Elisabeth

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Posts posted by Elisabeth

  1. Posted

    It's ok to need professional help. 
    Find both a psychiatrist and a therapist you feel comfortable with. 

    The psychiatrist can prescribe medication, which will get you out of the worst into a state of mind where you can actually do effective therapy and self-help again. 

    The therapist will not only guide you through techniques. A big part of every therapy is the trusting relationship that you form with him or her. Any emotionally expressive techniques actually do work better, if you have someone nearby who keeps calm when you are not and helps name and mirror back to you whatever it is you are experiencing. 

  2. Posted

    On 14/07/2022 at 0:53 AM, Mindful Bum said:

    @Leo Gura I hear what you're saying, but you still haven't clearly defined mental illness. And for good reason: a clear definition doesn't exist. The mental health field has taken the infinite possibilities of the human mind and behavior, and forced everyone into finite categories that are vaguely defined and usually dependent on self-reporting. Complicating the issue further is the reality that many mental health disorders are defined and diagnosed primarily as a convenience for medical insurance and billing purposes.

    For many people, their first mental health diagnosis comes from a mental health professional that their parents force them to visit and who is financially incentivized to make a diagnosis, prescribe medications, etc., often after a single visit. These kids are given diagnoses/labels that more often than not create limiting beliefs about themselves. These labels follow them through life, shaping their perception and future, despite the fact that the diagnosis was formed from a single disinterested person's interpretation of the patient's responses to a handful of contrived questions. 

    Mental health (and therefore mental illness) is just as infinite and undefinable as consciousness. And the two are intrinsically linked, just like personal development and spirituality. In actuality, there are no hard boundaries between these domains. So when you talk about "the mentally ill" as if it's a real and meaningful category of people, you come across as ignorant. Because if you had even a basic understanding of modern mental healthcare, you wouldn't be wielding such a loaded term so carelessly. 

    The thing is...I know you DO have the necessary knowledge and critical thinking skills necessary to deconstruct "mental illness." I've thoroughly enjoyed the many hours of video content you've published on deconstructing the myth of science. You even specifically mention the limits of modern medicine in this clip from Assumption Is The Mother Of All Fuck-ups. So from my perspective, you are uniquely qualified to help this huge demographic that suffers from mental health disorders--for example, by revealing how most diagnoses are highly subjective inventions of for-profit organizations--but instead, you seem to have accepted uncritically the idea that there are only two kinds of people in this world: those who are mentally ill (/dramatic/dysfunctional) and those who are not...and the former should be ignored? 

    I understand that actualized.org isn't geared toward people suffering from extreme forms of mental illness, nor is it the best resource for helping such people. I'm not suggesting otherwise. What I am suggesting is that you investigate your seemingly rigid beliefs about "the mentally ill" and learn about psychology/neurobiology at least to a point where you recognize we're all on the same spectrum; no fundamental difference exists. 

    This demographic (i.e., those with mental health issues) is MUCH bigger than you think, and your teachings have a much greater healing potential than you think. The effectiveness of psychedelics, meditation, and mystical experiences as treatments for mental illness has shown to be far superior to psychotherapy and/or medication.

    This IS your wheelhouse, Leo. 

    Hear, hear. I must reiterate.

    The boundary between health and illness, especially mental health and illness, is so fuzzy. At some levels at least, there's no distinction between "healing" and "personal development". 

  4. Posted

    So I've been having chronic pain in my right tonsil, accompanied by tiredness, for at least half a year now, ended by two proper streptococcus tonsillitis with fewer and all last week and a month ago. I got penicillin for these and I'm on some kind of long-term penicillin antibiotic treatment now, but the tonsil doesn't seems to be cured, it has just receded into that kind of chronically painful/ inflamed? state. I'm gargling salvea, I've got oral probiotics too.

    The doctors seem inclined to remove my tonsils, which I'd obviously rather avoid. I'm unfortunatelly susceptible to other respiratory tract infections too, I'm afraid what else might get inflamed istead of the tonsils.

    Has anyone experience healing chronic tonsil problems in a less invasive way? 

  6. Posted · Edited by Elisabeth

    32 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    It's about obeying norms and more about rehabilitating oneself into a healthy member of society, and righting one's wrongs.

    It is possible to rehab oneself. But this requires a serious desire to do so by the murderer.

    Sorry about my sarcasm. I'm being emotional because I just recently got an ultimatum, and it made me not want to have anything in common with the people issuing the ultimatum. 

    I don't doubt it's possible to rehabilitate a murderer. Easier for some, harder for others, depending on many factors. My point #1 is, it can't be proven. It's completely up to society to believe a murderer's personality change, or not. How is it ethical or helpful to their development to have them live in fear of a lethal injection for X years, completely at the mercy of the judge deciding if their life has become "useful" and "loving" enough? 

    If you wanna give them a chance, have them complete a punishment, give them the resources to rehab themselves, and trust they can do it. You're putting society in some danger, but so are you if you give them the ultimatum. You can still kill them if they do more crime, but don't make it a Damocles' sword ready to fall at an artificial 10year mark, just make it a new trial for that new transgression. 

  7. Posted

    19 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    I would issue an ultimatum like: you got 10 years to repent and get your shit together and rehabilitate yourself into a useful and loving member of society. Here are the resources you need to do that. And if you don't, you're getting lethal injection. It's up to you.

    Yeah, because It makes sense to love and obey the norms of a society that threatens you death unless you prove something that cannot be proven :/

     

  9. Posted · Edited by Elisabeth

    On 19/09/2021 at 9:36 PM, Javfly33 said:

    @Elisabeth I am defintely surrendering to them to feel them as accepting them as full as posible.

    However, its also true that some bdsm inclinations go Hand in Hand with self-hate and harmful beliefs.

    For example as a man inclined to femdom and last year to findom, I've find that when i have unveiled false harmful beliefs about women and myself (like a weekend socializing for example and discovering Im not "Broken" or "wrong" or "bad") i felt more inclined to being turn on by normal sex. Yet in moments of isolation, social anxiety, beliefs about myself+women ...etc have been always a trigger for seeking femdom, findom, etc and all kind of sense of "being abused" and feeling "hated" by the opposite sex and enjoy It. I'm not saying the fetish are bad, i think they are there to BE FELT, yet one cant avoid to think that if the triggers are mental health problems and harmful beliefs, they are a representation of the low state of Consciousness of the person.

    I Guess that better than saying that bdsm IS bad, is better to say that bdsm inclinations are INDICATORS of trauma, self harmful beliefs, mental health problems, ego...etc.

    In the same sense that a stomach Pain IS not really bad, is just an indicator you have been poisoned. The Pain have a purpose, i Guess in the same way bdsm does ?

    I hear your experience and refuse to generalize it. 

    My bdsm preference isn't a symptom of self-hate and harmful beliefs. I am NOT inclined to do bdsm when I hate myself. 

    There might be some early-on attachment trauma going on, I seem to have that, but I didn't make any direct link to my kinks yet. 

    I refuse to look at something that has given me genuine happiness as an indicator of "being broken". IF ever my bdsm preferences disappear completely as a result of shadow work, then I'll be able to say they stemmed from trauma. Until then, it's better to treat them as human variation. 

    Some people like sports, although it gives them physical pain, or exactly because it causes the body to cope with that stress through endorphines. Some people meditate through incredible suffering. Neither is considered a result of trauma, it's considered healthy. 

    Why is someone who enjoys working through suffering and reaching an endorphin high through spanking or rope, while also enjoying intimacy with their partner, seen as more traumatized than the average population? Think about it. It makes no sense. 

    So I'd say bdsm prefereces and submission fantasies certainly CAN indicate trauma, but they don't necessarily need to. Enjoy your exploration! 

  10. Posted

    On 16/09/2021 at 11:43 AM, Javfly33 said:

    Lets remember than bdsm and fetishes are darkness and ego shadows, and tantra IS the supposedly the higuest kind of sex (purest/healthiest) energy a human can develop. Apparently are two opposites sides of the Coin according to the current literature.

    What literature. How ignorant. 

    From my tantric education (admittedly limited, though I've had a year of weekly training), tantra values saying yes to experience, including consciously living through desires. 

    From my (much broader) bdsm experience, if you're into it, bdsm touches the very core of your being, your sexual energy and your will to live through challenges. 

    There's no contradiction.

    Do bdsm desires fall away as you walk the spiritual or the tantric path? Personally, I think that besides psychological conditioning, there's a deep bodily-spiritual component that's hard-wired into the layer where personal identity meats biology, so as long as you're in a body and have a personality to come back to, some bdsm preference may stay. So you may as well be ok with having them and include them in your spiritual living as a part of your body's wishes instead of labeling them dark and trying to transcend them as fast as possible. 

  11. Posted

    On 13. 8. 2021 at 8:20 PM, Late Boomer said:

    Thanks for all the nice comments. I would have responded quicker, but my blood pressure has been kicking my ass. Speaking of which, does anyone who has experience with psychedelics have issues with high blood pressure.

    I've had it since I was in my 20s, but it's been managed. Since my last trip, I've had to change meds three times and gone to the ER twice. I really have to stay away from the hospital right now for obvious reasons. 

    I read that mushrooms would give you a rise in blood pressure during a trip, but nothing about any long term change. My current theory is that it has to do with weed. I was smoking and eating edibles for 10 years. Started late in life (except for one bad experience with edibles in college). After decades of Just Say No, I fell in love with weed. I loved what it did for my imagination and it was a great marital aid. But I went way too hard with it during the quarantine and the stress associated with my job's descent into right wing madness.

    After a few mushroom trips I found my appetite for it mostly went away. Now I don't like it any more. Two hits and my heart is racing, even high indica stuff. My latest blood pressure problem started after I took an edible a couple of weeks after the 3.5g trip. 

    I've also noticed that thinking and writing seems to raise my blood pressure a lot. I wonder if the shrooms rewired my brain so that I can't handle weed and so that my thinking brain sets off my blood pressure too much. I love to write and read and think about interesting things, so this is a big problem for me right now. It's like a log jam. 

    I have seen a lot of psychonaut types on reddit say they had panic attacks and bad trips trying to mix shrooms and weed so maybe I messed myself up? I think I can help myself a lot if I can get a regular meditation practice going (I've had a few good streaks but I keep falling off the wagon) and get some decent exercise, but both of those are where the sciatica comes in. Sitting for too long hurts and the sciatica is so bad I can't walk for long distances. I have a couple of doctor appointments next week to deal with BP and sciatica, so hopefully I can get some forward motion in my life.

    Sorry about your bloodpressure trouble.

    Obviously, consider all medical treatment offered.

    Also, psychedelics make you more emotionally sensitive, and bring up unconscious stuff. So I wonder.   Could it be an emotion that is accessed more easily after your last trip and makes your heart agitated? 

  22. Posted · Edited by Elisabeth

    I certainly went too far, too fast over here

    I thought I could actually learn the technique properly at the retreat, but there was little tuition except on the "proper postures" used by this particular group. I forced myself to do long hours of meditation in a way that didn't suit me. Was in conflict with myself. Got an actual emotionally triggered asthma attack. Left after two days. Took me two years until the memory lost a "trauma" flavor to it.

    I've got a mostly regular meditation practice now, even a bit of self-inquiry has started to be interesting to me, but I don't go hardcore.