Hi. OP Here. I am grateful for everyone's responses
1) In the past I have suffered from delusions and physical pain and paranoia. I have been stable for a long time (but broken) so I am scared that it may be coming back now. Currently I am afraid everyone is in a conspiracy to hurt me.
2)I take zyprexa. This past week I have been coping with alcohol to cut the fear so I can sleep. I try watching Youtube videos and I watched a movie two nights ago and that helped. I am unemployed because of my illness.
3) yes there was a precise time when I was at work and I became paranoid around eleven years ago.
4)drugs. I did a little marijuana and tried hallucinogenic drugs three times. One time I had a bad experience but I do not remember it well. This was many years ago. And if it caused my problems they did not manifest until seven years later. Though at times I used to drink heavily. When I was young I did so many sins and I thought my suffering was punishment for my sins.
For the longest time I thought I was possessed by demons and I tried to get an exorcism. It is hard to get one and they just sent me to a psychiatrist who refused to take me on and sent me back to the public hospital. I even talked to Father Ripperger who is supposed to be a trad exorcist but he did not help me, he just told me to go to the chancery and they did not take me seriously. Some ladies who were harsh and probably laughed about me over drinks after work. Then I felt a lot better and I thought I was well. But now I feel bad again. I just hope it does not get so bad as it was because the suffering was unbearable. The kind of suffering that would lead a man who does not believe in God to ѕυιcιdє. So please pray for me that it does not get worse, or if it did, at least I could receive the sacraments and save my soul.
Hello OP-
Before I addreess your specific responses, it is interesting that Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson believed that most mental illness was caused by diabolical causes. If you read his book "Dawn of All," he gets into that a bit, and even addresses the primary cause of anxiety of permitting the emotional faculties to exert an undue influence over the intellect, so that the reasoning process does not reassure the subject against his irrational emotions (e.g., fear).
Similarly, I recall reading in Piper's "The Cardinal Virtues" that all anxiety is the result of a defect in the virtue of fortitude, in which the turning one's gaze moresely inward because of fear produces the anxiety.
Finally, if we recall that in scholastic philosophy, psychology is the study of the movements of the soul (and that only since the Revolution has the definition of soul been redefined from the animating power to the "mind," then it becomes clear that there is certainly an interaction between the soul and the supernatural world (e.g., grace; temptation; the inspirations and emotions responding to the promptings of spirits (good and bad), and that this is the case for all people (except the BVM).
With that in mind, here are my recommendations regarding your responses:
1) Anxiety: If the natural cause of anxiety is an excessive fear which causes one to fixate one's gaze on oneself, then the two best coping mechanisms (other than properly prescribed medication) are purposeful distraction and deliberate deep breathing.
A) Breathing: If you consider the times when your anxiety (mild or severe) has struck, you will often note that your breathing has considerably shortened (almost as though you have "forgotten" to breath. This alone will cause a panic reflex, designed to "snap you out of it," but that snap can be alarming, and cause an attack. So the response to stave off this attack (even when you become only pre-conscious that an attack is about to set in, you will discover your breathing has been interrupted), or in the midst of an attack, is to deliberately focus on taking 4-5 long, deep breaths, and exhale them completely. Do so in a consistent, calm, normal pace. 4-5 times is all it takes. People with profound anxiety disorder report this is nearly 100% effective. The bad part is that the breathing exercise is a reaction: It does not cure the cause of the anxiety, but "puts out the fire" immediately so that you can return to peace.
B) Purposeful distraction: Once you have the anxiety under control, it is important to divert the minds' gaze outwardly. It is almost as though you are playing a trick on yourself which robs the anxiety of its effect/power over you: If you are outside, go do a task inside (put your garage in order, do some carpentry, go fishing, etc). But -and this is key- it must be an active task. Don't zone out in front of a movie or TV, passively, because this still allows your mind to wander, and by habbit it may refixate on itself/yourself (though that is OK for late night hours, when you obviously can't do certain things, and need to sleep). This is why in the old days, the sanitariums would have patients make ash trays, etc: a craft to occupy the mind, and keep it projecting outward.
C) Charitable acts: St. Alphonsus said "contra agerit" (do the opposite). I believe St. Ignatius also said the same. If anxiety is caused by a morose fixation on self, stemming from an excessive fear and defect of the virtue of fortitude (which may not be your fault!), then instead of turning the mind inward on self, it should be projected outwardly onto others: Help out at church; protest abortion; get active in some kind of Catholic action; etc. Stay busy, and in helping others, you will notice an inversely proportionate decline in your anxiety, in such measure as you redirect your mind to the good of otheres.
D) Building up fortitude: Most people that possess this virtue are not born with it. Like all virtues, it is a habit. To build the virtue, you need to practice little acts of fortitude. If you are under 40, perhaps you can take boxing lessons, or mountain bike on trils, or camp in the woods, etc. Things which all have a small sense of excitement and danger about them, but which are -usually- not objectively "dangerous," but....manly. You will discover you are feeling better about yourself every time you do something you did not think you could do, and in the process, little by little, in manageable steps, you are conquering yourself, and building the virtue of fortitude (the lack of which is, according to Piper, at the root of all anxiety).
(more to come)
Topic: Prayers for my mental health (Read 1362 times)