Unfortunately, it seems the so-called experts can’t read the “programming” or know exactly how to fix the “software,” if they can even find the power switch. It’s serotonin one day, pituitary gland the next.
That’s why the experts can’t fix the problem. My onset was in 2001, and a month later I had my first meeting with a spiritual director. I’d never even heard of such a thing (which annoys me because I was 42 year old active cradle Catholic) until someone told my wife about it a couple weeks before my onset. I asked him why the so-called “professionals” are so crazy. I told him they captured me like an animal after lying about my supposedly going to meet a doctor but it was really a trap, and brought me in the ward. Then ask me stupid questions like why did I come here and when I say I don’t know you brought me here and I don’t even know who signed the orders (I never actually even met her until three days later – she literally didn’t know me from Adam, but gave the order on 4th hand hearsay … so yeah then they wrote that I refused to answer the questions, and then they gave me tranquilizers because I was “non-compliant.” They don’t have any clue how to actually listen.
He said, they are too specialized. A person has six components; physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, social, and sexual – sexual being closely connected with self-identity. Their expertise is in one, or maybe two at most, of those areas. Each one looks at you through their own narrow view, and tries to treat you solely from that viewpoint. So if you go to a medical doctor (or a psychiatrist) you may have an emotional and spiritual problem, and they will try to fix it with medicine.
He started me off well, and I was lucky as he was a really great, old Redemptorist priest who was not only an expert at Church teachings, but kept up with psychology and was in occasional contact with at couple of them who were trying to change the way things were done.
For me, it’s producing fear due in part to that lack of control. Despite what Jesus said, I do worry about the next day and 20 years from now. While I’m supposedly considered intelligent, for all the good it does me, I only get a lot of things in hindsight. My lack of faith makes me feel even worse as I see myself as weak and pathetic. I’m tired of failing at the time.
Yeah, the trick is to be able to forecast and plan, without becoming anxious over it. That is no small feat, because we are programmed by our culture to remain anxious almost all the time over something, which messes up our brain chemistry because it keeps us in “fight or flight” much longer than our systems were designed for. So when we are anxious, it increases blood flow, and decrease immune system and other system maintenance. In fact, our amygdala is so focused on keeping us tense for the presumed threat for extended periods, that it will do its best to stop that part of the brain that tries to calm it down, in an attempt to destroy it.
So yeah, planning for tomorrow is a great thing. And yes, I have preferred outcomes but like you said we can’t control it. In fact, Paul suggested saying “God-willing” we will do his today or tomorrow, because it’s actually boasting to say “I will do this or that tomorrow” – in a world where we are to “meet expectations” and have penalties if we don’t do certain things by a certain date to a certain quality level. That’s why we have to be deprogrammed, essentially.
I’m glad you managed to recover and a bit envious of that. I wish He do to that to all of us rather than let us be ignored and ridiculed by even people who should know better.
Funny thing; I am now running late for something so I’ll have to finish up this post quickly. Feel free to send me PM, and/or continue here. It isn’t necessarily “rocket science” which is why experts don’t know how to fix people – they aren’t rocket engines.
I’m not even close to the level of spiritual development for a “dark night.” From what I’ve read the “dark night” and depression are far different things and should not be confused with each other.
Yes, they are different, and I tend to use the “Dark Night” in a certain way. Dark Night can and probably almost always does involve some depression, but we’ll talk more later. Don’t believe people who say you have to be at a certain “spiritual level” for a Dark Night, as if you have to be all pious and stuff. That’s a bunch of hooey. But a lot of people are scared of it and have never been through it and actually St. John of the Cross has only been a doctor of the Church for less than 100 years, so his work hasn’t made its way into mainstream Catholic psyche yet, compared to the likes of Thomas Acquinas for example.
My disorder make it difficult for me to form bonds. People think I’m good listener when it’s really I have nothing to say. So, I can’t say it’s made me empathetic. Bitter, yes, as I see them then go on with their lives filled with happiness and love while I receive no aid.
Ah, that’s good information… Ok gtg will visit the thread, and my inbox, later. What is impossible for man is possible with God. And
