Month: July 2013

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More on Life-ers. (Those darn perdy dandelions.)

Taraxacum, seeds detail 2.jpg

Image via Wikipedia

I had an interesting comment a couple of days ago on the concept of Life-ers.

If you have a weed in your garden, you pull it.  If there’s something wrong in your life, you don’t fall in love with it.  You get to weeding.

However, there are Life-ers that are both weeds to pull and weeds to just plain garden I reckon.

We here at FriendtoYourself.com, got one of the most practical life examples of a Life-er.  It is both one that can be weeded and one that cannot.  Emily said in response to blog-post, One Woman’s Struggle,

…I have been a self-identified compulsive overeater (or binge eater) since I was a child. It has always loomed large (pun intended) in my life. I have successfully dieted and lost 30-40 pounds at a time, and then I’ve gained everything back — with interest. It has been my obsession and my bete noir.

Eight years ago, out of pure desperation, I went to a Overeaters Anonymous meeting. I didn’t necessarily like it at first, but I recognized my problem as an addiction. If you hold my experience up next to an alcoholic’s, there is no difference. I struggled a long time with the program, but today I am living what OA calls an abstinent life. My definition of abstinence is three reasonable meals a day with nothing in between. I am shrinking to a healthy body weight.

I have also developed my spiritual side and my relationship with my higher power (that I get to define) is what makes it possible to eat like a normal person. My obsession has been lifted, one day at a time. Like an alcoholic, this is not something I can do on my own.  This is supported by about 25 years of data.

I am experiencing freedom I couldn’t even imagine walking in the doors of my first meeting — freedom from fat, freedom from compulsion, openness to change and growth and a life that is no longer nearly as self-centered.

Sana, you asked if it helps to think of it as an addiction — for me, it’s not an analogy; it IS an addiction. I use the Big Book for the solution. My recovery is just like that in any other program.  And it’s the ONLY thing that made a difference — not just for me, but for the dozens of people I share OA with. I hope this is something health professionals will understand one day. OA is an underutilized tool, and I think that could change with better understanding and guidance.

Thank  you Emily for your story.  I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind.

Addictions is a weed we could more often agree is a Life-er.  That is not to say there are not those of us who think that they can yank and be done with, but the general consensus in medicine is that addictions are Life-ers.

There are other Life-ers besides addictions.  Recurrent major depressive disorder, treatment resistant major depressive disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, okay – a gazillion other medical illnesses that will not be eradicated by weed killer or a gloved garden-grip.  There are also non-medical Life-ers, such as poverty, natural or unnatural disaster, stigma and so forth.  We could even use the biopsychosocial model to catalogue them if we wanted.

One of the things that intuitively sits poorly about Life-ers in our culture and communities is the perceived helplessness that can soil it.  However, we are not implying helplessness at all.  The opposite in fact. Just as this courageous Emily described, when we take care of ourselves, when we befriend ourselves, we take accountability for where we are now, our yards improve neighborhoods.  We have more freedom and choice.

For the world out there who is scared to garden over the long term, let’s get over ourselves.  What we are growing is worth the space we occupy and of high value.  You may never know it but we are and have bank to show for it.

Questions:  What is your response to those who call your Life-ers weeds to pull?  What are some examples of Life-ers you have fallen in love with and how did you? How do you get away from perfectionism? Please tell us your story.

Self-Care Tip – If there is a weed in your life you can pull, pull it.  If you cannot, or if you do and it just keeps growing back, fall in love with it and grow a garden with those perdy dandelions.
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Use something other than your condition to mark your value

typical American family, September 1940

typical American family, September 1940 (Photo credit: austinevan)

I do not really want to examine my faith.  It is just a paper flower.  Where my faith comes from, now that excites, like a outlet into energy.

Watching, The Grapes of Wrath 1940 drama film directed by John Ford, tonight with my family, we all knew that we were frail, one or two missteps from disaster.  One of us asked,

“Why wasn’t it a big deal when someone died?”

Oh, but it was.  The people were breaking, could barely dig a grave for their family member, and that may have come across to a youngin’ as if they did not care.  When we are breaking, we look at life differently.  It is a big deal.

Casy says it at Grandpa’s burial, “All that lives is holy.” Chapter 13, pg. 184

I see this in patients sometimes.  People who are done with the bull.  People who know that whatever it is they thought was so great about themselves is just rubbish.  People who know they are more than the sack of skin that holds their fire.  These people are looking for where their life comes from, for a moment of realness to fuel on.  And these people taking medications, getting electroconvulsive therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, scraping at life to survive, these people are.

However, we do not really want to examine our hard work, though it is so close to what makes life great.  Our courage and grit rises up like a green mountain.  Where our grit, hard work and courage comes from, that is Holy.

There is strength and Holiness there, no matter about our condition.

Question:  What is special about humanity?

Self-Care tip:  Use something other than your condition to mark your value.

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The Tabouli Song

Oh my freaking word! This is so funny. I am crying over here.

My Brother and his family came over today to visit with sweet moves and perfect middle-eastern minor cords coming off them. The great GoRemy is now a favorite.

I wish I had seen this before reuniting with my family from Lebanon yesterday at my parents home. They are just in from Beruit and, my word! The stories they live. I am glad GoRemy will bring a smile to their faces. They are in a terrible war and live yet with hope, although death is all around them.

“Why are you going back?!” I asked them.

I wanted to wrap each them up in some filo dough and take them home with me forever.

I cannot explain exactly why they are going back soon. Who can explain the reasons why we each want to be home. Reading, “Sarah, Plain and Tall,” by Patricia MacLachlan, with my kids the other day, I remembered their fight with the land that betrayed them during the dust bowl. I remembered their dad, as if he were my own, running out into the hard weather to save what he could. They were hungry, overworked, thirsty and looking at each other for meaning. Their fear of losing what they loved was as intense as their fear of any disaster.

“Caleb Witting: Seal was worried. The house is too small, we thought, and I am loud and pesky. Anna Witting: We thought you might be leaving us because you miss the sea.
Sarah Wheaton: Well, I’ll always miss my old home, but the truth of it is, I’d miss you more.”

And I guess for my relatives, it is no less of a conflict.

I hope you enjoy “The Tobouli Song,” with us and think about your own story. Keep on.

Self-Care Tip: Explore what makes you go back.

Questions: What makes you return… Or not? What do you call home and why? Please tell us your own story of what is worth it to you.

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A Note of Thanks For Collaborating

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June 30, 2013

You
Friend to Yourself
Colleagues
Practitioners
Referral Sources

Hello,

I just wanted to send a note of “Thanks!!!!”
Thank you so much for including us in the care of your patients.  I hope we continue in your and their trust.

Practicing variety psychiatry brings me toward my quality of life experience and I am grateful.  I am not alone in this but blessed to be included in a fantastic team and community of treatment providers.

We believe passionately that our own quality of practice experience is the first step to engaging in a patient-doctor relationship.  Connection brings change and so our patients become a changing force in our lives with their courage.

Our patients work through multiple modalities, pressing toward healing and presence with electroconvulsive therapy, treatment-options awareness groups, medications, psychotherapy, and homeopathic remedies.  If there is more we might benefit from in practice, please let us know.  This is a life-journey we are honored to share.

Keep on.

Dr. Q

951-677-2333 ECT Centers, Medical Director
PrimeTelepsych.com Personal cell available, Concierge Telepsychiatry
951-677-2333 Treatment-Options Awareness Community Groups
800-670-4960 Pharmaceutical Research, such as, for those who cannot afford care otherwise – Principle Investigator
PatientFusion.com or (951) 514-1234 Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic
FriendtoYourself.com Us, you and I, Writing and Public Speaking