Dan Harris 10% Happier #meditation vs #schizophrenia

5.21: co,web/psy/meditation/Dan Harris`10% Happier:
. "happy Sunday!" I greeted a coworker;
. from listening to a radio preacher today,
I was revisiting the idea that our thoughts
-- which we assume to be our self --
are actually influenced by the god or devil;
just like I saw on a cartoon once,
where the character has a devil and an angel
perched on each shoulder,
telling him different ways to react:
a supernatural game of good vs evil.
. I might like a book about handling thoughts:
Dan Harris`10% Happier:
How I Tamed the Voice in My Head,
Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge,
and Found Self-Help That Actually Works--A True Story
-- it's about the benefits of meditation,
and quitting drugs and alcohol.

. the primary benefit of meditation
is mindfulness -- being aware of your thoughts
objectively without automatically reacting.
. I do have some experience with meditation;
at times when I feel too toxic to work or sleep
I try to control my breathing and
and that becomes my only thought.
. however,
what I found most useful for mindfulness
was not meditation but schizophrenia.

my friend, the Hidden Imam

12.5: relig/SMI(Seriously Mentally ill)/my friend, the Hidden Imam:
. I know a guy with an interesting mental illness,
a sort of schizophrenic personality disorder,
involving a style of magical thinking
that affects his ability to socialize .
. he thinks his thoughts are being broadcast
by god to other minds all over the world;
and god uses his mind as a public bulletin board;
which means he serves the same function as
Islam's Hidden Imam, providing guidance
like an Imam or priest, but telepathically,
and passively, not by addressing individuals,
but by being a sort of TV character
who everyone knows the details of,
so that god can tell us stories
that speak to all of us . signed by god .

. Mental Health calls him SMI(Seriously Mentally ill),
which makes him eligible for disability benefits;
but I was amazed at the uncanny coincidences
that make his "delusions" seems so believable .

. I asked my friend how he sustains such a delusion,
when he's routinely going to Mental Health
and getting asked questions like
"(are the medications giving you sideaffects?)
and "(have you heard any voices?).
"(how about any new smells?) I asked,
"(this condition doesn't smell to you?).
. he responded like an Imam, without blinking:
"(in America, when you live in a glass house,
you are too smashed to pick up a stone).

creating chaos is a suicide mission

12.4: pol/purges/war/creating chaos is a suicide mission:
. I noticed a problem in our war policy
from listening to the medal of honor hero
[oct 25 2007 specialist Salvatore Giunta]
who was on the Rusty Humphrey show:
. we are supposed to charge an ambush
in order to get close to the snipers
and create chaos,
but chaos works both ways if we
try giving the chargers air support:
helicoptor gunners can't tell
chargers apart from the enemy,
thereby increasing the risk of friendly fire .
-- basically these are suicidal tactics:
hopefully you'll be left with someone alive
after all of them are dead or running into air support .

america the beautiful mind

1.31:
. this is a story about a troubled genius
who was put on anti-schizophrenic med's
after being alarmed by radio jockeys
talking directly to him;
then, given no help without forced medication,
he eventually committed suicide .
. Dr. Breggin’s newest book, Medication Madness (2008),
describes dozens of cases of otherwise self-controlled people
who became spellbound by psychiatric drugs,
leading them to perpetrate bizarre acts,
including mayhem, murder and suicide .
. science has found evidence that failure to medicate
increases the risk of relapse;
but, what kind of relapse are we talking about here?
the public equates schizophrenia with violence;
whereas, schizophrenia puts people at risk for
bullying, mass rejection, and hopeless economic situations;
and it is the hopeless -- not the deluded --
who are doing the mass murders recently .

1.21: news.psy/schiz'ia/med's shoot another beautiful mind:
Orlando Sentinel `Darryl E. Owens 2008:
From very early on,
Dominic lived in his own shell.
for several weeks into day care,
he was silent .
[. he was said to have cursed a playmate to
give him back his "(damned whale)
-- perhaps the mother was actually referring to
the Bible's Jonah story?
. Jonah takes a ship ride to avoid god's plan
only to find god's storm coercing the shippers
to toss the escapee overboard
where god's whale was waiting to bring him back .
. schizophrenia, which challenged Dominic at age 29,
has a lot in common with Jonah's whale .

. schizophrenia is a sanctifier
(a way of setting one apart for god's use),
like so:
smooth socialization depends heavily on
not having a lot of real opinion sharing;
and, schiz'ics routinely broadcast their thoughts
which causes those nearby to mutter echoes of
such intrusive thoughts .
. assuming god makes thought transfer possible,
schiz'ia can thus be viewed as god`storms
that force others to distance themselves
from the one god is storming about .]

[with an IQ > "genius" + (SD15 or SD16)
(> 160 -- testing higher than 99.997%) ]
his smarts meant enrollment in gifted classes,
much to his chagrin.
"He had this sensitive feeling about equality"
his mother said.

As a child, Dominic preferred reading,
reveling in history and military affairs.
[yet], when he joined the Marines, [in the 90's]
his family was shocked.
[ the marines placed him into a prestigious
ceremonial unit stationed in Washington, D.C. ]

They figured he was just following his
older brother, Sebastian, a Navy SEAL.
[. a graduate of Oxford University
and the Navy's Basic Underwater
Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) Class 195,

In 2003, Sebastian co-founded BCM,
a boutique private investment firm
that uses a proprietary algorithm
to exploit price trends in the major
commodity and financial futures markets
(and achieved an 80% return during the 2008 crisis).
Bastiat Blogger is a clearinghouse for
thoughts on hedge funds, global macro,
free markets, decision theory,
mixed-martial arts (MMA) and dueling culture,
private-sector tactical training, ...]

Dominic served six years,
earning his sergeant's stripes,
then left to pursue his passion: writing.
Still wanting to serve, [but as a non-leader?]
he joined the Florida Army National Guard.
He later enrolled at a Community College.
. in 2003-04, he served in Jordan and Iraq
working mostly security details with
Company C, 2nd Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment .
--
[. an interpretation of why he left full-time then:

Sergeants serve as infantry squad leaders;
once a Marine reaches Sergeant,
their promotion no longer derives from a
composite or cutting score;
instead, they receive a Fitness Report.

. since schiz'ia was in his future (2003)
it's significant that he left just after
becoming a leader;
leadership is an stressful milestone;
and one reason for leaving at that point
could have been to intuitively avoid
an impending schiz'ic crisis;
it usually precedes a social role switch .
. perhaps there was less stress when blending in
and he didn't know just how paranormal
things would get during war's profanity .
1.31:
. another possibility is that he simply
needed to go part-time military in order to
start schooling .]

[. one of his most notable schiz'ic symptoms
was being convinced that voices on the radio
were talking to him directly.]

[. if there is a living god (or devil),
there's no reason why the deity can't
synchronize your life's specifics with the
random shoot-from-the-hip content of a radio jock .
. perhaps the supernatural was hinting:
"( why didn't a genius get a college degree first
and thereby get fast-tracked to a leadership role?
why aren't we using brains to do brain work
instead of gutter-balling gifts into the line of fire? ).]

[. seeing the details of Dominic's case,
I wondered if the supernatural mind was
being partial to his genius,
and tried using paranormal events to
convince him that death is more than chance:
in fact, war deaths often happen to
those who are special and try to pass as normal .]

Associated Press:
More than half of the suicides by veterans of
Iraq and Afghanistan returning 2001 ... 2005
were committed by members of the National Guard
or the reserves .

Sebastian:

. Army National Guard infantryman units
often suffer additional stresses
due to the fact that the soldiers' lives are
normally not specifically organized around
military deployments
(as an active-duty soldier's life would be);
such stresses may have promoted
schizophrenic thinking patterns:
Dominic was convinced that voices on the radio
were talking to him directly.
. Dominic would use his genius
to defend [paranormal] theories against
any attempts to establish that they were
incredibly unlikely, if not impossible.
. I was amazed at the intellectual acrobatics
and research efforts he would go to
to preserve a conspiracy theory
in the face of strong conflicting evidence .
. he saw things as overdetermined
and could not contend with the idea that
sheer randomness and coincidence
were major players in his world.

his father:

"We couldn't always understand what he was saying,
He was beginning to show signs of paranoia [schiz'ia]
and really thought [random] people
were trying to get him."

He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder,
prescribed [anti-psychotic?] medications,
and returned state-side several weeks ahead of his unit .

Sebastian:

. I know from personal experience
that as the anti-psychotic effects
reduced Dominic's paranoia symptoms,
they simultaneously caused his
quality of life to plummet
and his ability to concentrate
to fall off dramatically after a few weeks.
Unfortunately,
the tendency is to want the victim to
"get on with life" and find satisfaction in
work or school or relationships,
when in fact
the ability to do these things
is being attacked by the very medicine
that is used to treat the schizophrenia.

Dominic returned to school
but mostly stayed in the house.
Therapy and medication helped ...
his mother carried his pills up to his room .
--[. did she feel obliged to make sure
he took meds ?
perhaps he was having trouble finding employment
and could only get help from his parents
if he complied with psychiatry's genius-wilting chemo' ? .]

. shortly after [living at home on med's]
he slit his wrists,
[. a suicide attempt could cause a court-ordered
application of anti-psychotic medications:
danger to self for schiz'ic delusions
legally requires mind-wasting drugs
whose effectiveness as anti-aggression agents
is proportional to their destruction of
one's precious, life-embracing ability to write .]

. in the three months before [his successful attempt],
he'd tagged along on family trips to the
[GalM] -[apagos Islands] and Bermuda.
. a pistol exorcised the demons of Iraq 2004,
Dominic, 33, died on a monday,
[a week prior to saturday, September 20, 2008]

1.31: the PORT (Schizophrenia Patient Outcomes Research Team):
. PORT has been funded since 1992 by
the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research
and the National Institute of Mental Health
to develop and disseminate recommendations for
the treatment of schizophrenia
based on existing scientific evidence.

. maintenance doses below 300 mg CPZ equivalents per day
carry an increased risk of relapse,
although a substantial proportion of persons (up to 50%)
can be maintained successfully at these lower doses,
warranting a gradual and carefully monitored effort
to reduce dosage over time.

1.30: news.psy/schiz/meds/PORT updates:
PORT has updated treatment recommendations:
. the Schizophrenia Patient Outcomes Research Team (PORT)
has issued updated treatment recommendations .

. In contrast to efforts like the
American Psychiatric Association practice guidelines
and the Texas Medication Algorithm Project,
which attempt to address the full range
of situations clinicians encounter,
the PORT review authors limit their recommendations
to those interventions that have been tested in
randomized controlled trials.

. two large clinical trials have compared efficacy of
first- and second-generation antipsychotics:
the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of
Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE)
and the Cost Utility of the Latest Antipsychotic Drugs
in Schizophrenia Study (CUtLASS).
For patients with chronic schizophrenia (1..2 years),
--[why limit at 2years? that was the study range]--
both first- and second-generation antipsychotics
are equally effective at preventing relapse;
however,
clozapine is an option for suicide risks .
[1.31: however, clozapine is hormonal murder .]

. selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors
are often prescribed for schizophrenic depression
yet have not been well studied in this population .

During maintenance therapy,
first-generation drugs may be used at
lower doses than those required to treat
the initial (acute) episode,
while second-generation drugs can be prescribed
at whatever dose was effective in the initial phase.

persistent auditory hallucinations
in spite of antipsychotic treatment
may respond to
low-frequency transcranial magnetic stimulation.
[$195 Sota Bio Tuner Pulser Bio Stimulator Massager Pulse BT7]

[repetitive TMS (Transcerebral Magnetic Stimulation):
< 1Hz reduces excitability
> 5Hz increases excitability .
. excitation before a task,
or for short bursts during a task
can enhance cognitive performance .]

. medication should be used in conjunction with
psychosocial interventions:

psychosocial # Assertive community treatment:
. a community-based multidisciplinary team,
low patient-to-staff ratios,
and frequent contact with patients.
Randomized controlled trials have consistently concluded
that this model reduces hospitalizations and homelessness,
when compared with standard care.
# The key element of supported employment programs is
# rapid job placement rather than an extensive training,
# integration of vocational and mental health services,
# solicitation of the patient's preferred job type
# support while on the job.

psychosocial # family therapy:
. when patients with schizophrenia have
ongoing contact with their families,
the relatives should be offered a family intervention (6...9 months).
Evidence suggests they help reduce rates of
relapse and rehospitalization for the patient,
and increase rates of adherence to treatment.

psychosocial # cbt:
. Cognitive behavioral therapy (4..9 months,
either in group or individual format)
can be helpful for med-resistent psychotic symptoms;
it involves a collaborative agreement about
symptoms to target in therapy
combined with the use of strategies
to improve the patient's ability to cope.