and part-time in private practice. At work in the hospital, I use my tenure and popularity among the clients to challenge the suppression and control of the clients and do my best to promote practices that support healing and recovery. I often feel like I am all alone in my views as I offer the sole dissenting perspective. I try to stay positive and amicable toward my coworkers even when I don’t like their views. 

I have had some coworkers I have connected with over the years particularly when I have functioned in the role of a supervisor. At times I have been able to demonstrate how my dissenting views actually do coincide with the values and ethics of the profession. It’s true that working in the psychiatric system, I must have a sense of willingness to compromise; however, I do my best to honor my sense of recovery first and foremost. It is still easy for me to feel othered in training and via associating with other professionals in networking circumstances. But I am glad to have survived what I have survived even if I haven’t healed my relationships with coworkers or changed my views about psychiatry being about control and suppression.

The post Reflections on My Mistrust for Other Mental Health Workers appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

“So, you have bipolar,” said the well-meaning psychiatrist, “So what’s the big deal?”

I had been talking about the stigma associated with presuming that all mental health challenges were disorders. He interrupted me.

But wait! This was the first time anyone ever suggested that I had bipolar!

Was I supposed to give up my perspective and feel I had achieved something? Somehow was this a more socially acceptable diagnosis? Was getting the right diagnosis supposed to fix everything that happened to me?

As a statistic, I was being moved from the 3.2 million individuals in the United States diagnosed with schizophrenia to the 5.7 million who experience bipolar. Of those with bipolar 70% experience psychosis during mania and 50% during depression.

I had been stable ten years. For the past four years I had been running innovative professional group psychotherapy that focuses on exploring psychosis across diagnostic categories.

I’d had the privilege or cracking open hundreds of stories and contrasting them against the diagnosis of differing staff psychiatrists. I felt I learned a lot about the mentality of each distinctive psychiatrist by doing this.

You see, if your bipolar is like mine and includes experiences associated with psychosis a lot can happen to you in the mental health system. If you stick with me through this article you may learn some innovative ways to cope with psychosis across diagnostic divides.

Common Reasons that People with Psychosis Get Diagnosed Bipolar: 

From my vantage point, there are many subjective reasons for bipolar to be selected over schizophrenia or schizoaffective. These subjective factors do not always involve a perfect equation of DSM-V criteria. I’ll go ahead and admit that I do not believe DSM criteria really helps the professional understand the reality of psychosis. Nor is being diagnosed with a psychotic disorder likely to result in more humane and appropriate treatment.

Perhaps, you get diagnosed bipolar because you have suffered a mood component and have a history of being expressive about it in the past. Maybe, your psychosis experiences are intermittent and discontinue with proper support. Perhaps you express experiences that are positive and spiritual that can make your mood and energy soar. Or maybe your body is responsive to small doses of antipsychotics.

Many get diagnosed bipolar because they have enough judgement to convincingly conceal or minimize their psychosis experiences. Sometimes you get the stamp because the psychiatrist respects and has hope for you. If you are a person of color or don’t come from a class the professionals relate to, you are less likely to get the bipolar stamp. I don’t feel I personally need research to believe this to be true. I believe my observations over time are acute enough. However, I do understand that this research does exist.

In my experience some professionals are open to learning and seeing people through the bipolar lenses, and some are more chronic in their ways.

Why Upgrade Your Diagnosis?

When in madness, there was no need to upgrade my diagnosis. I was living in an alternate reality, and I only wanted to feel safe. Being bipolar only meant that I was in danger of being killed and having it called a suicide. All I wanted was to get out of the reality as quick as possible.

In my experience of wellness, there is more of a sense of social acceptability associated with a bipolar diagnosis. Perhaps this is largely because of the misconception that schizophrenia is degenerative or only gets worse over time. Although this is not true, it’s arguable that social stigma does not lead the majority of people to believe otherwise. For example, in 2006 schizophrenia.com suggests a host of negative statistics about schizophrenia including that only 35% of sufferers experience repeated episodes without returning to functioning.

Still, negative statistics (like the one above) enhance the damage that gets done when supporters act without understanding that it is likely that people will heal from psychosis. Good people become institutionalized by bad statistics. Families may not finance a sufferer the opportunity to recover if they keep in mind statistic like that.

Looking closer at that 35% statistic, they come from E. Fuller Torrey’s 2006 statistics which suggest that after ten years, 15% of schizophrenics will be permanently hospitalized and 10% will have killed themselves verses those studied over thirty years during which 10% end up permanently hospitalized and 15% will have killed themselves. This starts to sound like a 35% throw away rate.

Consider that many health plans do not even offer treatment to people with schizophrenia. Likewise, I know locally it is easier to find a professional bipolar group or specialist than it is to find a professional schizophrenia group or specialist.

Less stigma, less negative statistics means less social persecution. That is why many people who are looking to make social rehabilitation gains try to suppress their psychosis and fight against a schizophrenia diagnosis. Many suffers learn to do this so people don’t reject you.

What it Takes to Suppress Psychosis Regardless of Diagnosis?

How does one suppress psychosis? I think it has a lot to do with having a project that is very meaningful to you and vying to be successful with it. Then, the sufferer just cannot let anything get in their way. Sound stupidly easy? The best way I can convey that it isn’t is to share pieces of my experience.

In State hospital, most staff who thought I was schizophrenic would just dominate and humiliate me. I believed that if people knew I was schizophrenic that that type of treatment would resume. My complex appeals to staff to convey that I okay with the FBI resulted in a beat-down by the cowboy security squad. Begging for aspirin with a highly uncomfortable fever, caused one nurse to write a note that I was sexually inappropriate with her. These are not the types of things you want to see happen to you on the outside,

Meanwhile many of my peers tried to recruit me into their white supremacy gang, or the Mexican mafia, or the FBI, or in one case, the Navy Seals. Sound safe in there?

These kinds of experiences cannot be spoken of when you suppress your experience. Nothing happened! They become buried secrets.

But the treatment that had the most lasting impact was the experiences I had to suppress in the community.

There was the woman who flashed me a secret service badge. She initially said I would be safe if I took the over-priced apartment. She showed up again the day I came home to find my apartment had been ransacked and accused my uncle of doing it.

There was also the mail that came from my county work applications that was repeatedly torn open in spite of my complaints at the postal service.

There was the occasion when I was followed on my way to work by a resident I knew from Seattle (I was working in California.) He had handcuffs and a jean jacket with a hand made sign that read CIA on it.

There was the time a computer hacker marked-up my resume at the local library. Several encounters later he told me that he worked for the multinational corporations.

This kind of treatment accompanied me for two years and stopped when I got professional employment. It was traumatic and perpetuated my emergency state, but I learned to pretend it didn’t matter.

If you can ignore the fact that you have no rights and just persist at your immediate project you can overcome psychosis.

It’s Just a Political Discussion:

Resuming professional employment, I worked seven days a week. Eventually, I managed to get a psychotherapy license and earn enough for a down payment on a house in the bay area. I met my wife and got married.

So finally, once I got that kind of support behind me and put a well-meaning psychiatrist in a spot that challenged his perception of disorders, I got bumped up from schizophrenia to bipolar, yay!

Now the DSM-V, which wasn’t yet written during my escapades, says that people with bipolar who go through psychosis in a low mood can experience fear and paranoia. This is exactly what I experienced. Perhaps, one day I’ll get out of my depression and become hypomanic! That gives me something to look forward to!

However, when we examine the recent research this point may become moot.

Laboratory Science Supports Treating Psychosis Across Diagnostic Divides!

In the laboratory they are coming out with scientific findings that strongly support the view that diagnostic differentiation is irrelevant.

In fact, in a very recent article published by The Psychiatric Times, schizophrenia is being considered a syndrome that is more of a neurodevelopmental disorder than an illness or disease. Additionally, these findings do not support different kinds of neurodevelopmental evidence for bipolar verses schizophrenia verses schizoaffective, verses depression with psychosis.

If treated poorly, the neurodevelopmental process will become more extreme! Thus, sufferers can be trained to cope like dyslexics can be trained to read. This vantage point can help promote training in social functioning like specialized job placement programs like the IPS model out of Dartmouth. This practice can help participants in early prevention programs, or at any stage of recovery. get back to work.

Of course, there are many other social skills to learn when you have to suppress trauma! Of course, social skills are gained through socialization groups.

Other Considerations Stemming from The Research:

Moreover, I believe that understanding that you have an underlying condition like ADD, Dyslexia, or Autism can save you from living out your depression and mania to their fullest. Instead of feeling like a slave to the moods, neurodevelopmental understanding helps understand the basis for the moods. By learning that there are reasons you haven’t been included, one can use it to make meaning of depression and play back tapes of the consequences of mania.

Additionally, sufferers can learn about ways they have been traumatized for being different. Also paying attention to real underlying trauma that exacerbates the expression of the syndrome becomes important.

All this can help people with bipolar psychosis learn how to live in their strengths and focus on their abilities and the ways they are exceptional. Albert Einstein, Temple Grayden, and Earnest Hemmingway are just a few of many examples of how people with neurodevelopmental issues can contribute to society in very advanced ways.

As a society, some of us are learning that celebrating neuro-diversity, like they do in some more traditional societies, can lead to better outcomes for people who are built differently. In fact, some might argue that if the problem is neurodevelopmental, expecting symptom suppression without accommodations and providing support groups is just not humane.

Treatment for Psychosis Across Diagnostic Categories:

Here is where I can help other bipolar people if they are willing to explore those terrifying experiences with other good people who are stigmatized. This may involve getting to know people who are from different cultures and may still be in challenging circumstances.

Losing privilege and connecting with those less fortunate is so counter-intuitive in this land where the haves hate the have-nots. But oddly going against the grain in this manner can help exponentially!

If your bipolar experience includes psychosis, treatment can exist in group therapy that normalizes and permits you to express your stories without getting punished. If you are encouraged to work with people with differing diagnostic histories you can learn to be a leader and supporter.

No doubt, the mental health incarceration system varies based on the socioeconomics of your locale. Regardless, it will train you to suppress those psychosis experiences and pretend like they are not real. If you fail to suppress, you will be rejected and ridiculed by others and if this upsets you, you will be punished by going back to the hospital.

If you are able to play the game and can return to work, go ahead and become the bipolar diagnosis. To do so you can simply engage in social rehabilitation and work without upsetting the applecart. It becomes a political discussion with a psychiatrist like the one I had above.

Group Therapy for Psychosis:

Okay, I’ll admit, suppression is not always so easy for all of us. But over the years I have seen many individuals hide their psychosis, avoid my groups, and pretend like what they went through was just bipolar stuff. Indeed, I had to play this game for six years. I had to start over again without anyone knowing anything about me.

However, if you are like me and had to overcome some dramatic circumstances, suppressing all those experiences and trauma may turn you into a traumatized droid. A part of you is permanently disassociated and all you can do is work and try to act in ways that keep you out of trouble.

I am here to promote one potential outlet that I was eventually able to use: group therapy in which the content of psychosis is shared and participants learn from each other.

For example, I hear very few voices and never thought of aliens, but when I learn from people who do, it helps me be more flexible in the meaning I make of what happened to me. My desire to collaborate and support helps me be flexible and decreases my distress.

As a psychotherapist, I started leading these groups and sharing my story to prompt others to feel comfortable in doing so. I learned that by sharing my story and demonstrating that I had recovered, I could use my suffering towards a useful purpose.

Whether you do it as a professional, a peer counselor, or a volunteer, getting support for those things you’ve been through and teaching others how to survive with psychosis can be very rewarding. It can help bring you back to life!

Opportunities to do this can be available through the hearing voices network movement. This is an international movement that seeks to set up peer support outside the mental health system. In the United States, you can click: www.hvn-usa.org!

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The post Learn How I Upgraded My Schizophrenia to Bipolar, And What That Means appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

Since I started writing my memoir ten years ago, I have not struggled with writer’s block. It’s true, I have produced drafts of my second book that were so bad, I scrapped them. But I was always able to use writing to help organize my thoughts without feeling defeated. Sure, I have taken a few vacations, but I always did that with a project or two on my mind.

Today, however, I cannot get a project started. For the past few days, I have been chewing things over in my mind and I feel totally frozen. I retreat in great frustration with my wife Barbara and my dog Jayla through the smoke-filled Bay Area. We drive out to the coast adjacent to Half Moon Bay. As the Camp Fire rages hundreds of miles to the north, I spend the drive trying to figure out what was happening to me to get me feeling so stuck.

It is true I recently heard from a high school English teacher who used to support me who read my memoir. She made a point of sending word through my mother that she was impressed with how I was able to get into my own head: had I ever considered writing fiction?

Enthralled by the compliment (and yet challenged,) I spent the week thinking about how I might add fiction writing to my platform to help tell some of the untold stories of the urban world I know. Curious characters I have known flashed through my head and I struggled to figure out how to create a fictional story out of them. When it finally came to be time to write, I could not start a story or even a personal essay on psychosis-like I usually do.

When we arrive at the Butano State Park, I find myself sorting through a couple of different identities as a writer. I know I felt comfortable and artistic as the memoirist. I likewise have felt purposeful using my experience in group therapy to reconstruct psychosis into solvable components. It hasn’t been until I have been recently been struggling to get published on blogsites or magazines to increase my following that I have become down on my writing.

As I watch my dog saunter up the fire trail, I remind myself that if I am going to publish a book that helps change the way clinicians work with psychosis, my voice and identity is going to have to be quite different. I am currently practicing changing my audience to providers and occasionally to family members. However, as I have done this, I don’t really feel I fit as a psychotherapist with an academic voice.

It may sound strange, but I have an objection to the practice of using journal articles and research to reinforce what I say. I have learned that I don’t really learn well that way. I don’t trust research to tell the stories that I hear on the inner-city backward.

I prefer to write what I know from experience. This is the writing platform I have set up on my blog. In the fifteen years I have worked on a backward, I have become skilled at cracking open the real story in ways I don’t trust research to be able to do. When I write honoring academic tradition and research, I feel phony and disconnected. I feel I am not taking advantage of real-life knowledge and my career. Plus, I find I like to maintain the use of language such as “dumb-ass!”

We continue to ascend on a fire road until we reach a viewpoint we have been to some thirteen years ago. On that occasion, we had hiked with my father. I feel impressed that my father made it all the way up this road to the look-out back when he was sixty-five. It had been a lite day of hiking for me thirteen years ago but now I realize, I didn’t realize what I was putting him though.

I reflect on how I get much more of my learning from listening to music than I do from journal articles. I think that why I like to write in a way that honors lived experience. I acknowledge that I fear to write a successful book that changes the way therapists approach work with psychosis, I need to use some degree of research to be accepted. Although I have created a therapy platform, I know that I don’t know how to write a readable book that promotes it. I know I need to read more theoretical books to get ideas for how to approach the writing. I just don’t want to do it.

We continue to hike up the hill until we’ve been out for two hours. Our dog suddenly bounds after a chipmunk and disappears down the gulley through the brush and we call after her to get her to come back. I feel that age is slowing me down. I used to be far more fit. It is time to turn around.

When I read writers, who do get published in psychotherapy magazines, I feel like a different breed. Firstly, I am uncomfortable with writing a case study about the real experiences of my clients. Even if I disguise the name, it feels like a massive breach of their confidence. Additionally, when I hang out with therapists who might one day benefit from reading my book, I feel like a flagrant victim.

I have taken a couple of courses in trauma from industry leaders and have learned that I disassociate around other therapists. Listening to industry leaders, I have felt alienated when they have made fun of “psychosis.” One talked angrily about people who are “reversed” or unable to benefit. “Why can’t they just accept help!” The presenter had continued, “you can see them when they come into the room, they are as clear as day.” Of course, I was feeling like the presenter was referencing me because the techniques weren’t working for me. In this way, the comments coming from the trauma gurus only further alienate me.

I think about how I have sent essay after essay out for publication and received only rejections. It’s true sending stuff out is painful. I don’t like to wait 2-8 weeks or even four months for some journals to hear back. Sure, I could be more persistent. Still, some of my best personal essays are starting to feel like rehashing the same story again. And, no matter what angle I put on them, they don’t seem to make it into print.

In many ways I treat writing as though it is an equalizer. It is my response to feeling bullied and invisible to mainstream people. I didn’t go to an Ivy League school, I went to a commuter campus. Being invisible happened to me in my family, during schooling, at work (for example, after fifteen years of work, I just got my first five-year chip,) and in my volunteer efforts. I write dreaming that one day people will hear me.

In fact, this is the same weekend I have sent in edits to a well-known publisher to whom I have sent upward of fifty articles. Finally, they think I have put something together that they feel is worth a response. However, in doing so I face a challenge. Did I write to tell my true story, or did I write to tell the editor what I think they want to hear?

This the dilemma was exactly what happened with my memoir. I had a deal with a publishing company, but the editors were not forthcoming with the fact that they didn’t like my views on racial inequality or male sexual abuse.  In a sense, I saw it coming; but was living on a prayer. Then, in the last edit, they entirely removed those important themes from my work and I chose to break the contract and reclaim my work.

Back at the car, my wife drives. We drive through the shadows of the redwood trees. Out on the highway, the late afternoon sun shimmers through the smoke. We head for a dog-friendly beach.

I come across a Facebook dialogue in a group in which a group member was contemplating writing a fictional story about a childhood friend who was Native American. She received quite a talking to by the group about it being exploitative to tell a story about a marginalized culture when she was not from that culture.

Perhaps some of the reason I have struggled throughout the day is that I was thinking I should be able to write fiction when it isn’t a good fit for me. As a white male, I work primarily with people of color and although I know their lives intimately, their experience is just not my story to tell. I know they have more social barriers to overcome than I. It is ironic, I think, that the one Facebook story I looked up happened to tell me what I needed to hear.

I think for a spell about the lessons of the day. I write because I believe there is value in it. I likely have the smallest writing platform there is on the internet. I think I create quality content, but don’t attract followers. I know it is important not to let the expectations of others negate what one does and so I persist. I write to keep things simple and real.

It occurs to me that this is my writing platform. In a few minutes, I will watch my dog spritz about in the sand. Now, I am using my writer’s block to sharpen it. I may have a long way to go but I have a lot of years to sharpen it until I get clicks and likes and the things I need to get published. Perhaps the stress of getting published is taking more of a toll than I like to admit. Perhaps, sometimes there is just too much going on to get a piece of writing completed.

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When a message receiver can identify the fact that some of their messages are tricksters it can go a long way towards improving efforts to fit in, heal trauma and reduce consensus reality confusion. A supporter who is trusted may be able to articulate the concept, spot it when it’s happening, and teach spiritual skills that can help the message receiver mitigate damages.

According to Wikipedia, the concept of a trickster is a cultural archetype. In other words, a trickster is a cultural reality of the collective unconscious that Carl Jung identified. Accordingly, all cultures feature tricksters in their mythology. In Navajo culture, the trickster is a coyote. In Greek mythology, Hermes, patron of thieves, was a trickster character. In the Bible, Jacob was. The trickster as an archetype is a revered spiritual character that cheats or cons people for their own material gain or just to cause mischief. In effect, a trickster is a very real part of reality that must be negotiated.

The idea that special messages veer into the spiritual realm of the collective unconscious may become appealing to many message receivers. Indeed, for me, message crisis or “psychosis” used to be real government and mafia surveillance; now that I know how to navigate, the surveillance reality mixes with the spiritual emergency narrative Stanislav and Stephanie Grof helped articulate. Let us not forget that other causal strategies can be operant. Thus, not only are political and spiritual causation at play. It is also important to consider the interplay between psychology, science, and trauma as we have explored elsewhere.

But without support or resources, trickster messages deceive people into either or causal realities. Often, people become too spiritual or too focused on the fact that they are politically controlled. They may fail to incorporate other causal potentials. As a result, they come into conflict with consensus reality, get burdened by the illness narrative myth, get ineffective treatment, and find that social decline results.

Thus, to navigate through a spiritual emergence effectively in the modern world it becomes important to realize that a significant number of messages function as tricksters. In crisis or emergency, trickster messages get believed very literally when they ought not to be. As examples of negative and positive trickster phenomena will reveal, believing trickster messages reinforce the power that message receiver to give to their message experiences. The more power given to messages, the less the message receiver cares or knows about the ideas that govern consensus reality.

Examples of the Negative Trickster Phenomenon:

 The classic example of a negative trickster that a message receiver may experience is that the message receiver believes they are being followed collecting messages that tell them so. Then, because they believe they are being followed, they act as though they are being followed until the police and psychiatric establishment do follow them and put them in an observation unit. Then, they really are followed and monitored.

The result of such a trickster phenomenon is that all messages that were signs of being followed are believed to be accurate and important when some were, and some may not have been. The message receiver learns to trust all those messages more than mainstream consensus reality concepts.

An associated example of a negative trickster is an intuition based on body language that a person doesn’t like the message receiver.  The result is the message receiver is hurt and angry and behaves as if the message is accurate and the person picks up on social energy and behaviour and then really doesn’t like them. What comes first will never be known but the fact of the matter now becomes accurate.

So, a voice gives a message receiver a command that they must follow to avoid being tortured and the message receiver becomes fearful and vulnerable and when they don’t listen the torture comes. Then, they become victimized by tactile torture and fail to get out of bed for a day and do not seek support because no one will believe them.

Another example of a negative trickster is the blacklisted political refugee who resists the host countries effort to control them.  They may defiantly send out resumes for good jobs, each from a different mailbox. Then, this willful behaviour makes the host country increase surveillance and control.

Ineffective Reality-Test Treatment:

 Often, the reality of the negative trickster foils a supporter’s efforts to reality test. Picture the message receiver who gets told not to trust their messages by a supporter. The well-intended supporter considers the evidence and tells them it’s not true that they are being followed. Then, the message receiver finds out they really were getting followed. Now the reality test turns into betrayal and the value of and trust for the message reality is amplified while trust in supporters and consensus reality decreases. I advocate for trying to teach the trickster phenomena before making a reality test. Then, a supporter can isolate the special message that leads to the divergent view and suggests that maybe it’s a trickster. This becomes much less offensive to a message receiver.

Combatting Negative Tricksters with Positive Self-Fulfilling Prophesies, Mantras or Prayers:

Meanwhile, isolated message receivers get put on an observation unit in the hospital. They must choose to ignore it all the blatant ways they are being followed and pretend that they are not being followed. If the message receiver ignores and exudes confidence in front of all the messages (real and unreal,) the police and psychiatric establishment will either not become involved or eventually will give up and stop the following behaviour. But to interrupt the process, the message receiver needs to put prayerful energy out in the universe that tells everyone they are not being followed repeatedly. When they do get followed, they need to ignore it and move forward.

In the case of feeling followed, the message receiver may not ever know which messages were real and which were tricksters. Perhaps time and investigation will show which ones were true and which weren’t. But ultimately, focusing on overcoming tricksters will slow down the messages. If, for example, a message receiver ignores a message that is intended to torment them, it is very discouraging to the tormenter. Then, the message receiver gets fewer messages that they are being followed and it becomes easier and easier.

With a message receiver intuiting that a person doesn’t like them, the message receiver needs to ignore this negative forecast and approach the person in a friendly way. Thus, the message receiver acts opposite to the way they feel, and they put out energy into the world that may change the person mind. Perhaps they change the observers’ mind and the person who dislikes the message receiver is forced to change their mind via social pressure.

In the case of the commanding voice, the message receiver puts magnets in their shoes, doesn’t listen to the command and takes himself to an HVN meeting and tells his supports that the magnet deactivates the chip in his body that enables him to be tortured and he never does get tortured.

In the case of the political refugee, the message receiver accepts the host countries control and the hierarchy that is abusing him and stops fighting the power.  Instead, the message receiver offers prayers and mantras that he will be employed before he runs out of money and gets hired in the nick of time and continues to behave on the job.

In all these examples prayers, mantras and faith are needed to endure and reduce the negative effects of messages.

Examples of Positive Tricksters:    

 Some message receivers may find that they believe a trickster because it is what they want to hear. Then, later, they find they get socially punished for the belief. This usually involves the message receiver acting out in ways that sabotage their cultural capital or that results in real social sanctions. Numerous message receivers experience special messages that are a positive support and there is nothing wrong with that. However, even people who argue that the world is mostly positive can be dogged by tricksters when they interpret an ominous warning sign in a positive direction.

They may, for example, believe God and country is supporting them with special messages when those messages are not true. If they embark on a creating a business with “grandiose” notions that their government is supporting them and has their back, they may give away money or not fill their water bottle walking down the highway on their way to the post office figuring that the government is good and will have their back. The result is they end up down the road with no money and very thirsty. Instead of arriving at the post office as they had planned to pick up boxes for their business, they find themselves followed by the police, ambulance drivers and eventually by psychiatrists instead of supportive government agents. They may end up in a hospital getting rehydrated and then in an institution that seeks to sustain itself by keeping them incarcerated and the outcome can be negative to their efforts to start up a business.

In the above situation, still, much of the experience can be godly and positive. However, to be successful the positive person still must be on the lookout for tricksters that are, in fact, negative guidance.  Let’s say a friend sets a boundary that the message receiver misinterprets as an invitation to be chummy. The message receiver may be correct about their skills and abilities behind their grand plans, but misinterpreting the few messages that are tricksters can set up major roadblocks. The friend may get upset and call for a mental health consult.

Likewise, a message receiver who believes everyone likes them when others are in fact mocking them collects objects and hands them to people that bear odd meanings. Instead of receiving the object and recognizing the funny or beautiful message of the gesture, a friend mocks and gossips about the message receiver and eventually, someone calls for a mental health consult. The message receiver may then be put on an observation unit while they persist using their skills until they are forcibly shown they have no skills and deserve an impoverished lifestyle.

Though these examples are admittedly random, the result is that positive tricksters get in the way of monumental success.

A Balanced Strategy for Managing Positive Tricksters:

 The all-or-nothing tendency to view all messages as positive may need to be broken. The upbeat message receiver must view the constant energy of their messages with humility. If they don’t, the result can be oppression and institutionalization. Negative alternatives need to be considered as plausible otherwise all the positive energy and ability will be labelled a waste. Ultimately, it always is important to find ways to put positive or negative messages on the back burner and investigate them or let time reveal the truth as the message receiver continues their work towards success.

Positive tricksters need to be managed by the message receiver maintaining a strong grasp of the contents of consensus reality. Playing consensus can be an important strategy. It is also important for those receiving positive tricksters to exude a humble, a nonjudgmental, and an emotionally intelligent mentality. There also needs to be a sceptical act-opposite-from-the-way-one-feels mentality that will slow down the frequency of the positive tricksters. Praying that the positive message is not a trickster is a viable strategy. Additionally, clearly, the message receiver needs to weigh the potential consequences of non-consensus reality behaviour. This will keep positive tricksters from spiralling out of control.

Assessing the Level of Trust or Recovery Before Discussing the Concept:

 Often, a supporter can count on discussing trickster process and having a message receiver acknowledge that this has happened with an, “oh, yeah,” kind of realization. Supporters may spot times this is happening and spell it out to the message receiver. Transforming out of a message crisis takes time and there are significant back and forth debates about consensus reality that may need to be had.

However, a supporter needs to use judgement before they try to educate a message receiver about this spiritual concept. Experienced message receivers who can function in consensus reality may have already figured out the concept and crediting them for their wisdom and reinforcing the practice is good form.

However, if a message receiver seems routinely expresses ideas that are very far away from consensus reality and continues to act on them, the chances are that they are taking information from tricksters very literally. Before a supporter simply educates the impacted message receiver about the trickster concept, they need to establish an ability to identify message phenomena and collaborate. If support can validate divergent views, and sleuth with the message receiver, it is a good sign that trust is building. It may even be necessary to be able to discuss different approaches to the issue of what is causing the message experiences.

 The Importance of Behavior and Fixing the Relationship with Consensus Reality:

 The result of tricksters being intermixed with accurate message material is that the accuracy of all special message phenomena is believed, and the message receiver’s relationship with consensus reality is likely to become progressively less trusting. Ironically, as the trust for consensus reality decreases, the message receiver is likely to get robbed of their power, identity, social roles and eventually their material possessions.

 Despite a lot of errors in consensus reality that often preoccupy the institutionalized message receiver, knowing consensus reality is an important strategy when it comes to managing both negative and positive tricksters.

In fact, we all know that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK and must act as if it were true in the right contexts. In this manner, message receivers need to learn to put on the façade of consensus reality, to avoid behaviour that will increase the reality of negative or positive tricksters. Message receivers need to let the messages go and let time tell. This is an act of faith.

This does not mean that message receivers can’t be free to live in their messages and share as they want when they are in good company in a group of supporters. Generally, people aren’t always right about reality anyway. But the understanding and acknowledging the trickster phenomenon can help decrease crisis and steer the message receiver toward success in the social rehabilitation realm.

Included in this learning, message receivers need to learn to trust people through their own intuitive communication as much or more than they trust special messages. This takes time and ongoing commitment as it is not an instant change. But knowing that messages have a significant degree of tricksters in them can really help. And communicating about tricksters and re-examining past traumatic occurrences with the associated spiritual skills can really help a message receiver trust the supporter.

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Warning: Graphic Content

“I have heard real stories,” said my female therapist, “of men doing graphic and horrible things to women. I don’t think based on what you just told me, there is any justification for any accusation whatsoever. I think you have been saying a lot of hurtful things.”

I figured my mother who was paying for these forced sessions put the shrink up to this confrontation. I never did bring the issue of sexual abuse up.

It is true I have had an ongoing suspicion that I was sexually abused. Particularly when locked up for extended periods of time for an eating disorder, and most recently for schizophrenia, my suspicion that my suffering had sexual abuse behind it escalated.

It was also true that in the state hospital I had just gotten out of, I had made rash accusations.

I can only recall making the accusation against my mother to my best college friend who had a nefarious past of drug dealing and a grandiose mafioso mentality while manic. When I confided in him that I had alerted the press in a section eight housing authority complex, he threatened me. With this feeling I had been led into this role I was playing as a whistle-blower all along, I’d fled towards Canada until the police intercepted me.

From the phone in the State Hospital, without knowing his level of responsibility for the fact that I was there, I told him what had transpired between myself and my mother in a provocative manner.  I told him he was lucky to have a family who cared about him when he had faced going to a state hospital for bipolar disorder. I’d also said, “Friends don’t threaten each other!”

“I think it is time for me to visit your mother,” my friend said.

Scared for my mother, I called to warn her.

“You shouldn’t make such accusations about Joe being in the mafia,” my mother said, “He really does care about you!”

When I later asked my Mom where she had heard about my provocative accusation, she told me she forgot.

At the time the female therapist confronted me, I could not remember the real incidents of sexual abuse that I experienced. I just stopped confiding in her.

Initially, shit just happened when I was a teen, built up and I just distracted from the pain through starvation. The incident with my Mom was just one of many. People like me who don’t realize that their suffering is due to trauma are often unable to discern abuse from re-traumatization. They may attract a long list of psychiatric diagnoses. They may feel abused a gazillion times and it becomes hard to see how any community might come to the rescue.

What I have come to believe is that if a person has experiences of disassociation, there is the possibility of incidents of forgotten events.

An example of a disassociation I experienced was when I was alone scouting a trail. I stepped within six inches of a rattlesnake, a childhood obsession of mine. The rattle made me run even though I knew better. Then I became aware that I lost track of time. Finally, one of my peers on the Outward-Bound course came and found me staring off into space and I grounded myself.

Also, after being teargassed at the WTO Protest in 1999, and pepper sprayed directly in the eye, I took a walk and lost track of where I was and what I was doing. Suddenly, I realized I walked past my destination and had been out.

Much later, after the state hospital incident, I disassociated in front of my nephew when he was a bathing cherub in a tub in front of me, I was going outside my body but didn’t leave all the way. This had been happening to me on a few occasions when I was working seven days a week trying to get back on my feet financially.

In fact, when I did write about this occasion, during an editing session I suddenly I got a vague flash of being molested in a bathtub. The girl, my best friend’s sister, was only one year older. I would later remember that she ordered me to take my clothes of and get in the tub with her while our parents were out walking.

I didn’t remember my disassociated response, I only remembered the hands disappearing beneath the suds. There is a story that I ate a moth ball thinking it was a marshmallow necessitating poison control to be contacted. I was a little old to make such a silly mistake. It’s true I could be wrong, but I connect that action to my response to the tub incident. I do believe that around that time I started bathing in my trunks.

I do recall becoming very angry at my best friends’ sister for not choosing the kind of ice cream I wanted when it came to selecting ice cream for her birthday celebration. I recall experiencing a lot of disapproval for that strange show of selfishness.

When I took this story to my mother, I got an additional answer. “No, you are thinking of the time we caught the babysitter touching you,” she said.

While I continue to have no memory of this incident I remember several occasions when I was around this babysitter later in life. Before I hadn’t been able to understand my piercing feelings, behavior and memory of those occasions.

“Thank you for telling me,” I stated to my Mom.

“I probably shouldn’t have told you,” she said, “Now you are going to think you have been abused a gazillion times!”

It’s true that the bath with my step-sister might not have been distressing to many untraumatized young boys. Now, however, I have some explanation for my suffering.

Before I broke through the wall disassociation I could never understand why I got such strong intuition and suspicions. I didn’t realize that I was doing this for a good reason. I often presumed there was something wrong with me.

Perhaps now I can better understand and accept why I get uncomfortable in bars and socially withdraw. Maybe now I can understand why I withdraw in trauma trainings with other therapists. When we are all learning emotional freedom techniques, for example, I am unable to benefit from them. Now, I know I am on my way to disassociating in these contexts.

Now I understand why I always have a hard time defending myself when I get attacked. I am numbing out! Now I know why when I do defend myself, I come off too strong and the results never go well. It is ongoing hypervigilance!

People who prey on others can see these signs and chose people they can hurt without getting in trouble. This can open a body up to bullying that can become institutional when labels get attached. People who appear to be victimized end up being soft targets.

And, so, I understand better how I got in some other hard-to-deal with situations and other disassociated memories. And, so, one day, while hiking with my father on a visit back east, I finally got up the courage to ask what had happened to our family friend who was a few years older than me and had dissociative identity disorder.

When I found out that her brother had sexually abused her, I suddenly I had a flash and an image. I saw him over top of her, became paralyzed with fear and fled. Had I really behaved like that? It seemed like more of an intuitive dream, that a solid reality.

Typical, I thought, for a schizophrenic to hear about sex abuse and think it is all about him. Perhaps some of the readers may think so as well.

However, I do remember visiting the two of them alone in a vacation cabin along the Chatooga River in the Adirondacks. They were skinny-dipping, she with just a shirt on, he in the nude, and me, very attached to my bathing suit. My last memory of the evening involves him standing behind her wrestling her around.

The distinctive flash of what I saw and an overwhelming feeling of cowardice and helplessness that overtook me is unconnected to any other part of the evening.

The brother has only admitted to inappropriate touching. So, I acknowledge that even suggesting the word rape may be inappropriate and unfair. I have taken myself closer to this flash and tried to remember visual details. I realize in doing this there were sleeping bags on the floor and that I saw no direct flesh. And yet I felt a sense of penetration internally. But the sense that I could only flee in cowardice connects to other times I acted in similar manners and the shame is enormous.

If I considered these flashes of disassociated memories to be true, there are several other incidents I had with adult men who were significant in my life that were suspicious.

These events help explain why all those years later when I was working in the section eight housing project, I used to walk in the evenings around a lake having rescue fantasies in which I physically psyched myself up to respond to rape scenes. I took these walks to relieve stress while I was using community activists and the press to fight the management company, the police and the black-market dealers against all odds. This is action that caused the police to attempt to institutionalize me in Montana.

I have come to understand that if I am to heal from my psychiatric labels of depression, anorexia, bulimia, schizotypal personality disorder, dyslexia, ADD, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder (now that I am in “recovery”) and perhaps dissaociative disorder I am going to have to accept that I will not know if all my conglomerate sex abuse incidents are true but accept that they may be part of my journey and are possible in the world. I, personally, cannot vilify people who are hurt and use it to perpetrate. To move past these types of incidents, I must forgive so many deeds that seem so strikingly wrong to me. I see them in a variety of things on a regular basis.

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When I was in psychosis, or what I prefer to call the message crisis, I was extremely angry when my family used leverage to force me into treatment. For starters, they contacted the police and supported a three-month hospitalization that kept me from seeking asylum in Canada. I concluded that they were a mafia family and the reason I was getting followed and harassed.

Perhaps this scenario sounds familiar to the reader? It lasted for two years after I was released from the hospital.

I continue to feel hurt by many of the things that transpired due to leverage. I may be able to act as I forgive, but I will never forget what it was like to experience such cruelty alone.

Thank god I was wrong about some of it!

Back in those days, I never imagined that I would someday write a blog about how to effectively leverage a message receiver into treatment. I would have sworn that I would never sell out so much to even suggest such an action.

Rethinking the Issue of Leverage:

Thanks to the word, “recovery,” I have been blessed with an opportunity to return to my career in mental health and work toward providing treatment for those who suffer from message crisis. It’s true, I have had to look the other way and swim against the tide a bit, but I have seen a few things work. I have witnessed how even things that I think would have been detrimental to me, can be helpful for some people.

Now, with hindsight as twenty-twenty, I ponder the issue of leverage for the conscientious family member, loved one, or helper who deals with the message receiver who is stuck. While a lot of my work emphasizes the fact that message receivers have a lot in common; there is also vast diversity in terms of strengths, preferences, support, and resources. I want to consider the message receiver who withdraws from their support and the world into the confines of their room or board and care with nothing but, perhaps cigarette smoke, and the wonderland of their messages to comfort or torment them. A recent Facebook post and unassociated conversation encouraged me to do this

 Establishing Treatment Instead of Confinement:

I think the first hurdle to clear is to assure that there is treatment available. This means that message receivers need to work with people who do not engage in senseless confinement and exploitation.

In my opinion, it is rare that using leverage to impose hospitalization and involuntary medication works out. Unless the person is on board due to their own large amount of suffering, imposing involuntary hospitalization or medication may sabotage future treatment. Let involuntary hospitalization happen as a natural consequence, not something to leverage. Anyone who is familiar with trauma research might tell you, it can take a long time for a person to work through being punished for an involuntary experience that is already traumatic.

Finding real treatment is a very tall order in a public system that primarily trains the message receiver to use medication via the revolving door of incarceration. Many therapists go against their licensure training to even attempt to treat a person in psychosis. I was taught to refer out or utilize the psychiatric emergency room.

I have found that developing treatment often involves a space to process how traumatic and confusing incarceration feels.

Additionally, I have come to believe that treatment involves workers and supporters who are curious and knowledgeable about psychosis with copious and flexible coping strategies, and the humility to engage in ongoing learning. I do not believe true treatment can happen when the content of psychosis is not welcome in the relationship. I think when the reality of psychosis is always suppressed, exploitive confinement might be as good as it gets.

The Natural Benefit of Community and Structure:

During the crisis, when the message receiver responds to their terrorizing or spiritual messages via social withdrawal, treatment may require community and structure of intriguing tasks and efforts that help draw the message receiver out. In the process of trying to create such an environment, teaching the message receiver to be interested in and respect their peers can really help.

While good treatment offers the safety of time to heal, it might also require an ongoing nudge toward challenging the message receiver to move on to their hopes and dreams when they are ready. If treatment doesn’t do this, it may easily get misunderstood as confinement. I do not believe productive trust can truly exist until the full extent of recovery hopes and dreams are supported.

I acknowledge that the function of having treatment communities available, which are costly and often scarce is a real service to the special message community. Still, I am not saying that they are for everyone. Treatment might also involve the freedom to say no, but the option of less restrictive alternative actions, such as individual treatment mixed with self-support activities away from the treatment team.

Yes, a treatment facility needs to sustain itself by making money, but it also needs to not treat the message receiver like they are a commodity. It may be okay to ask for some level of commitment to services, but it is not fair to push commitment if it does not lead to something that involves substantial sustainable community integration.

 Importance of Supporting Structured Activities Outside of Treatment Milieus:

Even if community and structured activity treatment exists, it is important not to overly leverage them. If they don’t exist or if they are unwanted, it may be important for the message receiver to receive support towards the social rehab endeavors that most matter to them and to have support in those endeavors.

Social rehabilitation support needs to capitalize on healthy, goal directed activities away from psychosis. Thus, any interest needs to be acknowledged and supported regardless of their ability to meet immediate career needs. If the message receiver is working against their psychosis, there is no need to impose leverage towards things they don’t want to do, like treatment.

A savvy supporter will try to help a message receiver do what they can to reflect positively on any activity away from message crisis. Likely these efforts are happening, but in my experience, they are not always talked about because they may seem to pale in comparison to the rat race we are all supposed to be in. Championing them may mean uncovering them and holding them up to the light instead of presuming that all is lost.

Processing and Reflecting on Messages:

I think it is fair to presume that the message receiver will need to take some time to process and reflect on their voices or other relevant experiences. As I suggested earlier, not inquiring about the magnificent learnings and focusing only on their inactivity with negative comments is rarely fruitful. Rather, encouraging a message receiver to schedule reflection/process time is important, as is encouraging them to join others this endeavor. The message receiver might be encouraged to do so with a therapist or mentors in a self-support group, or at least during exercise.

If a message receiver comes to therapy, it is important to be curious about the experiences they are going through and marvel and champion them, just as you marvel and champion activities away from psychosis. Support groups that bring out the silenced stories and give them time and perhaps some collective wisdom are important.

My Own Experience with Leverage and the Importance of Picking Your Poison:

My parents required me to take six hours in addition to my sixty-hour work week (two-125$-hours, plus travel time to and from the office) to meet with a therapist. A modest but life-sustaining amount of financial support was attached.

Had I been able to talk to this therapist about my messages without getting judged or treated disrespectfully, I may not have resented the large chunk she was taking away from my future nest egg. I may have been thankful. The exercise on the way to therapy plus the exercise I got on the way to my job was helpful.

Even though I did feel like a resentful slave or a piece of human traffic, what did help me get through this trying time was the fact that I had chosen it.

I wanted to work. I had happened to have worked in too many structured programs to feel they were worth my time. I felt that many programs I had worked in were too disempowering and provided little future.

I knew deep down that being a social worker was likely not feasible. Indeed, I had obtained a social work job and had an opportunity to risk homelessness for that job, or work at an Italian Deli when I believed my family was the mafia. That opportune choice was key to enduring a large amount of torment and suffering.

As a result, I did do my best to make the exercise time and therapy time work. It could have been easier for sure, but I avoided jail, homelessness and more psychiatric incarceration—things I was truly scared of.

Consequences of Using No Leverage:

While now one might argue that such drastic, do-or-die leveraging as I went through was harsh, I now reflect on how life might be with no leverage at all.

I work with some people who were once warehoused in State Hospitals and who live in board and care homes. When people are trained to withdraw into messages for years, stories become buried and goal-directed behavior get blunted. I am also aware that there are people who withdraw into messages who live at home. I am aware of the natural consequences of this: when their loved ones die, they are likely to become sequestered in board and care homes.

Thus, I think that there are times when working with leverage can make sense in lieu of negative consequences that may lie in wait. If treatment means getting to know people who are worse off, it can be an eye-opener that can help motivate. I think knowing local services and getting help with communication during the leveraging process can be helpful.

I have seen small, slow, humane amounts of leverage work without causing trauma. I think protecting a person from the harsh realities of the mental health system needs to be done with reason. Helping suffers know their choices and lead the lives they want to live even if it does not fit your own hopes and dreams for the person is certainly a brave thing to do.

 The Need for Ongoing Support and Encouragement When Leverage is Used:

I still reflect on times I wanted to give up. I can say that it was helpful and redeeming when my parents credited my efforts as mattering and being financially relevant. Being encouraged at these times was very important.

I feel compelled to add that if the leveraged message receiver tries and fails, all is not lost. It is important to remember that important learning can be capitalized upon from any failure. Good support does not use a failure to impose an agenda, but rather is there to support the learning that can happen. Advocate to apply the learning to the next opportunity of their choice! Good support maintains a positive perspective on the effort put forth regardless of the outcome.

Remember, this is supported by an evidence-based practice that is applied to vocational training (The IPS Model.) If you lose a job, get a new one. Keep going until you get one that sticks.

Conclusion:

I still wouldn’t advise using leverage very often. Remember that it is possible that unprocessed ill use of leverage might be part of the problem that is keeping the message receiver stuck. Still, I have come to believe that treatment does exist and can be helpful. Now I can say that apt leverage involves a mixture of timing, series of least restrictive choices and ongoing, attentive support. It involves holding hope for full recovery when the message receiver doesn’t have it.

The post Using Leverage in the Treatment of Madness appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

When I experienced two years of psychosis early during my career as a mental health counselor, I was already getting good at managing trauma with my master’s level training. I always been pretty good at being safe for others.

I wanted some of that trauma support when I found myself confined to a ward on a State Hospital. I knew I needed to establish safety with someone but couldn’t find anyone who would deal with me. Instead, no one treated me as though I was traumatized because they didn’t want to reinforce my delusions. This only made the trauma of what I experienced worse. Invariably, hospital workers were punitive and denied anything unjust was happening to me at all.

Because I worked tirelessly and had family support, I was able to return to my career in mental health. I got my psychotherapy license ten years ago and since that time I have worked to create trauma-sensitive treatment to address the needs of individuals who experience psychosis. Here, I intend to convey two trauma-sensitive solutions I have developed, working with people in groups and in individual treatment.

The Challenge of Establishing Trust:

It’s true that it is hard to establish safety with someone when they think they are being followed. I felt I was being followed by the mafia via government surveillance; others feel they are in miraculous communion with a spirit world. Any therapist who works with individuals who have experienced psychosis can tell you that trust with any such prototype takes time.

However, too many practitioners do not feel that the stories of psychosis are worth engaging for the simple reason they might have delusions in them! It’s true delusional ideas can cause a great deal of problems. For example, maybe the police didn’t really taunt me like I reported they did when they bruised my wrists. Maybe I was too hard on the pony-tailed man who wouldn’t give me food and testified against me at my competency diagnosing me with schizophrenia. Maybe I wasn’t really being followed by the FBI like I thought I was. Maybe I was delusional when I said I leaked information from the section 8 housing authority I was working for. All that I knew for sure was that nobody cared to listen. I was on my own for quite some time.

Many practitioners reason that they don’t want to reinforce anything that isn’t real. Instead, the best practice, CBT for Psychosis, directs the clinician to separate their reality from the sufferer and teach the sufferer to evaluate their thoughts to make sure they are rational. I believe CBT for Psychosis may work at times. In fact, think there comes a time when cognitive therapy is necessary for rehabilitation. However, there are times this single strategy may not address trauma involved with the experiences of psychosis.

In contrast, I have had significant success in working with people with psychosis by finding powerful ways to validate the contents of an individuals’ psychosis to address real trauma that may have transpired. This approach is increasingly accepted now thanks to the spread of the hearing voices network support groups. Indeed, I have found that providing group support that allows people to explore psychosis, to be very helpful. Increasingly research is proving to validate the idea that treating psychosis as you would a trauma results in far better outcomes.

The Challenges of Validating All Parts of Psychosis

Of course, some might argue that the hearing voices network does not have a clear methodology for how to validate delusions when they are not caused by voices. It’s true that, some delusions are hard to validate in a genuine manner. For example, many people who hear voices believe that other people are hearing what they are hearing. Such individuals may accuse the practitioner or group leader of many things that they aren’t responsible for, making therapy and group sustainability a challenging endeavor.

My own experience in therapy was a nightmare because my therapist didn’t believe me. Thousands of dollars were spent and not an ounce of trust was achieved.

I have found it’s possible to validate things that aren’t true; however, I have had to take apart the delusional experience and look at them with a microscope. Then, I have found it is possible to validate a part of the psychosis process without validating all the mistakes that happen.

For starters, I coined the term special messages to describe experiences that trigger an alternative way of taking in information and connecting with the world. Thus, not only voices but other meaningful experiences like intuition, dreams, interpersonal interactions, and coded realities from media can trigger alternative views about reality.

Then, I developed seven other code words to represent distinct aspects of sufferers’ experiences. In sum, if the sufferer can become more aware of the process of what they are doing during a psychosis process and the way this process relates to fellow sufferers, they can become more mindful and validated and heal from trauma.

The Message Mindfulness Solution that Supports Trauma Informed Care:

Message mindfulness happens when the person in psychosis learns to see their process by describing it to another person or by hearing similar process that they can relate to in a group. I have found that people in psychosis can often recognize delusions when they are listening to someone. However, when they are not mindful of special messages, they react and cannot see their own process as being potentially delusional.

I believe that when message receivers become mindful of what is happening to them and their peers, they go towards experiences that terrorize, anger or excite them. Then they can acknowledge their emotions in a way that can help them let go of those triggering special message experiences. With awareness, those special message experiences become less judged and easier to let go of without having emotions and thoughts spike. And the sufferer can then acknowledge that they often will be right but don’t necessarily have the evidence to presume that their special messages are accurate all the time.

Helping a sufferer or message receiver become mindful of the experiences that give rise to alternate thoughts or what I call divergent views is not an easy process and can take time. Indeed, message receivers who listen and learn from each other are better able to admit that some special messages may turn out to be true and others false. Still, they can all be considered real and can be validated and better observed by the people who get them. Plus, becoming increasingly mindful of other message processes can significantly help a body reconcile with the ways they were wrong and had their emotions spike needlessly.

The Solution of Mastery Tasks or What I call Recovery and Reality Tasks:

A second trauma informed solution that has resulted from redefining psychosis into eight components, is to distract from distress when emotions spike by completing mastery tasks. I call these mastery tasks, recovery and reality tasks.

In this process, high emotions are soothed by what I have termed the act of sleuthing. Sleuthing is the act of collecting a series of messages and to trying to figure out what is really going on. This leads to all kinds of thoughts about the way the world works (divergent views.) Then, divergent views cause the message receiver to sleuth again and be on the lookout for more special message experiences. Thus, the message receiver often gets more different types of messages until they become entirely preoccupied with distressing or enthralling special message material.

Therefore, I believe that distracting from sleuthing by completing mastery tasks may significantly reduce distressing and intense emotions. When the message receiver sits and sleuths all day they expend a great deal of emotional energy without accomplishing anything. Then, social workers or supporters are more likely to push for warehousing them.

However, to distract from sleuthing, the message receiver needs to practice and strengthen the skill of distracting.

Often, distracting efforts go unacknowledged by others because they are judged negatively in comparison to what could otherwise be accomplished. At first, in my beliefs, the message receiver needs to accept and be supported for basic actions that are productive. Thus, appreciating mastery tasks as helpful for wellness and supporting them regardless of their social standing is another way to validate and support message receivers.

Moving through trauma in such a manner beats being isolated, locked up, or restrained, which teaches the message receiver a great deal of helplessness. Nothing could discourage mastery tasks more. Indeed, these kinds of traumatizing events make message receivers less mindful and elevate the unreasonable expectation that special messages be suppressed.

Conclusion:

While I have also developed six additional solution strategies, I consider the above two solutions to be specific to addressing the trauma that message receivers experience. The six other solutions I propose are experiential, spiritual (there are two of these,) behavioral, cognitive and narrative. These solutions likewise may be responsive to trauma in some ways but are linked to differing components of special message experience and tend to work in different manners. Stay tuned for future solution focused blog posts that may help describe a recovery process

The post Two, Trauma-Sensitive Solutions for Extreme States appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

By Corinita Reyes

In the war on drugs, the real targets have not been drugs themselves but on those who live a life in which drugs are ever present. Drugs prove to be a persistent issue in low income neighborhoods, specifically those who have an ethnically diverse makeup. The fact that those affected most by the war on drugs are thought of as “minorities” is no coincidence, it would seem rehab is a privilege reserved only for white affluent people, the rest are sent to prison to serve time for something that is seen as a treatable issue in the medical world. It is hardly a crime to develop diabetes or depression, so why do we treat a mental illness as a crime? It is imperative that we as a country explore how the war on drugs affects low income people of color (POC), its relationship on how mental illness affects low income people of color and why the war on drugs is simply not working. We need to replace the current war with a more sustainable system that supports our citizens, rather than punishes.

The war on Drugs has proven to be unhelpful because it is a continuing cycle which targets drug addicts.  In the article “Drug Addicts As a Victim: A Link to Explore” by Laura M. Nunes and Ana Sani, they write “It is not uncommon in the illegal drug market to find that the individual selling the product, being in possession of large sums of money, is also intoxicated.” (3) This shows that the drug dealer and the drug addict are one in the same.  Those who are not drug dealers are still in possession and can end up in prison system.  Once in the prison system, they may incur trauma from violence, sexual violence or from isolation that only makes any sort of mental illness they had prior more intense.  Upon being released, they now face new barriers from acquiring legal employment to being unable to qualify for public assistance and housing thanks to background checks.  Now as they are back to illegal activities such as drug dealing in order to make money, these activities make a neighborhood less safe, “Also, by dint of their lifestyle the drug addict will tend to have much less protection, especially in the form of formal protection from the social control system, for fear that their deviant activity is discovered by the authorities.” (Nunes et al, 4) It is safer for these individuals to deal with violence themselves than reach out to authorities in fear of being arrested.  Outside of the US, some of the most dangerous people in the world are the ones who are supplying the drugs to the streets of America.  In the article “Winding Down the War on Drugs: Reevaluating Global Drug Policy” by Maria McFarland Sanchez-Moreno, they say “Governments around the world have poured billions of dollars into combating drugs…to pursue, conduct surveillance on, kill, prosecute, extradite, and imprison kingpins and low-level dealers, in source and destination countries alike.” (1) This shows how The US is not alone in these failing tactics against drugs, yet the problem persists not only on our streets, but globally.  All of this is evidence that the war on drugs in conjunction with the prison system is a cycle that perpetuates violence and drug use.

The war on drugs has caused a lot of destruction in its wake for families, communities, children and adults.  Those affected by the war on drugs are mostly low income POC and this brings us to the question of why.  In the article “And Examination of the Self-Medication Hypothesis via Treatment Completion” by Erin Crawford, Matthew T. Huss and Lacey Lagoni.  It’s brought up that “…use of illicit drugs, other than Marijuana, increase with unmet need for health care.” (2) This is important because low income POC often have trouble affording the cost of visiting a family doctor regularly, let alone a mental health care provider such as a therapist or psychiatrist.  On top of the financial barrier, many in these communities face a stigma in which mental health diagnosis and care are thought to be solely a problem for middle/upper class white people. These issues are brought up in the article “Disparities and the Social Determinants of Mental Health and Addictions: Opportunities for a Multifaceted Social Work Response” by Elizabeth A Bowen et. al, they write “…many members of stigmatized and disenfranchised minority groups tend to have worse health than their more advantaged counterparts” (1) this is important to keep in mind because it disproportionately affects POC living in poverty. This is damaging to these communities, because as stated in the article “Poverty and Mental Health: How Do Low Income Adults and Children Fare in Psychotherapy?” By Stacey Kaltman, Jeanne Miranda and Catherine DeCarlo Santiago, “The rates of poverty are higher among ethnic minority adults and families, with 27.4% of African Americans, 26.6% of Hispanic/Latinos, 27.0% of American Indian/Alaskan Natives, and 12.1% of Asians living in poverty compares with 9.9% of non-Hispanic whites…These numbers are troubling because poverty is associated with poor health and wellbeing for children and adults alike.” When looking at these numbers, it’s important to keep in mind that mental illness directly correlates to income, which in turn correlates to ethnic background.  People living in low income and especially inner-city communities are more likely to experience trauma and stress due to money struggles, work struggles, frequent moving, violence ranging from domestic to violence out in the community and discrimination.  As a result of this trauma, issues such as aggression, difficulty with school, drug use and trouble concentrating can arise; these issues can impede upward mobility.  When this type of violence in a community is normalized, there is no one to talk to and one of the main treatments for PTSD is simply working through the trauma by way of talking, writing, creating or various other therapies.  Some symptoms of PTSD can be depression and anxiety, both of which as easily treatable with various medications readily available on the market.

        The big issue with getting treatment is that is trial in error, both in regards to medication and the mental health providers who write prescriptions. Just because a doctor or psychiatrist has gone to medical school and earned a doctorate does not automatically mean they are a good doctor or the right doctor for any given individual.  When getting diagnosed and receiving treatment for mental illness, it requires a relationship built on trust and mutual respect between a patient and a provider. For PTSD, the main treatment is simply seeing a therapist weekly.  When a patient is able to see a therapist weekly, they build a relationship and a foundation of trust which helps with diagnosing what is wrong with a person and helps them to open up and explore what traumatic events may have been overlooked and dismissed because it has become normalized in a community. Unfortunately this kind of treatment requires a team of professionals from a therapist, to a psychiatrist, to a regular family doctor, all of whom ideally are seen on a regular basis.  For many living in poverty, this is just not feasible as the majority of their health care comes from clinics where it is almost impossible to build a relationship and have a routine checkup with the same physician every time.  This is exactly where these issues go overlooked and dismissed as just a part of life because these physicians have heavy loads of patients who all experience similar levels of trauma. It’s difficult for the physician to spend too much time assisting a patient with navigating the confusing system that is mental health care, let alone for them to talk to a patient often enough to diagnose them with a mental illness that would call for a referral.

These problems left untreated help to fuel the war on drugs in that these people end up getting incarcerated due to the trauma they are living with in their daily lives.  Once they are released from prison, it is difficult or impossible for these people to find jobs or even places that will rent to them.  They have the choice of going hungry and being unable to support their family, or dealing drugs.  Drug dealers are not the problem, they are simply the symptom of a problematic symbiotic relationship between the war on drugs and the prison industrial complex.  The prison industrial complex serves as a catalyst for an increasing mental health crisis in America as they have become a replacement for psychiatric hospitals. There are many realities within a prison that can create mental illness such as violence, sexual assault, and solitary confinement. Once someone starts dealing drugs, it’s inevitable that there will be police intervention eventually, and the cycles continues.  Those who are paying customers are consuming because they are missing hope and love in their life.  When living in a community where a large portion of the population is in and out of jail and another large portion of the population is dying of drug overdose and yet another large portion of the population is dying of violence running rampant due to the war on drugs, one can only wonder how anyone would not end up with a mental illness as a result of trauma.

When considering addiction, we must keep in mind these copious amounts of trauma that affect those living in poverty. Addicts are not criminals, they are victims and should be treated as such.  We need to offer them support and safe spaces where they can heal and begin their recovery.  They need to stop experiencing violence in their homes and streets which is directly tied to the war on drugs. There are feasible solutions to these difficult issues in America if we only approach it differently. By considering drug addiction yet another illness that is present in low income communities, we need to focus on improving the mental health of our citizens. This would begin by shifting the money spent on the war on drugs over to funding for mental health care centers, specifically in low income and urban communities. This would include the tax money spent on drug task forces, militarized policing, and incarceration of those in possession of drugs. In these mental health centers, it is important that the staff reflects the ethnic makeup of the communities they reside in as best as possible, so as not to alienate patients. Some of the services these centers would provide might range from individual therapy, psychiatric care, support groups, after school programs, and addiction rehabilitation. They would be less like a hospital and more like a place for the community to come support one another and be supported by mental health professionals.

This alone will not get rid of the violence that comes with drugs, that is more related to the war on drugs itself. First, with the mental health centers in effect, we will need to shift these urban battlefields back into communities. All drugs will be decriminalized and there will be facilities where people can use and exchange needles safely and takes drugs while under the supervision of health professionals. At these facilities, there will be social workers who are specifically trained in handling drug addiction. These social workers can help any patients who want to get help by referring them to rehab and other services at the mental health center. These social workers will serve as a bridge between the two and will be familiar with the staff at the mental health center and assist with scheduling and meeting doctors, as these simple tasks can be the difference between someone with mental illness getting help or being too overwhelmed to pursue help on their own. Once someone who was once addicted has completed the rehab program, there will be either government funded jobs or a stipend program to help get recovering addicts back to work and rebuilding their life. To be responsible about legalizing all drugs and creating these mental health centers, there will be a part of the funding for these centers that goes to a media campaign promoting the centers and public service announcements that explore the effects of drugs such as meth and cocaine. Drugs classified as psychedelic drugs will be legalized for medical use and study. These will be available through a psychiatrist for a therapy session in which you are accompanied by a psychiatric professional in order to explore repressed memories and have an in depth therapy session.  Micro-dosed LSD can likely be prescribed by a psychiatrist for depression. Both of these methods would be studied in depth before being available to the public, and legalization would be a way to open this door. Cannabis will be legalized for medicinal use ranging from seizure medication to depression. The taxes collected from all legalized drugs would go right back into paying for the studies and the anti-drug campaign.

By offering mental health and income solutions to the community, the need for drugs will begin to diminish and those who are still addicted will not be criminalized, resulting in a safer, healthier community for all. If the war on drugs is not working as it is, who benefits from not trying out a new system? It only causes further damage to low income communities if we continue as we have been.  As of right now, the U.S. is taking a regressive approach to drug use which has proved unfruitful time and again. If we can only help our citizens, we can improve the wellbeing of our country. If a government is not there to support its citizens, it has failed.

Works Cited

Bowen, Elizabeth A. And Quenette L. Walton. “Disparities and the Social Determinants of Mental Health and Addictions: Opportunities for a Multi-faceted Social Work Response.” Health & Social Work, vol. 40, no. 3, Aug. 2015, pp. e59-e65. EBSCOhost

Lagoni, Lacey, et al.  “An Examination of the Self-Medication Hypothesis via Treatment Completion.” Addiction Research & Theory, vol. 19, no. 5, Oct. 2011, pp 416-426.  EBSCOhost, doi:10.3109/16066359.2010.525332

Nunes, Laura M and Sani, Ana  “The Drug Addict As a Victim: A Link to Explore” Journal of Drug Addiction, Education and Eradication Volume 11, Number 3-4 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Sanchez-Moreno, Maria McFarland “Winding Down the War on Drugs: reevaluating Global Drug Policy” Harvard International review

Santiago, Catherine Decarlo, et al. “Poverty and Mental Health: How Do Low-Income Adults and Children Fare in Psychotherapy?.” Journal of Clinical Psychology, vol. 69, no. 2, Feb. 2013, pp. 115-126.  EBSCOhost, doi:10.1002/jclp.21951

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My three-month psychiatric incarceration seemed to be aimed at discrediting me after I had leaked newspaper stories. On my way to Canada to seek asylum, I was stopped by police. I evaded them for three days through rural towns and surrendered one midnight, from a ditch on a mountain pass.

It was hard for me to accept the way I was treated. Confined to a ward for two weeks, I walked in circles. I barked on the payphone testing many of my supports. They all just said I was delusional.

I really did learn a lot from a mob boss’s daughter. There are a lot to the rules that govern those of us who get trafficked in this land of the free. Still, I did what I could to disrespect the mob especially because my counselor told me not to. And so, I endured a month of chronic warehousing conditions. I had to wear other peoples’ clothes to brave the ice-cold of the barely heated ward.

Two and a half months in my psychiatrist finally responded to my requests to meet with her.

“You know, Tim, one time we had someone come here saying the FBI was following him. In fact, they were following him even though he hadn’t done anything wrong.”

Of course, I didn’t trust her enough to find out if she really was referencing me the way I thought she was.

***

Yes, I did endure some trauma that I needed to process. My most loyal friend who openly talked about a nefarious past had suddenly threatened me. Could he have had me set me up at the section 8 housing authority complex where I had been working? Additionally, I was in a ten-year emotional cutoff from my parents who were seeming connected to this threat. When the police intercepted me, manhandled me, and separated me from my car, I learned that it was my parents who had tipped them off.

As soon as I got out of the chronic unit, which could very well have prepared me for permanent warehousing, I started over again. I got a job at a daycare center and I got a dog. It was a promise I made to myself to endure the hospitalization. Something told me I would be okay with a simple life and a dog to care for. And so, I would find myself lucky to have an outlet for my generativity needs.

***

Shortly after I ran out of my month’s supply of medication from the hospital, I started to get overwhelmed by strange incidents on the streets. I lost my job. I strained to find employment and spent down most of my small savings.

Eventually, I did get a few job-offers, but I was seeing special broadcasts on the television. I was also getting sick from food I believed was being dosed with laxative powder. I reasoned the government sewed a tracking device into my dog when they fixed her. Everywhere I went I saw convincing evidence that reinforced these ideas.

An aunt said she could get me a job at an Italian Deli if I moved up closer to her. She could negotiate with my family who agreed to support me if I moved and accepted underemployment. I made the move to a town on the outskirts of the bay area.

***

My dog loved to play fetch and frisbee endlessly. I took her hiking, helped her build confidence, and she was grateful for our life together. But in the Bay Area, I had to leave her for twelve hours a day, as I biked and rode the train four-hours-a-day to work and back. Still, she never peed on the apartment rug once.

Of course, I was mad! I felt my mafia family didn’t set it up to be easy for me. It seemed like they wanted me to fail. I couldn’t count on their support if I didn’t maintain my job. I frequently accused them of being mafia and held them accountable for all my suffering.

I collected daily evidence that my apartment was being broken into. I figured either the mob or the U.S. government was walking my dog for me. I figured if they had the time to torment me in this manner, the least they could do was walk the dog for me.

But really, I was amazed my dog could be so loyal to endure twelve-hour days for me. I did everything in my power to make sure she was amply exercised. I didn’t mind when she chewed through everything I owned.

I continued to be unable to find employment outside the deli. The dozens of job-interviews I didn’t get had me convinced I was blacklisted.

Finally, after six months I got a car; then benefits came; and, finally, after ten months, I got back on medication. The level of harassment at work declined. I found work outside the Italian Deli.

***

I think it was my generativity for my dog that kept me going through the exceptionally hard situation. I was terrified of losing her. Lord knows I was not a perfect owner. I didn’t always exhibit the best judgment. On nights when I cried to my mother on the phone because mob kids had set me up to be fired, I never did get fired.

It was so humiliating to admit that what they said about me was correct, that I had schizophrenia. The corrupt world was fine if I took my medication. Suspicious deaths that happen in the section 8 housing projects can get covered up. Only my loyal dog could understand that this was wrong.

My dog lived to be sixteen and a half years. She and I grew once we got out of that Italian Deli. We had the greatest relationship and often became the envy of other dog owners at the dog parks. She was beautiful. She was loyal. She was proud of me despite what “they” said.

While everyone including the shrink that I saw just treated me like I was a drain and a bother to be around, I had a beautiful dog that needed me to care for her.

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Never saw my hometown until I stayed away too long

I never heard the melody until I needed the song . . .

. . . I never I spoke “I love you” till I cursed you in vain

Never felt my heart strings until I nearly went insane

–Tom Waites, San Diego Serenade

It is funny how sometimes one cannot really see themselves until they get a glimpse of a harsh paradoxical reality. Perhaps doing so gives one that alternate perspective that is so necessary to really see oneself and gain wisdom. I think that’s what Tom Waites is getting at in the excerpts of his song I posted above. That is why the ability to relate to others is such a powerful teacher and healer that is so needed in a therapeutic endeavor. Other people’s struggles help us stop and see ourselves better. Even if it is painful, growth is likely.

And, just as the song goes, I never really saw myself as a learning-disabled person until I just recently had the opportunity to sit with an individual while she was receiving a mid-life diagnosis. It was a diagnosis that I thought might be helpful. Little did I know that before this sitting, I rarely considered the full effect of how a learning disorder affects me as a writer, therapist and mental health consumer.

***

Learning disorders, as I often educate people as a psychotherapist, are an aspect of neurodiversity that are most characterized by an imbalance in areas of brain abilities. Some realms may be significantly lower, while other areas are particularly high. Thus, as my explanation goes, certain areas of learning become very difficult without a high level of support, time and determination. A person who struggles in this manner may suffer from attention difficulties, may need extra time to complete things, and may like Albert Einstein, develop a particularly high drive to exercise their strengths because of always struggling and straining to keep up. Of course, when not properly supported and safely nurtured learning disabilities can cause people stop exercising abilities and accept oppression.

I am also likely to talk about how learning disabilities are generally considered to be neurodevelopmental disorders. This means that they are severely impacted by a mix of biological and environmental stressors. There are a couple of points I accordingly am likely to highlight.

First, I will suggest that we are learning, intergenerational trauma can be inherited and this might contribute to the brain’s lower abilities. Second, I will argue that having learning struggles can lead to a resulting life of ongoing trauma and mistreatment that can add to and exacerbate the lower realms particularly if support is not provided. Thirdly, I will point out that it is well known and demonstrated that trauma results in brain damage and that learning disabilities give us an opportunity to address those issues of trauma. And most certainly, I will add that compensating for a relative deficit may cause there to be unusually high ability in some other areas and exercise always makes them stronger.

In addition, after making these points, I am certain to reference studies on resilience that demonstrate that healing from trauma and neuroplasticity can cause people to become stronger than they would have otherwise been. In fact, being damaged can cause the brain to strengthen up in ways that would not otherwise happen. Thus, creating a sense of safety and providing people the opportunity to heal from trauma enables them to grow so strong that they become grateful that the trauma happened. Many who attain that sense of safety become very practiced at being strong, spiritual, and high functioning individuals.

***

Unfortunately, the African American woman I referred for testing got informed that she had learning disabilities, without having any of my suggestions reinforced. I found myself reflecting on the fact that maybe my ideas are simplistic and not scientific. Instead, from my perspective, the focus was on what she couldn’t do, and what was possible to help her overcome these deficits thanks to modern technology.

I went home after the sitting, was editing a chapter of my current book, and suddenly found myself so hypercritical that I froze. It occurred to me that I don’t read the way others do. In fact, I hate reading so badly that I rarely look extensively at the work of others. Everybody says that to be a good writer, one must be a prolific reader. I usually tell myself that I learn through writing, not reading. I usually say that I am exercising my talents, making myself happy, and learning rather than wasting my time.

But in a frozen state, it occurred to me that I am not being realistic as so many negative people in my life have told me. Maybe those fears I am constantly working against really are true.

All the rejections I have been getting from journals and blog sites plus the people who have used the vulnerability in my work to politically marginalize me started to gain tractions in my head. Frozen, my sense of empowerment felt like it was swallowed up and wallowing in stomach acid. The fact that I won five literary awards for my memoir didn’t matter. Instead, I found myself returning to perseverations on the ways that my memoir has only heightened my sense of alienation. All that mattered was that it was not selling, attracting reviews, or achieving what I had hoped for, to decrease my sense of invisibility. Suddenly, instead of being unrelenting and meticulous during my seven-year struggle to write the thing, I told myself that couldn’t read the way other people do and that my writing must show it. I told myself that I had to work twice as hard as others to no avail. Old tapes started to dominate the day.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” one writing professor had complained in a college course, “but it took me ten rewrites to get my detective novel published!”

“Ten rewrites,” I had once been proud to say to myself, “that is nothing! And I am having fun.”

Suddenly, that confidence that once helped me thrive was taken away.

***

Sure, in school, I was always the last person to complete the test, but my grades were always good. It’s true some teachers tended to get on me about spelling that I could not do anything about, but I tested okay in meaningless math. It’s true when the homework got heavy in high school, I could only manage to get four hours sleep a night, but that was also because I played sports, exercised, and didn’t eat much. When I became addicted to starving, I just thought I was a hardworking perfectionist who didn’t want to be stopped.

When anorexia led to incarceration, I was forced to halt all behavior and gorge on food. Once the tears and fight subsided, I learned to write when I couldn’t exercise.

It’s true I had poured my heart into my poetry notebook the year before only to receive a B+. The comment from the teacher to my mother—the school reading teacher—was that my work was just too depressing. She didn’t like it.

Straight out of the hospital and still angry about the B+, I took writing assignments and turned in lengthy stories or songs instead. I wrote twenty-five-page papers with long bibliographies. The results: poorer grades and a college essay nearly got me kicked out of school because it made the school psychologist—my teacher’s wife and mother’s friend—think I was suicidal. I still wasn’t educated enough about the social psychology of the situation: I was exposed as a mental health patient, my grades suffered regardless of how good I was getting. I had a different experience and message than others. My successes, leadership, and hard work in eleventh grade became a subverted, living lie. When I chose my only available form of rebellion against this, to go to a local commuter college, the school chose to lie in the yearbook and said I was going to overpriced Antioch College in Ohio.

I ran as far away as I could run without using the college money which I suspected had gone to hospitalizations. In a ghetto with a girlfriend who was seven years my senior, it was the easy courses with lousy textbooks that got my GPA off to bad B+ start. Suddenly immersed in large crowded auditoriums, my anxiety went up and my attention, down. I would be struck with the worst kind of writer’s block. I started the practice of outlining and memorizing everything that I read. I ended up achieving a 3.9 average, but I never went to a single party or took any time off work.

My poetry teacher in college who repeatedly chose my poems to share with the class had once said at the end of an intense semester in which we wrote a poem a week: “Then, there will be some of you that have to keep on writing, not because you want to, but because you have to.”

I don’t know if I listened to him or if I just found myself to be one of those who had to write. I took fiction and personal essay classes and obsessed over my take-home exams trying to get the wording just right.

I did get diagnosed with learning disabilities working my way through graduate school. Because I was working with a psychologist who unbeknownst to me didn’t think I was college material, I became very aware of all my deficits and tended to communicate about this with my peers. I took a heavy dose of medications that I later found out I didn’t need to such an extent. Interactive courses in which the info came from multiple sources and required in the moment listening often overwhelmed me. I put my writing away during those seventy-hour weeks and did my best to become involved and social with my peers. I learned that I worked oh so much harder than they did to prepare for tests. I often got ridiculed for asking so many questions to keep myself alert and tracking, but I was used to that. When I got through those three years without a hospitalization, I happily returned to an intense poetry habit.

***

I must admit it was my suggestion that the African American woman get tested for learning disabilities. At least I educated her about my views of learning disabilities before I set up the testing. However, I was still stunned by the outcome. I later learned that the specific tests used were known to be culturally biased against African Americans. On a closer look at the material there were in fact areas of superior performance that we neglected to review. I am using this essay to thaw the writer’s block that has struck me in the gut over the past few days.

I do believe I will return to being happy obsessive, unread writer for my own lonely needs again.

A year after I graduated, I moved to the west coast to start over again. I think of the times since: when things were hard; when I had to escape incarceration and face homelessness, underemployment and long work days just to evade the mental health system and get back on the career track. When I think of these experiences, I get mad that people are reduced to different types of pathological disorders, like learning disorders. At the same time, as soon as I developed the diagnosis of schizophrenia, learning disorders didn’t matter anymore. I became a warehoused genetic cash cow. In the mentality of mainstream treatment, schizophrenia trumps neurodevelopmental disorders, yet so many of the institutionalized individuals I work with struggle with undiagnosed and unsupported learning disorders.

They are brilliant, complex, utterly alone, living in squalor, and extremely righteous and good people. I just don’t understand why psychological tests and treatments, and the demands of society make it so hard on good people to make a living wage.

***

Perhaps, the reader can tell, I have decided to be out with my history and experiences as a professional, writer, and mental health consumer. I still find there are many people who pick up on the fact that I am a little different and try to scapegoat and marginalize me. It happens repeatedly like the rising ebb of the San Diego sea on the shore as Tom Waits at one point had pondered.

I never saw the mornin’ ‘till I stayed up all night

I never say the sunshine ‘til you turned out the light . . .

. . .I never saw the white line, ‘til I was leaving you behind

Never knew I needed you until I was caught up in a bind

Really, it still hurts because criticism comes from every direction. However, eventually the hurt will go away. I will still be writing. And I hope and pray that that brilliant person I got diagnosed with a learning disability will be there with me, making the most of her meaningful life no matter what “they” say.

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