Category: Recovery

Resource Management

by Joshua, posted in Blog, Mental Illness, Recovery

All we have to work with is that which we have to work with.  When I was sick, I felt that I didn’t have what I needed.  I didn’t have enough resources to get me through.  Whether it was my physical energy levels, money, relationships, or opportunities, I felt that I didn’t have enough.  If only I had “fill in the blank”, I could make it.  I could heal.  I could move forward.

After my first relapse, I got to a point where I was tired of feeling at the mercy of my situation, and of the people around me.  I was tired of feeling oppressed by my surroundings.  I made the decision to take 100% personal accountability for my life.  It didn’t matter what others did to me, or what society offered or didn’t offer me, I was going to take responsibility for my own life.  It didn’t matter how much I suffered, I was going to own it.  When I came to this decision, I remember feeling so empowered.  No one else had control over my life!!!

As I put my decision into action, I realized that I had to manage my own resources, and utilize what I had available (even if it seemed to fall short) to move forward.  The first resource that I decided to utilize was the medication.  I was going to take my meds (at least until I found another solution) until I got back on my feet and gained the additional resources that I needed.  I worked whatever jobs I could, such as washing dishes or stocking shelves, even if I knew I was overqualified.  I was on Social Security disability for eight years, and I sacrificed buying many material possessions that my friends and others had, to make ends meet.

I did what I had to do to move forward.  If I couldn’t walk for an hour a day, I walked for five minutes a day.  I humbled myself before people who didn’t deserve it, and I ate huge helpings of humble pie that I didn’t deserve.  I swallowed my pride, and I bore my suffering with as much grace as I could muster, and I kept moving forward, day after day.  I later realized that it was “strength training”, and it gave me incredible faith, strength, love, and compassion.  As it turns out, my illness has been one of the greatest blessings in my life.

People used to tell me that God wouldn’t give me what I couldn’t handle.  I didn’t believe it at the time, and thought that it didn’t apply to me, and that I couldn’t handle my situation.  But I did handle it.  I believe that each one of us is perfectly suited to our own lives.  What we have around us is what we have to work with, and it is what we need to grow and to move forward.  It is our manure for growth.  Maybe it doesn’t seem ideal from our perspective at the time, but it will strengthen us and teach us lessons.  I believe that everything happens for a reason, and ultimately for the highest good.

I wish you the very best on your journey.  God bless you!!!

 

Celebrating 4 Years Medication-Free!

by Joshua, posted in Blog, Medication, Recovery

I battled schizoaffective disorder for ten years and was on pharmaceutical medication for most of that time.  The last time that I had to take medication was in June of 2013.  Since then, I have been able to maintain full-time work, have gotten married, bought a home, and feel better than I ever did before the illness.  I am healthier and happier, and I am pursuing my dreams.

While I did have some symptoms return last summer (which I attribute to a final test after my book was released, as well as my brain adapting to the heavy metals being removed), I still consider myself healed for four years now.  The incident last summer did not require me to go back on medication.  People have challenges in life, some of which bring them to their knees, and they rise up and keep going!  This does not always require a label.

The homeopathy was an essential part of my healing, and in helping me to get where I am today.  It helped me to maintain balance without pharmaceutical medication, so that I could work on rebuilding my life without the “dulling” side-effects that I experienced while medicated.  Here are some links to information and resources on this site about homeopathy:

Homeopathy Resources, Practitioners, and General Information

Blog Post:  Homeopathy Was The Answer To My Prayers

Podcast Episode:  How Did I Heal? Homeopathy.

The most in-depth explanation of how homeopathy helped me to heal is in my book, Healing Schizoaffective:  A Firsthand Look At The Illness And How I Beat It!

After four years of taking homeopathy daily, prescribed by a naturopathic doctor, I discontinued it in December of 2016.  I wouldn’t be where I am today without it, but it had served its purpose and I had found something that I believe got to the root cause of the illness even more than homeopathy.  I believe that heavy metals collecting in the brain play a role in psychotic illness.  I have been drinking a super-food based smoothie every morning for about two years now to address this issue, and I feel so much better mentally, physically, and emotionally.  You can learn more about this in the following blog post:  Got Heavy Metals On The Brain?

If I were someone currently suffering from schizoaffective disorder, or another psychotic illness, I would probably do the homeopathy in conjunction with the smoothie for a couple of years, until I felt that the heavy metals were out and until my life had been rebuilt enough to a point where I felt stable and out-of-the-woods.

One of the greatest lessons that my illness taught me was to free myself from fixed belief systems.  When someone has a false belief with a mental illness it is called a delusion, but when someone has a commonly-held false belief and is functioning in society it’s just considered normal.  My beliefs and delusions were keeping me sick and were ill-adapted to my functioning, so I had to learn to let them go.  We can either be loyal to a belief system, or we can be loyal to the truth.  This is a challenge that we all face, whether or not we have a mental illness!

My experience has proven to me that healing is possible.  I wish you the best on your healing journey as well, and in your search for truth.  May God bless you always!!!

 

Let It Strengthen You

by Joshua, posted in Blog, Heavy Metals, Recovery, Spirituality

Whether or not you have a mental illness, life has its challenges.  That’s true for all of us, and there are times when each one of us is tested to our core.  Mental illness is particularly challenging because the inability to function that it creates has a cascading effect that can affect all areas of our lives, including relationships, job, finances, physical health, and more.  Not only that, there tends to be more judgement (from others and oneself) of the person who is ill than one would receive with a physical illness, such as diabetes or cancer.

The truth of the matter is, the illness is not your fault.  You’re the same person inside that you were before the illness, and that you will be after the illness.  Something is causing the illness, and it’s not YOU!!!  After having been medication-free for over 3 1/2 years with the help of homeopathy, and now homeopathy-free for a couple of months, I currently believe that heavy metals in the brain plays a huge role in creating mental illness.  For more information about that, and how I heal it, check out my blog post “Got Heavy Metals On the Brain“.

If you’re in the thick of it, I’m sure that the last thing you want to hear is to let your challenges strengthen you.  When I was sick, I felt so weak that I could barely survive.  What I’m really saying, is that it WILL strengthen you.  The paralyzing fear that I felt for a decade eventually burned away.  Eventually, you get to a point where it loses power over you.  When life crushes you past your breaking point, beats you to the ground, and holds you there, repeatedly, it feels like it’s crushing your dreams.  The blessing in disguise is that it’s also crushing your ego.  You stop caring what other people think of you.  You stop measuring yourself by external expectations, or societal benchmarks.  You discover your true worth, the love inside you, which is inherent and can never be taken away.

The fact that you have a mental illness, in my view, demonstrates that you are already an incredibly strong person.  I don’t believe that God would give us challenges that are beyond our capacity to get through.  When people told me that while I was sick, I thought “yeah right, that’s not true for me, I can’t do this”.  Now that I’m on the other side of it, I feel stronger than I ever have before, I’m less afraid than I ever was before, and I’m a better person than I ever was before.  I wouldn’t wish what I went through on my worst enemy, but if me going through that somehow made the world a better place, somehow revealed some light in the world, I would do it again.  One of my greatest fears during the illness was that I would never heal, that I would never be able to lead a normal life and find fulfillment.  Now that I’m free of it, I’m not afraid of it anymore.

I’m here to tell you that healing is possible.  The illness will strengthen you, whether you like it or not.  It will make you more compassionate.  It will bestow on you wisdom and understanding that will someday enrich your life.  I feel for you, I really do.  I’ve been there.  I’m sorry for the hardships that you’re enduring.  Just know that you’re not alone.  Your experiences matter.  You matter, just as much as every other living soul on this Earth.  God bless you!