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Well, I think they do have a clue, but they have no money. They have no money for physical ailments which are nearly always cheaper to treat than mental health. Mental health is the most expensive as it takes up TIME, ie, the paid time of counsellors, therapists, psychiatrists etc etc etc....and that is why it is the wretched Cinderella of the NHS.

Perhaps it's as well, therefore, that there is, after all, a considerable amount of 'self-help' and 'self-therapy' out there on the Internet. It's not the answer - only a fully-funded NHS would be the answer - but it is at least 'something'.
 
To be fair, for many mental health conditions there is no guarenteed treatment. If there was, no rich person would be in anything but 100% good mental health.
 
spell said:
No, self treatment is not the answer, that is a NHS cop out
Click to expand...
Hello Again,

Been a while.

When it comes to some mental health issues like anxiety, depression, stress etc it can certainly help if someone can offer some good guidance, but ultimately, it is self help (working with the self, inwardly) that helps makes the necessary inner changes.

An example. Someone convinces you to change your mind about how you feel about something. Yes "they" guided you, but it's you that changed, not them, hence change is self change.

What does this all mean you ask?

That you are seeking help from others to ultimately change how "you" feel or think or react. Yes can seek help from others, but sometimes we can help ourselves too.
 
No, self treatment is not the answer, that is a NHS cop out
**

It's not an answer, it's using what is available, when the NHS is not. Otherwise one has nothing?
 
spell said:
No, self treatment is not the answer, that is a NHS cop out
Click to expand...
I am not sure of this (although mental health care could certainly improve)

I am diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, and PTSD, suffer with anxiety/depression as a result.

I have had lots of meds. Had the levels adjusted. Had pills to make me sleep. Pills to get me through the day. Enough pills pills pills to make me rattle.

I was hospitalised. Several times.

Several therapists.

Honestly...nightmare.

At no point did anyone say 'your priority needs to be eat well and exercise, and take responsibility for your own happiness'

I was floating around there waiting for a magic pill, the answer, the golden words from a therapist that was going to fix it all. It doesn't exist.

That does not mean that its hopeless though.

See, all the while I was waiting for this miracle cure I was smoking like a chimney. Drinking booze. Eating junk food. Not exercising. Existing basically on this godawful system of junk fuel, little sleep, an inner voice that didn't think well and was determined to finish me off, shame, isolation (in the form of agoraphobia)and then talking to a guy about all my problems as if he knew the answer and could somehow magic it all away.
The best therapy I had? CBT. It helped me to make changes. ME. I Had to do it.

Now don't get me wrong when a lot of my problems stemmed from abuse in one form or another I was absolutely furious that I had to put work in to fix it. How bloody unfair is that. I....rebelled against that for a while in righteous indignation because I am stubborn like that.

Buuut a couple more rounds of hitting the roof then the floor kind of broke me enough to start looking towards saving myself.
It wasn't easy - I do want to say that. Quitting these things we use as crutches is a blinking nightmare, addictive substances like nicotine aside. It's the mental reliance on it that's the devil to break.
I read...a lot about the conditions I live with. I learned my habits. My strengths and weaknesses. I dropped the denial and blinkers and I got ruthlessly honest with myself (and yeah that wasn't pretty and its hard to accept)
Then I made changes. Slowly. Found something about myself I didn't like? Try to change it. But you have to be honest with yourself to do that. It's actually very freeing, at the same time as being difficult and scary.
Healthy food and exercise go hand in hand with fighting mental health issues.
Cant put petrol in a diesel car and expect it to run right...it's the same with our body and mind. To work right, to be balanced, fuel/exercise/maintenance are important.
I took up yoga few years back now. I have a daily practise.
I meditate daily (this is gold for getting a racing brain on track)
I upped my cardio fitness
I also lost a ton of weight over the years and now with prediabetes have a much healthier diet and it is paying off mentally as well as physically. I was getting there anyway but the diabetes scare was enough to make me ditch the remnants

Med free for a while now (years)Thankfully. I have my ups and downs but they are better managed. I work. I have a few friends. A long term relationship and most importantly a much better relationship with myself...honestly? I wouldn't speak to my worst enemy the way I used to speak to myself. Learn to be your own best bud.

You are worthy of putting the effort in to save yourself, you know. You might need a leg up along the way sometimes. It's hard to fix bad thinking with bad thinking, and an outside perspective can certainly help here, but every little step you take in the right direction, helps you towards wellness. I hope you find the health you need, but know that it is possible to help yourself even when you feel like a lost cause. Do the next right thing for you, even though you don't feel like it/see the point, and learn to spot the tricks a negative/angry/anxious brain can pull on you

Be well. Get well. Some of the best most sensitive caring people I ever met were inside the walls of a mental health unit x
 
Amity Island said:
Hello Again,

Been a while.

When it comes to some mental health issues like anxiety, depression, stress etc it can certainly help if someone can offer some good guidance, but ultimately, it is self help (working with the self, inwardly) that helps makes the necessary inner changes.

An example. Someone convinces you to change your mind about how you feel about something. Yes "they" guided you, but it's you that changed, not them, hence change is self change.

What does this all mean you ask?

That you are seeking help from others to ultimately change how "you" feel or think or react. Yes can seek help from others, but sometimes we can help ourselves too.
Click to expand...
I have no idea what you said.
Can you simplify that for a dumb diabetic?
 
Niori said:
I am not sure of this (although mental health care could certainly improve)

I am diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, and PTSD, suffer with anxiety/depression as a result.

I have had lots of meds. Had the levels adjusted. Had pills to make me sleep. Pills to get me through the day. Enough pills pills pills to make me rattle.

I was hospitalised. Several times.

Several therapists.

Honestly...nightmare.

At no point did anyone say 'your priority needs to be eat well and exercise, and take responsibility for your own happiness'

I was floating around there waiting for a magic pill, the answer, the golden words from a therapist that was going to fix it all. It doesn't exist.

That does not mean that its hopeless though.

See, all the while I was waiting for this miracle cure I was smoking like a chimney. Drinking booze. Eating junk food. Not exercising. Existing basically on this godawful system of junk fuel, little sleep, an inner voice that didn't think well and was determined to finish me off, shame, isolation (in the form of agoraphobia)and then talking to a guy about all my problems as if he knew the answer and could somehow magic it all away.
The best therapy I had? CBT. It helped me to make changes. ME. I Had to do it.

Now don't get me wrong when a lot of my problems stemmed from abuse in one form or another I was absolutely furious that I had to put work in to fix it. How bloody unfair is that. I....rebelled against that for a while in righteous indignation because I am stubborn like that.

Buuut a couple more rounds of hitting the roof then the floor kind of broke me enough to start looking towards saving myself.
It wasn't easy - I do want to say that. Quitting these things we use as crutches is a blinking nightmare, addictive substances like nicotine aside. It's the mental reliance on it that's the devil to break.
I read...a lot about the conditions I live with. I learned my habits. My strengths and weaknesses. I dropped the denial and blinkers and I got ruthlessly honest with myself (and yeah that wasn't pretty and its hard to accept)
Then I made changes. Slowly. Found something about myself I didn't like? Try to change it. But you have to be honest with yourself to do that. It's actually very freeing, at the same time as being difficult and scary.
Healthy food and exercise go hand in hand with fighting mental health issues.
Cant put petrol in a diesel car and expect it to run right...it's the same with our body and mind. To work right, to be balanced, fuel/exercise/maintenance are important.
I took up yoga few years back now. I have a daily practise.
I meditate daily (this is gold for getting a racing brain on track)
I upped my cardio fitness
I also lost a ton of weight over the years and now with prediabetes have a much healthier diet and it is paying off mentally as well as physically. I was getting there anyway but the diabetes scare was enough to make me ditch the remnants

Med free for a while now (years)Thankfully. I have my ups and downs but they are better managed. I work. I have a few friends. A long term relationship and most importantly a much better relationship with myself...honestly? I wouldn't speak to my worst enemy the way I used to speak to myself. Learn to be your own best bud.

You are worthy of putting the effort in to save yourself, you know. You might need a leg up along the way sometimes. It's hard to fix bad thinking with bad thinking, and an outside perspective can certainly help here, but every little step you take in the right direction, helps you towards wellness. I hope you find the health you need, but know that it is possible to help yourself even when you feel like a lost cause. Do the next right thing for you, even though you don't feel like it/see the point, and learn to spot the tricks a negative/angry/anxious brain can pull on you

Be well. Get well. Some of the best most sensitive caring people I ever met were inside the walls of a mental health unit x
Click to expand...
Hi,

I don't know you, but I felt really proud reading your story, what an amazing achievement. In the end you realized you had to save you. You've clearly got grit and determination, doing whatever it takes to make life better.
 
spell said:
?. I wish I could get it.
Click to expand...
You said self help isn't the answer. I'm saying it is. Whether you need advice from others or not, the change still comes from within.

For example say someone had a bad habit, like swearing. You could have a thousand people tell you to stop swearing but only you can stop it, not them.
 
Niori said:
I am not sure of this (although mental health care could certainly improve)

I am diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, and PTSD, suffer with anxiety/depression as a result.

I have had lots of meds. Had the levels adjusted. Had pills to make me sleep. Pills to get me through the day. Enough pills pills pills to make me rattle.

I was hospitalised. Several times.

Several therapists.

Honestly...nightmare.

At no point did anyone say 'your priority needs to be eat well and exercise, and take responsibility for your own happiness'

I was floating around there waiting for a magic pill, the answer, the golden words from a therapist that was going to fix it all. It doesn't exist.

That does not mean that its hopeless though.

See, all the while I was waiting for this miracle cure I was smoking like a chimney. Drinking booze. Eating junk food. Not exercising. Existing basically on this godawful system of junk fuel, little sleep, an inner voice that didn't think well and was determined to finish me off, shame, isolation (in the form of agoraphobia)and then talking to a guy about all my problems as if he knew the answer and could somehow magic it all away.
The best therapy I had? CBT. It helped me to make changes. ME. I Had to do it.

Now don't get me wrong when a lot of my problems stemmed from abuse in one form or another I was absolutely furious that I had to put work in to fix it. How bloody unfair is that. I....rebelled against that for a while in righteous indignation because I am stubborn like that.

Buuut a couple more rounds of hitting the roof then the floor kind of broke me enough to start looking towards saving myself.
It wasn't easy - I do want to say that. Quitting these things we use as crutches is a blinking nightmare, addictive substances like nicotine aside. It's the mental reliance on it that's the devil to break.
I read...a lot about the conditions I live with. I learned my habits. My strengths and weaknesses. I dropped the denial and blinkers and I got ruthlessly honest with myself (and yeah that wasn't pretty and its hard to accept)
Then I made changes. Slowly. Found something about myself I didn't like? Try to change it. But you have to be honest with yourself to do that. It's actually very freeing, at the same time as being difficult and scary.
Healthy food and exercise go hand in hand with fighting mental health issues.
Cant put petrol in a diesel car and expect it to run right...it's the same with our body and mind. To work right, to be balanced, fuel/exercise/maintenance are important.
I took up yoga few years back now. I have a daily practise.
I meditate daily (this is gold for getting a racing brain on track)
I upped my cardio fitness
I also lost a ton of weight over the years and now with prediabetes have a much healthier diet and it is paying off mentally as well as physically. I was getting there anyway but the diabetes scare was enough to make me ditch the remnants

Med free for a while now (years)Thankfully. I have my ups and downs but they are better managed. I work. I have a few friends. A long term relationship and most importantly a much better relationship with myself...honestly? I wouldn't speak to my worst enemy the way I used to speak to myself. Learn to be your own best bud.

You are worthy of putting the effort in to save yourself, you know. You might need a leg up along the way sometimes. It's hard to fix bad thinking with bad thinking, and an outside perspective can certainly help here, but every little step you take in the right direction, helps you towards wellness. I hope you find the health you need, but know that it is possible to help yourself even when you feel like a lost cause. Do the next right thing for you, even though you don't feel like it/see the point, and learn to spot the tricks a negative/angry/anxious brain can pull on you

Be well. Get well. Some of the best most sensitive caring people I ever met were inside the walls of a mental health unit x
Click to expand...
This is the single most inspirational post I’ve ever read.
 
Niori said:
I am not sure of this (although mental health care could certainly improve)

I am diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, and PTSD, suffer with anxiety/depression as a result.

I have had lots of meds. Had the levels adjusted. Had pills to make me sleep. Pills to get me through the day. Enough pills pills pills to make me rattle.

I was hospitalised. Several times.

Several therapists.

Honestly...nightmare.

At no point did anyone say 'your priority needs to be eat well and exercise, and take responsibility for your own happiness'

I was floating around there waiting for a magic pill, the answer, the golden words from a therapist that was going to fix it all. It doesn't exist.

That does not mean that its hopeless though.

See, all the while I was waiting for this miracle cure I was smoking like a chimney. Drinking booze. Eating junk food. Not exercising. Existing basically on this godawful system of junk fuel, little sleep, an inner voice that didn't think well and was determined to finish me off, shame, isolation (in the form of agoraphobia)and then talking to a guy about all my problems as if he knew the answer and could somehow magic it all away.
The best therapy I had? CBT. It helped me to make changes. ME. I Had to do it.

Now don't get me wrong when a lot of my problems stemmed from abuse in one form or another I was absolutely furious that I had to put work in to fix it. How bloody unfair is that. I....rebelled against that for a while in righteous indignation because I am stubborn like that.

Buuut a couple more rounds of hitting the roof then the floor kind of broke me enough to start looking towards saving myself.
It wasn't easy - I do want to say that. Quitting these things we use as crutches is a blinking nightmare, addictive substances like nicotine aside. It's the mental reliance on it that's the devil to break.
I read...a lot about the conditions I live with. I learned my habits. My strengths and weaknesses. I dropped the denial and blinkers and I got ruthlessly honest with myself (and yeah that wasn't pretty and its hard to accept)
Then I made changes. Slowly. Found something about myself I didn't like? Try to change it. But you have to be honest with yourself to do that. It's actually very freeing, at the same time as being difficult and scary.
Healthy food and exercise go hand in hand with fighting mental health issues.
Cant put petrol in a diesel car and expect it to run right...it's the same with our body and mind. To work right, to be balanced, fuel/exercise/maintenance are important.
I took up yoga few years back now. I have a daily practise.
I meditate daily (this is gold for getting a racing brain on track)
I upped my cardio fitness
I also lost a ton of weight over the years and now with prediabetes have a much healthier diet and it is paying off mentally as well as physically. I was getting there anyway but the diabetes scare was enough to make me ditch the remnants

Med free for a while now (years)Thankfully. I have my ups and downs but they are better managed. I work. I have a few friends. A long term relationship and most importantly a much better relationship with myself...honestly? I wouldn't speak to my worst enemy the way I used to speak to myself. Learn to be your own best bud.

You are worthy of putting the effort in to save yourself, you know. You might need a leg up along the way sometimes. It's hard to fix bad thinking with bad thinking, and an outside perspective can certainly help here, but every little step you take in the right direction, helps you towards wellness. I hope you find the health you need, but know that it is possible to help yourself even when you feel like a lost cause. Do the next right thing for you, even though you don't feel like it/see the point, and learn to spot the tricks a negative/angry/anxious brain can pull on you

Be well. Get well. Some of the best most sensitive caring people I ever met were inside the walls of a mental health unit x
Click to expand...

Hi Niori,

Good for you - excellent news! Keeping it up!

Blue-16
(Susan)
 
EmmaL76 said:
This is the single most inspirational post I’ve ever read.
Click to expand...
Me too! I was in awe.

Living in a generation where cooking a meal is too much of a struggle or even opening the boot on your car (electric), @Niori showed what some have gone through and was an example to us all of what can be achieved.

The way things are heading at the moment (everything on a plate), we're not going to have the resilience if faced with really difficult situations.

As someone on the forum explained, "storms make for strong wood".
 
Niori - inspirational indeed! Well, well done.

I appreciate that not all mental illness is 'self-helpable' (or, perhaps rather, self-helpable without initial help from outside in some form?)(eg, therapy to illumine the dark places within, and show us how they came to be dark, or, perhaps even, with pills to give us a temporary 'stepping stone' across those 'troubled waters' and dark places)
 
Callista said:
Niori - inspirational indeed! Well, well done.

I appreciate that not all mental illness is 'self-helpable' (or, perhaps rather, self-helpable without initial help from outside in some form?)(eg, therapy to illumine the dark places within, and show us how they came to be dark, or, perhaps even, with pills to give us a temporary 'stepping stone' across those 'troubled waters' and dark places)
Click to expand...
Thank you 🙂

Sadly so many illnesses are not curable and that includes many mental health issues. But not curable doesnt mean cant be improved. I will always have to work really hard to maintain some kind of stability (I hurt my shoulder in the summer and had to stop the yoga for a few weeks...wasnt pretty lol). Its just the way it is, but it doesn't have to be all or nothing like I used to think. I used to feel like I would either always be a total wreck, or I would be cured and (hesitate to use the word) 'normal'. There is this fairly huge grey area in the middle too...and so many folk reside there (far more I think than what I previously thought of as normal...no issues, always happy, never angry or stressed, never make a bad decision...you know...superhuman lol

Every bit of progress along the way counts for something. Doesn't matter if you ever reach cured. A constant motion of slightly better is better than staying still. One day you look back and realise that whoa, my life has changed so much since a year ago, how'd that happen? You pick up so much along the way from strangers on the Internet to highly qualified psychiatric staff if you are looking hard enough (and holding a mirror up to oneself of course)

We all have our demons and battles. The world can be a tough classroom for everyone in it - But you can stick two fingers up to it, and keep moving anyway.

To the OP - if you can't get to see someone, write it all down. Get it out of your head and on to paper. Even burn it afterwards (though don't throw it in a plastic bin like I did once...for an allegedly intelligent creature sometimes I amaze myself...whoops)
Sometimes it can ease the pressure just to acknowledge it (whatever 'it' may be) and give it some air time rather than have it rattling inside your head like marbles in a washing machine. Hope you are feeling a bit better today x
 
Niori said:
Thank you 🙂

Sadly so many illnesses are not curable and that includes many mental health issues. But not curable doesnt mean cant be improved. I will always have to work really hard to maintain some kind of stability (I hurt my shoulder in the summer and had to stop the yoga for a few weeks...wasnt pretty lol). Its just the way it is, but it doesn't have to be all or nothing like I used to think. I used to feel like I would either always be a total wreck, or I would be cured and (hesitate to use the word) 'normal'. There is this fairly huge grey area in the middle too...and so many folk reside there (far more I think than what I previously thought of as normal...no issues, always happy, never angry or stressed, never make a bad decision...you know...superhuman lol

Every bit of progress along the way counts for something. Doesn't matter if you ever reach cured. A constant motion of slightly better is better than staying still. One day you look back and realise that whoa, my life has changed so much since a year ago, how'd that happen? You pick up so much along the way from strangers on the Internet to highly qualified psychiatric staff if you are looking hard enough (and holding a mirror up to oneself of course)

We all have our demons and battles. The world can be a tough classroom for everyone in it - But you can stick two fingers up to it, and keep moving anyway.

To the OP - if you can't get to see someone, write it all down. Get it out of your head and on to paper. Even burn it afterwards (though don't throw it in a plastic bin like I did once...for an allegedly intelligent creature sometimes I amaze myself...whoops)
Sometimes it can ease the pressure just to acknowledge it (whatever 'it' may be) and give it some air time rather than have it rattling inside your head like marbles in a washing machine. Hope you are feeling a bit better today x
Click to expand...

Have you tried Tai Chi.
It's a good alternative if you can't manage yoga at the time?
 
travellor said:
Have you tried Tai Chi.
It's a good alternative if you can't manage yoga at the time?
Click to expand...
I will keep that in mind thank you. I might actually have a go even though yoga is now doable to be honest...I'm sure I can find a beginners video on good old youtube!
 
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