End the Madness of Mental Illness

This book is about discovery and new hope—hope of healing where we’ve never dreamed possible—healing from mental illness. (I know this is true because I personally healed from bipolar disorder through self-empowerment. I am at this writing symptom free for 11 years and medication free for 10 years, and know you can do this as well.) In these pages you will discover how to find the light, within, where there is no fear, and to focus there instead of on outer symptoms, diagnosis, frightening prognosis and physical treatments—the physical treatment paradigm dominating most of psychiatry today. You can simply choose to follow your light within (your soul’s wisdom) out of the darkness of mental illness and fear, into the light of healing. All lasting change that has been hard won in our culture, and so within us individually, began with a brave choice to reject fear and retaliation, and follow light. All the fighting in the world has not gained us lasting peace; our focus must change. No light burned brighter than that of Martin Luther King, Jr., who said: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” Our focus has been on disease and fear; we can choose to turn our powerful focus instead to forgiveness and healing. What we focus on becomes true for us. This book will challenge you to reject fear and love yourself enough to give healing a chance. You are infinitely worth it. We patients are inspiring examples of courage to everyone as to how to defeat their own fears (and everyone has them about something, even those who seem so perfectly together) as mental illness is the worst fear known, and we chose to overcome it through recognition of, and focus on, the light within us. Healing is truly unlimited, even from mental illness. There is much historical evidence for healing from mental illness as well. Investigative journalist Robert Whitaker’s comprehensive history of psychiatry, Mad in America, tells that the Quakers helped schizophrenic patients to heal using similar methods of self-empowerment over 150 years ago in this country. Why this was not embraced as a breakthrough for public health is due to economic and political factors, discussed later. For now, know for certain that though diagnosed with a mental illness, it is not a physical disease; it is not incurable; your brain is not defective or plagued by biochemical imbalances. After over 200 years of searching, psychiatry has never proven a physical cause for mental illness. (See psychiatrist Peter R. Breggin’s Toxic Psychiatry.) You too can choose to take positive steps to heal, as I did. ... If not a physical disease, then what is mental illness? Mental illness is what Freud said it is, an illness originating in the psyche (the mind) that must be treated there. The great Carl G. Jung went far beyond Freud’s logic-based psychoanalysis with psychotherapy, incorporating the critical importance of the spiritual aspect of mental health. Today, psychiatrists such as Peter Breggin, and like-minded psychologists and therapists, help their patients to heal--medication and fear free--with compassionate (not logic-based) talk therapy, though they are greatly in the minority in their fields. In my case, once stabilized from crisis with hospitalization and medication (at the time I was not aware there were medication-free options) I found I could do my own inner work to empower myself and heal, and that is why I am writing this book. I know you can do the same, once you choose to calm and inwardly empower yourself; when you realize that true, lasting healing is possible; that it has been done before. Then, you will be able to reject the fear that has taken over your life and, not rushing the process, trust your own soul’s wisdom to guide you to healing, simply leaving physical treatments and mental illness behind.