Steps on the Road to Recovery

Steps On the Road to Recovery for 7 to 13 Sep 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. Instantaneous cures do 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.

7 September 1998

Continuing with manic symptoms we find ""more talkative than usual or pressure to keep

talking". Somehow it is OK to talk a lot as long as you always talked a lot. Of course a

change to more talking can be from more energy. Some are already high energy and talking

is one way they use their energy. As I wrote earlier, change is resisted. What could be

wiser is to assist anyone who has the energy to talk a lot, or gains the energy to talk a lot,

to learn how to contain and transform this energy. Energy in any form is a gift.

Next we have "flight of ideas or subjective experience that thoughts are racing" is very

similar. This time our energy is coming in a different form. This is the same challenge,

but perhaps more challenging. This time the energy is closer, in the mind. Perhaps it

might be easier for some to meditate with noise in the mind instead of coming out of

their mouth. Flights of ideas and racing thoughts are just another form of grandiosity.

The energy source is the same. How the energy is modulated is just in different forms.

Next we have "distractibility, i.e., attention too easily drawn to unimportant or

irrelevant external stimuli". This time the energy is increasing our sensitivity. This

reminds me of Attention Deficit Disorder [ADD]. Add is a misnomer in the first

place because the challenge is more about easy distraction than deficit of attention.

The previous symptoms and the following symptoms have the flavor of ADD also.

The same comments apply to all of the symptoms. Let's save some more for tomorrow.

8 September 1998

The next symptom is "increase in goal-directed activity (either socially, at work or school,

or sexually) or psychomotor agitation" where we again have an increase in energy. The last

symptom in this set of symptoms is "excessive involvement in pleasurable activities which

have a high potential for painful consequences". You know, things like sex, spending, and

silliness. The only difference is that the energy is now directed in different directions. All

these symptoms of "mania" are just energy that has not been integrated. All I have been

teaching here is how to integrate spiritual energy. That is all mania is, spiritual energy with

a bias to be removed.

9 September 1998

There are two types of manic described. The first type is where there is impairment of

functioning and that is labeled "Manic Syndrome". The second type has the same symptoms

but the person is able to function and that is labeled "Hypomanic Syndrome". Hypomania

is defined as low intensity in Webster's dictionary, but in the DSM-III Desk Reference the

symptoms can have the same intensity, but the person is functioning at work and socially.

This is what I would call energy with success. In the bible JC only describes the energy

as anger when it is without success. This is a key point. The first type can be transformed

into success by the skills I teach. The second type can be transformed into more success

with the skills I teach. The catch is that there must be a willingness to check out new skills

to see if they work for them. People that insist on being right and righteous will be stuck

in their righteousness and the madness that goes with righteousness.

10 September 1998

They also require that there are no delusions or hallucinations during the mania. In

other words they are looking for no mixed symptoms. They are looking for these

mania symptoms to not be in addition to schizophrenia, psychosis or delusions or

organic cause. Perhaps they have a different number for mixed cases later. In

real life we see many mixtures of many symptoms. They asked for three of the above

symptoms or four when irritable was one of them. To me this is just another indicator

of the degree of of the challenge.

Then they go on to define the fifth digit in the code numbers for the severity of the

mania. 1 = mild, 2 = moderate, 3 = severe, 4 = psychotic, 5 = partial remission,

6 = full remission, and 0 = unspecified. I would have preferred 0 for remission,

1 for partial remission, 2 for mild, 3 for moderate, 4 for severe, 5 for psychotic.

Then it would be a rating scale with the features of a spectrum. It is important

to think in terms of a spectrum and continuum. At the psychotic level they allow

for hallucinations that are in agreement with manic themes and those that are not

in agreement.

11 September 1998

Now we have a depressing subject, "Major Depressive Episode". Manic was

sure more fun for me than the depressive part. Depression for me is about fear to

be all that you are in the circumstances that you are in. As I have been resolving my

fears I have been becoming less shy. If I had expressed my fears as anger, I would

have had a more difficult time. For me, depression is just another coping method.

Now I can have my manic energy and need to do nothing with it or do something

rational with it as I choose.

As with manic they only are looking for a change from previous conditions.

They are looking for at least five of the following nine symptoms for two weeks.

As I wrote before we all have some level of all symptoms. The only question is

how much now and what now.

First there is a depressed mood most of the time. Children and adolescents are

allowed to be irritable, but by the time they are adults they better be just depressed.

Then there is diminished pleasure. You know, not too much pleasure and not too

much irritability, just be just right. Then there is weight changes without dieting.

Then there is insomnia, restlessness, fatigue, guilt, indecisiveness, and death thinking.

They have the usual qualifications of not of organic cause, and not hallucinations

and not superimposed on other illnesses.

The first suggestion specific for depression is to learn how to fully feel the

sadness. I learned to feel my sadness and uncomfortableness over some years. I would

have got out of it sooner if I had known some of the skills I have been teaching here.

Now I feel sad easier and happy easier. They go together. Feeling sad does not have

to be anything bad when you realize that feeling our sadness is how we recover.

11 September 1998

The descriptions for levels of depression from remission to psychotic are the

same as mania. The "Melancholic Type" adds new levels. The loss of pleasure

is more complete, the depression is more in the morning, little movement, loss of

response to medication, coming out of the blue or after recovery. The path of recovery

are still the same even though the challenge is more.

Now that we have described the symptoms, we can move on to labeling and

numbering them. First we have "296.6x Bipolar Disorder, Mixed". The "x" is for

the level of mania. Since this is mixed, I do not know why they do not have a level

of mania and a level of depression, because they could be different. For mixed you

need to qualify for both the manic and the depressive symptoms except you only

need one day of depression to qualify. :)) We qualify for 296.4x manic bipolar

when we were most recently manic and we qualify for 296.5x depressed bipolar

when we were most recently depressed. There is nothing unique about bipolar,

our energy is either moving out or moving in and shifting which direction. We

are not just stuck in our energy movement. There is a milder longer term "301.13

Cyclothymia" that we can qualify for when we have longer than a year and are

not too severe. The amount and the time are less significant than what we are

doing to recover.

13 September 1998

This is a good day for a break of the DSM "disorders". Today we have an

opportunity to learn some more about forgiveness. We have an example of a

need for forgiveness and for a new life in our president. We need to see how

we are effecting ourselves about this soap opera. Out of how we are effecting

ourselves we can see what we need to forgive in ourselves. For instance, we

may say that he "should" not have allowed himself to be seduced. Then we can

look at how we have allowed ourselves to be seduced. We can look at how we

have seduced others. Then we can forgive ourselves for judging ourselves as a

seducer and as a seducee. Then we can forgive ourselves for judging those in the

soap opera as a seducee and seducer. We have all been sucked into something.

I will leave all the other examples to those that come up for you.

I Foster Discovery and Recovery,

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