https://slideshare/rtgardner3/july-2019-mental-health-talk

1. Thoughts on mental “illness”, resiliency and recovery by an unmedicated bipolarRichard Gardnerrtgardner3@yahoo.comJuly 2019

2. https://www.slideshare.net/rtgardner3/july-2019-mental-health-talkhttps://www.slideshare.net/rtgardner3/july-2019-mental-health-talk

3. I have had some form of depression/hypomania as far back as I can remember. My family history shows that I was gifted with bipolar from both maternal and paternal lines. My paternal grandfather was a classic bipolar – extremely gifted and an alcoholic. My mother’s family has enough personality to fill several small states to overflowing.

4. I have no issues with who I am, thankful that I have the gifts I do. (I do not always like me, but that is okay as we all have bad days and good ones.) I am thankful for my highs and lows because they drive my creativity and drive me forward to attempt and achieve more than I am supposedly capable of as someone “crippled” by bipolar. To me the sane and average are the people who are crippled.

5. Resiliency – I gained it through pushing past my normal limits athletically; I ran marathons and ultramarathons. The events may be hard, but training for the events is much tougher. The commitment to do these events required me to work hard with no one pushing me but me. It required discipline, planning months if not years ahead, self-knowledge, not only of my body, but of my mind, the ability to overcome setbacks such as bad days, bad weather and injuries. The challenges and discipline of training for events like this are the same as the challenges and discipline needed for living a full life.

6. I learned much about myself, what I can do and that the limits are usually in my head.

7. I have eight major concerns with the mental health system (and thousands of minor concerns. After all, I am bipolar and we are incredibly thorough whenever we do anything (please laugh)).

8. 1. My first and greatest concern is that we redo the language of mental health. Words like illness, disorder, disability and similar define us as disabled, not gifted differently than other people.

9. The book “Neurotribes” has done much to mature my thinking. It talks about how we are different and the importance of accepting being different, not trying uselessly to be like everyone else. “Neurotypical” describes people who have lives like most of their neighbors. “Neurodiverse” describes people like me who are different from our neighbors. We may be perhaps 15% of the population, but we are a tremendous force in our world, dwarfing the neurotypicals many times over.

10. 2. My experience has been that there is very little information given to people with mental health challenges about their diagnosis (diagnoses).

11. 3. Wellness focused life styles should be the primary way of dealing with mental health challenges. Medications should be the alternative secondary therapy given only when necessary.

12. I am unmedicated for bipolar. This requires a disciplined lifestyle of daily exercise and a healthy whole foods diet with an affectionate, understanding mate as the essential elements of keeping me healthy. With a healthy body comes a healthy mind. The Diabetes 2 diet and lifestyle works for mental health in the same way it works for diabetes 2. Doughnuts and coffee do not make a healthy breakfast or a healthy person.

13. 4. Our outreaches miss most of the people who need us. From my experience, most people with mental health challenges live-in low-level crisis, not critical crisis. We need to reach out to barbers, hair dressers, beauticians, massage therapists, tattoo shops and neighborhood bars. These are the settings people tend to talk about their issues. Once we find the people in low level (or critical crisis) we need to assure them that they are worthwhile human beings with a lot to give our world, instead of being garbage kicked into the gutter. People like us unfortunately understand being outcasts; feared and kicked into the gutter.

14. 5. The medical community’s way of perceiving and dealing with what we are is flawed. In the medical community literally, everything from before being conceived to dying is a medical crisis which needs fixing. We are continually focused on “illness”, not on being whole people with real lives who, like everyone else, have physical and mental health issues common to being alive.

15. 6. We need groups which meet in informal situations, so we can learn from each other. The three question groups (how do I feel – does anyone have something they want to talk about – how do I feel now?) serve a purpose, but are not the complete answer. It would be nice if we can have events at restaurants, concerts, dances and other venues, so we can socialize without focusing on “our mental health challenges”.

16. Our families/significant others need to be given the same opportunities as us to meet in casual social situations and talk.

17. 7. We need to focus on our strengths, not our perceived weaknesses. By our nature we are creative people with the ability to find unique solutions to issues facing our world. It is almost impossible to be healthy functioning members of society when all we hear is how sick we are. Let’s hear how whole we are and the unique gifts we have!

18. 8. We need physical contact to be healthy. The mental health system appears to be more worried about coercive physical contact than the huge benefits non-coercive physical contact brings. For me, lack of physical (and sexual) contact with other people puts me in an emotional wasteland.

19. Our needs to be healthy are basic and read like the Four Freedoms of FDR; focusing on freedom from want and freedom from fear: a. We need to be assured we will not be hungry, homeless or without proper medical care. b. We need to be assured that we will not be put into a hospital or a prison against our will and without solid medical reasons. c. We need to know that we will not be given more than the minimal medications we absolutely need to deal with the crisis or forced to take mind/personality altering medications which make us into little more than domesticated sheep or well-trained dogs.

20. Every medication we are given needs to have an exit strategy, not be a lifetime addiction. We need to be trained in the behavioral tools which help us gain freedom from specific medications and groups of medications.

21. Symptoms do not have to get worse with age. With a supportive environment, knowledge of the condition, self-knowledge and training symptoms can decrease.

22. One of our biggest and most glaring voids is lack of everyday role models in our community who show us by example what a healthy lifestyle is and what we can be. Knowing who of our neighbors and friends are like us would be a big help.

23. Finally, we need to be appreciated for who we are, different and differently gifted than most people. This goes a long way to making us healthy and a healthy/vital part of society.

24. Other thoughts:

25. That the concept of “neurodiversity” comes from the language of autism is tremendous. That this group put forward this concept is a surprise to most people who assumed autistic people were incapable of speaking out for themselves. This concept and the speaking out for ourselves is an example the rest of us need to follow.

26. Mental health conditions such as bipolar 2 apparently often come with type 2 diabetes.

27. We are known as Polymaths/Renaissance people, gifted in not only one area of creativity, but many. Exceptional creativity is something I hear continually to describe people like me.

28. Social dance - East Coast Swing, in my case, was an important part of keeping me healthy. East Coast Swing was a great place for me to use my bipolar creativity within the framework of the structure of the dance. Like all real creativity, it does not exist in a void. Rather it requires knowing the structure of the dance first then adding disciplined creativity. It also provided me with the interpersonal emotional contact and human touch I needed to be healthy.

29. Creativity does not exist in an undisciplined void. It is a search for order based on our ongoing past experiences interpreted in new ways; portraying a new aspect of order. It is expressing what was not yet seen in a way that it can be plainly seen/understood by ourselves and other people. It is rarely perfected in one-time inspirations. It is a commitment to work hard to refine what we sense and feel into coherency. I wordsmith fiercely everything to the limits of what I am capable of. Others do the same in their art.

30. We live in paradoxes, which is the source of our creativity. Being able to work with opposites in our lives fuels a creative dialog not only in ourselves, but in society, which can manifest itself in unique and wonderful ways.

31. Outreach – It may be a surprise to most people, but an incredible number of people like ourselves are part of hiking clubs.

32. I learn mostly by reading, listening inside myself and by casually talking to people like me.

33. Bipolar has always been a part of me and always will be. I can embrace and work with it, accomplishing much. Or can I fight and work against it, living a life in continual crisis. My choice is obvious.

34. Once in a while it would be nice to hear that we are valued and treasured, with much to give to our families, communities and the world. We have been given much and have much to give.

35. The measure of our lives is our successes, not our failures; getting up after every fall is more important than the number of falls we make.

37. Richard Gardner rtgardner3@yahoo.com