Hi Christopher, thanks for your deeply personal writings about your experiences. 💚🤗
I have had my life turned around by reading Jung. From feeling isolated, ill (chronic fatigue syndrome in my 20's), intellectually alienated, angry, & confused. I'm a thrivor of sexual abuse; it's been decades long process of healing. I'm neurodiverse without diagnosis.
Basically western medicine failed me 30 years ago. Thank fuck.
Because the system is getting progressively madder as it self-implodes.
I've self medicated at times. I've gone off-grid, stopped paying attention to anyone & anything that doesn't recognise personal autonomy, individuatiin of ALL individuals, & that all life is inherently connected.
Jung was my literal life saver. I started translating my dreams because I had nightmares every time I tried to sleep. There were patterns within them. Learning to understand those patterns has helped me to clarify what MY OWN NEEDS ARE, unadulterated by any expert's opinion or systemic intervention.
I don't fit in a box. I don't think there is a box, unless it's Schroedinger's box (let the cat go, peoole, it's the box that may or may not be real!!!).
I can understand & empathise with your struggles, friend, and encourage u to honour your own process, and needs.
The modern culture & system is basically fucked. That u don't fit it is an indicator that u are real, & don't match the dominant dysfunctiinal narrative.
Your answers & needs will be different to mine. I will absolutely honour your solutions & processes & needs whatever they are.
Because u know ur true inner self better than any doctor or actually anyone else.
Read more Jung. Pretty sure he'd have qualified as neurodiverse too. Or insane, depending on who did the diagnosis, or when in his process they evaluated him. And his reflectiins & conclusions are glorious, and helpful.
Be proud of your self & how u have overcome & struggled. Find support with like-people; that can accept u as u are. U don't need to fit in. U need to be honoured as the individual u are.
I don't intend to minimise your struggles, but rather to say that I can accept them as an aspect of ur being, of your experiences, & can honour them as part of who u are.
Go well, friend.
ps there's a great book by Thomas Moore called Care of the Soul that's worth reading. Paraphrased it goes something like this; what are considered to be dysfunctional patterns are usually coping mechanisms we developed to protect ourselves, survival mechanisms developed as self defense from certain influences. As we grow & evolve, the need for these survival techniques (sometimes) abate.. but if our patterns persist, then they are considered dysfunctional. But really they are indicators of past trauma, & shine a spotlight on what/where we need healing & self-compassion. There is nothing WRONG with u...
In November 2020 I was prescribed Sertraline as I was suicidal. By July 2021 I was losing my hair in handfuls and felt....numb. It was like life was monochrome and I didn't feel anything anymore. No sadness but no joy either, it was horrible. I came off them, and in 2022 was dx with complex PTSD. I spent 4 months in therapy, EMDR, and took up karate. Much better 😂
However I can appreciate your perspective as an OCD sufferer, being ND myself. I've spent large portions of my life with hideous little voices in my head second guessing things, reading into situations and making me feel....less than adequate. How I would have loved to have shut them up. Age, wisdom that comes with it, marriage to a patient, kind lovely man and having two amazing boys eventually quietened those voices.
I watched an interview with Tom Cruise and a very bad interviewer who wouldn't accept what Tom Cruise was saying, which was "if you put a child on drugs to stop them fidgeting in class, these children are becoming addicts and they will end up on the streets most likely because having stronger drugs like Fentanyl will be too enticing to refuse." (I paraphrased)
I’m glad it helps. Your description of intrusive ruminations in OCD is suitably harrowing and, not, I believe, uncommon. The effects are often crippling. People, understandably, tend to become isolated when they suffer from these experiences and often fail to seek help, with, for instance, overwhelming feelings of shame. I hope you’re mentioning your experiences will be of benefit to others. All the best, John.
To be honest, I read that passage as funny. It is absurd. I think the key to OCD is to call out its bullshit. Then it loses its power.
Yes. I stalled at that passage, thinking 'this makes me sound insane.' Of course, it's the opposite. People who 'go crazy' don't know they are going crazy. If you think you're going crazy, it is a good sign that you're not.
Perhaps it will. When I read about Samuel Johnson's OCD, I felt a pang of unity. It could always be worse. Thankfully, I didn't feel compelled to walk into each corner of every room, like Dr. Johnson.
That’s pretty much why I think it’s helpful. And, whilst of course things may have changed since you wrote about it, you didn’t sound insane 😉. It can be extremely problematic for people who experience it and I do feel that others talking about it might help them feel less isolated though. But I’m going round in circles here myself! Anyway I thought it was a good column.
My understanding of ocd is extremely limited. I imagine it to be an internal battle against relentlessly awful non stop intrusive thoughts, like being trapped in a kind of roller coaster of extremely vivid and equally terrible intrusive thoughts that feed into each other in a convoluted and never ending infinity loop so that each attempt to thwart the thoughts simply leads into an equally or more terrifying thought.
Maybe something like this: I can't remember if I locked the front door so I probably didn't and when I get home there won't be a home because someone forgot to switch the oven off. Maybe it was me but I haven't cooked anything for weeks but still maybe it was me or if not me maybe it was Charlotte. I haven't seen her for weeks so she might forget to switch it off. The insurance company won't believe that it isn't Arson and I'll not only lose everything I own and not be insured, I'll also end up in prison for fraud because I won't be able to prove that I didnt deliberately set the house on fire. The cats will die, all my hoarded cans of baked beans will be wasted and I'll be homeless.
In the car it'll be more like: I really hope I don't suddenly run those people over. I don't want to but what if I do?
Switching off radio Louis is as impossible as voluntarily forcing my lungs to stop breathing.
If that's anything like ocd then maybe i need some zoloft too.
People don't realize that most of medicine (and especially neuroscience) is empirical; meaning the mechanisms by which certain drugs work are poorly understood and at best hypotheses, but they do work. I learned this directly from the neurologists treating my son's seizure disorder many years ago. So just because Zoloft and similar drugs don't work via the mechanism that was hypothesized doesn't mean they don't work. It just means we don't know how they work.
And there's a thing called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that actually treats things like depression by giving you tools to actually change your mood. Like, tools for coping. What a concept!
Don't know about the OCD thing but do know about anxiety; hats off to you if you found something that works!
Hi Christopher, thanks for your deeply personal writings about your experiences. 💚🤗
I have had my life turned around by reading Jung. From feeling isolated, ill (chronic fatigue syndrome in my 20's), intellectually alienated, angry, & confused. I'm a thrivor of sexual abuse; it's been decades long process of healing. I'm neurodiverse without diagnosis.
Basically western medicine failed me 30 years ago. Thank fuck.
Because the system is getting progressively madder as it self-implodes.
I've self medicated at times. I've gone off-grid, stopped paying attention to anyone & anything that doesn't recognise personal autonomy, individuatiin of ALL individuals, & that all life is inherently connected.
Jung was my literal life saver. I started translating my dreams because I had nightmares every time I tried to sleep. There were patterns within them. Learning to understand those patterns has helped me to clarify what MY OWN NEEDS ARE, unadulterated by any expert's opinion or systemic intervention.
I don't fit in a box. I don't think there is a box, unless it's Schroedinger's box (let the cat go, peoole, it's the box that may or may not be real!!!).
I can understand & empathise with your struggles, friend, and encourage u to honour your own process, and needs.
The modern culture & system is basically fucked. That u don't fit it is an indicator that u are real, & don't match the dominant dysfunctiinal narrative.
Your answers & needs will be different to mine. I will absolutely honour your solutions & processes & needs whatever they are.
Because u know ur true inner self better than any doctor or actually anyone else.
Read more Jung. Pretty sure he'd have qualified as neurodiverse too. Or insane, depending on who did the diagnosis, or when in his process they evaluated him. And his reflectiins & conclusions are glorious, and helpful.
Be proud of your self & how u have overcome & struggled. Find support with like-people; that can accept u as u are. U don't need to fit in. U need to be honoured as the individual u are.
I don't intend to minimise your struggles, but rather to say that I can accept them as an aspect of ur being, of your experiences, & can honour them as part of who u are.
Go well, friend.
ps there's a great book by Thomas Moore called Care of the Soul that's worth reading. Paraphrased it goes something like this; what are considered to be dysfunctional patterns are usually coping mechanisms we developed to protect ourselves, survival mechanisms developed as self defense from certain influences. As we grow & evolve, the need for these survival techniques (sometimes) abate.. but if our patterns persist, then they are considered dysfunctional. But really they are indicators of past trauma, & shine a spotlight on what/where we need healing & self-compassion. There is nothing WRONG with u...
In November 2020 I was prescribed Sertraline as I was suicidal. By July 2021 I was losing my hair in handfuls and felt....numb. It was like life was monochrome and I didn't feel anything anymore. No sadness but no joy either, it was horrible. I came off them, and in 2022 was dx with complex PTSD. I spent 4 months in therapy, EMDR, and took up karate. Much better 😂
However I can appreciate your perspective as an OCD sufferer, being ND myself. I've spent large portions of my life with hideous little voices in my head second guessing things, reading into situations and making me feel....less than adequate. How I would have loved to have shut them up. Age, wisdom that comes with it, marriage to a patient, kind lovely man and having two amazing boys eventually quietened those voices.
I watched an interview with Tom Cruise and a very bad interviewer who wouldn't accept what Tom Cruise was saying, which was "if you put a child on drugs to stop them fidgeting in class, these children are becoming addicts and they will end up on the streets most likely because having stronger drugs like Fentanyl will be too enticing to refuse." (I paraphrased)
I’m glad it helps. Your description of intrusive ruminations in OCD is suitably harrowing and, not, I believe, uncommon. The effects are often crippling. People, understandably, tend to become isolated when they suffer from these experiences and often fail to seek help, with, for instance, overwhelming feelings of shame. I hope you’re mentioning your experiences will be of benefit to others. All the best, John.
Thanks, John.
To be honest, I read that passage as funny. It is absurd. I think the key to OCD is to call out its bullshit. Then it loses its power.
Yes. I stalled at that passage, thinking 'this makes me sound insane.' Of course, it's the opposite. People who 'go crazy' don't know they are going crazy. If you think you're going crazy, it is a good sign that you're not.
Perhaps it will. When I read about Samuel Johnson's OCD, I felt a pang of unity. It could always be worse. Thankfully, I didn't feel compelled to walk into each corner of every room, like Dr. Johnson.
That’s pretty much why I think it’s helpful. And, whilst of course things may have changed since you wrote about it, you didn’t sound insane 😉. It can be extremely problematic for people who experience it and I do feel that others talking about it might help them feel less isolated though. But I’m going round in circles here myself! Anyway I thought it was a good column.
My understanding of ocd is extremely limited. I imagine it to be an internal battle against relentlessly awful non stop intrusive thoughts, like being trapped in a kind of roller coaster of extremely vivid and equally terrible intrusive thoughts that feed into each other in a convoluted and never ending infinity loop so that each attempt to thwart the thoughts simply leads into an equally or more terrifying thought.
Maybe something like this: I can't remember if I locked the front door so I probably didn't and when I get home there won't be a home because someone forgot to switch the oven off. Maybe it was me but I haven't cooked anything for weeks but still maybe it was me or if not me maybe it was Charlotte. I haven't seen her for weeks so she might forget to switch it off. The insurance company won't believe that it isn't Arson and I'll not only lose everything I own and not be insured, I'll also end up in prison for fraud because I won't be able to prove that I didnt deliberately set the house on fire. The cats will die, all my hoarded cans of baked beans will be wasted and I'll be homeless.
In the car it'll be more like: I really hope I don't suddenly run those people over. I don't want to but what if I do?
Switching off radio Louis is as impossible as voluntarily forcing my lungs to stop breathing.
If that's anything like ocd then maybe i need some zoloft too.
People don't realize that most of medicine (and especially neuroscience) is empirical; meaning the mechanisms by which certain drugs work are poorly understood and at best hypotheses, but they do work. I learned this directly from the neurologists treating my son's seizure disorder many years ago. So just because Zoloft and similar drugs don't work via the mechanism that was hypothesized doesn't mean they don't work. It just means we don't know how they work.
And there's a thing called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that actually treats things like depression by giving you tools to actually change your mood. Like, tools for coping. What a concept!
Don't know about the OCD thing but do know about anxiety; hats off to you if you found something that works!