Meditation and fears (mental illness)

[RopeNL]

Hi everyone,

I have a question about meditation and fears, or more specifically mental illness.

I have been meditating for about a month now, but a week ago I stopped because something happened which hasn't happened to me for a long time. First I'll tell you a little bit about me, so it makes sense.

About 7-8 years ago I had a psychosis while under influence of drugs. This has been a huge issue throughout my life so far. I've defined myself at some point as "a guy who had a psychosis" instead of "a guy".
This has come to a certain point where now I feel like I'm at a crossroad in my life.

I've been on the dark side (depression and the psychosis, fear) and I've been on the bright side (love and compassion). So now here I am and I can just feel like I'm slipping back into my old patterns of fear instead of love.

I feel like I'm slipping back because 1 week ago I want out for a drink with some friends of mine and I drank a lot. Like so much I was sick for 2 days after.
Ever since I've been feeling afraid, and the thoughts that were gone for a long time have been coming back, thoughts of not being safe, hearing people talk when I know that there are no people, doubts about reality etc.

I have scheduled an appointment with a psychiatrist (which I was actually just starting to stop seeing maybe 4 weeks ago, at their advice), so I'm not just counting on just meditation and reflection upon my life to win this for me.
I'm willing to put effort into getting better and this is not a way for me to take a shortcut. But I've felt what meditation has done for me already and I don't want to stop meditating because I feel afraid of my thoughts.

Does anyone have any experience with this? And if so what is your advice for me?

Should I keep mediating? Just do 5 minutes and crank it up when I feel I'm ready (I was at a point where I could meditate for 20 minutes and now I'm back at 0 haha .)? How would you approach this?

I welcome any advice you can give me.

[Johnny Dangerous]

I don't know how similar our experiences are..but when i've had trouble with episodes of severe panic and anxiety I actually found body scan meditations to be the most effective, and least likely to cause a "reaction".

Hope you get on the upswing soon man.

[Mkoll]

Hi everyone,

I have a question about meditation and fears, or more specifically mental illness.

I have been meditating for about a month now, but a week ago I stopped because something happened which hasn't happened to me for a long time. First I'll tell you a little bit about me, so it makes sense.

About 7-8 years ago I had a psychosis while under influence of drugs. This has been a huge issue throughout my life so far. I've defined myself at some point as "a guy who had a psychosis" instead of "a guy".
This has come to a certain point where now I feel like I'm at a crossroad in my life.

I've been on the dark side (depression and the psychosis, fear) and I've been on the bright side (love and compassion). So now here I am and I can just feel like I'm slipping back into my old patterns of fear instead of love.

I feel like I'm slipping back because 1 week ago I want out for a drink with some friends of mine and I drank a lot. Like so much I was sick for 2 days after.
Ever since I've been feeling afraid, and the thoughts that were gone for a long time have been coming back, thoughts of not being safe, hearing people talk when I know that there are no people, doubts about reality etc.

I have scheduled an appointment with a psychiatrist (which I was actually just starting to stop seeing maybe 4 weeks ago, at their advice), so I'm not just counting on just meditation and reflection upon my life to win this for me.
I'm willing to put effort into getting better and this is not a way for me to take a shortcut. But I've felt what meditation has done for me already and I don't want to stop meditating because I feel afraid of my thoughts.

Does anyone have any experience with this? And if so what is your advice for me?

Should I keep mediating? Just do 5 minutes and crank it up when I feel I'm ready (I was at a point where I could meditate for 20 minutes and now I'm back at 0 haha .)? How would you approach this?

I welcome any advice you can give me.

It seems to me that drinking was a causal factor in this episode of mental instability. My advice would be to take refuge, take the five precepts, and quit drinking permanently. If you're not ready for the first two (which are Buddhist), you can just quit drinking for your own mental and physical well-being. In the long run, it's better up here on the wagon.

[SeekerNo1000003]

I once watched a documentary about drug-induced psychosis...but can't remember the details.
My impression is: if you developed psychosis after taking drugs you may be more vulnerable to any substances (e.g., alcohol) that suddenly alter brain's chemistry. Apparently alcohol increases the risk of psychotic disorders 8-fold in men... (see substance-induced psychosis on wiki & the cited sources). If you had similar problems before, then maybe you should consider a complete abstinence from such substances?
Don't know...but if I was in your situation that's the first thing I would look into. Perhaps you could ask the psychiatrist about this.
Take care! I hope you will get back to normal soon.

[Ayu]

Does anyone have any experience with this? And if so what is your advice for me?

Should I keep mediating? Just do 5 minutes and crank it up when I feel I'm ready (I was at a point where I could meditate for 20 minutes and now I'm back at 0 haha .)? How would you approach this?

Out of experience I can give you the following advices:

- Better to do a practice regularly than long time. It must not be meditation in the beginning, can be recitations also. Or another simple practice. Just breathing.
- If you do meditation, it should be shorter but regularly. This regularity can be 2 minutes only once or twice a day.
- For balance have a physical practice also, like yoga, chi gong or something like that.
- Keep away from alcohol and drugs, especially no marihuana.
- Take care of yourself as if you were your own child.

My story seems to be a littlebit similair.

After one month in a mental hospital at the age of 18, I started a new drug-free life back home. Any drugs would push me back into psychosis. So I had to get clean for to save my life.
I was attached to meditation, but unfortunately I couldn't do it. The sessions soon turned into a horror trip after a while. A good friend and teacher gave me the advice to meditate not yet. I should keep it as a goal for later, but now I should have strengthend my nerves. For that purpose I did yoga asanas regularly twice a day. Like this I got the habit to do spiritual practice. Yoga is working on the glands and helps to build up a proper strong nervous system.
Then later I started doing meditation twice a day for 2 minutes in the beginnig and increased the meditation-time slowly. After half a year I could meditate for 20 minutes twice a day.
I got healthy and more calm.

For to do yoga, a clean lifestyle is necessary, even it is better to be vegetarian. But I enjoyed this lifestyle very much. It was a new life.
Whenever I drank one or two glasses of alcohol (wine or beer) I could not adjust to it well. The eyesight became extreme, the colours where stronger, the lights looked more bright... I felt like being very smart, intelligent and clairvoyant...
Then next morning I felt pretty bad and my meditations were distracted for some days. This was reason enough to become careful with alcohol. It has no use to drink it.
It was more easy to stop drinking completely, when I took the silas.

[Jesse]

I live with mental illness and I practice meditation fairly often. To be honest fear of the stigma of mental illness is worse than the illness.

I manage mine mainly with will power. what really hurts is that our society is incompatible with treating mental illness in any compacity. We use drugs to manage symptoms while ignoring the causes. Ayu touched on some of the root causes.

If you want to continue meditation figure out the root causes of your psychosis. Diet, environment, certain beliefs, chemicals your ingesting, figure out the warning signs of delusional thinking and stop it dead in its tracks. Relaxation helps a lot.

I hope you feel better and wish you luck.

[Johnny Dangerous]

I live with mental illness and I practice meditation fairly often. To be honest fear of the stigma of mental illness is worse than the illness.

I manage mine mainly with will power. what really hurts is that our society is incompatible with treating mental illness in any compacity. We use drugs to manage symptoms while ignoring the causes. Ayu touched on some of the root causes.

If you want to continue meditation figure out the root causes of your psychosis. Diet, environment, certain beliefs, chemicals your ingesting, figure out the warning signs of delusional thinking and stop it dead in its tracks. Relaxation helps a lot.

I hope you feel better and wish you luck.

I rejoice that people share openly on this board about mental illness, and I agree our society on the whole is presently not great at anything but (often poor) management of it.

Also wanted to mention, my anxiety issues were either created or brought to the surface by experiences with substances, PCP laced pot when I was in my teens, long ago - but I believe the experience seriously altered me.

[kirtu]

I hesitate to respond because JD, Jessie and Ayu have pretty clearly given great advice. Also I have no idea what psychosis is actually. Perhaps you could meditate for just 5 minutes a few times a day.

Kirt

[RopeNL]

Hi everyone!

I can not thank you enough for responding! The things you've said make a lot of sense to me.

I've tried to not drink alcohol for some time but I always failed. I stopped using drugs almost right after I had the psychosis and have not touched it since (although I did take one puff of MJ that day when I felt so sick after). I was feeling so good with my friends I thought I could try at least one puff, figuring it wouldnt do much harm, and it only affirmed what I thought, I don't like it.
Though the fact that I even tried to me signals that I've grown to a point where I'm not using it anymore not out of fear but out of discipline.

Just need to do the same thing with alcohol now, but that will be much much harder.

Again thank you all. This forum has been of so much help to me and I can't believe that there are people who are so nice and helpful to others in a world where people wouldn't like twice at a homeless man/woman begging for food.

Thank you.

[Ayu]

With alcohol one has to observe the own mind thoroughly. I visualize it as a person: a charmer, a cheater, a monster. For me it was difficult to stop completely also, because alcohol is available everywhere - and this charmer looks so cute.

You'll have to find a good way. Be well.

[Parayana]

First time post as I'm a Theravadin but interested in Mahayana.

As others have said it was probably the alcohol that induced the negative emotions, I have been diagnosed with Schizophrenia as a result of drug abuse and find that if I drink too much I end up very anxious and paranoid, my nervous system is just to sensitive.

I'm trying to live by the five Theravadin lay precepts and the only way that is going to happen if I stay away from my drinking Buddies (a few of whom also smoke weed).

Recently I have been getting strong feelings of happiness and contentment when I place my behind on the Zafu and that if anything helps its a better "high" than booze or drugs.

Good luck with trying to stay sober.

[RopeNL]

Hmm.. I dont know about totally stopping with drinking. But I will stop overusing it. Its not like an addiction to me at all, I never have any alcohol in my house what so ever.

It's just that I went to far that time, and that won't happen again. I'm back meditating again. Started yesterday for 5 minutes, it felt really great, even felt it was a bit too short haha.

Still I will use what you told me. Maybe I'll see if I can stop drinking for a month. Friend of mine did that, dont think she ever felt so well than she did in that month.

[RopeNL]

Well.. Here I am 1 month later and I did it again. I went out last night and I over did it again. I just tried meditating and again I started hearing people talk about me, having sensations on the top of my head (like a tapping of a small hammer).

While I was at the club I already felt really out of place, like I wasn't supposed to be there at all. Everybody was drinking and dancing, the entire time I was thinking "What am I doing here? I am not getting any enjoyment out of this at all. It's all so shallow..". Yet I kept taking shots and drinking beer.

I'm done with alcohol. No more.

If you have any tips on abstaining from alcohol, please share.

[garudha]

Well.. Here I am 1 month later and I did it again. I went out last night and I over did it again. I just tried meditating and again I started hearing people talk about me, having sensations on the top of my head (like a tapping of a small hammer).

While I was at the club I already felt really out of place, like I wasn't supposed to be there at all. Everybody was drinking and dancing, the entire time I was thinking "What am I doing here? I am not getting any enjoyment out of this at all. It's all so shallow..". Yet I kept taking shots and drinking beer.

I'm done with alcohol. No more.

If you have any tips on abstaining from alcohol, please share.

Did you get the tapping sensations whist under the influence of alcohol, or within, say, 6 hours of drinking ?