Doubt, in this sense, meant a critical moment of not knowing if he was becoming insane, not knowing whether he was involved with gathering delusion or truly receiving extraordinary and supernatural guidance.  Perceval said that this shock of doubt always made him hesitate in going along with delusion.

~Edward M. Podvoll, M.D. in Recovering Sanity

 

 

 

It is great to be back.  The last few days, I have taken time to bolster my sanity, though I suspect the process is not complete.  I believe I have made an advance in my mental health.  Perceval, in Podvoll’s Recovering Sanity found that once he had broken through his delusion, another slightly changed delusion, a new version, would take its place, one that took into account the clarity he had achieved but still kept him in subjection.  Then he would go through the process of emancipation all over again.

 

 

Doubt is the key, and when I say doubt, I mean it in a positive sense.  It is when you begin to suspect that those inner voices you think are benign and even heavenly may be the source of your multiple psychoses, the reason for your multiple psychiatric hospitalizations.  For the first time, you declare your emancipation from them.  You declare that you are the master rather than the unquestioning servant.  Then the inner voices begin to quiet down.  For the first time, you experience inner silence.  It feels lonely at first, but then you begin to notice that you can concentrate more fully on your work.  When the voices intrude again, you can reprimand them and even ask them to leave you alone.

 

 

Perceval in Podvoll’s book was able to get himself released from a madhouse after three years of being locked up.  In those days, in the 1830’s, when people presented with psychotic symptoms, psychiatric doctors locked them up and practically threw away the key.  Madhouses in England had deplorable conditions, and Perceval was subjected to a great deal of abuse.  He suffered later from being hard of hearing due to damage to his ears during his treatment.  With his intelligence, he was able to discern how to restore himself to sanity, even while still in the wretched madhouse, without the help of medication.  Through his relentless requests via letters, he was able to regain his freedom after three years of being locked up.

 

After his release, Perceval went to work to help others in the same predicament.  He was able to marry, have four daughters, and retain his mental health.

 

Conditions in my former state of Utah are not as severe as those experienced by Perceval.  However, there are still abuses.  During my 2016 manic episode, which I mention in my ebook, Joyful Vibrance:  Transform Your Body Image, Energy, and Mood!, I was locked up without being asked any questions.  No one seemed interested in my side of the story.  I did not give my consent to treatment, yet of course, I had to pay for it.  The blow was mitigated by the fact that Medicare helped.  However, I had no say over how long I was hospitalized.  It was 24 days, which mercifully is a lot shorter than three years.  However, it still disrupted my life in a major way.

 

 

So what is the key to preventing further hospitalizations?  Is it just a matter of staying on my medicine?  Sometimes my voices tell me to get off my medicine.  Maybe the problem is really my voices.

 

Perceval, who had fully submitted to his voices, found that he had to ignore them or go diametrically opposite to what they told him.  I had a conversation with my Voice not long ago about whether to subscribe to Insight Timer, an app that provides thousands of guided meditations as well as courses on inner development.  My Voice discouraged me from getting a subscription.  Maybe it is time to manifest my emancipation and subscribe to the app anyway.  I have not done it yet, but it is a useful tool to keep me consistent with meditation, a practice that fosters inner silence and mitigates symptoms of both anxiety and depression, making it an important practice to obtain mental health.

 

Of course, I feel some grief over my decision to oppose my Voices.  I thought I had found the Lord within.  Following His guidance was safe, or was it?  Now I am doubting.  The doubt is long overdue.  I suspect that if I go on the way I have in the past, I will end up in the hospital again.  I cannot afford that, and it could have a devastating effect on my marriage.  To protect my mental health for the long term, a change in my thought processes may be key.

 

 

Last night my husband said, “I love our life.”  Yesterday, after many days of effort, I persuaded him to take a bath.  He had gone for weeks, maybe months, without bathing.  He felt so good after getting cleaned up that he was very grateful that I had pushed him into it.  He even said, “I love our life.”

 

What was it that finally enabled me to get him in the bathtub?  For one thing, I took charge over my inner voice and told it I was master.  Then I took charge over my husband as well.  I even took his TV remote from him, which my Voice did not tell me to do.  (Normally, I would have waited for directions.)  I visualized him getting into the tub.  Then he did!

 

My husband took a bath yesterday! I made a green drink last night! I can get Insight Timer!  It is up to me, not my Voice. I have a new night-guard to reduce symptoms of TMJ!

 

I love the way that I am!  I am free!

 

	0-100	comments
mood:	80	I am feeling better than I have for several weeks.
energy:	80	I have enough energy to carry on with my life.

	accomplishment	reason it is important	next action(s)
1	made a green drink last night.	Health & Weight Loss	Put green drinks in JV Life Tracker.
2	am beginning to emancipate myself from my Inner Voice, submission to which could be causing my psychoses.	Mental Health and Wellness	Meditate more.  Get Insight Timer.
3	got a night-guard to reduce my TMJ symptoms.	Physical Wellness	Use it.
4	successfully used Tony Robbins’ five Problem Solving questions. What is great about this problem? What is not perfect yet? What am I willing to do to make this the way I want? What am I willing to not do to make this the way I want? How do I enjoy the process while I make this the way I want?	Problem Solving	Keep using these questions and track doing so in JV Life Tracker.
5	used NLP visualization for making gingered lemonade and actually made it as a mood lift.	Mental Health and Wellness	Keep making it and feel great!

 

I walked, talked to my husband, handled some mail, and made a Neapolitan shake except that I added blueberries and spinach, making it a green drink.  It turned out delicious and my husband even said it was good.  Below are the ingredients for the shake from Cronometer.

 

 

 

Just moments ago, I spent some more time with my husband and more time reading Podvoll’s book.  I am not so outraged by the abuses I suffered in psychiatric treatment that I want to devote my life to countering it, but I want to overcome the damage hospitalization has done to my self-confidence and even my mental health.  I still often feel paranoid that I might be taken into custody again.  Sometimes, I have even been afraid to express myself in my blog for fear of being hospitalized.

 

I do not want to live in fear as fear leads to stress, and stress leads to disease.  One thing Perceval did while in the madhouse was that he made a commitment to live in health.  While walking briskly, he noticed how physically deteriorated he had become from his confinement, and he resolved to do everything he could to restore his health.  When I was in the hospital, my own health deteriorated.  I resolved to make a “Life Choice” in all of my decisions.  Thankfully, my confinement was relatively brief.

 

 

Some people may have the mistaken impression that hospitals are health-promoting.  I have found them to be the opposite.  The real work of regaining your health generally happens after you return home.  I realize that some people’s homes are not health-promoting.  In that case, a hospital may be an improvement.  If your environment does not promote health, it will be hard to get better.

 

Do whatever you can to place yourself in a mental health-promoting environment or change the environment that surrounds you into being more health-promoting.  Environment is important.  Pay attention to the environment within your own thoughts, your internal environment.  Perceval was able to change this and then change his outer environment until he could obtain his release from the madhouse and improve his environment even more.

 

As Bruce Lipton says, “It’s the environment, stupid.”  Our genes do not determine our destiny; it is the environment that determines how they are expressed.  Our environment includes our thoughts and beliefs.  It is possible that I have long held an incorrect belief about my thoughts.  I feel grief about that, but also a sense of freedom.  I can now be the master of my thoughts rather than letting my Voices do the commanding.

 

 

What I will do about this, I do not know for sure.  Perceval had to be relentless to obtain his emancipation.  Every time he overcame one delusion, a new version of his delusions took its place.  I am reminded of the movie, A Beautiful Mind.  John Nash had to peel away onion levels of delusions and misperceptions to overcome his schizophrenia.  Eventually, he earned the Nobel Prize.  The movie was filmed from his point of view, making it obvious that John was unable to tell at first that he was being deceived by his delusions.

 

 

Perceval noticed contradictions in his delusions.   This was one way he was able to detect they were delusions. As I said in an earlier post, I noticed that my “god” changed his mind.  It was not until just a few days later that I noticed that Samuel in the Bible stated that God does not change His mind (1 Samuel 15:29).  Either Samuel was wrong or I have been wrong about my “god.”  I hate to be wrong, but even in this earlier post, I admitted I could be wrong.  I was getting ready to accept what is going on with me now.

 

So, is the Bible true?  I will not tackle that one right now.  History has proven that worldviews based on the Bible may conflict with scientific findings.  The case in point is Copernicus, who said the earth goes around the sun, while the Church held to its stance that the opposite is true.  We may not know the complete truth about all of reality yet.  I think we should keep our eyes and minds open.  I believe the Bible is a cultural heritage that is worth studying.  Whether I should take its every word as truth, I have long had doubts.

 

 

According to Perceval, doubts are good.  They free you from being enslaved to “truths” that may not be completely true.  When I studied chemistry and physics, I was sometimes let down that theories I was learning were not completely true.  There were always more studies that showed that reality was actually a bit more complicated than the theories described.  We love simplifications, but sometimes we see life through lenses that do not show the whole picture.  Perhaps the complete picture of reality is always going to elude us, but knowing that should at least keep us humble and help us to avoid attaching ourselves to oversimplified theories.

 

I feel humbled to realize I have not gotten it all figured out yet.  The good thing about that is that I can continue my quest to learn more and more.  My knowledge certainly is not perfect yet.  I am willing to avoid attaching myself too strongly to any one solution, and I am willing not to try forcing my solutions on anyone else.  Meanwhile, I can enjoy the process of learning and sharing my journey of learning with others.

 

 

 

AFTERNOON Prayer

Dear Lord,   I have undergone a revision of my view of Your communication channels, and I must admit that I have lowered my certainty of Your very existence.  Nonetheless, let me have faith for the time being and continue my prayers, even though I may not trust their answers.   An Inner Silence is beginning to come over me.  I can call it loneliness, or I can call it peace.  For now, I choose to call it peace.  The crucial thing is not to be led into psychosis again by my Voice.  I now believe I have had that happen to me all too frequently, including recently, and it is always devastating.  In 2016, I had been free of hospitalizations for 11 years.   I do not need You to tell me that I am healed.  When that happens, I lose my vigilance, and psychosis overtakes me again.  Perhaps it is always something that can happen.     As Perceval said, one delusion replaces another.   I have declared my emancipation from my Voice in my mind.  From now on, I am in charge.  I admit that I had fully surrendered to that Voice, believing it to be You.  I innocently did not know the danger of doing that.  Perceval did not know either.  He innocently came to be possessed.  What a scary thing that is!   Will you bless me with freedom as I take charge of my life?  Please forgive me for believing things in error.  I do not need You to tell me I am forgiven.  It is my faith that You have already forgiven me.   Please bless my readers with a depth of understanding as well.  Bless them with health and happiness.  Especially give them sound mental health.  I am hoping to show others pathways to mental health, even though my journey is taking me in directions I had not anticipated originally.  Help me also to continue with my New Years resolution to lose weight.   Amen.

 

If you would like to join me in this journey from the beginning, please start with Day One.