Steps on our Road to Recovery

Steps On Our Road to Recovery for 7 to 13 June 1999.

Published Last Week. A daily hint published each day since June 1996. This is past my third 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 although this non appendix seems to have been left out of the DSM-IVR Desk Reference.

7 June 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,

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

they often do the opposite. Symptoms can lead to healing.

Today's symptom is "grandiosity". This symptom had the following

labels associated with it:

Amphetamine or Cocaine intoxication, Bipolar disorder of manic or mixed type, Cyclothymia, hallucinogen or PCP mood disorder, Narcissistic personality disorder, organic mood syndrome, and Schizoaffective disorder.

What is the opposite of grandiosity? Humble and unaffected. So

with grandiosity we are affected by how wonderful we are. One

cure is realizing that everyone else is just as wonderful. Every

one is capable of the same connections to the lord most high within.

Everyone is equal spiritually, not physically or mentally. Since the

value of spiritual is infinite the value of physical and mental are

not significant.

The challenge is to not get caught up in what may be going on.

We may see wonderful visions, but we remain only the observer

of these wonderful visions. We may be told we are special, but

so will everyone else be told the same.

8 June 1999

Check out some of the new stuff on my free page. The page

featured for today is at http://www.manageable.com. They are

about helping us keep our software up to date. I am about helping

keep our wetware up to date. Their short program looks for key

program files on the drives you specify to identify the programs

you have and their revision level. Then they tell you what is available

on line and give you your download links. It has worked well for me.

It has worked better for me than the program "FirstAid" I bought in

the past.

Now on to the symptoms to discover and recover from. Today

we have "feelings of hopelessness". When we have too much we

could get the the following labels:

Adjustment disorder with depressed mood or with mixed disturbance of emotional and conduct or with mixed emotional features, Amphetamine or Cocaine or Uncomplicated alcohol withdrawal, Bipolar disorder of mixed or depressed type, Cyclothymia, Dysthymia, Hallucinogen hallucinosis or mood disorder, Late luteal phase dysphoric disorder, Major depression, Multi-infarct dementia with depression, Opioid intoxication, Organic mood syndrome, PCP mood disorder, Alzheimers with depression, Schizoaffective disorder, and Uncomplicated bereavement.

In uncomplicated bereavement they recognize that feelings

of hopelessness can be a natural part of grief. The rest of what

they label us as can be complicated grief. They can be ways

that we are expressing our grief. What is missing is them looking

at ways to facilitate us getting through our grief so that we can be

healthy again. They are the ones that feel hopeless for us when

we are going through grief processes. When they get this they

could have feeling of hope that we could catch.

Remember that they are doing the best that they can since

they know not what they do as we know not what we do. When

we learn that we can be going through grief processes that need

facilitation instead of suppression we all will get better faster.

All symptoms are rebirth and grief processes. When we get

that we all will get on with our rebirths and complete our grieving.

9 June 1999

Our symptom for today is "irritable mood or irritability in adults".

The associated labels are:

Alcohol or Cocaine or Opioid intoxication, Amphetamine or Cocaine or Nicotine or Alcohol or Sedative or Hypnotic or Anxiolytic withdrawal, Antisocial or Borderline personality disorder, Bipolar disorder of manic or mixed type, Cyclothymia, Generalized anxiety or Hallucinogen mood or Insomnia or Late luteal phase dysphoric or PCP mood or Post Traumatic Stress or Schizoaffective or Sleep-Wake schedule disorder, Organic mood syndrome, and Pathological gambling.

Irritable is a fancy name for angry. All the labels are

fancy names for angry. Or being mad with a madness.

We are irritable when we have a difference between

what we have and what we want. Sometimes the differences

are unconscious or partly unconscious. What to do? Use all

of the ways to Forgive. Use all of the ways to be more

Assertive. Use all of the ways to become more Conscious.

Use all of the ways to have better Teamworking. FACT.

10 June 1999

Now we have "irritable mood or irritability (in children

and adolescents)". There are some different labels and they

were:

Adjustment disorder with depressed mood or mixed disturbance of emotions and conduct or mixed emotional features, Bipolar depressed, Dysthymia, Hallucinogen hallucinosis, Major depression, Oppositional defiant disorder, and Uncomplicated bereavement were all added to the adult list. Antisocial personality disorder was deleted from the adult list.

The additions and one deletion to the list of labels tells

us more about the biases of the labelers. When you are

young and irritable they can come up with more labels.

But not the antisocial label, perhaps because they think

they can get you under control with enough time, but

with adults that is less likely. The bottom line is that

these labels are about anger. Oppositional defiant

disorder and Adjustment disorders stand out. The

young ones definitely have a difference between what

they see and what they want to see. So, they see red

and exhibit the symptoms of seeing red.

11 June 1999

The next symptom is "marked mood shifts". When

we have too much of this symptom we can get the following

labels:

Alcohol or Sedative or hypnotic or anxiolytic intoxication, Borderline or Histrionic personality disorder, Brief reactive psychosis, Late luteal phase dysphoric disorder, and Organic personality syndrome.

When we have marked mood shifts and are not

consciously choosing to act that way we have lost

some of our power. We have given too much power

to our unconscious. We have given too much of our

power to our parents, to our politicians, to our police,

to other people. Of course this can be about another

form of anger. Of course we would be angry about

giving too much of our power to others. We have

all done this to some extent. We all have marked

mood shifts to some extent under some circumstances.

How can we start taking our power back? By using

our FACT's.

Forgiving,

Accepting,

Consciousness expanding,

Teamworking.

12 June 1999

Our next symptom is "hallucinations". Hallucinations

are associated with many labels. That is why there are

fears about admitting that we have them. Some young

doctor, as an experiment, went to a mental hospital and

said they heard a "thud". They labeled him and put him

in the hospital. The staff never got it that he was "normal".

The patients got it that he was "normal". It was written

up in the journal "Science" years ago. We still have some

of the same stigmas and ignorance today. Here are the

labels that we might qualify for:

Alcohol or Hallucinogen or Organic hallucinosis, Alcohol withdrawal or Amphetamine or Cocaine or PCP or Alzheimers or Sedative withdrawal or hypnotic withdrawal or anxiolytic withdrawal delirium, Bipolar disorder of manic or depressed or mixed type, Brief reactive psychosis, Cocaine intoxication, Delirium, Hallucinogen or PCP mood disorder, Major depression, Multi-infarct dementia with delirium or depression, Organic mood syndrome, Posthallucinogen perception disorder, Alzheimers with depression, Schizoaffective disorder, and Schizophrenia or undifferentiated type.

Those that are admitting that they are seeing and

hearing and feeling things that others are not admitting

may just be the more honest and sensitive ones.

13 June 1999

Today we have the symptom "illusions or perceptual distortions".

A more polite way of saying hallucinations. And, a shorter list of

labels:

Alcohol withdrawal or amphetamine or PCP or Cocaine or Sedative or hypnotic or anxiolytic delirium, hallucinogen hallucinosis, Multi-infarct dementia or Alzheimers with delirium, Posthallucinogen perception disorder, Schizophrenia, and Schizotypal personality disorder.

We all have some illusions or perceptual distortions. We have

unconscious biases. We have conscious biases. We could only

see reality when we were totally at peace. We may approach

peace and then find that something that we still upset ourselves

about. Never the less, finding more peace is of great value. One

way to find more peace is to just outlast the illusions and perceptual

distortions.

Very Respectfully,

Michael Foster, MA

DiscoveryCoachemail

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.