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Health for the Mind
Have you ever wondered how other people have great lives? Have you wondered why they are happy, and more importantly, why you are not? Life is not a cruel joke. Happiness and a fulfilled life are not the result of some huge mystery with keys to answers that cannot be known to you. Happiness is the result of effective communication, caring for yourself resulting in you being able to care for others. Happiness is not giving everything away to a detriment of your self. Happiness is the result of good management of your physical, mental and emotional health, your time, your relationships and your money. You must manage your resources so there is never famine and have a good understanding of your excesses so your investments will bring profit. Managing your resources involves effort in several different areas of your life: 1. Your mental, emotional, physical, spiritual health While managing your resources, problems will ultimately result. There is a tendency by some people to avoid their problems and according to Scott Peck in his book The Road Less Traveled, “the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness.” Peck says since many of us have the tendency to engage in this type of behavior in some degree. Therefore, mental health is an issue of concern for all humans. It is my belief mental health is an issue that has demanded resources far outweighing what the manifestation of poor physical health and its demands on our society for resources has made. To some degree, I believe is we can deal with the issues of mental health or lack thereof, many of the behaviors responsible for producing poor physical health can be extinguished and/or improved. Human beings will go to great lengths to avoid problems, more importantly the pain or the suffering they cause. Carl Jung in the Collected Works of C.G. Jung said when speaking about neurosis or excessive anxiety that it is a “substitute for legitimate suffering.” Jung’s analysis is so right when he points out that ultimately the substitute will become more painful than the “legitimate suffering it was designed to avoid.” _____________________________________________________ Both Scott Peck and Carl Jung point out that there is a necessity for legitimate suffering brought on when we face problems directly and experience the pain involved. The Bible speaks to this very issue when it says there is a “glory” found in suffering because of its ability to produce perseverance, build character, and give us hope (Romans 5:3-5). How? One critical factor is the application of discipline which is necessary to persevere. Peck says discipline is the “basic set of tools we require to solve life’s problems.” He says growth is possible only when we “experience the pain of problems in a way as to work them through and solve them successfully.” It is my belief this process causes learning and growing which causes a development of skills in the person making them more efficient and competent when future problems arise. Life skills can be and are taught by parents, teachers, coaches, and spiritual advisors. Some of the skills according to Peck are: There has got to be a time where you stop defending yourself, answer to the wrong no matter how trivial or unfair it is, and bear up underneath the pain of legitimate suffering. For those to whom this is unbearable let me describe to you the lengths one will have to go to in an effort to escape legitimate suffering. If unable to withstand the pressures and push back, there is a feeling of peril in which anxiety dominates. Defense mechanisms, consequently, become necessary in order to relieve the anxiety, however temporary that relief may be. 1. Denial - disavowing or putting it so far out of your mind you ignore and refuse to accept its reality 2. Projection - in an effort to relieve a person of their own thoughts, feelings, or behaviors, they behave in a way that is repulsive or aversive to another person who then responds. The magic of this is that as soon as the other person responds to the treatment, the person projecting does the, "See how they are" and places the blame on another person. 3. Reaction Formation - behaving or acting opposite of how one feels because they are masking, hiding and cannot accept the anxiety that accompanies how they think/feel 4. Regression - burying one's feelings 5. Rationalize - finding a reason for one's unreasonable behavior or action 6. Subliminate - converting unacceptable feelings/behavior into more socially acceptable onesThere is a Way . . . Personally, I had lifelong patterns of inefficient communication that when put in an overwhelming pressuring and inescapable situation, I could no longer cope and felt each and every common factor for suicide. In short, through the grace of God I overcame: 1. Challenged myself to "make it" when confronted with evidence I was failing as a result of my behavior directed toward problems in my life and asked Yahweh to show me the way 2. Began an exercise program that built endurance and perseverance 3. Through the process of building physical strength I began to acquire mental strength 4. Enrolled in college 5. Used my mental strength to begin thinking, learning to express myself, finding a right way to get my needs met as I could not effectively get my needs met up to that point. As a child I did not understand the goodness of and the necessity of acknowledging that I had needs and learning effective ways to get those needs met. Ultimately I learned I had both the right and the responsibility to get those needs met. Until I was able to begin this process, my hope was "someone" was going to come along and meet those needs for me if I was lucky, if I worked hard enough, if I was good enough, pretty enough, or pleased someone enough. Somewhere in the deepest parts of me where the hopes that maybe...somehow... Now I understand that needs are not met from without. That is just the place where there is some validation of what we have already known, felt and believed. It is on the outside that we express our needs. What’s more, when we acknowledge we have needs to ourselves and express those needs, even if they are unmet, there is no disparity or crazy-making. When we do not acknowledge them and attempt to find round about ways of getting them met, if not, we can literally drive ourselves in sane. Why? The silence and secrecy screams louder than any sound ever could. Truth and honesty rings loud and clear and is pure within one's self. Shakespeare said and maybe unknowingly stumbled upon one of the greatest needs of our humanity and to sanity, “To thine own self be true.” Example: have you ever wanted something as simple as a candy bar, ice cream, etc. and put it off for a few minutes, hours or days. There comes a point where you are nearly thinking about it all the time. This is because what is expressed goes out and leaves us relieved. What is not stays within and becomes a constriction. It creates pressure within us that has no release. Constriction and its effects on Suicide Suicide is an effort to be released from all that binds. But, what binds is nothing more than unexpressed needs or ineffective communication that has led to leaving needs unmet. Suicide, consequently is a vow made when all hope was lost. Needs, or rather the inability to get them met effectively, is what drives people apart and can cause mental illness. Mental illness is not different in nature from physical illness. The cause is even similar. Like physical illness, mental illness can be brought on by behaviors that are damaging and destructive to the body. Sometimes the problem is the lack of skill, knowledge and understanding of the one with the need (person A) that may cause anxiety, fear or anger in that person. In fact, the reason they are in need in the first place, generally, is a reflection of their lack. It is the manifestation or the results of their poor performance, poor management, etc. The character of the person is the one defining trait to which has been said, “A man’s character is his fate” (The Emperor’s Club quote). The solution is not someone else (person B) giving them what they want. The solution does, however, include someone or something giving person A what they communicate effectively that they need/want. The solution is the acquiescence of demand and supply. It flows from within to without and does not run on the other way around. The other way is manipulation. Manipulation is when the person with a need in an effort to mask their motives begins operating in an effort to control the behavior or modify the actions of others in attempt to secretly get what they want/need without having to This is not to say the skill, knowledge and understanding of the other person can not be a critical factor in person A getting their needs met. If person B knows the role each individual in life must play in the necessary relationship between give/take, a communication of those principles can lead to successful and working relationships. Factors linked to Depression and SuicideDepression is 2 to 3 times more likely to happen to women than men except within the Jewish community where the males are as likely as the females. Suicide is common in the following fields: 1. Physician 2. Psychiatrist 3. Psychologist 4. Attorney, Dentist then Police Officer 1. Purpose is to seek a solution Ten Commonalities of Suicide as reported in, Abnormal Psychology by Gerald C. Davison, John M. Neale, Ann M. Kring. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. MOTIVES FOR SUICIDE Works Cited NEUROCHEMISTRY AND SUICIDE
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