Saffron - Eat the Stigma

I was just following up from a Dr Amen piece on Instagram, I was reading about the really wide ranging effects of the Ayurvedic herb Saffron particularly for eye health as I’m finding my eyes are sore a lot from screens & they water in sunshine since going into presbyopia a couple of years ago. So I remembered the brain eye link, that eyes are really visible bits of brain so that’s all nervous system & Saffron is highly neuro protective, a very valid attribute by itself but there’s much more.

It has particular positive gut relaxation benefits & generally reduces inflammation & all cause oxidative stress in the brain & nervous system, making it especially likely for Alzheimer’s & ADHD, it promises cognitive & mood improvement as well as physiologically enhancing overall experience of sex for both genders, really, what’s not to like 😂😉

So I thought to check for my daughter who has Fibromyalgia & has low mood & anxiety way too much of the time but can’t be coaxed into any therapy atm & sure enough its a really good bet for Fibromyalgia support.

And I just thought personality disorder management and searched for articles & sure enough Psychology Today covered it among others.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inner-source/201601/saffron-emotional-health

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9781906/

https://drtorihudson.com/general/consider-saffron-for-fibromyalgia/

https://www.lifeextension.com/magazine/2016/7/saffron-improves-vision-in-aging-humans

A quick search showed Swanson do a nice pure stigma product 15mg very cheap & I was so thrilled by the irony of dual word meaning 🤷‍♀️ I find those irresistible, that I felt I had to post it on here. You wouldn’t want more than 1 cap twice a day - I will go in at just one a day & see how I feel, I might not need it but I do like to try things.

Not all Therapy is Equal

I’m deeply frustrated with a situation with a friend who has life long really, untreated, very severe mental health issues & who is currently getting ‘therapy’. Essentially this person has worked with someone who’s core training is Hypnotherapy for many years which is valid & for many, most people with a more regular nervous system that would be plenty of self development for an entire lifetime. The problem is that my friends issues are of some of the most, if not *the* most difficult particular, specific combination of issues that require really intensive specific therapy to unknot.

This kind of help is absolutely available, it’s not cheap & there are not loads of people offering it of a high calibre but the therapists are there & they are essential, absolutely essential to healing this particular group/combination of nervous system/ mental health difficulties. Dr Ettensohn (below) has a waiting list, his NPD specialism makes him an expert in the structure of both NPD & BPD & of course the overlap which I think we both have tbh, we have mirror yin yang of these I think, me & my friend, both amidst other issues, it’s complicated. You could request his suggestions for therapists.

Otherwise, the types of therapy to look for, there’s a whole bunch: Schema Therapy, Transference-focused Psychotherapy, Mentalisation-based Treatment, CBT/DBT, MIT/IPT & Psychoanalysis, any of these will help massively.

Tinkering around the edges absolutely will not do it & is skiving off the real work. I only recently realised what his therapist was doing when he went to his therapy after being in very low mood & came back more armoured, more stoically attached to his defences than I’d seen him for ages & the penny dropped for me. This therapist is just tinkering around the edges, providing a feel good affirmation when what’s needed is excavation & reconstruction with these very specific techniques listed which have a proven track record across the personality disorders.

So this is an intentionally vague note & is mainly a missive of comm to him, a warning, you are treading water as the current pulls you out, away from the shore & your dearest hopes & dreams for your life, there is a life boat nearby but you need to beckon it, wave to it, shout to it, a rubber ring won’t do, the storm is rising, hail the professionals, do it now or drift on a few more years treading water getting ever more lost, missing even more love, it’s up to you but I want you here, back on dry land open to sanity & affection, open to friends in the real world wherever you happen to be.

On Cultivating Courage - Pema Chodron & Father Greg Boyle

 

A quite long but effortless & delighting conversation between two heavyweight Bodisattvas. Pema Chodron & Father Greg of Homeboy Industries.

“You’re Here!”

Fear & Fearlessness - Pema Chodron

 Love this whole lesson 💜🩷

Re: Psychosis

 Never believe that you are weak because you have or have had psychosis, never believe the cruel inner voices that insists you must be, they are complete BS. When psychosis happens it is because the lid on what you’ve been using super strength & masses of will power to suppress has been blown off by something, could be anything in my experience big or small but I think it’s generally accepted that a wide range of different types of losses or perceived losses can easily do it.

It seems that, us pwPD’s at a very very early age built really serious defences against re experiencing what we experienced as unbearable. These are now ***past*** traumas that you have already survived in your early childhood. You literally survived them by making the pain of them, your emotional response to them, completely inaccessible to your conscious mind.

So a psychotic break it that stuff getting out into your conscious mind, only it’s festered now & it often appears to be highly disorganised as it leaks through the cracks of your fortifications. Like confusing toxic soup has replaced your experience of life. 

In my experience it will be accompanied by extensive body sensations which apparently lack much coherence & are very tiring & debilitating to hang out with for long. Persevere as much as you can with being body conscious but your primary job is holding the attitude of kind detachment whilst caring for your body as best you can ( get help if necessary) & not judging yourself for anything.

You can interrupt the inner judge & dismiss him, just say I don’t choose this anymore whenever he attacks, this can work really well, gradually dismantling that old unwanted inner conflict. Observing harsh voices in psychosis is tough work. Physical mvt & resting is important.

Psychosis is incredibly painful & desolate, I do know, but ***it will stop***, it absolutely will so maximise its potential for growth & write, paint, draw, walk, breath, eat, bathe, run anyway but massively start to learn to rest. You so deserve to learn how to rest, not just if you are in crisis but all of us need this, this is what balance is. 

We’ve made workaholism noble but it is not noble in many cases it’s another defence against knowing yourself & really finding out how to care for yourself & so a way to avoid healing yourself. It might be that things you did, creative things you do now used to console you, move you fwds - they might not be fulfilling that purpose anymore for reasons beyond your control. Only you know if they are.

Be honest with yourself if they are or if they really aren’t & it will be temporary, normal service will be resumed. So in the mean time you are being asked to try something new, likely with unwavering external support from a trusted professional ideally. Else holding the fact that this will pass, & you will be changed by it likely for the better.

You’ve been holding out on yourself so long, let breakthrough happen, let doing something differently happen, pref with help but always always let kindness be your light. Love you.

Are you the Psychosis or the Watcher of the Psychosis

 This is not the blog I said I’d write on instagram yesterday- I just don’t have time to do that idea justice right now, soon hopefully Ive been making notes - that one was simply about the relative impermeability of the brain & nervous system dysfunction & pain of ADHD & Autism versus the innate healability of the trauma based mental illnesses ie in my case Bipolar & BPD which I’ve moved mountains in my non med self management of, before & since diagnosis.

This was just a brief note, a reminder for a friend. I’ve lived at length with the despair, disarray & inner destruction, sometimes outer destruction that comes with extended bouts of Psychosis many times in my life without any support whatsoever. And I say this with complete confidence, it cannot harm you or make you do anything if you, as far as possible, you just observe the ffffer. 

It’s why madness is a ladder to great self knowledge, because when you stay present & detached ala Buddhism no resistance detachment not the auto dissociation bs which is a programme all with PDs run easily when in trouble, you win. Any body awareness you can maintain is a bonus.

Speak soon.

Dr E & not being found

 

This is my favourite episode of Dr Ettensohns podcast atm. I’ve listened to it several times & find it really helpful. I’m going to unabashedly promote his peerless work on the understanding & healing of NPD & for myself personally, the facets of BPD, the construction of it, that overlap with NPD are also being dealt with too.

I was discussing recently with my daughter who also has a range of nervous system damage with BPD traits from her traumatic childhood with me as her undx & unsupported profoundly mentally impaired mother - she mentioned her bodily self perception being that of a kind of amorphous blob & it reminded me of a description I made of myself, my own self perception of life in my body back on MySpace, back in 2006 when I first ventured to share something of my self publicly.

I felt very ‘thing’ like back then, very shapeless, amorphous & nonhuman on a self perception, interoception level. I said to her that I didn’t feel that way now after so much work, pre & post dxs. I feel like a human being now, with feelings that come & then actually go after, sometimes not even that long in time! Quel surprise! To not be permanently in a void, disassociated or otherwise in intense prolonged emotional pain of varying depth….. mostly too deep to be doing much else without finding something to block it out with. I’m very grateful as well as proud to have changed like this.

Anyway, there’s so many top quotes I could take from the video but I’ve got to go out now so I might add some later or tomorrow. Otherwise just watch it & share share share this Dr who is currently standing as a sole outpost of sanity in the pwNPD or BPD webosphere where damning & indeed stigmatising this population of the mentally & emotionally ill has been completely normalised.