Coping without meds
Question:
Having dabbled with Zen myself, I think you’re on to something. The "Monkey Mind" is obviously a key ingredient in anxiety/panic disorders and anything that will quiet it such as walking meditations, repeating a mantra, etc. has got to help. I also am strongly convinced that repeated practice of writing down your distorted thoughts/images and debating with them helps break the "bad habit" of anxiety/panic disorder. Anyone that believes that these disorders are strictly due to bad brain chemistry should look at the research involving the comparison of CAT scans in groups of people treated with cognitive-behavioral therapy and with medication. The results are essentially the same.
In my view, both methods of treatment address the same thing and, I don’t doubt, both are capable of achieving similar ends – though, in what proportion of cases, I’m not sure. I think the point is less that the success of behavioural, meditational or cognitive techniques disproves the physical causation of A/PD, than that they provide another means of addressing it, useful to some. Similar’ technqiues are, of course, useful in other physical conditions, such as hypertension. — Gary Cooper
Response:
JS What’s more significant, though, is that this is *Zen in America* JS — a very small group, percentage-wise. It attracts a certain kind JS of people. So it’s more of a demographics issue than a theological JS one. In a strict sense, Zen has no teachings at all, so it JS certainly has nothing to say about medicine. Having dabbled with Zen myself, I think you’re on to something. The "Monkey Mind" is obviously a key ingredient in anxiety/panic disorders and anything that will quiet it such as walking meditations, repeating a mantra, etc. has got to help. I also am strongly convinced that repeated practice of writing down your distorted thoughts/images and debating with them helps break the "bad habit" of anxiety/panic disorder. Anyone that believes that these disorders are strictly due to bad brain chemistry should look at the research involving the comparison of CAT scans in groups of people treated with cognitive-behavioral therapy and with medication. The results are essentially the same. W. Beeman Optimism: "Confidence in our ability to think and to cope with the basic challenges of life." Nathaniel Branden
Response:
Hi Mike — Thanks for your post. I don’t know what kind of culture this Jordan fellow is talking about, some kind of religious sect.?
It’s Zen Buddhism. Not exactly a sect, though call it what you like. I think we all have enough medical problems to cope with, so that we don’t have to take seriously a groups that opposes science and medicine.
What’s more significant, though, is that this is *Zen in America* — a very small group, percentage-wise. It attracts a certain kind of people. So it’s more of a demographics issue than a theological one. In a strict sense, Zen has no teachings at all, so it certainly has nothing to say about medicine. If someone wants to be strong, he should join a football team or something, not fight against medical science and psychiatry. What will you do when you need an operation, call a witch doctor?!!!
Great response. I agree with you 100% (though there may be non-western doctors who don’t deserve to be called "witch-doctors") – Jordan Singer
Response:
I don’t know what kind of culture this Jordan fellow is talking about, some kind of religious sect.? I think we all have enough medical problems to cope with, so that we don’t have to take seriously a groups that opposes science and medicine. If someone wants to be strong, he should join a football team or something, not fight against medical science and psychiatry. What will you do when you need an operation, call a witch doctor?!!! MIKE
Response:
I JUST STARTED A NEW DRUG CALLED SERZONE, SO FAR IT IS NOT ALL I HOPED IT WOULD BE. I STILL GET ANXIOUS. HAS ANYONE TRIED THIS ONE/ LEB
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi Tammy — Thanks for your reply. You might be interested to know that I associate with Zen Buddhists a great deal, and many of them also have these "puritanical" hang-ups about medication (usually in favor of Eastern Medicine). This is the "culture" to which I referred in my original post. I find Buddhists often at 180 degrees to Christians on many things, but not this one. I think that in many areas there is a sort of universal mindset. Both of these religions reach for purity one of mind, one of faith. There is no purity if you depend on something outside of yourself to retain that purity, such as medication. Both of these religions teach that humans have a bit of the divine in them and so should be able to survive and maintain purity without the help of the world.
Actually, in Zen Buddhism there’s no purity, no outside and inside, and no self to be pure and impure. Also no "divine" and "not divine" (or at least no word for it. Some call this "emptiness" or "don’t know"). And yet, there are still these rigid attitudes about medication that (IMO) would befit the most fundamentalist of Christian sects. I think maybe this has more to do with demographics — What kind of *Americans* find themselves practicing Zen? Probably people who already hold these "alternative" views about "evil medicines." Taking the "non-med" route is great. There are many things to be said for it. But it pains me to see people (and I do see them), for whom the non-med approach does not seem to be working, who won’t even give medication a try. I agree. Tammy Lassiter
– Jordan Singer
Response:
Hi Tammy — Thanks for your reply. You might be interested to know that I associate with Zen Buddhists a great deal, and many of them also have these "puritanical" hang-ups about medication (usually in favor of Eastern Medicine). This is the "culture" to which I referred in my original post. I find Buddhists often at 180 degrees to Christians on many things, but not this one.
I think that in many areas there is a sort of universal mindset. Both of these religions reach for purity one of mind, one of faith. There is no purity if you depend on something outside of yourself to retain that purity, such as medication. Both of these religions teach that humans have a bit of the divine in them and so should be able to survive and maintain purity without the help of the world. Taking the "non-med" route is great. There are many things to be said for it. But it pains me to see people (and I do see them), for whom the non-med approach does not seem to be working, who won’t even give medication a try.
I agree. Tammy Lassiter
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I think there are several reasons people try to go without medication. Our society often looks down on people who are ‘mentally ill’ as abnormal, weak, failures of a sort. To start taking a medication is to admit to ourselves that we fall into a group outside of the norm. We often feel we have failed to meet the Puritan ethic of work hard, ignore the pain, and never ask for help, and so we are weak. I had been trying to do this without medication and none of the above reasons apply. I don’t give a damn what people think about me. My fear is of the medication itself–side effects, dependency, rebound anxiety, etc., etc., etc. Iris — If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy all her friends?
I understand why this could also be a concern to many people. Especially with the media’s tendency to focus on the "negative effects" of the medications that are focused on people with mental health problems. I guess in my case I had seen others on the medication that I was going to take and did not see any side-effects that really worried me. At the time I started my meds, I was also so far gone in depression and anxiety that I was willing to take almost anything to try to be myself again. I have never considered killing myself (even then) but I couldn’t imagine living the way I was for the rest of my life if all I had to do was deal with a few side-effects. I didn’t have the courage. Every situation is different. Every person has to make their own decisions. What I posted before reflected conversations I had had with others in similar situations to mine. I have never talked to someone who came at the decision from your side. I have now and I find it very enlightening. I applaud you for your courage. You obviously have much more than me. I hope you are doing well. Tammy Lassiter
Response:
Hi Tammy — Thanks for your reply. You might be interested to know that I associate with Zen Buddhists a great deal, and many of them also have these "puritanical" hang-ups about medication (usually in favor of Eastern Medicine). This is the "culture" to which I referred in my original post. I find Buddhists often at 180 degrees to Christians on many things, but not this one. Taking the "non-med" route is great. There are many things to be said for it. But it pains me to see people (and I do see them), for whom the non-med approach does not seem to be working, who won’t even give medication a try. Take Care — Jordan – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Our society often looks down on people who are ‘mentally ill’ as abnormal, weak, failures of a sort. To start taking a medication is to admit to ourselves that we fall into a group outside of the norm. We often feel we have failed to meet the Puritan ethic of work hard, ignore the pain, and never ask for help, and so we are weak. It is does not help that the medical community and society at large view medications that address basic issues of well-being such as pain control, anxiety/panic control and the people who need them with suspicion and and so leave us feeling slightly tainted with evil evil. I know from experience that the stress from the medical community not to take my Ativan is so strong that I often suffer far longer with the anxiety than I should have with the attack getting worse, because I feel like I am losing standing and credibility with my therapist and psychiatrist by doing so. I litteraly need the medications I am on to function, but I often feel almost on the level of a street drug user. It’s hard to start medications if you have been raised deep in the Puritan ethic like I have. If you are not on the meds yet, you don’t know how they can help and you are afraid of looking out of place. If you are on them you have to deal with the mix of feelings of failure and disgust that you need something to help you make it through the day. Tammy
– Jordan Singer
Response:
I think there are several reasons people try to go without medication. Our society often looks down on people who are ‘mentally ill’ as abnormal, weak, failures of a sort. To start taking a medication is to admit to ourselves that we fall into a group outside of the norm. We often feel we have failed to meet the Puritan ethic of work hard, ignore the pain, and never ask for help, and so we are weak.
I had been trying to do this without medication and none of the above reasons apply. I don’t give a damn what people think about me. My fear is of the medication itself–side effects, dependency, rebound anxiety, etc., etc., etc. Iris — If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy all her friends?
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I would like to start a support goup in the Rhode Island area for fellow Panic Disorder and OCD sufferers who are coping without medication and wish to remain off meds. Please contact me if you are interested in helping me form such a group. Thanks… Pardon me if this is a bit off-topic, but I’m curious. I am immersed in a culture which, through demographics if nothing else, is very resistant to the idea of treating *anything* (short of diabetes) with medication. I would really like to hear from those people who feel that it’s important not to use medication, about why they feel that way. I know so many people who are resistant to going on medication, but have very little understanding of their specific reasons. <snip
I think there are several reasons people try to go without medication. Our society often looks down on people who are ‘mentally ill’ as abnormal, weak, failures of a sort. To start taking a medication is to admit to ourselves that we fall into a group outside of the norm. We often feel we have failed to meet the Puritan ethic of work hard, ignore the pain, and never ask for help, and so we are weak. It is does not help that the medical community and society at large view medications that address basic issues of well-being such as pain control, anxiety/panic control and the people who need them with suspicion and and so leave us feeling slightly tainted with evil evil. I know from experience that the stress from the medical community not to take my Ativan is so strong that I often suffer far longer with the anxiety than I should have with the attack getting worse, because I feel like I am losing standing and credibility with my therapist and psychiatrist by doing so. I litteraly need the medications I am on to function, but I often feel almost on the level of a street drug user. It’s hard to start medications if you have been raised deep in the Puritan ethic like I have. If you are not on the meds yet, you don’t know how they can help and you are afraid of looking out of place. If you are on them you have to deal with the mix of feelings of failure and disgust that you need something to help you make it through the day. Tammy
Response:
Hi Jordan, For myself, I am not opposed to medication. What I dislike is to require it to function normally. To go to the doctors, and feel like a junkie needing drugs. To have everybody and their brother giving me articles and such about natural rememdies, that I *did* try and didn’t work. To have my family look at me in a different way, always suspicious of me now. To spend my limitted income on doctors, prescriptions, tests, ect. I have tried many times to go without medications, to try any alternative therapy, ect… but these things do nothing except give me false hope. Medication appears to be the only option left. The only thing that helps me to survive.
Thanks for the insight. Sounds like this has to do a great deal with social attitudes about drug addiction and about mental illness ("If you need meds, you must really be psycho…"). Also the whole prescription system, in which doctors, who area supposed to be working *for* us actually exert control over us by wielding the key to the medicine chest, one that contains things that we need to live withoud suffering. Thanks again — and hope you are well… – Jordan Singer
Response:
I am immersed in a culture which, through demographics if nothing else, is very resistant to the idea of treating *anything* (short of diabetes) with medication.
I would really like to hear from those people who feel that it’s
important not to use medication, about why they feel that way. I know
so many people who are resistant to going on medication, but have very
little understanding of their specific reasons. Note that I am not in any way opposed to the non-med. approach.
Hi Jordan, For myself, I am not opposed to medication. What I dislike is to require it to function normally. To go to the doctors, and feel like a junkie needing drugs. To have everybody and their brother giving me articles and such about natural rememdies, that I *did* try and didn’t work. To have my family look at me in a different way, always suspicious of me now. To spend my limitted income on doctors, prescriptions, tests, ect. I have tried many times to go without medications, to try any alternative therapy, ect… but these things do nothing except give me false hope. Medication appears to be the only option left. The only thing that helps me to survive. Lee (taking whatever it takes to make her feel better) I’d rather have you hate me for who I am, than love me for who I’m not. (Author Unknown)
Response:
I would like to start a support goup in the Rhode Island area for fellow Panic Disorder and OCD sufferers who are coping without medication and wish to remain off meds. Please contact me if you are interested in helping me form such a group. Thanks…
Pardon me if this is a bit off-topic, but I’m curious. I am immersed in a culture which, through demographics if nothing else, is very resistant to the idea of treating *anything* (short of diabetes) with medication. I would really like to hear from those people who feel that it’s important not to use medication, about why they feel that way. I know so many people who are resistant to going on medication, but have very little understanding of their specific reasons. Note that I am not in any way opposed to the non-med. approach. Thanks to any who respond. – Jordan Singer
Response:
I would like to start a support goup in the Rhode Island area for fellow Panic Disorder and OCD sufferers who are coping without medication and wish to remain off meds. Please contact me if you are interested in helping me form such a group. Thanks…
Response:
AT&T schreef: I would like to start a support goup in the Rhode Island area for fellow Panic Disorder and OCD sufferers who are coping without medication and wish to remain off meds. Please contact me if you are interested in helping me form such a group. Thanks…
It mioght be a good idea to post your message at ARPASH also if you have not already done so. Philip Peters
