Mental Landscape

I have been meaning to write for a couple of months about the amazing mental clarity I've been noticing since about November.  It was around that time that I started solving problems that had been on the back burner for years in some cases.  It seems like my insight and ability to make connections has really taken off.  I think I am thinking as well as I did when I was a teenager, before various substances entered my brain.

I have been thinking of ways to quantify that, with mixed results.  In January I did a couple of those free online IQ tests to compare with a test I did when I was really depressed several years ago.  My score was almost exactly the same.  I do remember that I was surprised that I did as well as I did when I was depressed, because they say depression can lower your score, but I don't think it did for me.

I am noticing a difference in my level of attention from before I got sick still.  When I was young I could spend all day reading a book, and I still today cannot read the same thing for more than an hour.  Things just don't hold my interest any longer.  A few years ago I did another online test to look for ADD.  I scored really high on that one, but I have since read that Bipolar and ADD have a lot of similarities.  I asked a Bipolar friend of mine to take the test too, and she scored quite high also, even though neither of us had any trouble with attention at school or work.

The key for me is really interest.  Maybe it is just a factor of getting older and not being willing to waste my time on things that don't interest me.  I have always been better at starting projects than ending them, and a hater of routine tasks, and I think that tendency is becoming more pronounced.

But, thinking about it today, I realized that I am never bored any more.  Before Empowerplus the boredom in my life was stultifying.  Now I have plenty of interesting things to think about and to do, in short increments.  I am much more engaged with life, which I guess is a sign that the depression has lifted.

My meditation practice is also going very well.  My mind settles quickly and I am finding it very refreshing. 

So, I am interested to see where things go from here.  Long time Empowerplus users report gains even one and two years into the program.  I am around 9 months now, so I am looking forward to what may be possible down the road!

Two Steps Forward...

... one step back.  I was just writing about how my IBS was totally cured, but now it is back.  I had an appointment downtown that I was not nervous about at all, but my gut went totally bananas and I was sick for a week.  I was SO frustrated!  What I said in that previous post is true, there is no doubt that it is entirely psychological.  But, I think I have figured it out, and it is mostly better now.  I am looking forward to testing it on my next appointment.

The good news is that on all other fronts there is a noticeable trend of improvement.  I now have long stretches of my day where my head doesn't hurt at all, which really is miraculous considering the addiction to OTC painkillers and rebound headaches that I probably have.  All the other symptoms - nausea, dizziness, neck and shoulder pain - are pretty much gone.  They may flare up for a day, but then they are gone again.  My energy level and motivation are improved also.  Each night I make a short "to do" list, and there is about a 75% chance that it will get done the next day now, which for me is amazing progress.

I am still sorting and cleaning out old stuff that has been untouched since I moved back here almost 7 years ago.  It is like I have been absent from my life all that time, unbelieveable that I have done so little, while during the 7 years in California I did so much!  Oh well, I know intellectually that no time is wasted and it is all grist for the mill, but there is a feeling of regret there also.  Truehope says that's one of the stages of healing.  The solution is to be forward-looking, I know, and appreciate the opportunities I have now.

Every couple of weeks I have a new exciting idea for a new business, but then I lose steam and the bloom fades off the rose.  It is still too soon, I think, for any big efforts.  Hopefully the right idea will come at the right time.

How Am I Doing?

I can't believe it's been over 3 weeks since my last post.  I've been waiting to feel better so I have good news, I guess.  Well, I am starting to feel a little better.  When I'm not screwing things up for myself.

For the past few days the protracted withdrawal has let up significantly.  Much less pain.  I felt so good I thought I could handle a cup of coffee.  I had the first cup in the evening, and I felt pretty good.  The next day I had a cup in the morning, and I felt good for a couple of hours, and then I felt awful for a couple of hours.  Repeat the next day.  Today, though, I am not sure it is the coffee causing the problems, it could be a new vitamin I started.  So today I am taking neither coffee nor the vitamin, and tomorrow I will try just the vitamin.  We shall see.

Why do I keep beating myself up with coffee?  For me, there just seems to be a big feeling of well being that comes from coffee.  I don't think it is just the caffeine, because I don't get the same feeling from other caffeinated drinks.  But if it is making me sick it is obviously no good for me.

The other good news is on the exercise front.  Since the holidays I have been walking a little more regularly, and I haven't noticed any increase in protracted withdrawal due to that.  I've also been doing some mild yoga, and that is going smoothly too.  So that is going well.  I have a lot of recovery to do on the exercise front, but hopefully if I take it gradually it will continue to go well.  Also, I think the cooler weather is a big help.

4 Surprising Things I've Learned on Empowerplus

My dad got a pacemaker last month, and it has had a surprising effect.  For years he has had a terrible phlegmy cough.  It interrupts conversations, it keeps him up at night, it is disgusting and annoying.  Many treatments - inhalers, antihistamines, decongestants - have been thrown at it without any success.  Now, since the pacemaker went in, it is just gone!  It is the most amazing thing.

It put me in mind of some surprising things I've learned since starting Empowerplus.

1. The core promise - mental illness really can be cured by vitamins!  Not just any vitamins, though.  I was taking lots of vitamins before, and I didn't get anywhere with my depression.  The magic of Empowerplus is in the proportions.
2. My weight gain wasn't my fault.  I bought into all the psychological claptrap about why I put on all that weight - I was "eating" my emotions and comforting myself with food.  As I found out early in the withdrawal process, it was the drugs that were making me overwhelmingly hungry all the time.  Drugs gone, hunger gone.
3. Anxiety really does have a chemical component.  I suppose this is related to #1, but it is surprising to me because I always thought anxiety was psychological.  I used to spend hours trying to analyze the psychological reasons for my persistent, unfocused evening anxiety episodes.  Every evening I would be anxious for no apparent reason.  Now it is gone, all my anxiety is gone.  I thought the holy basil supplements were the reason for this, but lately I have concluded that the Empowerplus is the main factor.
4. My IBS was related to my mental illness.  This is the direction IBS research has been going anyway, given the fact that there are neurotransmitters and receptors in the gut.  That's the reason I was taking Zoloft before my breakdown, which for an undiagnosed bipolar is not a good thing.  It did lead to hypomania and probably contributed to, if not caused, my breakdown.  That aside, I have been taking FermPlus since May for my IBS, which is indeed cured.  But, my experiences with the allergies this month and stopping and starting Empowerplus have shown that the Empowerplus is actually the main factor in the improvement of my IBS also.  I will keep taking the FermPlus though, for insurance.

The conclusion?  Drugs = really bad, Empowerplus = amazing!

Goal Setting for the New Year

There are lots of articles out at this time of year about resolutions and goal setting.  It reminded me that I did in fact set some "intentions" last year, and I looked them up to see what they were.  There were 6 all together, with weight loss being #1 and way down the list:

     5.  Successfully get off all the drugs.

You can see by how far down the list it was how likely I thought it would be.  Then again, at this time last year I was taking bioidentical hormones and I had big hopes that they would enable me to stabilize my mood as well as promoting weight loss.  So it might have been more pro forma, because I thought it was a done deal with the hormones.  However, soon they were causing terrible migraines, and I had to go off them.  I really tried everything imaginable to get off my drugs before I found Truehope.

So of the 6 things on the list only one was realized, but heck, I am pretty darn satisfied with that one!

For 2010 I have a new list.  It includes exercise and work-related goals, neither of which were on last year's list.  So that shows some progress that wouldn't have been possible without the Truehope.  One item has carried over -- this year I really am finally going to finish a quilt!

Happy New Year everybody!

Lessons Learned

I have been waiting to post until I had good news, but good news seems to be a long time coming so I thought I'd better give an update now anyway.

My vegan diet has gone by the wayside, for at least a year until this protracted withdrawal is more under control.  I tried rice protein powder, the third type of protein powder I've tried now, and I was immediately allergic to it too.  There is nothing in it except rice protein, no additives or flavours of any kind, so it is clearly the protein that is the problem.

I have been experimenting with small amounts of meat at lunch, at that seems to work better for me.  I've also found that my body is getting used to the meat again, it does not bother me as much anymore.  I definitely feel better the next day after eating some meat, so it will stay in my diet for now.

Right now I'm fighting some kind of throat infection, which has made me sick right through the holidays.  The protracted withdrawal is worse again too, probably due to the infection.  I don't want to take antibiotics though, because I've heard those really aggravate the protracted withdrawal as well.  I'll just wait it out and see how it goes.

Happy New Year everyone!

Rollercoaster

Whew!  What a week!  It started out great, and then, just as I thought I had mastered this thing, all hell broke loose.

With my goal to stay vegan and just add more protein to my diet, I went out and bought a vegan harmonized protein powder, which had various ingredients.  It really helped with the protracted withdrawal, my symptoms cleared up and my energy soared.  I took Dr. Martin Seligmann's Authentic Happiness Inventory Questionnaire, and scored really high.  I took the same test several years ago when I was depressed, and I've raised my score by about 50 percentile points since then.  It is really an amazing improvement, which I attribute partially to the Empowerplus, and partially to my mental discipline of always trying to think a better feeling thought, thanks to the Abraham-Hicks teachings.  I was feeling great.

The next day the protein powder caused an allergic reaction.  Not a big one, but enough to realize that I had to stop taking it.  It had been giving me minor allergic symptoms all along, but I thought I would get used to it.  That's not how allergies work, of course.

The day after that I was feeling poorly all day, and I made a baked potato with some sauteed mushrooms for dinner.  I had a huge allergic reaction, not life-threatening, my throat did swell somewhat but it didn't actually stop my breathing.  And of course there was the diarrhea and overheating that goes with anaphylaxis too.  I nearly died from an anaphylatic episode in my early 20s, so I knew what was going on.  I have eaten mushrooms all my life without incident, but this time they did me in.  I think probably it was the earlier reactions to the protein powder that primed the pump for such a bad reaction this time.

For the next two days practically everything I ate re-triggered the allergic symptoms.  I thought I was allergic to the Empowerplus, and stopped taking that, and then I thought it was the Total Amino Solutions, and I stopped that too.  My blood pressure dropped really low, another result of anaphylaxis, and I've been eating salt like crazy to try to restore electrolytes.

Two days after I stopped the Empowerplus my protracted withdrawal symptoms cleared up.  I have been suspecting that it is the Empowerplus that acts as a detox that releases the stored medications from the body's tissues, and this pretty much confirms that theory.  On the third day without Empowerplus I had a big anxiety attack.  I have not had any anxiety since July.  I had been hoping that I would be able to stay off the Empowerplus for a while, but after that anxiety attack I went right back to it.

Another result of the allergic reaction and the diarrhea is that my IBS is back every morning.  That's been gone for months also, so I am not happy to see it return.  I had thought that it was the FermPlus probiotic that cured my IBS, but clearly the Empowerplus was a factor there as well.  I have always suspected that my IBS had a psychological component, I guess this proves that too.

Today I am eating without incident, although my face has been hot all day.  Something is still not right.  I have a feeling my thyroid is misbehaving.  If I am still no better by Monday I will get it checked.  I'll just have to see how this plays out.