Steps on our Road to Recovery

Steps On Our Road to Recovery for 24 to 30 May 1999.

Published Last Week. A daily hint published each day since June 1996. This is past my second year anniversary since starting my web pages. Page Down for the next days that are added a day at a time. I have moved to http://www.recoverybydiscovery.com and this daily page is now here at https://www.recoverybydiscovery.com/daily.htm . I would appreciate any feedback, questions and suggestions that you have.

What I am mainly going through now is the DSM-III-R Desk Reference a "disorder" at a time and commenting on the spiritual and recovery aspects. The DSM is what the American Psychiatric Association uses to label symptoms to facilitate communication in their community. Unfortunately, the labeling from the DSM can shut down communication with those seeking temporary assistance and spread the stigmas of mental illness. The DSM can also bring some comfort by telling some that others have had the same experience. I am adding additional comfort by pointing to some ways to start getting out of the "disorders". I am not writing about cures. I am writing about how the cure process works over time. Instantaneous cures can be as traumatic as the original event that generated the disorder or illness. Instantaneous cures may not do us any good, when we get the same disorder back, since we have not changed the thought system that caused the disorder in the first place.

I am just going to give you a picture of what is left in the DSM-III for us to discuss. There is an Appendix A with three disorders that they thought needed more study before they coded them. Then there is Appendix B with decision trees to help give us our codes. Appendix C has an alphabetic listing of the "disorders". Appendix D has a numerical listing of the codes they use. And lastly they have an appendix with out a letter. That is a list of symptoms with all the name that they can call us. I found it significant that they did not just call this Appendix E. It seemed like they are avoiding the simplicity of just using symptoms. I am not going to avoid that here.

24 May 1999

What we are continuing this week is to go through the major symptoms

and all the labels we can qualify for from these major symptoms. The

symptoms are a lot simpler than the labels. That is what I am doing,

shift the emphasis from labels to symptoms. Labels do not cure, they

often do the opposite. Symptoms can lead to healing.

Today's symptom is "avoidance behavior". This one is pretty

clear on how it is related to fears. We are avoiding what we fear.

Who among us does not avoid something either consciously or

unconsciously?

What can they label us when they catch us avoiding too much?

Here is the list from the DSM-III that I could not find in DSM-IV.

Sometime what is not included is more significant than what is

included. The list for avoidance behavior follows:

Avoidant personality disorder, Borderline personality disorder, Dependent personality disorder, Panic disorder with agoraphobia, PTSD, Separation anxiety disorder, Sexual aversion disorder, Simple phobia, and Social phobia.

25 May 1999

The next symptom is a serious one. This symptom is about

being taken seriously. This symptom is a "suicide attempt". I

can understand something about this symptom. When I was going

through weeks of terror, I can understand someone wanting to

give up, to want to stop the process of that disease. In my case

the labels they gave me was bipolar and another doctor had the

label schizophrenic. My family was afraid that I might be at

risk for this symptom. What they all did not know or listen to

was that I never considered anything like that. The only option

I was looking at was recovery and discovery of how to recover.

The fears in this symptom may be of the diseases we are

recovering from or of what we do not accept about our lives.

This is a definite sign that there is a large difference between

what we think we want and what we have. Major anger. Major

forgiveness needed.

Here are some of the labels that we qualify for when we choose

a serious symptom like a suicide attempt:

Bipolar disorder of depressed or mixed types, Borderline personality disorder, Hallucinogen mood disorder, Major depression of single or recurrent types, Multi-infarct dementia with depression or depressive episode, Organic mood syndrome, PCP mood disorder, Alzheimers with depression, and Schizoaffective disorder.

26 May 1999

Our symptom today is "distractibility". When we are distracted,

and we all get distracted sometimes, we have something that we

are reacting to that we do not know why. Our unconsciousness

is distracting us to tell us some more about our unconsciousness.

When we are distracted enough we can get labeled by many

labels:

Alcohol withdrawal delirium, Amphetamine delirium, ADHD,

Bipolar disorder of mixed or manic type, Cocaine delirium, Cyclothymia, Delirium, Hallucinogen mood disorder, Multi-infarct dementia with delirium, Opioid intoxication, Organic mood syndrome, PCP delirium or mood disorder, Alzheimers, Schizoaffective disorder, Sedative or hypnotic or anxiolytic withdrawal delirium, and Undifferentiated ADD.

27 May 1999

The symptom for today is "impaired judgment". When we

have impaired judgment and we all have impaired judgment

sometimes, we just do not have all our presence present. We

are just too unconscious of what we are unconscious of. We

may have done it to ourselves by being in enough pain and

anger to take dangerous substances or taking dangerous thoughts.

When our judgment is impaired enough we can qualify for

the following long list of labels:

Alcohol or Amphetamine intoxication, ADHD, Bipolar of mixed or manic type, Borderline personality disorder, Cannabis or Cocaine intoxication, Cyclothymia, Dementia plain or associated with intoxication, Hallucinogen hallucinosis or mood disorder, Inhalant intoxication, Mental retardation, Multi-infarct dementia, Opioid intoxication, Organic mood syndrome, Organic personality syndrome, PCP intoxication, Alzheimers, Schizoaffective disorder, and Sedative or hypnotic or anxiolytic intoxication.

28 May 1999

The next symptom is "memory impairment". When we do not

have enough access to our memories, we are the ones blocking

our memories. Blocking is a form of damning is it not? Actually

not remembering everything, especially at once, is a blessing.

Even when we remember what we want, we are remembering

with what ever biases we have. We do not know the extent of

our biases ,since many of our biases are unconscious.

I have had even past life memories presented to me. I say

presented to me, since there is no way to tell how accurate they

were. They may have been true. They may have been taken

from our collective unconsciousness. They may have been

made up to just tell me something. They were related to some

issues that I had. That is the important thing, they were what

I needed to forgive. They were what I needed to find a blessing

in. They were that blessing.

When we have too much memory impairment we can get the

following labels:

Alcohol amnestic disorder or withdrawal delirium, amnestic syndrome, Amphetamine delirium, Conversion disorder, Delirium, Dementia, Dementia from alcoholism, Multi-infarct dementia with delirium, Opioid intoxication, PCP delirium, Alzheimers with delirium, Sedative or hypnotic or anxiolytic amnestic disorder, Sedative or hypnotic or anxiolytic intoxication, and Sedative or hypnotic or anxiolytic delirium.

29 May 1999

Check for what is new on my free page.

Our next symptom is "decreased appetite" and "increased appetite".

They are the same symptom in many ways. They give us the same

labels following labels when our appetite changes too much:

Adjustment disorder with depressed mood, Bipolar of depressed and mixed type, Dysthymia, Hallucinogen mood disorder, Major depression of single of recurrent episode, Multi-infarct dementia with depression or depressive episode, Organic mood syndrome, PCP mood disorder, Alzheimers with depression, Schizoaffective disorder and Uncomplicated bereavement.

Is it not interesting that opposite symptoms give us most of the same

labels? Is this not another indication that the symptoms are more

important than the labels? We can be depressing ourselves and eating

less or we can be depressing ourselves by eating more. In either case

we are choosing to depress ourselves as our coping mechanism. We

are coping with something that we can not cope with in better ways.

That is because we do not know better ways.

We can get a few different labels when we have too much increased

appetite:

Cannabis intoxication, Late luteal phase dysphoric disorder, and Nicotine withdrawal.

Cannabis is just a chemical stimulation and Nicotine is just removal

of a chemical suppression resulting in a bounce back stimulation. Late

luteal phase dysphoric disorder was just a tentative diagnosis in DSM-III.

30 May 1999

I am really excited about one of the latest free programs I loaded

yesterday. That program is "NetCaptor". This program allows us to

have a more user friendly browser for MS Internet Explorer 4 or 5.

The price of admission is ads in the upper right corner. It has a much

easier use and management of "favorites" web sites. It allows easier

switching between multiple pages. You can stop annoying popup

windows. You need to explore all the alternatives available to

appreciate this program. ******

Today our symptom to look at is "decrease in energy or fatigue".

This is a significant symptom. The psychological term of disassociation

is a significant term. That is when we have dis associated from part of

ourselves. This can come from trauma. This can come from rejected

parts of ourselves. One can say we are not all there, so to speak. And,

we ALl are not ALL there.

When we have enough of this disassociation of our energy we can

qualify for the following labels"

Adjustment disorder with depressed mood, Amphetamine withdrawal, Bipolar of the depressed or mixed type, Cocaine withdrawal, Dysthymia, Hallucinogen mood disorder, Inhalant intoxication, Insomnia disorder, Late luteal phase dysphoric disorder, Major depression of single or recurrent episode, Multi-infarct dementia with depression, Organic mood disorder, PCP mood disorder, Alzheimers with depression, Schizoaffective disorder, Schizophrenia, Sleep-Wake schedule disorder, Uncomplicated alcohol withdrawal, Uncomplicated bereavement and Uncomplicated sedative or hypnotic or anxiolytic withdrawal.

Very Respectfully,

Michael Foster, MA

Coachemail

https://www.recoverybydiscovery.com or

http://i.am/rbd; Total-DC or 868-2532

or 868-6749

Very Respectfully,

Michael Foster, MA

Discovery Coach

https://www.recoverybydiscovery.com

DiscoveryCoachemail

"Learn HOW to recovery by discovering the blocks you need to remove and the actions you need to take and what you need to let go of as your blocks to your blessings."

From my book in process, The Spiritual Cookbook (Generic Recipes for a Better Life)

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I started my daily page, because it is useful for me to look for some recovery tip or secret each day for my spiritual growth. we and I only need one secret to work on and let it work on me each day. They are secrets because they are usually the opposite of what the majority of society teaches. They must be secret because they are not commonly used. A friend of mine once said "Common Sense is not much in Common.". Now that I have grandchildren I am also writing for them. I would have really liked for my grandparents to have passed on what they learned.

I am including Sunday as it is my formal day of learning the lord most high's secrets. If you would like ask questions, or contribute some of your wisdom, or want to make some comments or want to vote for which day to put on my tip of the month page or tell your success stories, click Michael Foster, M. A.