ON MENTAL WELLNESS: Prioritize the Body
The brain is the most important organ of the human body--you already know that. Conceivably, any organ in the body other than our brains could be artificially, or by transplant, replaced. Yet if your brain doesn't work, there is no point. Psychiatric drugs modify brain function with the intent of producing a patient who can conform to what is needed in society. Medication does not mean the end of consciousness--it marks a change to consciousness.
Antipsychotics suppress brain activity. That's how they work to stop hallucinations and delusions. But it also equals out to fewer and less abilities for someone who takes antipsychotics. You can't create and sustain as much activity. You are fighting against a drug in your system that wants to shut things down. If you try to defy that, it can be very painful. You could be up against a barrier of the physical side-effects of meds. To accomplish things, you need to elevate the serotonin. If you don't do that, you will be out of sync with what your body is able to do.
Of course, it is not great that antipsychotics suppress brain activity. It doesn't precisely mean that the drugs are making you dumb. It means you have less overall ability. For example, before I took antipsychotics, I was quite a powerful reader. Today, I can read about eleven pages of a book, and anything after that generates painful side effects--in some cases, anxiety. Writing, for me, generates less of a problem than reading. I don't understand why this is. However, if we work an area of function enough, the antipsychotics have less power than they otherwise would to shut down function in such area.
I have noted that some who work as providers of treatment in the mental health treatment system categorize many of our inabilities as generated by the illness with which we were diagnosed, when actually a deficit is sometimes produced by the medication interfering with our abilities. And this is not to say the illnesses don't do a lot of horrible things to us, and not to say that we don't truly need medication to address these problems.
Antipsychotics do more to protect the brain than they do toward ruining it. For this to be true, it assumes that you need antipsychotics to protect you from psychosis. Psychosis does more to damage the brain than medication. In this way, appropriate medication helps protect the body. Yet inappropriate medication, such as when a doctor prescribes way too much or too many, or when medication is given at too low a dosage, does not help the brain, which is part of the body.
If you do right by your body, it is more likely that your body will do well and last. Part of maintaining the body is where you choose the needs of your body above and beyond activities that others or you might want you to accomplish, activities that are over the top and that could compromise the systems. I am not a doctor or biologist. However, I am keenly aware that if I exceed what my body can readily to do, I will pay consequences. You don't normally want to prioritize performance above wellness. Our bodies are a gift, sometimes a fragile one, and if we wreck the body, which can happen with too much force, what have we got left?
Aside from antipsychotics, anyone can sustain damage, meds, or no meds, through exceeding physical, mental or emotional limits. A factor in this is what we are acclimated to be able to do. If you've been running ten miles a day for the past ten years, it is less likely that you'll be damaged by excessive exercise (such as a stress-induced heart attack) versus someone not accustomed to exercise who tries to run. If you are accustomed to high stress situations and crowds, such as if you're a politician, even if you're in your seventies, your blood pressure might not get very elevated by activities that many others would consider excessively stressful.
We should be aware of the things that are truly bad for us, versus something for which we could potentially develop a proficiency, through repeated practice. The truism "no pain, no gain," is true some of the time. At other times, I would put forth the slogan: "Heed your pain." It doesn't matter whether you're trying to do something you "ought to be able to do" or something you are expected to do. If you can't do a task or activity because it will be damaging to your mental or physical health, you might want to decline it, when and if you are at liberty to refuse. Some things you can't get out of. In that circumstance, think of coping mechanisms, and think of the possibility of taking breaks.
I stopped doing the 330-mile drive between Martinez and Ashland, Oregon where in-laws live. I had done it many times, but medication combined with age take a toll. I did not feel that it was a wise thing to try any longer. In one instance, I found myself driving with my wife in the mountains in a blizzard of snow, in a two-wheel drive Nissan Altima, with no snow chains. I lucked out, as I was behind a snowplow. Even so, I had to be very attentive. A number of four-wheel drive pickups decided to pass me on the right, presumably because they didn't want to be behind me if I were to spin out--they didn't want any part of what they believed could be a multi car collision. The feared spinout didn't happen. And I made a few more such trips afterward. But it was at some point that I instinctively knew I should not do that drive any more.
It is advisable for anyone to learn their actual limits and not to go past them; I don't care who you are or whether you are considered disabled. And this includes limits that may not make sense to other people, or maybe even yourself. If something is bad for you, you should recognize it.
People could accuse you of being lazy or a troublemaker if you don't do what they expect you to do. You must decide which is more important, and I am not going to tell you which way to decide. A person could have some form of authority over you that entails complications if you fail to do as they expect. Therefore, each situation is different. If merely dealing with someone's opinion about you in the absence of consequences, the weight of the opinion is or maybe none.
In situations of someone's health and safety being in jeopardy, there are instances where you have to take action, whether this stresses you out too much or not. While we have limits, and while exceeding them could take a toll on your condition, you may encounter situations in which you don't have an alternative, when something really needs to get done.
Especially, and this brings up another topic entirely, don't strain yourself to "rescue" a person in a codependent scenario. There is no shortage of people who will take advantage. When you have something going for you, this attracts scammers. A classic example is where there is an attractive woman who enlists the help of a needy man, one who has no actual chance at having the woman. The woman could need to be "rescued" in a number of situations where she has brought about problems, and the unfortunate man is left cleaning up the situation in the hope he will get a little bit. This also happens when the roles are reversed in terms of gender, but it is less common. As I say, this is another topic, but I felt it was necessary to bring it up, since a person who has someone duped could cause fool involved to exceed his capacity.
And I want to add here a note on sleep. When we lack sleep, we shortchange our bodies. When we try to do without sleep, it is bad for nearly all of the systems in the body. A night job is not appropriate for someone with psychiatric illness. Failing to sleep at night and be awake during the day, except maybe for taking some naps, in other words, a reversed sleep cycle, is detrimental.
Jack Bragen is author of "Jack Bragen's 2021 Fiction Collection," and "Instructions for Dealing with Schizophrenia: A Self-Help Manual."
