100 like me and my weekly stuff

Was out for a great run this morning and the weather is great. It was nice running (let’s call it shuffling) along the road. Tried to practise little mindfulness by paying attention to my breath my footsteps and a bit of nature. This made the run more enjoyable. My pace is still slow but bit by bit my maff pace is getting better and better for some parts of the run was in the 10 minute mile range which is where I am aiming for it to be. Even managed to jog albeit slowely up the hill I usually have to walk in places to keep heart rate low so feeling chuffed with myself at the moment. Link below to Maff  if anyone interested in it.

Link to Maff training type
Was nominated by  Yourenotaloneinthisworld (great blog by the way worth checking out)to pick a song I like which meant something to me. Only getting around to it now. The song is 100 like me the lyric “there must be 100 like me I am not the only one hiding“. When I heard it and first realised it was about different people and ther mental health I got emotional. I guess it made me feel not alone in my struggles and in hiding my illness. I think I hide it to avoid the stigma but sometimes I wonder is it just not to make people around me uncomfortable. I think the song is great and the video is also worth a look. See link below it’s definitely worth a listen.

Link to YouTube song 100 like me

Noticed the early onset of a bit of an episode yesturday evening but listened to some music and tried to focus on my breath and the episode came to a full stop. Had to try very hard to not let my thoughts go to a dark place my voices where somewhat supportive during this phase, as soon as I pulled out of it they went back to there usual ways. I think the best I can do is spot a negative line of thought and stop it before I get carried away. I guess I need practise at this.

Been practising some shaman meditation to my usual stuff . I am not sure if I should given my minds capacity to get carried away with things. I want to ask someone’s advice about it but no clue who to ask about this. For example when I visualise drawing energy from the ground I literally feel the sensation of it rising in my body. I believe a physiatrist would call this tactile hallucination I don’t know if it’s normal to feel these things for every one when practiseing or just myself. Saw a shaman once when I was going through hell years ago I recall him saying I was a super sensitive given the way I reacted to some things. Not sure what to make of it for now all I intend to practise is the meditation from it and stay grounded and just see where it goes.

My dreams for the most part where fine had one difficult night. They are still very vivid and can wake me up but I am we’ll practised at getting back to sleep.

Not sure if I will go back to therapy. I am not saying I am closing the door to it just that I am seeing how I get on with out it for a while , I may give it a go again but the last time I went. Really had nothing’s to say.

I got my raise in work, they seem happy with me said to keep up the good work.

Was doing some research on mindfulness they mentioned you may become aware of things in your life you where previously unaware off. The one thing that has really stood out for me has been the level of violence in the way people in the house communicate with each other. The language they use is incredible. You would not hear it in a movie with bad language. I also noticed that at times my own inner speech can reflect this as well. Making more of an effort to be more compassionate to myself and how I think of others. It’s taking a bit of effort but I think it’s worth it.

Hope this post finds you well.

Keep up the good fight.👌🏽👍🏼😊

Psychosis or Spiritual Awakening?

Read some links during the week from hearing voices network ireland on facebook. Thought they where very interesting. 

The first link is a guy who examines how indigenous people treat people who hear voices. It basically states that they are not treated with any stigma. That in general they would have a mentor who has been through something similar themselves who guides them through this process and then they possible end up as a type of healer for the community. It suggests they are able to induce a altered state of mind which they can get useful bits of information from.

I would like to point out they basically contribute to there community and also survive with out the use of antipsychotics. I can’t help but wonder if someone from western society who hears voices went to the indigenous healer who also hears voices, would they be willing to teach them how they live with the voices. And would it be similar to the voice dialog that is promoted by the hearing voices networks.

I guess I am just letting my thoughts run away with me but I would be interested in travelling to meet such people to learn what I could from them. Anywho see link below to Ted talk I thought it was very interesting, if you have a look let me know what you think in the comments.

Link to Ted talks
The next link is about a woman Rachel. Who briefly explains her story of her experience’s of mental health services. Very interesting woman well worth a look.

Rachel’s Story

Weeks summary:

I have a recurring dream where I am trying to get down the stairs from my room to the living room in the house I grew up in and I am in a anxious state of mind. I got down the stairs during the week and burst into the living room in an upset state of mind. To find my mother and uncle with a child version of myself just sitting there.

I then thought I woke up and sat on the edge of my bed. One of my voices said what do you expect from us all we can do is Viking speak and then said eat shit and die, I laughed at this as I have come to do of most insults. I then realised I was still dreaming. So I went off down the stairs again, along the way I meet my childhood dog and asked him to come with me. I find the sitting room door tied shut . I tear it open and find the grandfather who abused me sitting on a chair watching TV with a fire lighting. He got up and backed away from me with an alarmed look on his face. I grab him and tell him to get the fuck out of my head he replies I don’t know where it is. I try to punch through his head but struggle to do so, so I then proceed to squash him into the fireplace to burn him while my dog looks on , I then woke up . Bit of a heavy dream tried little bit of meditation after it to relax before I got on with my day. My dreams since have been happy enough , my sleep self also seems to excipiet a stronger ability to control things in the dreams which is nice.

I basically gave up the idea of telling work I have been diagnosed with schizophrenia. I decided it’s just nice to have a place where I am not treated as if I am going to freak out at any second and attack everyone, which is the way it is at home at times which is not nice to live with.Plus telling them this may cost me my job and like every one else I need the money.

Still practising meditation and running away at my slow pace but both practises seem to keep me happy.

Considering changing name of my blog to voicehearer548 as schizophrenia548 does not really feel right anymore.

I also went back to my previous therapist and realised when I was in there I really did not have anything to say. So he flicked through this blog and mentioned the other therapist I had been seeing seemed very judgemental which he would consider to be wrong , especially when it came to my parents.

Hope this post finds you well

Keep up the good fight👍🏼

Dreams Voices, Meditation

Mediatiation & Voices

Practicing meditation away. Seems like an enjoyable process. The autogenics and mantra meditation are much easier than just mindfulness breathing. I find just trying to be aware of my breathing extremely difficult as my mind can be very busy and if it’s quite the voices are not inclined to speak up.

I had an experience during the week which I have not had in over 10 years. While practising mantra meditation (which I have been doing for few weeks) . I do have quite times without voices but anytime I become aware that it is quite in my mind the voices kick in, so it is unusual to get to enjoy just having a quite mind. I was saying my mantra over and over and noticed there where no voices in my mind at the time, which would usually lead to them swearing at me but nothing happened. This continued on for a while and even when I reached out for them. I think I experienced this once while sleeping in the last 10 years or so. It might not sound like a big deal but I sort of felt normal for just a little while. Whatever normal is supposed to be.

The voices still call me bad stuff but I think the 2 main woman who I hear have mellowed a little bit. They would argue that its me who has changed and it is becoming almost impossible to insult me anymore. It’s hard to tell maybe it’s just me who’s changed my reaction time them but I think they have mellowed a bit from what I remember of them in the past. The voice Beatrice says she has not mellowed and to not write this in my ear as I read over it but I wrote it anyway.

WORK

I asked my boss for a raise. He said he was happy with my work and I deserved one and would look into it and let me know Monday. I guess the feeling of not fitting in is something I always get in groups of people, and leaving purely because of this will just keep happening in every job so will stick it out and see what happens.

RUNNING

Training away during the week it seems to be going fine again. My average Maff pace is about 12:00min/mile which is slow running but it is slowely getting faster again and it feels like I am back running again as apposed to just shuffling along. Going up hills is a disaster while trying to keep,heart rate down but all in all it feels good. It’s good to be back running gives the mind something else to focus on.

Deppression

Had an odd realisation during the week. I was sitting there working away and my thoughts started to get negative and I started feeling down for no reason. This can happen to me from time to time. I started to catch each negative thought before it could take route, and say thing like I caught you and laugh to the thought in my head. I believe this was deppression. I was diagnosed with it and depressive episodes I believe are part of schizophrenia. I just never put the two toghter till now. I find it odd I never realised this. I felt down a bit for rest of day but went for a run and more or less got rid of this frame of mind by next morning. It really taints the whole thought process and is difficult to realise it’s happening. Need to be more aware of this going forward.

Dreams

I am just going to jot down what’s going on in my dreams this morning not sure anyone is interested.

I simplified my instructions to my sleep self to just enjoy yourself and have good and peaceful dreams and To seek friends and allies to help me in my dreams.

I found my sleep self going around in my dream saying hello friend how are you to just about everything.

I always wake up in bed in my dream and go looking around the house in the dream . I meet a person purely made up of hands Touching at finger tips with a very compassionate set of eyes. I shook there hand. Then answered the door to a postman giving me mail saying to run 5 miles. When I went for a run later that morning in my waking life I did 5 miles , I guess that sounds mad but it seemed like a good idea.

I then went outside in the dream and kept saying hello to everyone I meet and asking how are you friend. Also something I noticed there are very few men in my dreams mostly just woman. Not sure what to make of it. Everyone then went up along a fence and I saw a pig sleeping in a tree and a brown bull in a very friendly manner approached me like he was a friendly dog. I patted him and said hello. He then died and branches grew out of his stomach. Not sure if everyone has dreams like this or are mine just nutty.

I also had a dream of lying in bed and looking at shadows on the ceilings. Which would then drop of the ceilings on to me. I don’t seem to be afraid of them in my dream. I think they represent repressed sexuality. Not sure what to make of them.

Well I have ranted on long enough hope this post finds you well.

Keep up the good fight ✊🏾✊🏻🏃🏼

Link to autogenics
Link to Maff running

Meditation & day to day stuff

Meditation & Voices

Started practicing Autogenics in the morning as well as the evening. I am on the final part of the first phase it only takes couple of minutes and I feel my arms and legs get heavy so I think it’s working. I would really recommend it, might stick link on end of page to it.

Also been waking up a bit early so decided to practise mantra meditation in the mornings. Tried before but gave up the voices were quite intense at the time. I just reapet the same word or phrase over and over until I feel I have had enough. After I practised it this morning I felt very relaxed and calm. I just lay here in bed with my eyes closed listening to occasional voice that popped into my head and the various odd images I sometimes see when I close my eyes. I would answer the odd voice and react to odd image if I found it threatening but all in all I was very relaxed and I have never really made sense of images I see. It’s like your dreaming except your wide awake with your eyes closed.

Might look around for course on mindfulness. I use podcast of 20 minute meditation on the iPad most evenings. I believe it helps me accept where my life is , which I can sometimes struggle with. It also helps me focus on the moment which is good as I can spend most of the day in my head.

Voices quite enough this week. One of the voices I call Mary is trying to be helpful but neither of the two of us are used to interacting that way be interesting to see if stays that way. They still call me names and stuff but I don’t react as much. I guess at this stage I should accept that they might always call me unpleasant things, it doesn’t bother me as much.

Running

Went back running a day or two ago it went fine considering I was off for two weeks. I am determined to build an aerobic base through maff method. So I am back shuffling along the road and calling it running. It’s great to be back running it gives my mind something other than work to focus on. I think my dog is happier than me to be back running.

Work

Work seems to be going fine. I was going to tell them I have schizophrenia but ended up asking for a raise instead, not sure how that worked out. I might say it to them yet but I will see. There taking me up to an open day on the program I use next Wednesday. I guess it’s a day out of the office but I don’t like crowds so will just see how goes.

There was a bit of excitement in work Friday morning there was a leak in roof and there was water going everywhere. Not good for PC’s.  Myself and another guy where mopping up water with tea towels. 

Intrusive thoughts:

Intrusive thoughts is a subject When I looked at a few years ago and I could find out very little about. Also if you bring this up with a mental health professional you may get a very bad reaction. They are without doubt one of the main contributors to the reason I tried to commit suicide a few times. I regret having tried this but can’t change what I have done, and just try and do all I can to see it never happens again. I read an article this morning about a mother having intrusive thoughts about her baby. It is very interesting I would recommend if you have an interest in trying to understanding such things.

Link to intrusive thought article
Hope this post finds you well.

Keep up the good fight✊🏾👍🏼👌🏽🏃🏼

Link to autogenics