‘TIS OKAY TO NOT BELIEVE IN “CHEMICAL IMBALANCE”

It is fine to not believe in your “chemical imbalance”.
{http://www.wakingtimes.com/2017/08/09/not-trust-medical-experts/}

Not that I am encouraging anybody to quickly, if at all, accept a “mental
illness” title which is told to you, but saying you do not accept the CI theory is not the same as saying you do not accept a MI label.

Personally, I gladly reject all psychiatry labels. Accepting any, and
stressing/limiting myself as one who “is” one, has never benefitted
me. It only gave confusion and led me to think that all I am is only
because something is wrong that needs correction by a stranger’s
words and possible toxins. How empty that all just helped me to be! I
will no longer give permission for anybody but God and I to define me.

My, oh my, it was psychiatry’s influence that created many problems externally and internally for me! From their attempts, I believe even more
that a bad psychiatry environment, coupled by the drugs taken, will be a main cause of distress and creators of “mental illness” many times!

Now, the brain is surely the most complex organ. The chemicals? Complex as well. Nobody can say that a low serotonin, for example is the chemical that needs to be in a “correct” way for everyone having this thing called “depression”. Science does not offer definiteness that anybody’s “illness of thought” is not caused by some other chemical or combination {if at all} that acts in the brain. Foreign chemicals, be they from food or prescription, can alter the way your brain functions; that is how a desired change in your behaviour is supposed to take place from the antipsychotics {etc.}.

It is okay to not believe in your “chemical imbalance” because your mannerisms and ideas are not proof of any abnormal levels of an elusive chemical. Like it or not, almost every day you are likely making your own “imbalance” of brain chemicals. You may be affecting your ways unaware.

In 2016, one of the early 20-ish, child-caseworkers at the day-program I
formerly went to spoke of how she could not understand how, since the brain is an organ, some people think it could not get sick like other organs. She said this at the end of a group and, perhaps, on purpose while I was passing by knowing from word-of-mouth that I was skeptical. I just recall how my first reaction was to mention to another patient to always remember that much of what the psychiatrist is saying to them is only their opinion.

Any psych/caseworker/shrink who was expecting that my damaged brain would make it easier for them to persuade me of some kind of “mental illness” was sorely mistaken. I do remember, concerning the “Avoidant Personality Disorder” statement from the psych, that I said that it “does
make sense to me”, but I never said anything about accepting it.

Now, I was unique since my brain was genuinely “ill” because it had
tissue damage. That was unlike the majority of attendees there {I only
knew of one other with neuro difficulties}. My “mental illnesses” were more likely to be understood as having a biological reason, however I learned that certain caseworkers did not even know! The psych? Well, he knew, but his “training” could not help him separate the reality from the psychobabble – a fruitless waste of time trying to talk me out of things that were not a mystery “mental illness”.

The brain surely brings our thoughts into existence, so any “disorder” of the mind must involve the brain {even if the ultimate source of one’s distress is an external social factor of a bad “behavioural health” program}. Yet to
extrapolate a person’s unique ways as being due to a subjective “illness”
is shameful and ignorant. Consider a similarity of when someone says a joke
is “sick”, obviously that is ridiculous since the joke is not something physical.

Nobody has, or can have, a mind that is physically sick. The “behavioural health” programs are opinion factories and are misleading when they present as a medical facility. If you go to one of them due to a known
neurologic problem, you are in the wrong place and are likely doing yourself a disservice! I sure was, but was drugged out of better sense.

Ugh! Back to the bollocks that is “chemical imbalance” idea. All of that
is originating from the “sick” mind of another that your thinking is “sick”!

Interestingly, I actually realize how, in the unfortunate years stuck at the “behavioural health” center, it never was the doctor that actually said that slippery phrase to me.

Is that surprising? Not actually. It could have been because he knew I might
call him out on it. Likely, it was because he knew it was baloney and
that he did not have to mention it since it was already promoted in groups.

That always irritated me in those groups! I remember the icky feeling I had
and my thinking “How can you just say that is true?” Many times, I would
just leave annoyed rather than question the caseworker, standing in the hall
a bit until I felt okay enough to come back in.

Consider the following:

“Patients these days are not suffering from ‘biologic illnesses’. What I generally see is patients suffering from current or past violence, traumatic loss, loss of power or control over their lives and the effects of cultural fragmentation, isolation and impoverishment that are specific to this culture at this time.” - David Kaiser, MD {Psychiatric Times; Dec. 96, VXIII Issue 12}

Wow! One of the few statements ever given
from a psych that is worth reading and believing.

Indeed, that still applies today.

Psychiatry frequently takes away control from many lives and that
creates “symptoms”. I understand how I simply learned more of how
to be confused, growing to even hate myself from just being a part of
anything related to psychiatry. The system helped me to become “mentally ill” more easily, so much so that it took too-long for me to understand I needed to escape from its influence and that I would be okay when I did.

In summary, it is just fine to not believe in the “chemical imbalance”
because there is no existence of them or a balanced level of any. Easy.
Nobody can show its more than a suggestion, and any coercion and/or deceptive techniques someone could use to mislead you is despicable.

However, if you still believe it is true, can you understand why? Is it simply because someone told you? Are you okay with that being all it would take?

Since there is no actual way to know it objectively, why do you accept? Honestly, is it really just because you want to believe and it makes you
feel better to have a semblance of a reason for your “wrong” behaviour?

There is nothing wrong with your thinking if you do not believe in “chemical imbalance” {or psychiatry, for that matter}, for you are in good company.

You are you and allowed to not believe that which does not benefit.

There are plenty of others who know and speak of this, so do not feel
that you are exclusive. True for myself, indeed, some of us are better
without believing much of what is taught in psychiatry/social work.

Finding truths that “fit” and weeding-out the falsities which hinder is needed for growth and maturity. Who and what you do or do not want to believe
in – and knowing the reasons why – is what we all must discover.

Copyright © 2018 Dee Essem/MIND MADE UP

{NOTE: originally, this was written May-July of 2018, but I decided to
move it here since November-December of 2017 had nothing published}