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So you think you can’t recover from mental illness… (video)

September 6, 2015
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Posted by Mark

Ruminating on reasons you can’t recover because your symptoms are different or you have very unique circumstances that prevent you from moving forward… is one of the most common symptoms. You’ll always be able to think of reasons why you can’t cut out compulsions, why you need to keep doing unhealthy things right now, why some other time in the future is going to be a much better time for recovery–our brains are so imaginative!

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6 Comments

on So you think you can’t recover from mental illness… (video).
  1. Person
    November 19, 2015 @ 6:11 pm
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    Reply

    So what do you say to people who continue to have debilitating symptoms, despite thorough treatment? Being consistent and compliant with various forms of CBT (ERP and ACT), mindfulness, physical activity, healthy eating, multiple medications, as well as more experimental treatments such as TMS? What do you say to people who don’t even have a chance to relapse, because treatment doesn’t sufficiently alleviate symptoms? What do you say to people who continue to suffer despite continuing to do the things you recommend?

    Your message completely ignores those people whose mental illness is refractory, and is, quite frankly, ignorant and a bit offensive. While you may have personal experience of recovery, and I understand that your video is probably addressed to people who have not yet tried or have not yet been compliant with standard OCD treatments, the issue of ‘recovery’ is more complicated than this video makes it appear.

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    • Mark
      November 19, 2015 @ 8:55 pm
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      Reply

      Thanks for your questions. Here are some of my thoughts on them:

      So what do you say to people who continue to have debilitating symptoms, despite thorough treatment?
      If somebody is working with a therapist and things are getting worse, there’s four areas I always suggest people look at to uncover the barriers that are getting in the way of progress: the therapist, the patient, possibly both of them, or the environment.

      Being consistent and compliant with various forms of CBT (ERP and ACT), mindfulness, physical activity, healthy eating, multiple medications, as well as more experimental treatments such as TMS?
      I’m assuming that you’re dealing with OCD because you mentioned it later in your comment so I’m going to speak specifically about OCD here: from that list of things you mentioned, many aren’t proven methods for treating OCD. In fact, if somebody isn’t getting expert advice on things like mindfulness, exercise, and healthy eating, I would expect them to simply become new ways of practicing compulsions. Personally, I have no experience with any medications or TMS, but I am familiar with the research, and it wouldn’t be a statistical anomaly if those delivered no results. I’ll talk about ERP and ACT in the next answer…

      What do you say to people who don’t even have a chance to relapse, because treatment doesn’t sufficiently alleviate symptoms?
      There’s a quote you’ll often see in ACT books that “the solution is the problem”. That’s specifically referring to attempts to “solve” feelings/thoughts/urges that people dislike. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is all about learning to accept whatever you’re experiencing, recognizing that those experiences aren’t things you have to get rid. The compulsions are the symptoms, not the internal experiences you dislike. In many ways, OCD is all about trying to cope with, check on, or control uncertainty, anxiety, and other feelings we don’t like. The more we engage in compulsions as a reaction to those feelings, the more we experience them. With ERP and ACT, the focus is on cutting out compulsions while experiencing those feelings/thoughts/urges we dislike. So if you’re encountering difficulty eliminating the compulsions, that’s where I’d suggest working with your therapist to figure out ways to make it easier to eliminate compulsions. But, just like with physical fitness, keep in mind that building better mental fitness does involve doing a lot of difficult exercises. Cutting out compulsions through ERP or ACT is almost certainly going to be accompanied by extreme levels of anxiety. It does involve choosing to experience feelings we dislike so that in the future, we experience them less.

      What do you say to people who continue to suffer despite continuing to do the things you recommend?
      What I always recommend is to cut out coping, checking, and controlling compulsions in reaction to uncertainty, anxiety, and other feelings you dislike, and then to act according to your values to help yourself be healthy and happy over the long-term. Personally, what I like about that approach is that each day, regardless of what’s going on in my head, I can do the things I value. I’ve found it immensely freeing to cut out compulsions and change my relationship with all of the thoughts, images, urges, and feelings that I tried to avoid and control in the past. Learning to accept whatever I’m experiencing as I do the things I value has been life changing. But if people cut out all of their compulsions and change how they relate to the stuff in their heads and they start doing the things they value, but they’re still suffering, then maybe they’ll find a different approach more useful.

      All the best as your journey continues.

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      • Person
        November 19, 2015 @ 9:23 pm
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        Reply

        I guess what I was really trying to say is that sometimes it doesn’t matter how hard someone works- sometimes (for what I acknowledge is a minority of people) the hardest thing to accept is that mental illness will be chronic for them.

        On a personal note, I generally agree with most of what you say- particularly regarding cutting out compulsions and accepting that thoughts can’t be controlled. It just that your views on recovery come across as way too ‘black and white’ for my taste.

        Best wishes to you as well.

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  2. Paul
    March 2, 2016 @ 7:46 am
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    Reply

    Hi Mark

    I find your positive energy to be really refreshing and it has personally helped me to look at my OCD in a completely different way. I thank you so so much for all your positive encouragement your videos have been an anchor for me through difficult times. But the “person” above seems like the old dilemma (no offense meant) you cannot please everyone. The whole issue of making a problem complex is the PROBLEM, what Mark is saying is OCD is all the same, and it is if you can look at it from more of a external perspective, when you personalize it and make it your own precious problem the OCD bug has got you????

    This is why OCD is so hard to fix you have to think out of the box….

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  3. Ilya
    June 1, 2016 @ 8:09 am
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    Reply

    Greetings from Russia. Thank you for your help Mark. It works!

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  4. sulaksana
    June 2, 2016 @ 10:42 am
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    Reply

    thanks for your video man… i have ocd when i was kid almost 8 years i live with ocd,it’s hard if i live without ocd,i am trying to make my ocd gone is difficult, my friend say i am a frick sick person,now i am try live normal but it’s difficult

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公案 of the day. But really, this is a useful qu 公案 of the day. But really, this is a useful question to better understand intrusive thoughts and how to handle them differently. What is making them intrusive? If you see an image of a nacho in your head, is that intrusive? If you hear a bird chirp outside, is that intrusive? If you hear your phone beep and pick it up to find no message, you might just laugh it off, but if you hear a scream in the basement and run down to help to find nothing, you might label that as problematic. Why do your intrusive thoughts and images and physical sensations connect to the things you're most afraid of? What certainties are you chasing? What certainties are you not chasing about nachos? What beliefs and judgments and cravings are at work there?  Maybe instead of hating on thoughts and feelings, it would be more useful to change up those beliefs and judgments...

#intrusivethoughts #mindfulness #mentalhealthnotes #recovery #psychology #acceptance #nachos #koan #zen #therapy #mentalfitness #nonjudgment #beliefs #compulsions #anxiety #OCD #BPD #GAD #ACT #brain #beliefs #goals
🔥 #tweet #recovery #mentalfitness #mentalhealt 🔥

#tweet #recovery #mentalfitness #mentalhealthnotes #mentalhealth #psychology #therapy #change #depression #OCD #ACT #anxiety #intrusivethoughts #mindfulness #goals #mentalhealthawareness #psychiatry #healthcare
I do not remember why I wrote START HERE on the ma I do not remember why I wrote START HERE on the manuscript but perhaps starting with an understanding that the absence of fear is not the presence of happiness is a good place to begin any  moment/day/week/month/year/life.

#mentalhealthnotes #mentalhealthquote #mentalhealth #recovery #bookwriting #writing #writersofinstagram #authorsofinstagram #psychology #fear #anxiety #happiness #youarenotarock #themindworkout #mindfulness #emotionalintelligence
You're tending that garden up there today. What is You're tending that garden up there today. What is all is that gardening going to produce?

#mentalhealthnotes #mentalfitness #gardening #thinking #ruminating #judging #recovery #psychology #mindfulness #compassion #gratitude #practice #mentalhealth #drawing #writersofinstagram #manuscript #youarenotarock #themindworkout
Where are you going in this moment? Even if you're Where are you going in this moment? Even if you're only doing stuff in your head, it's taking you somewhere! 

This is a page from when I was editing THE MIND WORKOUT. There were many changes before the final version. 

The most recent edition of my mental health writing workshop started up last week. It is awesome to connect with people on their writing adventures. The group of writers in the workshop is so talented and I hope they enjoy navigating the wilderness to wherever they want to take their creative energies. 

When we sit down to create, it's another opportunity to ask: where are you going?

#writing #creativity #mentalhealthnotes #mentalhealth #themindworkout #youarenotarock #psychology #therapy #goals #editing #writersofinstagram #recovery #writingworkshop #manuscript
I tested out a light therapy lamp! Video up on You I tested out a light therapy lamp! Video up on YouTube now. Have you ever used a bright light therapy lamp? Was it huge? Did it do anything? Was the lamp SAD? 

#sadlamp #lighttherapy #mood #research #technology #mentalhealth #Amazon #shobogenzo #Dogen #morning #winter #psychology #circadianrhythm
Mindlessness is hard work. You've got to be in two Mindlessness is hard work. You've got to be in two or three or four places at once. You time traveler! No wonder you're exhausted.

#mindfulness #mindlessness #mentalhealthnotes #mentalfitness #mentalhealthquote #psychology #recovery #meditation
From last night's Twitch stream on cutting out pho From last night's Twitch stream on cutting out phone checking compulsions. You can check out the full stream saved on Twitch (markwfreeman). But this is a message that applies to recovering from any mental health challenges: don't make it about fighting and defeating something. If success and happiness depend on defeating problems, the brain will happily supply more problems! To leave the mental illness behind for good, it can really help to focus the work on where you're going and what you want to build and create in life.

#recovery #Twitch #mentalfitness #mentalhealthnotes #mentalhealth #anxiety #depression #fear #OCD #BPD #psychology #therapy #ACT #values #success #goals
Look past the superficial topics of the fears. Wha Look past the superficial topics of the fears. What's the consequence you're afraid of. For example, all of the fears above are about the same fear of losing control of living and being ourselves. The brain will happily jump from one to the next, trying to help us tackle all of the different ways our fear could come true. Instead of playing whack-a-mole, I found it most useful to stop the game and make changes around my fears about control: learning how to embrace uncertainty, stick to values proactively instead of reactively trying to control things, shift the focus to creating things I'm actually in charge of, and to trust myself. I don't have to trust that things will work out well. I can trust myself to handle whatever happens. It could be a disaster! I will handle that :)

#recovery #trust #acceptance #mindfulness #control #mentalhealth #mentalfitness #mentalhealthnotes #panicattacks #relationships #anxiety #control #solipsism #certainty #depression
The brain loves to pull this trick I like to call The brain loves to pull this trick I like to call "differencing". It's a clever way for the brain to convince us back into the old compulsions and habits. It's all about us judging a feeling (or possibly more terrifying: the absence of a feeling 😱) as DIFFERENT 😱😱 and then we start comparing it to other feelings, checking if it's Real™ 😱😱💀, at which point the brain has already got us caught up in lots of compulsions, so then it's super easy to just start doing even more compulsions. 

So for taking care of our mental health, it can really help to have any feeling. Physical feelings, emotional feelings, no feelings--these are feelings we can feel (or not feel) while we do actions that matter to us.

#feelings #emotions #compulsions #psychology #recovery #therapy #goals #feeling #recovery #mentalhealth #mentalfitness #acceptance #mentalhealthawareness #anhedonia #anxiety #depression #intrusivethoughts #solipsism #depersonalization #derealization
It's very doable. So let's make those skills acces It's very doable. So let's make those skills accessible wherever and whenever people want them.

#recovery #mentalhealth #tweet #psychology #therapy #digitalmentalhealth #reminder #accessibility #healthcare #designthinking #mentalhealthawareness  #youarenotarock #mentalfitness
It really helped me with recovery to first conside It really helped me with recovery to first consider where I want to go in life and use that to understand the skills to work on. Sometimes, when we learn it's useful to cut out compulsions and not avoid triggers, we create even more anxiety about doing recovery "right" and we devote ourselves to chasing down every trigger. But then the triggers are still in charge! And it's a lot like saying you're scared there could be a snake under a rock in the forest, so instead of spending the day on the beach where you want to be, you spend all day in the forest turning over every rock. But are those rocks on your path? Or is this just more fear? Trying to control a feeling you don't want to see again?

Where are you going?

#triggers #mindfulness #mentalhealth #recovery #psychology #therapy #compulsions #anxiety #fear #mentalhealthnotes #reminder #questions #goals #mentalfitness

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