I've posted this seperate to the pot thread in morales because I don't have the choice of taking these medications and I think I need some help with the effects.

I have Bipolar disorder, for which I will always be on medication. Even if I manage to control my mind well, there is such a risk with some of the problems I get with it (I get violent mania and psychosis and lose time where I can harm myself, and possibly others, though that hasn't happened yet fortunately).
As a result of this I am on a mood stabiliser, and antidepressants and anti-psychotics.

Now I didn't think the mood stabiliser was too much of a problem, but I have noticed when I've not been taking it (if I've run out and forgot to get my next prescription, or for a good reason, like my recent surgery was for my tummy, and the mood stabiliser really affects my tummy, and doesn't get absorbed anyway if my tummy's bad), or if it's not being absorbed properly. It does change me a bit, obviously it cuts down the extremity of mood swings, in an attempt to keep me in a smooth line almost straight, rather than the constant ups and downs.
So it is affecting my mind in some way.

The antidepressants, to be honest, I don't like. I know they affect me and my mind, and I want to be able to sort my life out and be fulfilled enough that I can stop taking them, and just have the mood stabilisers work enough to control my depression.
They definitely affect the mind, and I don't like it.

The anti-psychotics... I don't know if I'll be allowed to come off these ever because of the problem with my incredibly violent mania.
If I were conscious the whole time through it, I could probably learn to control my mind enough to just cope with the mood stabilisers, but the fact that I lose time and have total blank periods, and have done things in those periods that are dangerous (like trying to kill myself), and the fact that I get homicidal urges, means I will probably have to be on them the rest of my life.
They're really bad for the mind though.
They're designed to lessen higher brain function basically, so the mind pretty much shuts down.
I have a maintenance dosage, which is very, very small. I have to take it every night, just to make sure that any psychosis or mania is kept at bay. If I get manic, I take more and it pretty much knocks my mind flat, and knocks me out.
I can actually feel a weird sensation in my head when I take them. It's like someone's put a hand on my brain and is just clamping down.
All higher brain functions lessen, and so I have this small dosage which is keeping my brain and mind working less than they should all the time.
I don't mind when I take a higher dosage; that's an emergency situation, and I know that I need my mind just clamping down and stopping the mania. Usually I take it and sleep, and then I'm fine.
If I have a long manic period, it can sometimes last a few weeks.
The worst I've had is over a month, but that's when I was put into hospital and diagnosed with the Bipolar.
So this medication really affects the mind, and badly for meditation I guess.

And then there's the physical.
I have a condition called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and Fibromyalgia with it. I am in constant pain, and I dislocate my joints simply by moving. All of my joints are loose, including between the vertebrae.
This causes a lot of problems.
So I'm on a lot of painkillers.
I have paracetamol all the time, and I think that's fine on the mind. Unless anyone knows any better?

Then I have Tramadol. This is an opioid, and as such, makes the mind a bit fuzzy and hazy, and drowsy.
I've been on it for years, so it doesn't affect me too badly anymore, but it does affect me.

Currently for surgery recovery, I have codeine as well (yes, on top of the tramadol), and oramorph (on top of both the tramadol and codeine).

Codeine is an opiate, and as such makes you fuzzy, drowsy, etc. It affects me more than the tramadol simply because I take the tramadol normally, and have done for so long.
Fortunately the codeine will run out soon.

Oramorph is pretty much heroin.
You can imagine what it does to my mind.
I'll probably stay on this as well, not all the time, but for when the pain is bad.

So....

I have a LOT of mind altering drugs.
I really want to cut down the amount of medications I'm taking for my bipolar, but I know I'll need a lot of work before I can do that.
If anyone has any specific practices or exercises, or anything for managing mental health conditions, I'd be very interesting in hearing about them.
I want to be able to control my mind enough that I can cut out the antidepressants at least, and maybe cut down the dosage of my mood stabiliser.
But I do accept that it is a serious medical condition, and I will probably be on medication for it for the rest of my life.

As for my physical problems; again, I am going to have severe pain the rest of my life, with other problems occuring that will only make me worse and worse.
With the endometriosis, I will have further problems as it affects my EDS negatively.

With all these drugs, do I even have any kind of chance?
I'm ill all the time; I'm severely disabled, and my immune system is awful. There is always somthing or other wrong, over and above the day to day problems.
It's difficult enough to just live.
I can't work, so at least I have plenty of time to study and practice, but I've found myself just doing nothing recently. I think a lot of that is motivation; I have been having major motivation problems. I got in to a massive funk, because I realised I had no kind of a future. I want to study, but I'll never be able to use a degree because I'm never going to be able to work.
There are so many things I want to learn, simply for the sake of learning, but will I ever be able to do anything with them?
It's been very difficult finding the motivation even to get out of bed, and it's not a depression thing, it's just that I'm finding it hard to find any point in life. Other than the overall goal of enlightenment, which I don't even have faith that I can do that in this lifetime.
I find it hard to meditate because I can't sit in one position very long, it hurts too much and I get weird circulation problems and neurological problems.
Also, the amount of drugs I'm on means meditation has been getting harder and harder anyway.
When I was young, I didn't need any aids to clear my mind. I just let everything go. I have an amazingly strong visual memory, and I've always found visualisations to be really easy.
But nowadays I can barely keep my mind clear. Things are constantly coming up. I have so many worries about my health, money, etc.
I know that a lot of this is normal; everyone has worries, and they will come up in meditation. But mine aren't solvable.
I have not one, but a bunch of incurable medical conditions, that totally rule my life, and I want to stop them ruling my life, but there doesn't seem to be any way of doing that really. With the bipolar at least, I can work on things, but with my physical conditions, there's nothing. I'll just get worse and worse and worse.

So I guess I'm asking, how can I work my meditation around such strong mind-altering medications?
How can I keep a proper regular practice when I don't know if I'll even be able to get out of bed from one day to the next.
I might be fine one day, and able to walk around the house, and the next day be stuck in bed dosed up.
It's so random and varies so much that I have found a schedule to be impossible to keep to. Or maybe I'm just not finding the way of doing it, or not trying hard enough, I don't know. I don't seem to be able to work out how.
I've tried scheduling things, like when I was in school. So at 10am, do an hour of studying Tibetan Buddhist history, at 11, an hour of Tibetan language study, at 12 have lunch, at 1, do half an hour of t'ai chi, etc. But I find I just don't stick to it. For one thing the time I wake up each day varies wildly, and it's anything from 10am to 3pm!
I have a lot of exhaustion because of my medical conditions, and I don't sleep properly, and I just can't get up.
I've tried setting my alarm at a certain time, and then half an hour earlier, and trying to work it backwards, but it just doesn't work. I just can't get up.
I've thought about one of those daylight lamps, but they're so expensive, and I'm on very low benefits and of course have a list of things I need to buy urgently that's as long as my arm!

So even if I set myself a list of things to do in a day, I might wake up late and then not have enough time.
I've pretty much stopped meditating alltogether because I've just been finding it so hard. And it's stupid, because I know that if I meditate each day, I feel a lot better! So why not do it?
Well I find it very hard to get back into it, I just find so many other things to do before it. And even when I've managed to get back into it and I get a really good cycle going, and I'm doing it every day, I'll be really ill and not do it for a day, and one day not doing it becomes two, then three....and I stop.

I'm not lazy. I know this; I've done loads of things in my life time that were amazing, and required a lot of effort, and I've not had problems, so I think my major problem is motivation.
The big thing being that I know I will never be able to work. I will never be able to do certain things, even with all the will in the world, I use a wheelchair out of doors, and indoors if I'm bad. I'm never going to climb everest, or even much smaller things like that (I don't just mean climbing mountains). It's like I have nothing in my future. And I'm stuck on all this medication that just makes it even harder to meditate and keep my mind free.

I think I'm really, really stuck and need some help.

Djon Ma

Nicola

Oh man..
I'm a bit naff when it comes to knowing about Buddhism.
I've always found that I just know things. I just do things the way they feel right, and it's led me well. I think I have a lot of rememberance from past lives. I mean, I can't remember specifically things, but I'm able to answer things about stuff I've never even heard of, let alone studied.

So I didn't really know what the jnanas are, but I just read Kenneth Folk's 'An Idiots Guide to Dharma Diagnosis' on the Diagnostic section, and wow...
I've had all the amazing experiences with meditation; visions of Bodhisattvas, talking to them, walking with them, meditating with them, various things, the bliss and white lights, feeling one with everything, and things like that.
And now everything is wrong.
This year has been terrible. I have been ill constantly, and my mind is just a mess.

Could this be the dark night?

But doesn't that mean I'm past the 4th nana?
I don't really think I'm very far at all, and that feels awfully far. I think I should read what the nanas are, and how they relate to the Tibetan Bodhisattva levels which I'm a bit familiar with.
(When I was little I always wanted to reach the first Bodhisattva level - you can fly! hehe!)

I don't like to think that it could be the dark night, because that implies I've actually got somewhere on the path, and although I seem to just understand how to live as a Buddhist properly, with no teaching required, I kind of feel I should actually know something to progress, and I feel like I don't know anything at all.
But my whole lack of motivation and thinking I have nothing to look forward to (I can't even have children), maybe it's this?
I don't really know... anyone know?

And... how on earth do you get past it without it totally destroying you? I keep telling myself that this is just some kind of funk, and there must be things I can do and look forward to in life... but I can't find them.

Djon Ma

Nicola

This is a bit like having a conversation with myself! Which might be what I need anyway!

I just read the page that described the nanas, that Eric Hansen posted to the Idiots Guide to Dharma Diagnostics thread.

Wow... I recognise it all!
Being that I've hit the rock bottom and found everything to just be boring and useless, and am suddenly scared of all of this, and desperate for an escape from it, I wonder if I've reached the 8th Nana. But I'm very scared of contemplating that; I really don't value myself, and I think I'm useless at pretty much everything, Buddhism included... so how on earth could I have got that far?
It just feels very egotistical to think I'm that far. Maybe I'm just having a really bad year and jumping at things, and being tricked into thinking that I'm that far into the nanas. I don't want to think I am if I'm not, but I don't know how to work out if I am. Thinking I'm further ahead than I am could just ruin everything.

Nicola

Djon Ma

Hi Nicola,

My heart really goes out to you. I don't really know what to say! As human beings though, it helps a lot to have other people to help us on our way! Maybe there is a sangha or teacher nearby that could help motivate you? Since I started it has helped me immensely just to talk with someone about the practice who has the same aspirations.

I can't say anything about the drugs you are taking and what is or is not possible.... I have no idea what your situation is like (obviously).

Again I wish for your happiness and health!

Where is TripleThink (Nathan) when we need him?! He was our reigning expert on this territory, and if anyone knows how to get in touch with him, please ask him if he would chime in here.

Max; Thanks for the kind words.
I do have a Sangha and a Lama, but I find it very difficult to stay in touch with them, one of the reasons I've really found the DO and Buddhist Geeks a lot of help I think, because I can at least keep in touch with the Dharma, and other Dharma folks!
My Sangha don't have a centre local to me, the nearest one is London, and I can't get there in the evening, it's just too difficult, not to mention pretty expensive!
My Lama is in London as well, and again, travelling to London is really hard. I have to go there once a year to see a consultant for my main medical condition, and we find that to be hard enough, it's such a trouble travelling in and around London with a wheelchair. The buses are accessible, but difficult to get onto, and I don't do well in crowds; I get really nervous travelling and I have some social anxiety because of my bipolar.

I have been meaning to either write to my Lama, or email him for ages, but I actually feel kind of guilty for not having been in touch properly for the last few years, so every time I try to write, I manage to put it off because of the guilt. I think this is a bipolar-related issue; I have terrible communication problems as a result of it, and have lost a load of friends because of not being able to kepe in touch properly. I find it very difficult to talk to people on the phone, I much prefer email as I can answer that when I'm feeling ok, but friends don't want to just communicate by email do they?
And I'm not really great at communicating by email either!
I don't know what it is, but I've met other bipolar people who have the same problem, so I can only assume it's that.

I'm a pretty useless person overall!

I don't actually tend to have motivational problems regarding the Dharma... it's odd, I KNOW I'll become enlightened. It's something I've always known, it's not just a logical extrapolation of doing practice in this lifetime, and being born into a human life in the next, and eventually getting there. It's like it's already happened, and I know it'll happen again. It's something very deep in my subconscious almost. I don't really know how to explain it. I guess the only problem I have regarding the Dharma, is worrying that if I get too Buddhisty and out there, it might be difficult for my boyfriend hehe. But he's fine with me so far, so that's ok :-)
Though I can't ever become a Nun because of him, but that's ok, I don't think I need to.

It's just the rest of life.
There's also this whole thing of, what's the point with the rest of life, I could just study Dharma and that be it, and ignore the rest of life completely as it really means nothing. But I know that's not the case, and the rest of life is important too; Dharma needs to be practiced as well as studied after all.
It doesn't help that I've just been told I probably have another major medical condition, and that it will seriously affect my main medical condition in a very negative way. And the treatment for it will affect my main condition as well... it's a total loss-loss situation that the doctors in the know have no idea of how to deal with, and can only offer sympathy for those of us with both conditions.
Everything this year just seems to be like I'm taking hits again and again and nothing is right anymore, and I'm totally lost. I know that stopping my practice is the worst thing I can have done, which is why I try to at least listen to BuddhistGeeks, and try to read the forums here, and try to at least keep in touch with the Dharma in what ways I can, and read Dharma books, so I'm not totally out of the loop. I know I need to start at least just meditating clear mind again though, but I find it so hard to start once I've gotten out of practice.
I've taken a break on my T'ai Chi as well, and I need to get back into that too. And it's just getting that bit of motivation to start them both again, and start up a couple of other things I need to be doing to help myself out, like yoga and pilates, which my consultant said I could do (have to get medical permission for things because my condition is so weird), and studying some things.

I really, really want out of the hell that my life's been so far this year. It's just finding the way I guess. Maybe then my motivation will come back because my life will be good again, rather than horrible like it has been recently.

I think I've just waffled again, sorry!

Nicola

Djon Ma

Daniel, thanks. I hope TripleThink can comment here, and I certainly look forward to his views and advice.

Nicola

Djon Ma

I'm not sure what you expect me to say here. Sounds like you belong to another faith. The almighty church of brain chemistry.

I can help someone if they are prepared to fight for their freedom, but if they have put their faith in the health care industry and in pharmaceuticals then they are simply meat for the demons in my humble experience. In my experience a person has to abandon faith in that system, place the faith in their own being and knowing that change is ongoing they must have the will to overcome this kind of oppression or else they will simply be a slave to this stuff for the rest of their lives. It is hell on earth, I know, but you asked for my opinion. This would then usually be where some psych professional picks up on my thoughts and posts all of the usual psychobabble and we can then go on to fight to the death. So, I'll pause here to let them get on with it then...

Dear Nathan,

So good to have you back. I didn't particular expect you to say anything, just wanted to hear your hard-won wisdom, that's all.

I am so sorry we missed you in Minnesota. I hope all is well,

Daniel

hi Daniel, all;

I'm ok, have some kind of spinal injury and am experiencing a degree of pain I wouldn't have thought possible, well beyond being in shock 24/7, morphine can't even touch it. As pain is merely one end of the pleasure/pain spectrum I simply continue to concentrate on it and it is beginning to become sweet, like everything else that one acquires a taste for. If this goes as far as it looks like it will I will probably eventually just sign up for the UFC and kick some serious ass. One thing I recall the Buddha saying in the pali suttas was that 'even if one were run through with a hundred spears every day for the rest of one's life, if one were to gain the full enlightenment and release it would be worth it and one would embrace it.' So, that's my approach to this.

As far as Nicola's pain, I don't know what to advise as pain is a highly personal and subjective phenomena. As she has no fixed schedule, I would advise against trying to regiment any practices on the basis of time periods and so on. I would suggest simply incorporating practices on a more flexible and opportunistic basis. When there is an opportunity to practice something, simply practice it, for as long as it is possible to do so.

I would suggest looking into the Brahmaviharas as this will both get one out of one's own narrative and phenomena and begin to shift one's attitudes away from ongoing self concern and into a more positive place regardless of one's own ongoing experience of the body and mind. When possible one could then spend some time on insight work but I would suggest dropping the maps and any goal oriented thinking and simply practice to add to insight regardless of how the phenomenology presents. In this context, the only essential frame of reference in regard to the phenomena of one's experience is to continually reflect "this is not me, this is not mine, this is not my self." I would also recommend reading the suttas as the wisdom therein can be more broadly applied in life and there is more to the dhamma than insight and concentration work that could be of benefit to Nicola.

I hope that is helpful. All the best to you Nicola, take care.
-triplethink

Hi Nicola,

Sorry to hear of your miserable physical and mental maladies. We can all imagine that it must be at times unbearable to have to put up with. Any kind of physical or mental condition like that comes with its own threshold of pain and sheer suffering that can play tricks on the mind, sending one into depression or worse. It's not something easy to have to put up with, because it never seems to go away, and therefore it becomes a major burden to have to bear.

I think Nathan's (triple think) suggestions are fairly good, given the kind of maladies you're having to deal with. Especially, right now, of "begin[ning] to shift one's attitudes away from ongoing self concern and into a more positive place regardless of one's own ongoing experience of the body and mind." I know from experience that this can be a mighty high mountain to climb, especially when the mind begins focusing on what seems to be a hopeless situation. But, if you can begin to chip away at this a little at a time, you may be able to climb that mountain.

Once you are able to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and begin to put a more positive spin on your attitude, the activity of cultivating the mind may be able to replace the negative space you are currently in. By that I mean doing any little thing, no matter how small or large, on a regular basis and getting yourself into a regular routine with your practice (that is, if you are able) may help you to begin putting some things into perspective such that you begin to perceive something worth putting your energy into.

By "doing any little thing," I'm suggesting meditation, contemplation, T'ai Chi, whatever you feel good about doing. Just start doing it and building on that. Until you can get to a place where you look forward to doing it every day. Once you are there, at least you will have something worth spending time with.

If you are able to obtain translations of the discourses (the Wisdom Publications editions, in particular, although there are also sources available online, accesstoinsight.org being one great source), then Nathan's suggestion of reading and contemplating the suttas is an excellent idea for the very reasons he has stated. And contemplation, in general, with regard to things going on in your life may be of great use too if you are able to quiet and still the mind enough for insight to enter. Contemplating the five aggregates (in addition to Nathan's suggestion of reflection on "this is not me, this is not mine, this is not my self") with regard to their impermanence and impersonality may help you begin to have some insight into the processes the mind undergoes during everyday consciousness. Observing these processes can become very enlightening at times.

Dealing with distractions (both physical and mental) as heavy as the ones you have to deal with is definitely not easy. But once you begin to establish some ground rules for your life and how you want to live it by re-establishing your practice and finding some comfort there in cultivating the mind, you will hopefully begin to see that you actually do have some say as to how things can go (at least to some extent), and that alone will be worth the effort that you put into these activities.

Don't know if you've ever been able to enter samadhi (also known as absorption or jhana), but if you have, this can help you begin to develop concentration such that fruitful contemplation will come much easier. Concentration is also helpful when you want to be able to maintain steady attention and focus on any given activity in order to get it completed. What I mean by that is, it can help you overcome moments of weakness when you feel like giving in. It can help you build your will (intention) to achieve no matter what the circumstances. A few small victories with this will convince you of what I'm speaking about.

Take care. We all wish the best for you.

In peace,

Ian

Dear Nathan,

Thanks for your perspective and thoughts.

I wish you the best in dealing with your back pain. I find fish-oil (Omega 3's) helps my right sided neck radicular pain a lot, as well as good hydration, and SAMe 400mg a day is known to help as well. If it is really bad, you may have a disk blown out, which often will get better in 6-12 weeks, but if it doesn't, there are always the neurosurgeons: option of last resort, obviously, but sometimes really helps people.

Sorry for the really late replies; recovery from surgery hasn't been going well, and the original problem they did surgery for is causing a lot of pain and problems. I've been trying to look after myself and had about a month of severe sickness all the time, before they managed to stop that. And I wasn't up to doing anything.

I would like to get off all the medications, but I find I have to rely on them at the moment.
With regards to my mental health medications, it quite literally gets very dangerous if I stop taking them. I don't know how to get past that, or whether I can manage to control my mind enough to prevent such things happening. The consequences of it going wrong scare me enough that I am quite happy to continue taking my mental health meds for the rest of my life if need be, and that's certainly what the doctors are looking at.

With my many health issues, I don't really have anywhere to turn other than medical research and advice.
I haven't found another Buddhist with my main medical condition, it's fairly rare. I admire your ability to turn pain into bliss. I really wish I could do that, and I'd love some pointers on how to do it.

The problem is that I can see the very real effects of my medical conditions. I move my arm, I dislocate my shoulder, elbow, wrist, maybe ribs too. I use a lot of Medicine Buddha mantras when I'm in a lot of pain, and it does help. I also do whatever the practice is called, where you take the pains of the rest of the world onto the pain you're experiencing at the moment. Though I feel quite guilty about that sometimes; it helps reduce the pain, and that isn't why I'm doing it. I'm trying to help other people, not myself.

I know that I DO feel physically, and mentally better when I'm meditating properly, and for some reason I'm not doing that at the moment. I know, it's stupid. I feel better when I do it, but I don't do it. Well, how many people eat junk food that they know makes them feel like rubbish?
I guess it's kind of similar.
It's weird because when I get back into it, I find it easy to do anyway. It's just when I've had problems and stopped doing my practice, that I find it harder than ever to get back into it. Not sure what that is, but it's something that's affected me my whole life. And I have plenty of disruptions to practice thanks to my health.

I know, logically, that practice can free my body of all ills. But I find it very, very hard to give myself up to that.
I think the major problem is the mental health issues. The really bad stuff scares the hell out of me, and I don't want to ever be like that again. So the thought of not relying on the medicine, is really a big thing. Whenever I've not been on the medication, or when it's not being absorbed properly, I have such terrible things happen, that I am so loathe to stop the medication. And yet, I really don't like being on it all. My overall plan is to eventually be able to control my mind enough to be able to at least drop it down to just a maintenance dose, if not come off it all altogether.
But I don't know how to do that.

The pain's a big thing too. I feel pain differently to other people, because of weird brain things thanks to a couple of my conditions. I feel a lot more of it than normal, and my brain reacts in odd ways.

I spent my whole teenage years in a lot of pain, and the doctors had given up on what was wrong because they couldn't find anything (they weren't looking in the right place... and oddly enough my rheumatologist back then is known to my current Ehlers-Danlos consultant in London, and he was surprised when I told him my old rheumy hadn't found the condition... so who knows!). They ended up telling my parents that I was just playing up and it was all in my mind and I wanted attention.
This caused quite a lot of problems, not to mention the fact that by the time I was 16, it was really painful just to walk, and I had absolutely no help at all because they'd written me off because they couldn't find what was wrong.
It caused a lot of problems between my Mum and I as well, as she believed them rather than me, so my releationship with pain is a pretty messed up one.
I'm in pain all of the time, so I have managed to learn to cope with quite a lot of it.
However, the pain I've been getting recently, is worse than when I broke my back, and it just knocks me senseless it's so bad.
I've found that I'm able to recite Medicine Buddha mantras when I'm that bad, which I feel is a massive step forwards. Previously I'd not been able to think at all, and hadn't done anything when pain was really bad. But now I'm able to keep my mind focussed on practice, which I can only think is a good thing.
But it isn't enough yet.

I think I might be seeing pain as an enemy, to be overcome and got rid of.
When it's just a sensation, like any other, and it's there as a warning.
Heh, sometimes when I'm in a lot of pain, I shout at my brain and tell it I've been warned, it can stop telling me now.
Doesn't work though!

You seem to have a totally different relationship with pain to me, and I am really interested in how you did that.
Maybe my problems from childhood and not being believed have contributed to the way I relate to pain, and the desire to just get it to stop, because no one believed me, and they made me do things even though I was in tons of pain when I was young.

It's a bit weird, because everyone believes me now. I use a wheelchair... no one tells you it's all in your head if you can't walk properly.
And with the diagnoses I have, people take me seriously.
So surely my relationship with pain should change? I've had severe chronic pain since I was young. I don't understand why I haven't managed to get used to it yet, or turn it into something good like you have.
It might be that I didn't think it was possible, just knowing that you've been able to do that has changed my attitude to it quite a lot, and I am really interested in working out how to change that relationship.


It does scare me when people say stop relying on the meds, you don't need them.
Though that's more with the mental stuff than the physical stuff, to be honest.

Also, since they've said I probably have endometriosis, I'll have to have treatment for that. The normal treatment is hormonal.
What do you think about that?

I find it difficult, because research has shown that these things do work to help these conditions.
And I can't deny that.
Because my Ehlers-Danlos is rare, and because I spent so long without a diagnosis, I've really found that reading all the research on it helps me. It helps to know my condition really well, and understand what's going on with it. I've extended that to all of my conditions, and I have read all the latest research breakthroughs.
For example; it's been discovered that in Bipolar patients, each mood swing actually causes brain damage. It destroys brain cells, and they'll never come back.
It's not serious as such; it won't kill you. But... it's slowly destroying the part of your brain responsible for controlling the mood and the swings... so as you get older, it gets more and more difficult to control those swings.
That's where the medication comes in.

I guess maybe I'm looking at it from a very scientific point of view.
These things can be shown on MRIs, and fMRIs, and it can be seen that this medication helps.
I know it helps; it's helped my mood swings immensly.

I'm not looking for that psych fight you mentioned... but from someone so used to having to rely on doctors (I have so many medical conditions, I'm a bit of a recessive genetic disaster!), how would you explain it all, that although I can see the results of those medications, it's still possible to control all of this without them.

Sorry if this is a bit rambly. I think I'm realising that I do have the wrong kind of relationship to things. I always thought I had a really good relationship with my body; I'm intensly aware of it, and minor adjustments, and the same in my mind. I know that something is slightly off way before it becomes apparent.
Maybe that's a step towards control though.
Or is control the wrong word?
Again; I'm thinking of controlling my mind, so it doesn't do things that are 'bad'. But is control the right word?
I don't want to just go along with some of those things - I get serious homicidal / suicidal mania, and I have blackouts where I don't know what I've done, and it turns out I've done really, really bad things. I can't just allow that to happen. That's why I'm thinking of control.

Maybe I'm looking at it wrong still.

Nicola

Djon Ma

Well, it turns out I probably have early arthritis in my neck, and that might be affecting my back as well. Though I've still not seen the surgeon, which doesn't help.

I'm vegetarian, so the fish oil is out, but I'll be sure to increase my flax input, which has good omega. I'm planning on seeing a nutritionist after I've seen the next consultant to determine whether I have endometriosis. I want to see the nutritionist, as I've been getting a lot of conflicting things about what I should be eating for various conditions. For the EDS, I need certain things more than normal people, to help cope with the lack of working collagen, and I've read that Endo responds fairly well to a specific diet. So I want to get someone who undersands these things properly, and they can work out what it is I need, and don't need.

I also have a bunch of food intolerances, and some allergies, and I want to get those sorted out properly, so I can start eating without effectively poisoning myself.

That should help my health out a lot.

I think the major thing though is starting my practice again.
I've just been in such a hole the last couple of years. It seems like everything has gone wrong that can possibly go wrong, with the exception of still having an amazing, loving boyfriend (I don't know how he puts up with me!).

Like Nathan said, reading the sutras, trying to work out practice to work with the pain and the mental problems.

The last couple of weeks, even though I've not been able to do much, I've been really changing the way I look at all of this.
I've become a lot more positive.
I think I just hit rock bottom and had had enough of all the medical crap in my life.
And now it's like I've just bounced back up, and I'm above where I'd ever been before.
I am positive about this.
Still worried about it, well, about how to deal with it, but I'm trying to work out how to deal with it, rather than just collapsing in a heap of tears and giving up.
I need an escape, and the only one who can do that is me.
I still have major physical limitations due to extremely slow recovery from the surgery, so I can't do much exercise or anything really. I'm mostly sat in bed with the laptop.
But I'm going to start meditating again. Just a little bit at a time, to get back into things, and then start my practice again. I think that will really help.
Especially doing Medicine Buddha practice. I really do feel something there; having been subject to this medical stuff all my life, I've always found the Medicine Buddha things to help a lot.

I'll do a bit of sitting T'ai Chi too. I've found that if I do T'ai Chi just in my mind, it feels like I've done it standing up and doing the movements as well. It's like I just move the chi the same way as I do when I'm standing up, and my arms get tired after a while, just like they would if I was standing up doing it. It's kind of cool. But I can do some movements sitting down as well. I'm getting good at adapting things for sitting down, and not standing too much.

I don't really know if I've ever entered Samadhi.
I've had the thing where I've meditated as normal, and then suddenly there was just white light, and that was it everywhere. And it was like I was the light, but I wasn't at the same time.. had similar experiences to that quite a few times.
I'm kind of terrible with my practice though; I feel like it's all more subconscious than conscious. I do things subconsciously, more easily than consciously. Now.. in a way that's a good thing; as long as my subconscious keeps me doing the right things, the right way, I've got a good foundation to step up from.
But I really need to be doing things consciously as well.


Thanks all for the suggestions, and well wishes, and help.

Nicola
Djon Ma

hi Nicola

I can understand your concerns and how you feel, in terms of your dependence on the drug therapies for dealing with pain and with behaviors you can't control. I'm not suggesting a cold turkey abandonment of that approach to managing your problems, simply that you continue to question some of the assumptions underlying all of that and begin to investigate your own senses of what pain is and what control is. Certainly you will have to do whatever is necessary to maintain your own and others safety and to function to whatever extent possible.

I also continue to experience extremely high levels of pain and I am in a situation where there is no diagnosis and no sign of there being one any time in the foreseeable future. That is the nature of the health care industry here. Perhaps someday someone will figure this one out and perhaps not, for now I simply have a lot of pain in my life, so I've been reflecting on pain a fair bit in recent weeks.

Our society and our medical systems do not respond well to pain, as your own experience well demonstrates. Pain is subjective, not easily measured and as such it tends to be minimized, marginalized and in ways it is even criminalized by a society that is, in simple terms, frequently both immature and delusional. We have a long history of bs to thank for that and we have the fixation on scientifically determinable realities to thank for the perpetuation of this kind of inhumanity in the present. Perhaps if we could build scientific instruments that emitted blood curdling screams that might help.

In past years I spent a lot of time doing very long sits for days on end and it was at that time that I discovered some things about how pain functions in various feedback loops in relation to our responses to the pain. Insight practice teaches us, or should teach us, that the conventional sense that there can be control of things like pain or any other part of our experience isn't possible in any consistent or meaningful way and that there is ultimately neither any consistent kind of experience nor kind of experiencer to be found. There are all of the same basic ingredients of experience in painful experience that there is in any other kind of pleasant or neutral experience so it is no less suitable for meditative insight and concentration work. All of the same kinds of techniques and the same sort of insights are still accessible and real progress is still possible. I jdon't find it useful to dwell on progress, under any conditions, I find it helpful and beneficial to focus on the processes of the practices and to stay consistently with the immediate present.

To speak specifically to painful phenomena, one of the most useful and interesting investigations I've made has to do with how the mind and body respond to the painful stimulus. Typically the mind and body react with aversion and attempts are made on every sort of level to eliminate the pain or reduce the pain and so on. It can be very helpful to turn this around and embrace the pain, move into it, try to really get deeply in touch with it, connect with it, to "hear it out". Sometimes when you give the pain the quality of attention it is essentially demanding, that is what it takes for it to run it's course and/or for healing to happen. While that can help at times, generally I have found it best to be sensitive to this dynamic of aversion and attraction and to make gentle efforts to find the neutral place in between the aversion and attraction which is simply a place of acquiescence and acceptance. From that stance, if pain arises in a given way it is noted as such and when it changes in a given way it is noted as such. I have been doing this sort of practice for a couple of months now with my own pain. It isn't reducing or increasing the pain in any noteworthy way in my case and I don't expect it to or particularly want it to either. Sure I would rather not be experiencing all this pain but it is in fact my real experience and so I honor it as such through both accepting and let go of it in each moment of it, just as it is, just as it happens.

This is why I suggested you read some of the Pali suttas, the Buddha has much to say in these teachings about pain, about suffering, about how we can all expect to see more and more of it in our lives, about how this will be followed by death and about how none of us are going to escape these facts. This is the bottom line of our reality as conscious physical beings, there is no dressing it up to look better or avoiding it that will make it otherwise. To come to terms with it, to accept it and ultimately to overcome it is a heroic effort in the context of a society that fosters avoidance and denial about innumerable forms of suffering and pain.

I hope you will come to understand your dealing with this reality as heroic, to see yourself as someone who, like it or not, is dealing with reality in important and fundamental ways and as someone who can, with time and some effort become free on some correspondingly deep levels. Suffering is the first noble truth, the fact that you live with it in such a powerful way is a reality that you can use to your advantage.

all the best
take care

upekkha
-triplethink/nathan

Thank you for your words, TripleThink.

I want to respond to this after a long thought on it all, but I wanted to say I've read it and I'm thinking about it all, and what you say at the end is something I've found has helped me a lot in the past; my life has been full of pain, and touched by people full of pain. My Dad had his first major heart attack when I was 3, it's my first memory; seeing him on a stretcher going into the ambulance. Apparently I told people in nursery about when my Daddy was dying. Something no one had discussed with me at all (he didn't die, and no one had talked about death with me by that age). It seems I knew what death was anyway, and that the situation was serious enough. Being only 3, I'd just been told he wasn't very well and would be staying in the hospital for a bit.

But growing up with my Dad so ill, I found suffering everywhere, and it's one of the things that I found helped my practice early on. Some people can't see the suffering in their own lives, they look elsewhere, and see other people suffering. But for me, it's been there my whole life, and I think that really made a difference to the way I grew up, and the person I have become. Not in a bad way; I feel that living with so many problems, I've mostly learnt to be able to accept anything that comes my way. I get my bad moments, of course, and the Bipolar doesn't help, but on the whole, I'm able to keep a positive attitude about everything.

These last few years that has just vanished - I seem to have totally collapsed in on myself, and have been very, very lost. But now that I'm trying to sort myself out, I find it so easy to just slip back into having a positive attitude about things. And just having that positive attitude makes a massive difference. Everything seems so much easier.

When meditating on suffering, I've experienced a lot of it first hand, and so I am able to feel sorrow for other peoples suffering so much more strongly.
It helps a lot.

I don't see myself as heroic though; there are plenty of people way worse off than me who live far better than I do.
This is just life, more things to see, interact with, pass on. It's strange; on the whole pain thing, I dislocated my left wrist twice, badly last friday. It was bad enough that I ended up having to see a doctor, and they said severe strain, meaning I've torn things inside.
I feel the pain, I realise it's actually quite bad pain. And yet, I seem to not be bothered by it.
I don't know if this is because I have other pain that's worse, so I'm used to this level of pain now.
Or whether just the desire to change the way I deal with pain has actually started something.

I'd like to think it's the latter, but I'm forever worried about attributing something wonderful to myself, when it really isn't.

Whichever it is, just the fact that I can sit and feel the pain and even concentrate on it, and not actually be bothered by it, is helping my change in attitude massively.

(Of course I still have to be careful and not lift something heavy with the wrist or I'll wreck it! So I need to be continuously mindful of that, which is also helping).

Nicola

Djon Ma