Hunterbullet

I have been reading a lot about the “chemical imbalance” theory is not based on any scientific proof as to explain mental illnesses. What are your thoughts?

My two kitty cat fur babies give me the purpose I need to to hang in there and bring love into my life. They are truly amazing because when I was really sick, my Persian Jasmine, would sleep on the pillow right on the side of me and my Main Coon Fiona, would sleep on the other side of me. They usually didn’t do this. All day long one of them would always take turns laying right next to me. Most of the time they always have their own napping places but it was unusual to have them lay pretty much on me. Come to find out, I had both my lungs full of blood clots and my doctor said I should have been dead let alone walking. My kitties definitely know when something is going on with me. It was so funny that when either Fiona or Jasmine would lay next to me I was thinking “Oh crap! Am I going to die?” They definitely are wonderful creatures.

Thank you! I’ll definitely check out your book!

I love the alligator analogy! Thank you and I have sent you a message. Thanks for all your help:)

Thank you for your reply. That helps clear a few things up for me. I hope you won’t mind if I can ask you some more questions if that’s okay. First of all I want to say I’ve be diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder about 6 years ago. I’m a 43 year old female and have been misdiagnosed as bipolar for about 15 years but I really didn’t get any help as to seeing a psychiatrist and therapists until 9 years ago. I pretty much have a stack of diagnoses like eating disorders, depression, anxiety, insomnia, Complex PTSD, etc. I definitely understand how hard it is to be able to pin down the “main” problem. The problem for me is that I have been high functioning for all those years as to being an “actress” for whatever situation presents itself. Of course I had no idea what was happening but I have had so much trauma keep getting packed on since I was a child and dissociation got me through life but it all came crumbling down and have been on disability for 7 years and what a crazy ride I have been and continue to be on. I live in a small city now and have been through about 7 therapists that don’t know how to treat dissociative disorders and have actually done me more harm than good. I know that I’m a difficult case but I don’t see me being able to go to a therapist in the near future because of the lack of training the therapists around me have about trauma and dissociation. My question is have you treated people with DID or dissociative disorders and if you have, what has been a successful therapy treatment plan for them?

I have studied a lot since I started on disability because I wanted to understand what was happening to me. I’ve been doing my own sort of research on all the amazing advances on child development, trauma and what it does to the brain, pretty much everything that has to do with why we are the way we are and how much emotional pain most of us endure to one degree to another. I love the brain.

Since it’s still not as well understood about chemical imbalances, what trauma does to change different parts of the brain is able to be more clear and understood better? Things like how the fight/flight/freeze/fawn survival instinct, if chronic, can be stuck on which causes a lot of problems in itself. And these painful experiences are stored in the body and can cause physical pain if a person isn’t connected consciously to the emotional pain. Is that a somewhat correct assumption to make? Definitely the temperament of the child, nurturing, environmental factors and what the person has been through in their life is the key to understanding how to treat that person more than anything. In my experience with many therapists I have seen through my life, many do not take the approach of understanding the person as a whole. For instance, if I’m going through the anorexic stage then that’s what is going to try to be treated (unsuccessfully) because then that would all of a sudden go away then I would be extremely manic or extremely depressed. But, I’m always changing all of the time. I have no idea who or what I’m going to be from moment to moment, day to day or month to month. Talk about difficult!

I have so many questions and frustrations about how trauma is often ignored and how so many “specialists” or doctors, psychiatrists, etc. writes books and then do their tour through different media outlets to sell their book. They come up with good theories but it is so simplistic and everyone with, lets say depression, is once again put into a huge box as to the answer of what is to be done with someone with depression. Once again, they don’t take into account all the variables that each person is individual and usually has experienced some sort of trauma through their childhood that creates depression later in life. The actual physical changes in the brains wiring and the nervous system that goes haywire totally gets ignored when that is what needs to be treated to have a more successful outcome to better healing. Am I wrong about these thoughts in your opinion?

I know I just laid so much information on you and I understand if I’m asking too much to be able to just answer in a simplistic way because of complicated matter all of this is. I’m not able to bounce my questions off of someone who has an understanding of these things as I seldom leave my home but there isn’t anyone in my community that has answers. Anyway, thank you for your time and I hope you have a wonderful day today:)