RBD's Different Kind of Therapist's Hint of the Day for this Week

RBD's Wholeness Consultant's Hints for Fellow Travelers on The Road to Recovery for 10 to 16 Aug 98.

Published Last Week. A daily hint published each day since June 1996. This is past my second year anniversary since starting this site. Page Down for the next days that are added a day at a time. I have moved to http://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 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.

10 Aug 98

"295.xx Schizophrenia" has a long definition. So let's go through the

definitions one by one. The first part of the definition has two of the following:

delusions, hallucinations, incoherence, catatonic, flat, inappropriate. The

hallucinations need to be long & frequent and not momentary. There is a

tendency here to not consider that there is a range of hallucination experiences.

There is a range of delusions, incoherence, catatonic, flatness and inappropriateness.

In fact the DSM is doing some black and white thinking that cognitive therapy

would find questionable.

The range of syndromes concept is well explained in the book Shadow Syndromes,

The Mild Forms of Major Mental Disorders That Sabotage Us. So, we all have

some delusions, hallucinations, incoherence, catatonic, flat, inappropriate characteristics.

One just has to have enough to acquire the diagnosis. Those doing the diagnosis have

to have enough of their own to perceive the same in others. I have to have some stupid

in me to recognize stupid in someone else. I have to have some schizophrenia in me to

recognize schizophrenia in others. Not something that most doctors want to admit.

11 August 1998

There is a tee shirt that says: "I do whatever the voices tell me to do."

I once knew a panhandler that was asking for money as a homeless person. They

kept swearing and spitting and telling about their demons. I was going to my masters

program at the time, so I would practice my new skills with this person. The most helpful

skill I had learned was to be a non judgmental friend. After a couple of years, they graduated

to taking better care of themselves and dropping the swearing and spitting and demons. I

graduated to just taking better care of myself and continuing my new life.

I once knew a diagnosed schizophrenic person that was in a dependent system with

their mother. The mother and the adult held religious fundamentalism type views and I was

not able to be their friend. They wanted judgmental friends. Hanging on to judgments was

the nature of their system disease. Their views of how limited God is for them was what

was in the way of them letting God heal them. They had both asked for my view as to whether

God could save the head demon, Satan. They were really asking could God save them, the

demons that they had created and or attracted. I believe God can and have see God do so.

They did not want to work with someone with that view. They did not know that they really

did not want to get well, so far. They were doing the best that they could with what they were

conscious of.

The DSM goes on to say that functioning in work, social, and self care is much below the

level before the disease was triggered. That is a good description of the two cases above.

What we can learn from both of these cases is to be non judgmental friends, no matter what

the other person does. That includes whether they want such a friend or not.

12 August 1998

Another break from the "disorders" of the DSM.

I ran into the Mike Williams Ministries, a real Christian minister, a rebel like Jesus at

http://www.gospelrevolution.com. You will get a better idea of what Mike William's message

of grace is about at http://www.angelfire.com/in/Jesus2/index.html. He has audio messages on

how much of the church systems have missed the messages of the atonement by their teaching

of law instead of grace. As he puts it, they have mixed the blood of the old covenant with God

with the new covenant. He has a link to the Gospel of Peace Home Page at

http://home.ican.net/~735713/gop/.

You might be interested in checking out any of my other links here.

13 August 1998

Today I improved my presentation on The 12 Steps to Insanity. I am finally learning how

to better use my computer tools. It now loads faster and is much more clear.

14 August 1998

Today I improved my presentation on Spiritual Coaching. I helped a friend with setting up

his computer and he gave me an update to my program since he had a better program. I also

added some references to my page on doing these web pages. I also added Envoy readers to

my download page available from my registration page.

15 August 1998

Now back to schizophrenia and a DSM description. First there is a description of an active

phase with at least a week of either delusions, hallucinations, or inability to communicate. Then

there is a warning phase that they call "prodromal" and a continuing phase that they call "residual".

What has been observed is that there can be a warning phase with similar symptoms and

sometimes there is no warning. Sometimes there is a varying amount of the active phase and

continuing phase. In other words there is a varying amount of the symptoms intensity over varying

amounts of time. However, you must have at least a week of the high intensity symptoms or you

do not qualify, unless you can show that they helped you out of the symptoms. Then they have

descriptions of the course of the "disorder". They are "1-Subchronic, 2-Chronic, 3-Subchronic

with Acute Exacerbation, 4-Chronic with Acute Exacerbation, 5-In Remission, and

0-Unspecified". The numbers 0 to 5 are the last digit in the 295.xx number for schizophrenia.

The next to the last digit in 295.xx is for different flavors of schizophrenia. They are 1 for

disorganized, 2 for catatonic, 3 for paranoid, 6 for residual, and 9 for Undifferentiated. I guess

I would have to give them a 1 for disorganized, since they had the flavor order of 2, 1, 3, 9,

and 6 and the course order of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 0. As I said before, we all have some degree

of these symptoms or we would not see them in others. Now you can also give some of our

homeless people a number.

Next week I hope to address each symptom, one by one. I may not because I am not

always organized. I have levels of organization at different times. I do not know anyone that

does not.

16 August 1998

First let's talk about delusions. We have all deluded ourselves to some extent. We have

all hyptomized ourselves into seeing what we want to see consciously. We also all have some

hyptomization of ourselves into seeing what we want to see unconsciously. The question is

really about whether we are becoming more deluded or less deluded. Some schizophrenics

may be seeing more of reality than some so called normal people. We all interpret what we see

differently. So seeing without delusions is rare. Recovery is about discovering the real.

An example is in Discover magazine on "Feelings of a Phantom Limb" in February 1998.

We find that people born without limbs or that lose their limbs still feel their limbs. The perspective

in the magazine is that somehow the brain creates the feelings of the limbs that are not there. A

spiritual perspective is that our destiny is programmed into our field and that is what we are feeling.

But, we are feeling that through our body system, so both perspectives have something to add.

I Foster Living in Grace,

Michael Foster, M. A.

"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.

14 August 98