“Because I think visually, not being able to read meant that other parts of my brain were pushed further…”

That is a comment by movie director Joe Wright about being dyslexic, from an NPR / All Things Considered show which I found thanks to the Dyslexic Advantage Facebook page of Brock Eide, MD, MA, and Fernette Eide, MD, on which they list other highly talented people, and the advantages of the ‘unique brain structure and organization’ of dyslexia.

Continued: Considering Carefully: Director Joe Wright on Dyslexia

Excerpt from lyrics (based on Emily Dickinson) in video: Fearing – by The Amygdaloids

While I was fearing it came
But with less of the fear because
Fearing it so long
Had almost made it dear
There is a fitting dismay
An appropriate despair
Tis harder knowing that fear is due than
Knowing it is here

Continued: Anxiety and the Amygdala

~ ~

“I think it’s true of all stammerers. They can’t stammer when they sing.”

As a child, Carly Simon suffered from stuttering, and found that singing helped. She commented, “There’s something about the mind connecting differently to the vocal cords when you apply either rhythm or melody.”

Glen Campbell, 75, recently made public the fact he has Alzheimer’s disease. But next year he plans to perform in his Goodbye Tour in various countries, for as long as two years if his health allows it.

In a recent newspaper article about him, there is a reference that “the capacity for music tends to be affected by Alzheimer’s disease differently than other brain functions.”

Continued in Music Lives in Another Part of the Brain.

Darold Treffert, M.D. notes, “Savant syndrome is a rare but remarkable condition in which people with developmental disabilities, including autism or other central nervous system disorders, have some remarkable islands of genius that stand in stark contrast to their overall handicap.”

He refers to three levels of savant syndrome: “splinter skills…youngsters, or adults, who memorize sports trivia or birthdays or may even do some calendar-calculating…Then there’s a second level of savants that I call talented savants…Generally, they are more highly honed into one particular skill, such as music or art, for example.

“And then there’s a third level, which I call prodigious savants. These are people whose skills are so spectacular that, if they were not disabled, they would be at a genius level.”

Neurologist Oliver Sacks relates the story of a physician who was struck by a bolt of lightning, and then experienced an obsession with learning to play classical piano music, something that had never interested him.

Continued: Brain Differences and Creativity

~ ~

At least part of the answer is in terms of brain function.

“How many times have you set yourself a goal to achieve something you’ve never achieved before?” he writes. “You’ve been highly motivated and really excited at first but in a short time, you find you give up or quit?

“There is a small almond shaped organ in your brain called the Amygdala, which must share some of the blame.”

Continued in his article Trying To Achieve Success And The Little Almond Shaped Organ That Holds You Back.

Dean Whittingham is author of the Reprogramming the Mind for Success program and related ebook – you can get a free copy by subscribing to my Developing Talent newsletter using the form below, or in his article.

The image is from the video Emotions in the brain, from post Anxiety and the Amygdala.

A related post: Neuroscience and sensitivity – our superior colliculus and amygdala

Research is helping explain shyness in terms of brain physiology, particularly involving the amygdala (technically amygdalae) – a pair of structures in the limbic system that processes emotional reactions.

In his article The Evolution of Anxiety, Rich Presta explains, “Whenever you get input from your senses, it gets sent to two different parts of your brain for analysis. One is the frontal cortex… The other is called the amygdala (uh-MIG-duh- luh), which is actually two nerve centers that look like almonds and are located on either side of the thalamus.”

He adds, “The amygdala is old. Real old. It’s part of what is often called the ‘reptilian brain’ because it’s been around since we were virtually reptiles ourselves, and one of the main jobs of the amygdala is assessing danger and keeping us safe.”

One of the key elements of anxiety is getting revved up with the “fight or flight” response that kept us safe from sabretooth tiger attacks – but we can still feel the response when “confronted” by a first date or a job review.

The article Shyness is inherited by Medical News Today reports that “researchers conducted brain scans on 22-year-olds and found that those who had been classified 20 years before as inhibited or shy children had a distinctive reaction in their brains when confronted with novel images.

“People who had been judged as toddlers to be inhibited showed in the scans that the amygdala structure in their brains responded much more actively to unexpected sights than did those subjects who had been judged as children to be more outgoing, said Jerome Kagan, a researcher in the department of psychology at Harvard University.”

The article adds, “Kagan also suggests that shyness is a temperament that can be inherited, but this temperament does not necessarily determine one’s eventual personality.”

“Sometimes because I am very shy, when I meet a director and they are shy too, we just sort of sit there.”

Sigourney Weaver

Maybe all this can help explain more about why so many of us were shy as children, and still feel it – often along with other forms of apprehension or anxiety.

See more info including videos in the post Anxiety and the Amygdala – anxiety relief programs.

It is important to note that shyness is not the same as introversion.

Laurie Helgoe notes in her Psychology Today article: “On the surface, introversion looks a lot like shyness. Both limit social interaction, but for differing reasons.

“The shy want desperately to connect but find socializing difficult, says Bernardo J. Carducci, professor of psychology and director of the Shyness Research Institute at Indiana University Southeast. Introverts seek time alone because they want time alone.

“An introvert and a shy person might be standing against the wall at a party, but the introvert prefers to be there, while the shy individual feels she has no choice.”  [From Revenge of the Introvert.]

Also see my post Shyness, Introversion, Sensitivity – What’s the Difference?

shyness, shy people, feeling shy, social phobia, social anxiety, timid, withdrawn, fear of people, shyness and amygdala

What are some of the reasons people stop taking medications??

What are the alternatives?

• My inner life, and sometimes my outer life, is painful/chaotic/confusing. The DSM symptoms list for certain mental illnesses seem to fit me so I must be ill.

The mental suffering of sensitive, creative and divergent children and adults is real. Existential depression, loneliness, and emotional overwhelm are very real, as are the complications arising from our use of behaviors and substances to alleviate our suffering.

These experiences don’t require a diagnosis of mental illness in order to be taken seriously. And treating our suffering doesn’t need to include tampering with our highly sensitive brains.

• It is a relief to be given a psychiatric diagnosis.

When I was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder I felt relieved. I thought I finally had an explanation for all the difficult relationships, mistakes and trauma in my life. And there were pills that would fix it all!

I trusted the medical professionals who interpreted my creative energy as mania and my mental energy as ‘racing thoughts,’ because they must know best.

Unaware of high sensitivity and the complex dynamics of giftedness and creativity, I was very self-critical and ashamed of myself.

I’d spent years in therapy and graduate school studying psychology, committed to understanding my mind and taking responsibility for what I thought were my failures and inability to ‘fit in.’ The bipolar diagnosis felt like a huge ‘pass.’ I had a ‘disease’ and it wasn’t my responsibility.

It’s challenging and often lonely to live in this world with a creative, sensitive brain. But it’s not a disease. I take responsibility for learning as much as possible about living a healthy, meaningful life as a gifted HSP in an often unsupportive world. Thankfully, there is much more information available to us now than in the past, and a growing community of people with similar challenges and gifts.

With the growing understanding of these issues, and the support of others with similar personality, I now have a self-concept based on my own interpretation of myself over my entire life, rather than on the opinion of psychiatric professionals who have had only brief encounters with me.

• I need relief now! There’s nothing else I can do but take medication.

When we go to a therapist or psychiatrist we are often in acute distress. Real healing of the mind and body take time, but when we’re suffering we’re especially vulnerable to doctors who may tell us that we have a disease, we need drugs and the drugs will help now.

What they are unlikely to tell us is that no disease has been proven in the case of mental illness, the drugs don’t really ‘cure’ but sedate and alter the brain, and effective alternatives exist.

Even the need for short-term drug intervention for suicidal and delusional patients might be overestimated. Studies have shown various supplemental, nutritional and alternative therapies to be as or more effective in relieving symptoms.

• My doctor must know what she’s talking about and she seems to really care about me.

The reality is that psychiatrists have no idea why and how the drugs they prescribe work, nor are they aware of their long-term effects and the data on their inefficacy.

We all need people who care about us, especially when we’re in emotional crisis, and mental health professionals are usually in that profession because of a sincere desire to alleviate suffering.

But perhaps someone trained by, and very often given perks by, drug corporations and the institutions they support, isn’t the most informed and objective resource.

• Not taking drugs to treat mental illness is as dangerous as not treating cancer or diabetes.

While not treating suicidality or other extreme states can be dangerous, the fact remains that mental illness is not like physical illness.

The question is, do psychiatric medications really treat life-threatening and severely debilitating states, or do they sedate and disable the brain, giving an illusion of improvement?

Might these drugs be even more dangerous than the ‘diseases’ they claim to treat?

• I think I have a mental illness as well as a creative/sensitive personality, so I need medications.

Sounds logical, but even if you decide you really have bipolar disorder or another mental illness, it’s a good idea to think twice before you choose how to treat it.

These drugs have many physical and psychological side effects (often discounted by psychiatrists as symptoms of the purported illness), and more or different drugs may be prescribed to deal with them.

• I just need to take drugs for a little while, then when I’m better I’ll stop.

Getting on psychiatric drugs may be easy, but getting off them can be hell.

It’s becoming clear, through the investigations of people like Robert Whitaker in Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, that the prognosis for those on psychiatric medications is grim: a 10-25 year shorter life span, and the likelihood of permanent disability.

It takes some people years to taper off psychiatric medications, and some are never able to do so successfully. I was lucky – it took me a year of slow tapering to get off multiple psychiatric medications which had caused depression, intense anxiety, sleeplessness, diabetes, tinitus, digestive problems, cognitive dysfunction and more.

Now that I’m drug-free, I sleep, dream and experience my emotions again authentically, but I continue to experience some physical side effects from the medications and may for some time. It’s a long road to recovery.

• What are the alternatives?

There are orthomolecular psychiatrists who actually do tests to determine what underlying physical conditions may be responsible for mental distress.

There are also many books and organizations, some listed below, which provide information on behavioral, nutritional and supplemental alternatives to drugs.

Although supplements can have side effects and need to be carefully chosen, many have been used for thousands of years to effectively treat emotional and mental conditions.

There is life after psychiatric drugs. For me, it’s been a better life.

Related:

Posts:

Woman interrupted: misdiagnosis and medication of sensitivity and giftedness

Misdiagnosis of the Gifted

Books:

Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America

Your Drug May Be Your Problem, Revised Edition: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Medications

Organizations:

Safe Harbor — Includes links to find medical doctors (by zip code) who can assist with helping people safely get off of psychiatric drugs and medical personnel who will treat people without the use of psychiatric drugs

Alternative to Meds Center — Residential psychiatric medication withdrawal with medical and naturopathic oversight in Sedona, Arizona

Green Mental Health — Holistically-centered mental health care system which reflects traditional environmental, humanitarian, and health conscious values

The Road Back — How to get off psychiatric drugs safely

Soteria House — Alternative and non-drug solutions for people diagnosed schizophrenic

Mind Freedom International — is a nonprofit organization that works to win human rights and provide alternatives for people labeled with psychiatric disabilities

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights
~~

sensitivity and psychiatric drugs, sensitivity and mental illness, sensitivity and drugs, sensitivity and giftedness, high sensitivity personality, mental health books, drug books, highly sensitive books

Are psychiatrists equipped to recognize and support creativity, high sensitivity and giftedness?

Who determines where creative intensity ends and mental illness begins?

Do medications put our creativity and sensitivity at risk?

Over a year and a half ago, I asked myself these questions as I began a journey back to a drug-free life after years on anti-depressants and other medications.

Misdiagnosis and medications

A few years ago I began seeing a well-meaning psychiatric Nurse Practioner who monitored my anti-depressants. At the time, I’d been on various antidepressants for about 14 years.

She had no experience working with giftedness or Highly Sensitive Personality, like most mental health professionals.

She had a calm, conservative, scientific personality, like many in her field – very different from my intense, expressive and sensitive personality.

Although I was recovering well from PTSD after repeated traumas, which would have accounted for any distress even in the absence of giftedness and sensitivity, I was given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder type II. I was taken off Effexor rapidly, an antidepressant drug now known for severe withdrawal symptoms, and put on a number of major psychiatric medications.

Within a week I was in extreme physical pain, unable to sleep, and my mind was anxious and agitated beyond belief. Rather than question the wisdom of being on these medications at all, I chose to go into the hospital for a few days so the medications could be balanced and I could get used to them.

Out of the frying pan…

Had I known that the psychiatric ward of the hospital had no mattresses (they used hard industrial foam pads) so sleep was almost impossible, that I’d be awakened several times a night for ‘vitals,’ that the nutritional value of the food was very low, that there was no recreation provided beyond walking in a line around the perimeter of a windowless room once a day, and that I’d be lucky to have 15 minutes every few days to speak to a doctor, I wouldn’t have put myself into the hospital.

If you aren’t already mentally ill before going in, a psych ward can make you sick in no time.

No one told me that my diagnosis would make me uninsurable, that there was no scientific evidence that my brain needed any of these drugs, no evidence that my life would improve with them, and that my life expectancy would be shortened by 10-25 years.

The assumption was that drugs were the answer. Since I was my usual compliant, self-critical self I went along. I have always been a good patient, willing to accept the theories of others.

It seemed to me that I finally had an answer to the complex challenges of my life.

Problem solved?

Having accepted that I had an incurable mental illness, I made plans to improve my life as much as possible. In a couple of years, I  moved across country and started a new life.

I began to write again and received two awards for my work at a major writers conference. I lost 40 pounds, took singing lessons and began work on a novel. But I couldn’t keep up any semblance of mental clarity or focus and my health kept deteriorating.

A couple of years later, I realized that I was in more emotional and physical distress than ever before even though I was on multiple medications. I had horrendous bouts of anxiety and agitation, along with diabetes, tinnitus, digestive problems, sleeplessness, tics and other symptoms, none of which I’d ever had before.

This made no sense. I began to do research into the psychiatric drugs I’d been prescribed and concluded that not only were they not necessary, they had actually been making me ill, in many cases giving me the very symptoms they were supposed to relieve.

Who am I really?

Initially, I sought out information on alternatives to drug treatment for bipolar disorder, still convinced the label fit.

At the same time, I began to learn more about high sensitivity, giftedness and creativity, through websites like HighlySensitive.org, HighAbility.org, and by reading the work of Elaine Aron and others. I started to look at myself in a new way.

I came to believe that my personality was normal for a gifted, creative person with high sensitivities, and I began to question the bipolar label I’d been given.

Maybe there were good reasons I have such intense emotions, and have had a hard time settling on a career and finding friends and romantic partners who fit me. I also learned that many others with personalities like mine had been caught up in the mental health system in the same way.

I began to ask the questions I’ve mentioned above, and to challenge my own negative self-concept.

Drug free

The answers I came up with led me to make a commitment to get off all psychiatric drugs, and to re-evaluate my attitude toward psychiatry and psychotherapy. As a former grad student in psychology, having studied to be a therapist, this was a big change. I had to take a hard look at my own unquestioning acceptance of the traditional approach to mental health.

Even wiith a number of supplements and good nutritional support, it took me a year to slowly withdraw from the drugs, much longer than the psychiatrist had told me to take (psychiatrists generally don’t recognize the addictive nature of psychoactive medications).

The process was difficult with lots of withdrawal symptoms, but I’m drug free and grateful to be facing life’s challenges with a mind and emotions that I can truly call my own.

Finding support

Like so many others who’ve challenged the authority of the mental health establishment, when I told my psychiatrist of my decision and asked for his help in withdrawing from the medications, I found myself in a position similar to those accused of witchcraft a few hundred years ago: everything I said was taken as further proof of my pathology.

After all, bipolar patients are notoriously non-compliant when it comes to medication, right? Supposedly, people with bipolar disorder long for mania and hate being made ‘normal.’ And how could I possible know more about myself than my doctor?

I felt it would be beneficial to see a mental health professional while I withdrew from the medications, but aside from recommending which medications to withdraw from first, my psychiatrist wasn’t interested in participating in my healing process.

I looked elsewhere and finally found a Jungian therapist who has been supportive of my taking back control over my physical and emotional health.

Most of my support has come from the growing number of organizations, authors and online communities who are working to reveal the truth about the inefficacy and dangers of psychiatric medications and psychiatry’s intimate relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, and who provide information on alternative treatments.

Scientologists, and their Citizens Commission on Human Rights, aren’t the only ones concerned about psychiatry and its drug-based paradigm of care.  There is a  world-wide movement to inform the public about the dangers of psychiatric drugs.

Listed below are just a few of the organizations currently involved in advocating for patients rights, exposing the pharmaceutical industry’s role in inventing and broadening categories of mental illness, and shining a light on the long term effects of psychiatric drug use and the actual results of drug studies.

The narrowing of normal

People who are creative and gifted often don’t fit within society’s common definitions of ‘normal.’

And while some may embrace their uniqueness, others, like myself, may struggle for years trying to change themselves in order to fit in.

In Peter D. Kramer on normality and mental health, Kramer, author of  Listening to Prozac and Freud: Inventor of the Modern Mind. notes the ever-diminishing concept of ‘normal.’

I have been thinking a good deal about normality lately. It’s a concern in the medical world. The complaint is that doctors are abusing [their] privilege, to define the normal.

Ordinary sadness, critics say, has been engulfed by depression. Boyishness stands in the shadow of attention deficits. Social phobia has engineered a hostile takeover of shyness.

Anatomy of an Epidemic

Another author whose work has illuminated my own road to better mental health is journalist Robert Whitaker. In his Huffington Post article, Anatomy Of An Epidemic’: Could Psychiatric Drugs Be Fuelling A Mental Illness Epidemic?, he takes a look at psychiatry’s track record:

The number of adults, ages 18 to 65, on the federal disability rolls due to mental illness jumped from 1.25 million in 1987 to four million in 2007. Roughly one in every 45 working-age adults is now on government disability due to mental illness.

This epidemic has now struck our nation’s children, too. The number of children who receive a federal payment because of a severe mental illness rose from 16,200 in 1987 to 561,569 in 2007, a 35-fold increase.

I wrote Anatomy of an Epidemic to investigate this epidemic, and this pursuit necessarily raises a very uncomfortable question. Although we, as a society, believe that psychiatric medications have “revolutionized” the treatment of mental illness, the disability numbers suggest a very different possibility. Could our drug-based paradigm of care, for some unforeseen reason, be fueling this epidemic?

This does not mean that antipsychotics don’t have a place in psychiatry’s toolbox. But it does mean that psychiatry’s use of these drugs needs to be rethought, and fortunately, a model of care pioneered by a Finnish group in western Lapland provides us with an example of the benefit that can come from doing so.

Twenty years ago, they began using antipsychotics in a selective, cautious manner, and today the long-term outcomes of their first-episode psychotic patients are astonishingly good. At the end of five years, 85% of their patients are either working or back in school, and only 20% are taking antipsychotics.

There is life beyond psychiatric medications. For me, it’s a better life.

Related:

Posts:

Giftedness, sensitivity and psychiatric drugs: why do we take them and why do we quit?

Misdiagnosis of the Gifted

Books:

Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America

Your Drug May Be Your Problem, Revised Edition: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Medications

Organizations:

Safe Harbor — Includes links to find medical doctors (by zip code) who can assist with helping people safely get off of psychiatric drugs and medical personnel who will treat people without the use of psychiatric drugs

Alternative to Meds Center — Residential psychiatric medication withdrawal with medical and naturopathic oversight in Sedona, Arizona

Green Mental Health — Holistically-centered mental health care system which reflects traditional environmental, humanitarian, and health conscious values

The Road Back — How to get off psychiatric drugs safely

Soteria House — Alternative and non-drug solutions for people diagnosed schizophrenic

Mind Freedom International — is a nonprofit organization that works to win human rights and provide alternatives for people labeled with psychiatric disabilities

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights

~~

sensitivity and psychiatric drugs, sensitivity and mental illness, sensitivity and drugs, sensitivity and giftedness, high sensitivity personality, mental health books, drug books, highly sensitive books

Many talented musicians, actors, speakers and others experience performance anxiety, often called stage fright.

A new study shows that biofeedback can be highly effective in decreasing stage fright.

Here is a report on the study:

Researchers studied 14 college-age musicians. The musicians’ tendency to have stage fright was estimated in a performance before an audience at the start of the study (with questionnaires and heart rate measurements).

Half of the musicians repeated the performance four weeks later. The other half received training in biofeedback that was designed to teach them how to control their heart rate through thoughts and emotions. These students also performed again after four weeks.

The study showed a 71% decrease in performance anxiety in the biofeedback group compared with the control group. The biofeedback group had a 62% improvement in performance. The musicians in the biofeedback group also said they had an overall increased sense of calmness, slept better, were more relaxed and had less anger in their everyday lives.

Biofeedback helps coordinate the brain-heart-body processes, the authors wrote. This synchronicity defeats performance anxiety and gives musicians a feeling of “flow,” the authors said, which they defined as “when a person is functioning at peak capacity, including mind, body and energy.”

The study appears in the current issue of Biofeedback, published by the Assn. for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback.

From article Biofeedback technique eases musicians’ anxiety, by Shari Roan, Los Angeles Times.

~ ~

Here are two products you can use to experience the benefits of biofeedback:

emWave Personal Stress Reliever

Healing Rhythms training program for active well-being

Articles: Anxiety

~~

performance anxiety products, dealing with stage fright, biofeedback and performance anxiety, heal performance anxiety

A press release reports:

“By studying receptors in the brain, researchers at Karolinska Institute have managed to show that the dopamine system in healthy, highly creative people is similar in some respects to that seen in people with schizophrenia.

“High creative skills have been shown to be somewhat more common in people who have mental illness in the family.

“Creativity is also linked to a slightly higher risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Certain psychological traits, such as the ability to make unusual or bizarre associations are also shared by schizophrenics and healthy, highly creative people.”

Continued in article Creativity linked to mental health and illness

~~~
An article in The Guardian reports on research on schizophrenia, sexual activity, thinking and artists:

From Lord Byron to Dylan Thomas and beyond, the famous philanderers of the art world may have had a touch of mental illness to thank for their behaviour, psychologists report today.

A survey comparing mental health and the number of sexual partners among the general population, artists and schizophrenics found that artists are more likely to share key behavioural traits with schizophrenics, and that they have on average twice as many sexual partners as the rest of the population.

Daniel Nettle, a psychologist at Newcastle University, and Helen Clegg, at the Open University in Milton Keynes, carried out the survey…

On analysing 425 responses, the psychologists found that artists and schizophrenics scored equally high on “unusual cognition”, a trait which gives rise to a greater tendency to feel in between reality and a dream state, or to feel overwhelmed by one’s own thoughts.

But the artists and schizophrenics scored very differently on another measure called introvertive anhedonia, which is characterised by social withdrawal and emotional emptiness. Unlike schizophrenics, artists, in line with the general population, scored very low.

According to Dr Nettle, the results suggest that the creativity of some artists is fuelled by the unique world view mental illness can provide, but without the completely debilitating aspects of the condition. Instead, the artists are able to direct their creativity into artistic projects.

From Mental illness link to art and sex, The Guardian [UK]

Daniel Nettle is author of Strong Imagination: Madness, Creativity and Human Nature.

[Painting: "Mercury" by David Marsh, who is schizophrenic.]

mental health and creativity, mental health and artists, creativity and mental illness, artists and mental illness