i have mood disorder, and i use yoga and buddhist philosophy alogn with a good diet, positive thinking and excercise
but today i just cant stop crying, i am having serious problems and my mood is horrible
i am being calm, meditating, etc…even took a nap in the afternoon
but just cant stop crying
how can i feel better?
I think you can help yourself by sticking to one thread, rather than starting a thread everyday here on a similar topic, because it makes you look like a troll and many people will just start to ignore you. I am still undecided whether you are a troll or not, but I am giving you the benefit of the doubt. I think if you made more effort to converse with people here, and apply the advice they give you, we would be able to take you more seriously.
Seriously, the best advice I can give you is you need to get professional psychological help. Yoga, Meditation, Buddhist philosophy, positive thinking, good diet is not going to help you a lot, until you have somebody who is a trained mental health professional who can guide you and supervise you and spend more time with you. It is important at this stage to have a relationship like this in your life.
I, and others on this forum can also help you as best as we can, if you open up to us and let us know directly what is it that is affecting you, but this is not going to be substitute for professional help, but certainly will compliment it.
Lets begin like this: Why are you crying? What are the feelings and the thoughts running in your head that is making you cry.
been seeking mental help since 16, im 24 now
today i am just fucking pissed off, and tryign to keep myself calm and happy but everything fucking PISSING ME OFF!!
my life is shit right now, im 24 and i keep dropping out of college and quitting jobs because i have mental break downs
everyone has given up on me, and i live with my parents now and life is total shit
i dont even have a bed i sleep on floor with mats
parents give me shit food, i survive on cereal, milk, ramen noodles, and microwave dinnners
i have no money, no transportation, no where to go, and no friends or anyone to talk to in real life
but yet i try to be positive, i work out, yoga, meditate, and i go for nature walks
but i cant fucking take it anymore!!!
everyday is a fight to not break down adn cry and yell
and in the end of the day i think, cool i made it, but then the next again its the same shit
Bolno,
Ok, thank you for disclosing more about yourself this time. I appreciate it and it helps me trust you better. Otherwise, I would not spend any time taking your issues seriously. I will try the best that I can to help you, but I want you to make an effort to seriously understand what I am saying to you and apply it in your life.
First of all, I want you to understand something important: It is not the circumstances themselves that are causing your unhappiness and frustrations. There are people who are experiencing much worse circumstances than you are, homeless on the street, living in slums, living in civil wars, or have lived through wars or been in concentrations camps, or been in prison for years, but who have been able to somehow manage with it and not experience as much grief as you have. They would consider your life situation far more desirable and would have easily traded places with you.
I remember this anonymous homeless person who use to play the acordian in the town center. I use to see him frequently playing throughout the years, and though I never talked to him personally, I always noticed how happy he was. His face was always beaming with a smile. One day, I got news that he had passed away, which was a surprise, but the biggest surprise was how hundreds of people - people he probably didn’t even know - came to grieve for him, give flowers and remember him. It was a genuine show of human compassion. It was one of the most touching things I have ever seen.
What is the moral of the story? The moral of the story is no matter what your life circumstances are, you can still be happy. You can be on the street, or even in a concentration camp, but still you can be happy. It is definitely not ideal to be in a concentration camp, but still you can be happy. There was one particular Jewish man that Steven Covey talks about in his book, “7 Habits of Highly successful people” who despite being deprived of all his dignity and his clothes by his Nazi oppressors, was still happy. His happiness became an example to all his fellow inmates and even his oppressors started to respect him.
I encourage you to read the life stories of people who gone through much hardship in their life, often these are the people you least suspect to have gone through those hardships because all you hear about is their success, but the truth is most of the success people you hear about have had it really tough. They have survived all kinds of things poverty, pain and torture, war, breakdown, depression, disease. They are living proof that humans are survivors - we can survive anything - even ice ages. You are human just like they are, so can you.
Your self-esteem cannot be measured by how much you accomplished, what you have achieved and what you possess. Your self-esteem is something you allow yourself to have by saying to yourself, “I know I am OK, I am human like everybody else, I am trying to live like everybody else” It makes no difference even if you are ugliest person in the world, you still have the right to have self esteem. You maybe physically incapacitated. You still have right to have self esteem.
Here is what I tell myself, “I am conscious spirit, I am here in life working on my development to realize my highest potentials. Infinite are my capabilities, infinite is my power. I am not limited by time and space. My natural qualities are wisdom, happiness knowledge and power” I already know I am am capable of brilliance, I already have belief in myself, and I am simply working my way in life in achieiving my potentials, growing up, making mistakes, learning from mistakes, getting closer and closer to my true self.
You are no different. You too are conscious spirit, you too are capable of the highest and best, your natural qualities too are wisdom, knowledge, power, happiness. This is not just a feel-good affirmation I am telling you, it is verily the actual nature of your conscious being. Repeat this to yourself again and again. When it sinks in you will realize life is all about unfolding that greatness within you. We all one day will realize our greatness, we are all going to get their own at our own pace. There are no losers. We are already winners.
I am going to split up my advise into a few posts, because I realize how boring and off-putting it is to read one huge chunk of text.
In the last post I basically touched on two points
First of all, work on your self-esteem. This will shape your confidence in life. If you say to yourself you are OK, then no matter what happens, even if your parents throw you out tomorrow and you have to sleep on pavements, even if mean spirited people on the street try to humiliate you, it cannot affect your self-belief that you are OK. You exist, you have a right to be here like anybody else, and you have a right to make mistakes.
Secondly, recognize what is causing your unhappiness at this moment in time. It is not the circumstances, it is your perception or interpretation of the circumstances. It is easy to prove because not everybody who goes through your circumstances will have the same reaction to it. For you not having a girlfriend at 24 is considered bad and awful, but there are people who have not had a girlfriend at 32, who do not feel bad about it, in fact they may even prefer it so they can focus on other things in life. This is because you have certain limiting beliefs and thoughts in your head which cause you to feel awful.
The good news is, you can challenge those limiting beliefs and thoughts and replace them with more rational and realistic thoughts that will not cause you grief. Let us look at some that you have evidenced in your post using a thought-monitoring form technique in CBT. You will find this useful in recording your thoughts and challenging them.
SITUATION: The situation that is happening or is about to happen.
FEELING: How is the situation making you feel?
THOUGHTS: What are the thoughts you are having about the situation?
LIMTING BELIEFS: What are the limiting beliefs underlying your thoughts?
THINKING ERRORS: Can you identify any fallacies in your thinking like(labeling, jumping to conclusions, overgeneralizing, mind-reading, personalizing, shoulds etc)
DISPUTE: Can you think of alternative statements you tell yourself that will dispute your limiting beliefs. Can you think of any evidence that contradicts your beliefs and thoughts? What would you tell somebody else in the same situation as you?
POSITIVE ACTION: Are there certain positive actions you can take to reinforce your alternative statements
my life is shit right now, im 24 and i keep dropping out of college and quitting jobs because i have mental break downs
SITUATION: I am 24 and I do not have a steady job and keep having a mental breakdown
THOUGHTS: My life is shit, I am a failure, there is no hope
BELIEFS: At 24 I should have a steady job, I should not have mental break downs, I will always be like I am
THINKING ERRORS: Should, over-generalizing, black and white thinking
DISPUTE: Although at 24 many people I know have a steady job and have had a university education and I would prefer I did as well, it is not absolutely necessary that I have to. I know there are many people who are 24 who do not have a job, who are homeless on the street, at least I have a home. At this moment in my life I don’t have a job, but that does not mean I will not have a job later. At this moment of time I have other things to work on.
I do have mental break downs, and I would prefer not to have them, but there is no rule written anywhere that says that I should have not break downs. I have survived my break downs, and if I have any future ones which is unlikely as I am not always having them, I know I can cope.
POSITIVE ACTIONS: Allow myself to ease myself back into work, do some volunteering. Do more regular Yoga and meditation to strengthen my nervous system. Get help from career advisors.
cool surya thanks for taking the time to write, every word you said was helpful
i do notice i have poor self esteem and that is something i have been working on recently
all my life i been told i have a mental illness, so when i get upset i think “oh i am like this only” but i think your right, we are human and have more capabilties than we realise
and thinking process is definitely a huge factor
thanks
everyone has given up on me, and i live with my parents now and life is total shit
You can use the thought-monitoring form technique on this as well. There is an alternative technique you can use called Socratic questioning, which can be used for more complex cognition. This is when you dispute a cognition by questioning it. The format goes like this:
What are the actual facts?
What are my perceptions of the facts?
What evidence supports my perceptions?
What evidence does not support my perceptions ?
Are there any thinking errors I am making?
Is there another way to perceive this situation in the light of the above answers?
Are there any positive and useful actions I can take?
Using the above example, one possible set of answers can be:
parents give me shit food, i survive on cereal, milk, ramen noodles, and microwave dinnners
Suggest to your parents alternative things you would like to eat, keeping in mind the household budget. Go shopping with them, or offer to do the shopping for them yourself and get the food that you prefer to eat and that they would like to eat. If they do not want to cook food you would like to eat, offer to cook it yourself.
i do notice i have poor self esteem and that is something i have been working on recently
all my life i been told i have a mental illness, so when i get upset i think “oh i am like this only” but i think your right, we are human and have more capabilties than we realise
You will regain your self-esteem by
There is another powerful technique called behaviour disputing. Behaviour disputing is the most powerful technique in changing our thoughts, because when directly go out there in the real world and test some of our limiting beliefs, we often find in reality they are not true, or as true as we believe they are e.g. I have a fear of talking to strangers. When I am out in public, I often to keep to myself and not initiate any contact, even sometimes in sociable places like bars and clubs. My limiting belief is that people do not welcome intrusions, they want to be left alone. My friend, who is hardly gifted with conversational skills can rather intrusively and outrageously talk to any stranger to the extent of stopping a girl in her tracks with “Hey, babe, how you doing” and rather than getting slapped in his face or abused, they always respond positively to him! The worst response is they ignore him. But nothing bad ever happens. Currently, my anxiety levels are too strong for me to do what he does, but I have noticed myself that when I am in a good mood, I can do what he does much better than him and end up making new friends, just because I took the social risk to talk to them.
Repeat affirmations that you believe in. I believe I am conscious spirit and have infinite potential. If you don’t believe it, you can say something that is believable like, “I am human, I exist, I live, I have a right to make mistakes, I have a right to explore life” Repeat these affirmations everyday. Write them down on a poster and put it up on your wall. Keep them in your wallet. Or create a short mantra summing up the affirmation and repeat it throughout the day as many times as you want.
Exercise, do Yoga and meditation, eat a balanced and healthy diet - this will strengthen your nervous system, release feel-good chemicals into your body and make you feel much better.
Surya do you think some people are naturally negative thinkers?
For me positivve thoughts are fleeting and negative thoughts seem more real
As I work on this will my thinkin patterns change?
Bolno,
In your first query you have mentioned that you have mood disorder.
There are three types of mood disorders - Unipolar Disorder i.e. either Mania (excitement and overactive), or depression; Bipolar Disorder i.e. Manic Depression (experiencing both the poles of mood at different times) and Seasonal Affective Disorder.
I believe that respondents including Surya Dev would appreciate if you could let them through Yoga Forum- which mood disorder you are suffering from?"
Secondly, most symptoms you have mentioned seems to be symptoms of depression.
Depression is feeling of sadness or lowness. DEPRESSION is often caused by lack of mental stability/clarity; deficient EGO strength, inadequate information about your strengths and weakness, lack of communication skills and social skill etc.
Depression can also be caused by various factors like imbalance of chemicals, starvation of certain food elements, anxiety, and loss of dear ones, getting disconnected from some near and intimate relationship, unsatisfied with job, neurological disorder and use of certain drugs. It is also caused by leaned attitude of hopelessness and helplessness. It is also triggered by viral infections.
While Yoga, meditation, dietary reforms, exercise, etc have benefited many a people suffering from Depression, yet they may not be cure for the most Depression patients.
Whether a Yoga teacher would really help you depend on;
[QUOTE=bolno;73322]i have mood disorder, and i use yoga and buddhist philosophy alogn with a good diet, positive thinking and excercise
but today i just cant stop crying, i am having serious problems and my mood is horrible
i am being calm, meditating, etc…even took a nap in the afternoon
but just cant stop crying
how can i feel better?[/QUOTE]
Bolno,
In your first query you have mentioned that you have mood disorder.
There are three types of mood disorders - Unipolar Disorder i.e. either Mania (excitement and overactive), or depression; Bipolar Disorder i.e. Manic Depression (experiencing both the poles of mood at different times) and Seasonal Affective Disorder.
I believe that respondents including Surya Dev would appreciate if you could let them through Yoga Forum- which mood disorder you are suffering from?"
Secondly, most symptoms you have mentioned seems to be symptoms of depression.
Depression is feeling of sadness or lowness. DEPRESSION is often caused by lack of mental stability/clarity; deficient EGO strength, inadequate information about your strengths and weakness, lack of communication skills and social skill etc.
Depression can also be caused by various factors like imbalance of chemicals, starvation of certain food elements, anxiety, and loss of dear ones, getting disconnected from some near and intimate relationship, unsatisfied with job, neurological disorder and use of certain drugs. It is also caused by leaned attitude of hopelessness and helplessness. It is also triggered by viral infections.
While Yoga, meditation, dietary reforms, exercise, etc have benefited many a people suffering from Depression, yet they may not be cure for the most Depression patients.
Whether a Yoga teacher would really help you depend on;
[QUOTE=bolno;73380]Surya do you think some people are naturally negative thinkers?
For me positivve thoughts are fleeting and negative thoughts seem more real
As I work on this will my thinkin patterns change?[/QUOTE]
Yes, some people are biologically predisposed to worrying and negative thinking and habits. Sometimes, it runs in the family and is inherited genetically. Other people are just of a certain biological body type which is prone to worrying and negative thinking. In my case, I have a body type which is naturally prone to anxiety and worrying, and sure enough I have suffered from anxiety disorders in the past and still today I have mild social anxiety and performance anxiety.
This does not mean that we who have inherited such an anxiety-prone body type have got the short end of the stick from nature, because the body type we have inherited is also naturally highly creative and energetic when it is in balance. Whatever body type you have, it needs to be kept in balance through diet, lifestyle, correct thinking and supplements.
Those of us who have a naturally anxious body type need to work more than others on our thinking patterns. The good news is thinking patterns can indeed be changed, but it does require hard work and effort. If you regularly practice some of the CBT techniques I outlined you will definitely make progress. The amount of progress is directly proportional to much you practice the techniques and practice a healthy lifestyle(that keeps your body type in balance)
[QUOTE=Surya Deva;73391]Yes, some people are biologically predisposed to worrying and negative thinking and habits. Sometimes, it runs in the family and is inherited genetically. Other people are just of a certain biological body type which is prone to worrying and negative thinking. In my case, I have a body type which is naturally prone to anxiety and worrying, and sure enough I have suffered from anxiety disorders in the past and still today I have mild social anxiety and performance anxiety.
This does not mean that we who have inherited such an anxiety-prone body type have got the short end of the stick from nature, because the body type we have inherited is also naturally highly creative and energetic when it is in balance. Whatever body type you have, it needs to be kept in balance through diet, lifestyle, correct thinking and supplements.
Those of us who have a naturally anxious body type need to work more than others on our thinking patterns. The good news is thinking patterns can indeed be changed, but it does require hard work and effort. If you regularly practice some of the CBT techniques I outlined you will definitely make progress. [B]The amount of progress is directly proportional to much you practice the techniques and practice a healthy lifestyle(that keeps your body type in balance)[/B][/QUOTE]
yeah i agree
every morning i take time in the mornign to meditate, and use all the self affirmations and try to visualise how i want to be and think
and i am bipolar, but with rapid cycles it seems.
but as i have been practicing more, i am good for like a week or so, and then i have a few bad days, and then again im good. sometimes within a day i go bad and good quickly.
but as i have been practicing more, i am good for like a week or so, and then i have a few bad days, and then again im good. sometimes within a day i go bad and good quickly.
Yes, this is a common symptom of biopolar disorder. You are more prone to mood swings, which is why you have to work more harder on stabilizing your nervous energy. Everything you are doing so far will definitely help towards that.
Let me recommend a routine for you, which could work(you are probably doing a lot of it already)
Fix two times for meditation everyday: Morning and Evening - Meditate for a min of 30 min and maximum of an hour. Do this regularly, never missing these times. Almost like a dose of medicine. Meditation takes a long time before it begins to stabalise your mind, thus the effort has to be regular and sustained.
In addition to your two fixed times. Also do an optional third meditation in the afternoon for 15-30 min, which you can do as regularly as you want.
Just before your morning meditation do some stretching(asanas) and then some breathing exercises(pranayama) The breathing exercise that is best for balancing the mind is alternate nostril breathing(nadi shodana) It will purify your nervous system and make meditation a lot more easier.
The asanas and the pranayama will take about 30-45 min, start this immediately after you have woken up, washed and cleaned. Then start your meditation which will take about 30 to 60 min. Altogether, spare about 1.5-2 hours after you wake up for your practice.
After your meditation review your plan of action(a plan of creation you have created to achieve your goals) Look at the goals you have to achieive today and create a to-do list.
Aim to do your pranayama exercises right before your meditations. Also do a few rounds of pranayama throughout the day. This is a brilliant balancing exercise.
In the evening just before you go to sleep do either progressive relaxation or Yoga Nidra(free instructions and mp3’s are available online) This also progressive relaxation, but also includes breathing exercises, visualization and affirmations all in one. It is done in a stylized way which produces tremendous amount of relaxation to your nervous system.
After Yoga Nidra do an introspection exercise: Review the entire day by going through all the events in the day: your thoughts, feelings, behaviours. Do this in an objective detached manner. Write them down and apply CBT techniques to identify any faulty thinking and replace it with the positive.
The above routine is a great way of keeping your nervous system stable and balanced, and more you practice it the more stabalized it will become. This routine is effective because it combines several practices that balance mind and nervous system:
Asanas
Pranayama
Meditation
Yoga Nidra
Introspection with CBT
Bolno, I read this thread and don’t think I have any advice to add. I do want to say that my heart goes out to you. My oldest son is your age, and he sometimes feels like he should be further along in life than he is. I tell him he is very young. It is so much harder for young people today because you have so many more choices. Life does not run on a schedule and if you are still trying and have not given up then you are much further along than you think. Be kind to yourself.
Bolno,
As a Yoga Therapist and Naturopath, benefit of a person as an individual (as one really is,…) in term of progress i.e. diseased to healthy and healthy to healthier, is supreme to me. It matter less to me whether the person I advice/recommend is not fully benefited from Yoga and associated practices.
As the person’s (who is suffering) benefit and health progress is important, I prefer to integrated yoga with modern medicine in some cases.
It is true that, as Surya Deva mentioned, a person with biologically compromised body/mind has highly creative energy, but firstly that energy is a potential or not in manifest state with every body secondly, it is available when person is in state of balance.
A depression patient with biological factors is advised, I recommend and refer to the Psychiatrist, medicines, for three months to one year or so, just to make his/her journey of managing/curing the problem easy and secondly, to restore his biology passively. It is also true such a patient tend to relapse. To prevent the relapse in a patient, Yoga methods, targeted dietary reforms, targeted positive thinking or counseling based cognitive therapy/cognitive behavioral therapy, and life style changes, are the solutions.
In non-biological cases of mild to moderate degree, the above measures works well.
I also agree, with Surya Dev, on Yoga and other methods, time and repetition advised by him. I would just add to that…firstly, do not increase your meditation practice more than 20 minutes at a time. Meditation decreases need for Oxygen, and in a depression patient Oxygen level is low in the brain. Brain though weight 2 to 3 % of the total body weight, need 20% of total body Oxygen to function normally. Secondly, start and end your practice with Anulom-Vilom (Nadi-Sodhan) Pranayama in ratio of 1:1 or 1:2 and without holding breath and; Sukshma Bhastrika Pranayama (Bellow Breathing technique).
Lastly, I recommend you to go through blood test for vitamin D and Vitamin B12. These vitamins affect physical, mental and emotional health to a great degree.
What should I do cuz sometimes I’m not depressed but very irratable and things make me angry and violent