Going Without Scientific Proof

Will the seemingly unending progress of psychiatry, which started out to identify and treat some serious mental disorders, come to a halt in the face adverse public opinion? It seems like it. But rather, I see that it is coming into its limbo stage, nothing will happen for awhile. While drugs company are barred from knocking on many doctor's doors, the doctors are searching for answers. What will drug giants do to inform and or influence??

We run out of patience over the field's dragging observational and theoretical feet when the reality of behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities come down hard on countless lives. They are in the millions. Facts numb our senses.

It got worst since the psychology merged with the biological approach to mental health care. Proclaim advocates at all fronts have gone wild speaking out about the $84 billion dollar-a-year psychiatric drug industry. Some of the time though, they don't know what they are talking about. They are all right yet they are all wrong because they are often painfully one-sided. While psychiatrists place bets on their prescriptions, the rest of the society rest on personal opinions. 

Let's cry for a moment, to the fact that sychiatric conditions are real. They can be severe. This severity forces people to continue risking their lives through a trial-and-error approach to antidepressants. We work against our case when we couple one ineffective drug with another ineffective drug, just to try it out.

It is too bad that because there are still no medical or scientific tests to prove any mental disorder. The usual medical indicators and imaging are no use to a psychiatric diagnosis. For now, psychogists will just hang on to their checklists. 

Perhaps it is the wrong time to have a mental health problem. Perhaps one must wait till a better time when there are tests, scans and genetic readings that clearly show what problems he really have.

Still, if you are diagnosed with a mental health condition, give it depression, or what else, think hard and use great care in your treatment. While psychiatry is only a few hundred years young and need some time to grow up, you are not the patient, you are your primary care provider. Own your decisions because this is your life.

When to Drag Yourself Along

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Whether you are diagnosed with Clinical depression, Dysthymic disorder, Major depressive disorder, or Unipolar depression, you will experience symptoms that overlap with other related conditions. Doctors have ways to distinguish among them however. That's how they treat different patients with similar symptoms.

Finally, people all over the world accept that depression is a serious medical condition, that it is a real illness. Advocates continue to get the word out, to let people know that these are mostly treatable conditions. Despite it involves the brain, nobody should give up hope. Brain science is getting better now.

It helps so much when people understand that feeling down
or blue is part of an illness. There will be more compassion toward people who are suffering. I am beginning to feel excited about this.

More than 20 million people in the United States have depression. If the feelings don't away, they interfere with their job, usual activities and home life. 

Symptoms such as Sadness, Loss of interest for enjoyable activities, Change in weight, Difficulty sleeping or oversleeping, Energy loss, Feelings of hopelessness, and Thoughts of death may be severe enough to ruin every part of a person's life.

Even though depression is a disorder of the brain, there are other causes, including genetic, environmental, psychological,
and biochemical factors. You don't have to blame on any one 'thing' for your condition.

Depression usually starts early on, between the ages of 15 and 30.
Within this age group, there is a high risk for suicidal thinking associated with the use of antidepressants. It may be caused by many different things but among them are suspected to be: puberty, maturity, social pressure, stress, and life changes. 

One thing has not caught the attention of experts in the field, that is substance abuse. I would skip the antidepressant if I have let myself involved with another substance.

Doctors often voice out their boring advises about this but of course no one seem to care. If you start smoking, drinking or using other recreational substances, take note. They can lead to fatal consequences if you are also taking an antidepressant or other psychiatric meds.

While it is easier to use antidepressants on the go, consider going to talk therapy. It's the most holistic and noninvasive form of medical treatment known to date.

It is understandable that a depressive disorder can cause havoc in your daily existence. But it shouldn't keep you from going to treatment. 

Force yourself out of bed and drag your sluggish body to the therapist's office if you have to. That's the only way. With treatment, you will soon get better.

Although more girls and women than men get professional treatment, go for it even if you are a guy. Forget about

any differences or other biological and social factors that are stereotyped as unique to each gender, your illness must be treated.

Many men with a depressive illness never seek treatment. And more of them lose their lives over the condition. Let's change this statistic once and for all. 

Whoever you are, I'd give you a good pat on the back for getting help.

Thanks for visiting my blog. Look out for my book, the "7 Steps to Revive the Self," from Amazon, available soon. 

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Your Meds Your Choice

My stance on antidepressants is that they help some while harm others. The right antidepressant can ease your mind while a wrong one will wreck it. You just have to try them out to determine for yourself. 

The Mental Health Watchdog, a service of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), describes ANTIDEPRESSANTS are mind-altering and potentially lethal psychiatric drugs designed to treat illnesses not yet proved by any medical means.



When they don't work, you are setting yourself up for worsening of your current symptoms: suicidal ideation, insomnia, headache, anxiety and add other symptoms to your problems.  

For those who become fearful and take off, Drug Withdrawal Syndrome may catches up to them. For mothers to be and new moms who must care for a baby, the effects of these drugs on the baby is unimaginable. If adverse drugs side effects are hard to manage by the mother, how will she care for her baby? The job of motherhood has bestowed on a woman. What risks are women willing to take?

Still, any advocate to advise on saying NO to antidepressants, is irresponsible. Nobody can decide for others about their risks.  Similarly, pharmaceutical companies purposefully convince consumers to choose the drugs they advertise. They persuade customers to say YES. In either case, these are blanket claims for a worldwide of individual problems. It doesn't take much to see the invalidity of either of these projections. Healthcare is an individual choice. Decisions must be made case by case.

The Associations Between Color and Mood

Color has long been used to create feelings of coziness or spaciousness. However, how people are affected by different color stimuli varies from person to person.

Blue is the top choice for 35% of Americans, followed by green (16%), purple (10%) and red (9%).

A preference for blue and green may be due to a preference for certain habitats that were beneficial in the ancestral environment as explained in the evolutionary aesthetics article.

There is evidence that color preference may depend on ambient temperature. People who are cold prefer warm colors like red and yellow while people who are hot prefer cool colors like blue and green.

Some research has concluded that women and men respectively prefer "warm" and "cool" colors.

A few studies have shown that cultural background has a strong influence on color preference. These studies have shown that people from the same region regardless of race will have the same color preferences. Also, one region may have different preferences than another region (i.e., a different country or a different area of the same country), regardless of race.

Children's preferences for colors they find to be pleasant and comforting can be changed and can vary, while adult color preference is usually non-malleable.

Some studies find that color can affect mood. However, these studies do not agree on precisely which moods are brought out by which colors.



Despite cross-cultural differences regarding what different colors meant there were cross-cultural similarities regarding what emotional states people associated with different colors in one study. For example, the color red was perceived as strong and active.

Caution: The Science of Inducing Moods

Chemical imbalance is not a hoax. It is as real as vitamin deficiency or lack of insulin. 

Vitamin deficiencies lead to a serious condition called vitamin deficiency anemia. Deficient of folate, vitamin B-12 and vitamin C could lead to a lack of healthy red blood cells, producing many symptoms including:

• Irregular heartbeats 
• Unsteady movements
• Mental confusion or forgetfulness

Lack of insulin, a hormone that converts glucose into physical energy, leaves glucose unprocessed and accumulate in the blood channels, causing diabetes.  Over time too much glucose in the blood can cause serious problems. That's why diabetes can damage one's eyes, kidneys, and nerves. Diabetes can also cause heart disease, stroke and even the need to remove a limb.

Chemical imbalance, one of the documented causes of depression, aside from Lack of sunlight, Genetics factors, Hormonal factors, Medical Conditions, or Stress. Chemical imbalance affects the parts of the brain that manage our mood, thoughts, sleep, appetite, and behavior.

It is believable that the brain would be found not having the right balance of chemicals when a psychopathic condition is analyzed. Chemical imbalance may be real and may be complicated. It must be treated. But how you want to be treated is entirely up to you.

The 7 Reasons Why You Fail to Recover from Depression

Do you know why you've failed to recover from severe depressiveness? Here are the rundown of yours and most people’s failed attempts. It's a history of pain and traumas. The progression of the illness goes like this:

After one’s inability to overcome the initial TRAUMAS, he or she will eventually initiate a full system shut down. It is a defense mechanism. It supposed to help one avoid further aggravation. When things get too overwhelmed we naturally back-set and reserve our functionality. It may seem safer to run and hide than to fight. It’s a way to DELAY PAIN. People talk about nervous shut down a lot, but they imply an emotional episode that is extreme yet temporary. I'm referring to shut down of both body and mind. It cause a person to detach emotionally, mentally and physically from life. This is why you fail.

That's how people accept this heavy load and go crumbling down. Severe or psychotic depression overshadows a person like a massive cloud. It goes back to the day you first felt sharply hurt. Life shook up under your feet. You felt off balance. You've fought. Then you’ve given up. You might have already tried again and again many times. It didn't do any good.

In a personal standpoint, one often becomes stunt under the stress of TRAUMATIC experiences. Slowly, milder symptoms turn severe. Where things have been gentle and easy suddenly rise up like the wild sea. You are psychotic. We all have the instinct to stand back up, even as you’ve gone mad. But what if you continue to lose? The troubles are bigger than you. You are in for a bully ride.

You give up on the energy of sunlight. A good summer day no longer excite you. The sounds of birds no longer interest you. Food loses its flavors. Your senses are all there, but they’re absent. This is the first gate into severe depression. Total destruction is due to come, like a flower due to wither away. It is a way to affirm that you think life is rotten and you will not care.

A space in your possession is like a leaf left in the winter air. You will deface everything around you, through total neglect. Instead of washing your clothes on Friday afternoon like you usually do, you let it go till the next weekend. Then another week goes by and it piles up quietly. Dusts collect around your room in layers. Everything dulls out. Not that you don't notice it, you just rather ignore it. You reason that there is no harm, as there is no good.

Your focus is all in the mind, where the problem is. Those who turn to alcohol and drugs further intoxicate their body and enable faster damage. Others who skip relationships to seek comfort may expose themselves to dangerous viral infections such as AIDS or set themselves up for a dangerous life on the street. These depressive lifestyles lead people to poor hygiene and malnutrition. Their body withstands prolonged deprivation.  

As the problems get bigger and bigger in your mind, you stop noticing the demands of your body. You SHOWER LESS often. Grooming and fashion feel unnecessary. Forget about visiting your dentist or your doctor. Health checkup is a thing of THE FUTURE, which no longer have much value to you.

You could be hibernating. You purposefully avoid social events and interpersonal situations. You stop talking to your best friends and family. Emotionally, you begin to stop respond to cues or internal reception of stimuli. Why? Getting involved make you feel vulnerable. Responding to stimuli hasn't served you well.

Human hibernation is the result of civilization. It is more and more acceptable to retreat back into your own space. Your privacy and your freedom to choose are to be respected. You choose when to interact and when to withdraw. People often face mental health illness alone. They have dissociated from all relevant relationships. They slowly discard all their belief systems. They even distrust themselves and their own view of the world; and the people in it.

You could maintain so well as SEVERE SYMPTOMS arrive and as the SHADOW OF SOCIAL STIGMA sets in. The moment you identify yourself with being mentally ill, YOU ARE sold into social stigma against mental health. If you feel trapped, you are.

Practically half the people in a recent study said, “No, they won’t tell a doctor about depression.” The No. 1 reason: (23 percent) FEAR OF ANTIDEPRESSANTS. Going to psychotherapy and treatment is an EXPOSURE. It is an official way to tell the world that you are mentally ill. Stigma has it that if you are coming down with mental health symptoms, that you are NOT NORMAL. You are enemy of this perfectly sane world.

It is much like AIDS, nobody wants having anything to do with you. Those who interact with you constantly misunderstand and make assumptions about you.  These are major roadblocks to your recovery.

When symptoms get severe enough, they limit many of your functions. You'll have to deal with PHYSICAL AILMENTS such as headaches, body aches and pain, lingering fatigue, insomnia, and daytime sluggishness. Severe depression is capable of producing phantoms in THE MIND. It brings you down with confusion, fears, anger, melancholy and psychosis.  The question comes to: Will PSYCHOTIC SYMPTOMS be brief, frequent or constantly bothersome? Will they go away?

Once you have become seriously sick like this, it will be difficult for you to make SOUND DECISIONS or any decision at all. It now makes sense why people want a QUICK FIX.  This is understandable. It is hard to think otherwise. Being seriously ill, quick fix is good.

Excessive damage is already done; if you would still want an overnight fix, start undoing the damage you’ve done, to your body and your mind. If you realize that much of the progression of the illness is due to your doing, stop withdrawing and start reaching for solutions.

Please leave your comments here or email me at susansummery@gmail.com
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Momentary Stress Blunder

I heard that there  is this antidote that would ease all symptoms of:
 

• Depression
• Loneliness
• Bing eating
• Drug addiction
• Smoking
• Stress
• Asthma
• Psoriasis

What might it be?

It's meditation.

When you mediate, you feel like you're on top of the world. Your perspective contain and your emotions in stillness. Nothing else matter to you. Stress level. And the human condition eases within your heart.

That's the power meditation brings. It rids you of all pain and aggravation.