Envy is an insult to oneself.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Envy is human nature.
Monica Bellucci

A simple dictionary definition of envy is “a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another’s advantages, success, possessions, etc.”

In this famous shot of Sophia Loren (left) and Jayne Mansfield at a Beverly Hills restaurant in 1957, Loren may or may not be feeling envy – but I like the photo.

Reportedly, Mansfield’s extravagant cleavage was a publicity stunt intended to deflect attention from Sophia Loren during a dinner party in Loren’s honor.

Envy can be an insidious feeling, with a collection of attitudes and beliefs that impact our creative energy and motivation.

In his book Creativity for Life: Practical Advice on the Artist’s Personality, and Career, creativity coach and writer Eric Maisel, PhD gives a concrete example:

“An artist’s envy may manifest itself in any number of ways. In the past she may have loved to read; now she avoids contemporary fiction completely. All living authors have become her rivals. Or she may avidly read contemporary fiction, but only to assure herself that it’s bad. Or she may read only the works of an author she knows is an alcoholic or or near death — a rival she can pity or feel superior to.”

> Continued: Envy and Your Creative Life

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He has portrayed many powerful and intriguing characters, including Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series. In this video about Deathly Hallows: Part 2, he acknowledges author J.K. Rowling for “laying out such a kind of sure roadmap” with her writing of Snape. “You know what’s right and what’s wrong.”

Loving the language

In his article Alan Rickman: Truly, deeply appealing (Los Angeles Times, November 20, 2011), Patrick Pacheco says “What really excites Rickman is the English language.”

“It’s so rich and cruel and beautiful, like a fireworks display, and yet it can be so subtle and so crude,” says the 65-year-old classical actor and director. “Marry that to the stage and something mysterious happens. Don’t ask me what. It’s magical.”

He is currently playing Leonard, “the caustic and embittered novelist at the center of Theresa Rebeck’s new play, ‘Seminar,’ on Broadway.

“Theresa’s writing is incredibly demanding,” he says in silky tones that belie his British working-class roots. “She’s like a Restoration comedy writer. It’s high style. The words are extremely well chosen, and sometimes you wish that word had not been chosen right next to that word because the equipment’s a bit rusty.” …

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In this video about the play, Rickman comments, “You’re throwing yourself into a bear pit being a writer.”

~ ~

The article continues:

“I can only see my limitations,” he says with a resigned laugh. “That’s just who I am. I was working with [director] Peter Brook once on Shakespeare’s ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ with Glenda Jackson, and he said, ‘The thing is, you’ll never be as good as the text.’ And that came as a kind of relief, really. I’m fascinated by my friends in the acting profession who can’t wait to get out there. I’m not on that list.”

Rickman’s wry insecurity is all the more surprising given his professional image as an assured, sexy and often enigmatic figure with a penetrating gaze and the ability to deliver the most innocuous phrase with sneering contempt. “I don’t see it at all like that. They [his characters] are just people to me,” Rickman says. “I’m a lot less serious than people think.”

Sam Gold, the director of “Seminar,” says: “Alan obviously has the ability to play imposing and intimidating characters, but what makes him special is his deep, deep well of empathy. You see the humanity.”

Emma Thompson wrote in an email that during her frequent collaborations with Rickman, “It’s very difficult not to giggle, we laugh a lot, often in the wrong places.” Their most recent one is the BBC teleplay “The Song of Lunch,” which aired recently on PBS, in which Rickman plays an alcoholic poet trying to rekindle a love affair.

The actress, who wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for “Sense and Sensibility” and starred with Rickman in that movie, noted that his performance in that film as Col. Brandon “… was everything I wanted for the role — virile yet sensitive, powerful yet quietly, slightly dangerous and miles more interesting than he is in the book…. There’s no one like Alan for a rich, mysterious inner life.” …

But whether he is playing Hans Gruber, Le Vicomte de Valmont, Severus Snape or John Gabriel Borkman, Rickman sees his primary duty as that of “storyteller.”

“I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word” — here he pauses before adding with a roll of the eyes — “a jouuuuuurney.

“It might not be great, it might not be perfect, but it does answer the human need to sit there together and to be told a story.”

Rickman discovered just how powerful a story can be with the Harry Potter films.

He’s especially grateful for their youthful following. “I suppose if I plan to work well into my 80s, I’ll need them,” he quips.

Daniel Radcliffe, the movies’ Harry Potter, is now appearing on Broadway in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” He calls Rickman “an invaluable and incredibly generous” mentor.

“When I first met Alan, I was completely intimidated by him,” he says. “We had some very intense scenes together. At times, he’d actually scare me. But while he was always so strong and powerful, I also came to know him as self-deprecating, vulnerable and silly.”

Watching him onstage, says Radcliffe, is to see a “virtuoso” in action. “He’s taught me that acting onstage demands a ruthless honesty, listening very carefully in a way that you lose your self-consciousness. When I was in ‘Equus,’ Alan actually cut short a vacation in Canada to return to see me for a second time and then took me out and gave me some simple, practical and yet profound advice. I’ve a very self-effacing attitude toward what I do, probably from a place of guilt for having so much success so young, but Alan has a deeply felt respect for the importance of acting.”

Rickman says the Potter epic provided a novel acting challenge. “It was tricky, because only three of the books had been written when we started. Though I had a clue about what his final story might be, it was only the smallest clue, and therefore there was a sense of playing two things at once, just in case you have to shift. ” Asked whether he was happy with the evolution of his character, Rickman said he thought that “Potter” author J.K. Rowling got it “dead right.”

Now, he is looking forward to the release of the comic film caper “Gambit,” in which he costars with Cameron Diaz and Colin Firth. “God knows, we put ourselves out on the line with that, comedically,” he says a bit nervously. “It’ll be interesting to see how that turns out on the screen.”

He hopes to do more comedy, seeing the ridiculous as a reflection of the human condition. “I think there should be laughs in everything,” he says. “Sometimes, it’s a slammed door, a pie in the face or just a recognition of our frailties.”

For Rickman, it’s all part of the job description. The accompanying fame, money and acclaim all strike him as rather “obscene.”

“Our abilities are nothing we can really take credit for,” he says. “Yes, there’s training. But I’ve worked with some great actors who didn’t train at all. You do your job, push your abilities as far as you can take them and hopefully, you can actually do something with this” — here he again pauses before adding — “this accident.”

That’s an appealing thought, isn’t it? – “Push your abilities as far as you can take them.”

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[From my post Gifted and talented but with insecurity and low self esteem, and a longer quote in the post The Self-Esteem Supercharger.]

In his article I work to build self-confidence in myself and others, entrepreneur Stephen Pierce points out that self-confidence is “extremely valuable. Because I believe in myself, I can show others how to have faith in what they can accomplish.

“I see my dreams realized because I have the self-confidence to pursue them without giving up.

“I avoid surrendering my dreams. Even if I feel sad or afraid, I know that those emotions are only temporary. I can do anything I put my mind to. Belief in myself helps me to move forward in life.”

He also notes that “By showing others that they can be self-assured and brave, I learn a great deal. When I help others, I help myself.

“My confidence grows when I see others succeed after I have helped them.”

Confidence exists on a continuum

In his post How to build confidence, Morty Lefkoe admits he knows very well this experience many of us (most of us?) have had:

“I had very little self-confidence for most of my life,” he writes – adding, “but now I consistently experience a high level of confidence.”

So how did he make that shift? He explains:

Confidence actually exists on a continuum, ranging from a very low to a very high belief in our own abilities, a sense we can handle whatever life throws at us.  Very few people are totally lacking in confidence and very few feel confident that they can handle almost anything.  So the issue for most people is where they currently are on the continuum and how they can improve their confidence.

This is a very helpful point – it is not a simple, binary matter of having confidence versus not having. There are levels and degrees – and changes from one situation to another, or even day to day. Lefkoe continues:

It is important to distinguish between confidence about being able to perform a specific task (such as fly a plane or speak a foreign language) and confidence in yourself. One might not be confident about being able to perform a specific task even though they have high level of self-confidence.  Such a person knows that her inability to perform a specific task means nothing about her as a person.

But that may not be so easy to realize or put to use, especially when you are in the middle of feelings of self-criticism and low confidence.

As a teen and college freshman (many decades ago), I had the ambition to “be a doctor” – but failed organic chemistry. Like many people with a certain level of intellectual ability, I had managed to get through high school with good grades, but without really trying hard.

Failing a class was devastating to my confidence. Of course, there have been other experiences in my life of confidence deflation.

Lefkoe suggests “the way to gain confidence about specific abilities is to learn those skills and practice a lot.”

The key is our beliefs:

The way to improve our internal level of confidence that we apply to life in general is to eliminate our limiting beliefs.  Every negative belief we have lowers our internal level of self-confidence – beliefs such as I’m not good enough, I’m inadequate, I’m powerless, I’m not capable, Nothing I do is good enough, and I’m not worthy.

Once you understand that a lot of negative self-esteem beliefs lowers your level of self-confidence and getting rid of them raises it, you will understand the myth that self-confidence comes from succeeding or failing at specific projects in life.

Another way limiting presumptions and beliefs can affect us is when we experience impostor or fraud feelings.

See the post Dealing with self sabotage: Getting beyond impostor feelings.

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More articles by Morty Lefkoe — author of the book Re-create Your Life: Transforming Yourself and Your World.

To experience The Lefkoe Method, go to ReCreate Your Life where you can eliminate one limiting belief free.

Also see his Natural Confidence program.

dealing with self-criticism, building self confidence, self esteem confidence, building self esteem, impostor feelings

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Jonathan Safran Foer – about his novel Everything Is Illuminated, which made The New York Times best-seller list.

He also commented, “The writing itself is no big deal. The editing, and even more than that, the self-doubt, is excruciatingly impossible. Profound, bottomless self-doubt: it has no value, what’s the point? In a way, that takes up as much time as anything else.”

Do you relate to those ideas and feelings? Or these:

* Do you secretly worry that others will find out that you’re not as bright and capable as they think you are?

* Do you tend to chalk your accomplishments up to being a “fluke,” “no big deal” or the fact that people just “like” you?

* Do you hate making a mistake, being less than fully prepared or not doing things perfectly?

* Do you tend to feel crushed by even constructive criticism, seeing it as evidence of your “ineptness?”

From the longer Impostor Syndrome Quiz on the site for the Overcoming the Impostor Syndrome program.

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The Psychology Today article, Field Guide to The Self-Doubter: Extra Credit, by Susan Pinker, excerpted below, brings insight into the thoughts and feelings many people have about being incompetent or impostors:

Not giving herself credit

Rosalyn Lang has a Ph.D. in molecular biology, has just completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University, and recently launched her own consulting firm. In other words, she’s a walking advertisement for what it takes to be successful in science: smarts, opportunity, and perseverance.

Yet when she looks back, she takes little credit for her successes. “I felt inadequate the entire time I was in graduate school. If I got a nice compliment, I just felt, ‘What? They’re trying to pull my leg! I can get kicked out at any minute.’”

Feeling like an impostor

Lang now realizes she wasn’t really an impostor. She just felt like one. Like many highly accomplished women, Lang suffered from “impostor syndrome.” On the outside, she was a star and a role model.

Secretly, though, she chalked up her successes to powers beyond her control, and meanwhile felt personally responsible for any failures—a feeling shared by 93 percent of African-American female college students, according to one study.

External success. Internal agony

According to recent studies of medical, dental, and nursing students with impostor feelings, the phenomenon is linked to perfectionism, burnout, and depression. This was true for Rosalyn Lang, whose impostor feelings drove her to work harder. “The work ethic was great. That’s the kind of focus you need to get everything done in graduate school,” she said. But “internal agony” was how she described her psychological state.

Read the full article.

Six steps for matching perceptions to reality.

• Separate your self-assessments from objective evaluations of your skills. Group-based evaluations, promotions, and letters of reference are less biased than the world seen through “impostor”-colored glasses.
• Give yourself opportunities to compete. Don’t let your self-judgment prevent you demonstrating what you know.
• Reduce your isolation. Talk about your feelings with trusted friends and colleagues. Seek out a mentor or advocate in your organization who believes in you.
• Enjoy your successes and acknowledge praise when it comes your way.
• Resist the impulse to deny and deflect compliments.
• Remember that those who project an air of confidence may not know more than you do. Research shows that most people overestimate their abilities.

See Overcoming the Impostor Syndrome for more.

Also see the Impostor syndrome page for more quotes, articles, books etc.
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imposter phenomenon, impostor phenomenon, dealing with self sabotage, impostor feelings, perfectionism, fraud feelings

One way many talented people can be self-critical is to judge their wide-ranging serial interests as superficial or insubstantial.

Some interests can be trivial or frivolous, of course, but many can fuel creativity.

[By the way, Milena Canonero won an Academy Award in 2007 for Best Achievement in Costume Design on "Marie Antoinette." Also see my interview with Canonero about her work on "Titus."]

In a profile article of her, Evgenia Peretz writes about Sofia Coppola: “In her later teenage years, she indulged in a variety of pursuits that struck some – including herself – as disturbingly close to those of an aimless rich girl.

“She worked for a time in Karl Lagerfeld’s studio. She took pictures for magazines such as Paris Vogue and Interview. She went to art school, where she studied painting… took on the role of Al Pacino’s daughter in Godfather III… started a fashion line, called Milk Fed, with a friend. She and Zoe Cassavetes got their own cable talk show.

“’I wasn’t really great at any of those things, so it was kind of frustrating,’ says Sofia, ‘because I liked all those things, but didn’t have the focus.’ She entered her first period of self-doubt. ‘She said, “Oh, Dad, am I just a dilettante?” Francis [her father] recalls. ‘I thought just the opposite was happening now, and I said to her, No, you don’t have to specialize – do everything that you love and then, at some time, the future will come together for you in some form.’

“The character [played by Scarlett Johansson, in Coppola’s film Lost in Translation] of Charlotte – the young, privileged girl having a breakdown about her purpose in life – was taken from Sofia’s own experiences. ‘I was just kind of coming out of that, and I was looking at that period of What do I do with my life?’ recalls Sofia.” [From “Something About Sofia,” Vanity Fair, Sep 2006]

[Photo of Coppola from set of her new movie Somewhere - she is Producer, Director, Writer.]

Serial interests and passions

In her article What is a Scanner? [from her book book Refuse to Choose!], Barbara Sher talks about an example of someone with similar experiences she calls Scanners: “Elaine doesn’t have attention deficit disorder. She checked it out with doctors long ago.

“And she knows that when she’s involved in any project, she doesn’t get distracted by irrelevant things. So what’s stopping her? Why is she so indecisive? For that matter, why is she interested in so many things?”

Sher concludes, “The conventional wisdom was overwhelming and seemed indisputable: If you’re a jack-of-all-trades, you’ll always be a master of none. You’ll become a dilettante, a dabbler, a superficial person — and you’ll never have a decent career…

“But one thought wouldn’t leave my mind: If the world had just continued to accept them as they were, Scanners wouldn’t have had any problems.

”Almost every case of low self-esteem, shame, frustration, feelings of inadequacy, indecisiveness, and inability to get into action simply disappeared the moment they understood that they were Scanners and stopped trying to be somebody else.

“It appears that Scanners are an unusual breed of human being. One reason they don’t recognize themselves is that they don’t often meet people like themselves.”

As I note in my article Being Creative and Self-critical, these are not unusual responses, according to researchers. Many people with multiple, exceptional abilities experience complex feelings including inadequacy and inferiority, and critical self-evaluation.

But thankfully, many of them, like both of the Coppolas, are able to keep exploring and expressing wide ranging interests.

Another example is actor Grace Zabriskie, who also makes sculptures and artistic furniture when she isn’t shooting movies or TV shows.

In her article about Zabriskie [Accent on 'eccentric' - "Big Love's" Grace Zabriskie has always been a person inclined to take the road, and roles, less traveled, Los Angeles Times May 21, 2006], Lynn Smith notes, “While some people might write off a person with multiple vocations, Zabriskie said she is committed to the concept of ‘the passionate amateur.’

“After a wave of gallery shows, she said she just works now at what she needs to do, making pieces for customers or friends. ‘

Zabriskie said, “I do not consider myself a dilettante, and I don’t think I spread myself too thin. You can make your life an absolute bummer out of the inevitability of death. Or you can decide to absorb this blow and figure out a way to exist with as much energy and creativity and lack of fear as you can.”

Related pages:
Vocation / calling
Vocation / calling resources : articles / sites
High Ability articles

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gifted adults, gifted adult personality, psychology of giftedness, high ability, high aptitude, Barbara Sher, Sofia Coppola, psychology of creativity

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
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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

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Am I compromising myself?

Trying too hard to avoid conflict by keeping silent?

Is my desire to have other people feel understood an authentic part of me or counterproductive?

And just because a trait is authentic, should I nurture it?

Personal development specialist Nacie Carson comments on her blog The Life Uncommon about the potential conflict between being authentic and sensitive. She writes:

Last week, I came across Evan Hadkin’s awesome post An Introvert’s Authenticity in which he discussed being an introvert in an extrovert’s world.

The post is fabulous, and I recommend you check it out if you haven’t already, but it sparked a question that I’ve never considered before: can you be selectively authentic?

As I was commenting on the post, discussing how I have been consciously working to overcome my sensitivity to disapproval, I realized that perhaps my endeavors are inauthentic.

After all, if I am naturally really sensitive to the disapproval of others (and from my parents’ account I have been since I was a toddler), then that must be an authentic part of who I am.

Therefore, any endeavor to change that element of myself instead of embracing it would be inauthentic – exactly the opposite of my life goal to be authentic.

But on the other hand, my fear of doing something that will earn me disapproval is at times downright silly and unnecessary and has in the past hindered my ability to make decisions even on small things without some one’s approval.

My boyfriend has even made fun of me for the fact I can’t choose what to have for dinner without someone giving me the “OK.”

So just accepting this part of who I am and embracing it is actually compromising my ability to be authentic in other areas of my life, leading me to think it is right for me to work on it and improve it.

From her post Can Authenticity Be Selective?

Nacie Carson is author of the ebook The Life Uncommon: How to Leave the Rat Race, Pursue Your Passions, and Succeed Financially

Site: Highly Sensitive

Articles: High sensitivity
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I took about a year off from working on it – that sounds so much better than saying I just couldn’t face it.

Now I’m back in the fray and struggling with the same daunting standards.

Just what keeps me from creating? Psychologist Susan Perry talks about this at her Creating in Flow blog:

Creating can be an emotional process. But there’s good emotional—even when you’re sad or the work epitomizes sorrow—and there’s bad emotional.

That’s when your inner critic attacks you, calls you mean names, and causes you not to feel like creating anymore.

One of the ways you may slip out of flow when you’re creating something is if you don’t feel that what you’re producing—your internal feedback—matches what you had in mind originally, that is, your internal ideal.

Of course, apprehension due to such non-matching is helpful when it warns you to go back and revise the substandard work. In fact, that’s an essential part of the flow process.

It’s only dysfunctional when it makes you feel too bad to continue working, then or later.

According to Anne Paris, a clinical psychologist and author of Standing at Water’s Edge: Moving Past Fears, Blocks, and Pitfalls to Discover the Power of Creative Immersion, when the artist steps back from full immersion in the creative process, as she calls it, to a state of disengagement, it can be a time of reflection and consolidation.

“But the artist can also feel insecure, vulnerable and full of self-doubt.”

From Before You Create, Pacify Your Inner Critic by Susan K. Perry, Ph.D.

She is author of Writing in Flow: Keys to Enhanced Creativity

Related:

Audio: Interview with Susan Perry

Post: Anne Paris on the need for relationships to be creative

Articles:

Practical Strategies for Shifting the “I’m Not Enough” Gremlin, by Laura West

Criticism / Self-criticism articles and resources

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I could write a few novels with the material from my romantic and work relationships.

Lots of drama and disappointment, and loads of self-recrimination.

How does giftedness figure into the patterns of our connections with others?

In this excerpt from his article, Solutions for the Problems of Giftedness, Richard O’Connor, Ph.D., gives some interesting answers.

The Big Problem: Looking for love in all the wrong places, and being fierce in disappointment

We began the group with the hypothesis that perhaps there was something about the nature of giftedness itself that led to grief for our members; and though we did find that qualities like being highly intellectualized or “too intense” (see below) contributed to members’ difficulties, in the end we believe that it was not giftedness itself that was the chief source of unhappiness.

Instead, we realized (as we should have known all along, since all the members suffered from depression and shaky self-esteem) that the problem was, for each individual member, that the pursuit of or expression of talents was being used in an attempt to relieve a sense of personal unlovability, inadequacy, or alienation.

This attempt was doomed from the outset for two reasons.

First, and most important, accomplishments, relationships, or recognition never heal deep-seated doubts about the self; rather, like an addiction, they provide temporary satisfaction but leave the individual craving more.

Second, the attempt to heal the self through external validation is inevitably self-defeating because the relentless pursuit of accomplishments, relationships, or recognition makes the individual unreliable and unsuccessful as a partner, friend, or employee.

He swings between extremes of being overly enthusiastic, anxious to please or show off or otherwise win the desired validation, and being depressed, withdrawn, bitter, and self-centered when the validation isn’t forthcoming or is inadequate (as it ultimately must be) to heal the self.

We felt that each member was living out a version of the same basic narrative.

Each had been raised by parents who were critical, remote, or abusive.

Each had discovered that expression of their individual talents was a way of temporarily gaining parental approval, or at least that in school, being bright, cooperative, or inquisitive won interest and approval from teachers.

Each more or less settled early on this as a life scriptÑto be smart and talented, to achieve success or recognition academically (and later, by extension, through financial or social accomplishment) became the primary strategy for relieving doubts about the self.

But early experience of inadequate or destructive parenting had left weaknesses in the foundation of the self that could not be repaired no matter what the adult self accomplished.

[We] felt that the real problem was that members had been looking for love in all the wrong places: looking outside, to success, accomplishments, or to other people, when they had to begin to look inside and learn to love themselves.

Richard O’Connor, Ph.D., is the author of the books:

Undoing Depression: What Therapy Doesn’t Teach You and Medication Can’t Give You

Active Treatment of Depression

Undoing Perpetual Stress.

Happy At Last: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Finding Joy

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Related

Site: High Ability

Articles: High Ability – gifted/talented

Pages:

Giftedness characteristics

Self-tests: giftedness / high ability

Books:

Mary-Elaine Jacobsen. The Gifted Adult

Marylou Kelly Streznewski. Gifted Grownups: The Mixed Blessings of Extraordinary Potential.

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