This was an idea I first heard from Ajahn Brahm in a YouTube video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXd09oGHD0I&t=2578s
Basically, people with bipolar feel an extreme level of regret for the things they've done. The one key to overcoming that regret, and basically feeling no regret anymore, is to realize that it wasn't you doing those things. Anyone around you can see it clearly already. When you're manic, you're not being yourself.
I often want to hold on to all of my experiences even if they're painful. I want to feel like, "I may have been manic, but at least I existed." Well no, I didn't exist. Nothing exists forever. My real personality comes and goes. It will eventually die when I'm 84 (That seems like long enough). So why own the parts of me where I was clearly not myself? I felt like myself at the time, but I wasn't.
Don't own it. That is the idea of no-self for Buddhism. It's not just don't own that, but also DO own the parts of yourself that are really you. It's not hypocritical to say, "This was me" and "that wasn't me." It's not hypocritical because it's just a fact. The time you showed up manic to work and confused and scared people was NOT you. You are the good person right now who would never dream of doing those sorts of things.
It's very important. One of my goals as a teenager was to live a life of no regret. I can't say I accomplished that, except that I wasn't me when I did regretful things. In that sense, I have lived a life free of regret. I don't regret anything I've ever done while sane. And while insane, I wasn't me.
Thursday, October 26, 2017
Saturday, October 21, 2017
What Apparent "Laziness" Really Is For the Mentally Ill
People who are mentally ill are not lazy. I saw this posted elsewhere, on https://themighty.com/2017/05/unemployed-mental-illness-secrets/
However, from my experience this is also absolutely true. I have a mental illness, but that is not why I say this. I say this because I worked in a group home for the mentally ill for 8 months. Probably 10 out of the 12 clients there would just sit around apparently doing nothing. I have been in that exact same situation so I know it wasn't just, "doing nothing." What they were doing is getting into such a deep state of relaxation that they were unable at that moment to lose their minds. It is necessary for our health. When I'm sane, I am a remarkable person. However, there is a so-called monster inside of me, and when I go insane I really become a monster. I have to put in extraordinary effort, just like these clients did, to not let that monster dictate my life. I need to sleep a little more, zone out to get into that state of peace, and relax a lot.
It's basically like this: We sit around not going insane most of the time, and we do a little work here and there when we can. Then, if we do end up losing our sanity, it seems that not only are we lazy and selfish, but we also hurt other people with our behavior. It is a real problem, but it is not resolved by just working constantly and ignoring the illness. Ignoring the problem is a very ineffective coping strategy for anyone. We need to relax, a lot, in order to be good people. Everyone is capable of being good, but people have different mechanisms by which they accomplish this. Good luck to everyone out there who is struggling, and congratulations to everyone who is succeeding.
You may ask about those 2 clients who refused to take it easy and relax. Why could they do this but the others couldn't? The answer is: Those 2 clients ended up having extreme meltdowns and in various ways tore the entire house apart.
However, from my experience this is also absolutely true. I have a mental illness, but that is not why I say this. I say this because I worked in a group home for the mentally ill for 8 months. Probably 10 out of the 12 clients there would just sit around apparently doing nothing. I have been in that exact same situation so I know it wasn't just, "doing nothing." What they were doing is getting into such a deep state of relaxation that they were unable at that moment to lose their minds. It is necessary for our health. When I'm sane, I am a remarkable person. However, there is a so-called monster inside of me, and when I go insane I really become a monster. I have to put in extraordinary effort, just like these clients did, to not let that monster dictate my life. I need to sleep a little more, zone out to get into that state of peace, and relax a lot.
It's basically like this: We sit around not going insane most of the time, and we do a little work here and there when we can. Then, if we do end up losing our sanity, it seems that not only are we lazy and selfish, but we also hurt other people with our behavior. It is a real problem, but it is not resolved by just working constantly and ignoring the illness. Ignoring the problem is a very ineffective coping strategy for anyone. We need to relax, a lot, in order to be good people. Everyone is capable of being good, but people have different mechanisms by which they accomplish this. Good luck to everyone out there who is struggling, and congratulations to everyone who is succeeding.
You may ask about those 2 clients who refused to take it easy and relax. Why could they do this but the others couldn't? The answer is: Those 2 clients ended up having extreme meltdowns and in various ways tore the entire house apart.
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