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For too long, I was doing horribly. Multiple hospitalizations, mostly for PTSD and bipolar depression. Well a few weeks ago I started therapy with a great therapist that accepts medicaid. Her office has a giant window that looks over Lake Michigan and that almost makes me happier than the therapy itself. Well anyways, we've been doing standard talk therapy and CBT and the more I talk, the more my issues seem less important. The arguments with family, the anger at my landlord, etc. They just seem less important and don't bother me anymore.I haven't been to a therapist in a year and a half because I thought it was pointless and didn't help but I guess I never found the right therapist (with an awesome view while pouring my guts out.) I also switched from geodon to seroquel 150mg so that is helping too. I am able to drink coffee again without panic and anxiety. I am gaining more interest in things like video games, reaading, coloring. Whereas before I couldn't even shower or brush my teeth. I just stared into space for hours. I really hope this lasts. I've never felt so normal in awhile. I've stayed at depression centers for weeks and months, ptsd trauma center for over a month. Nothing did it. Maybe this is just a fluke and eventually it will peeter out, but I'm hoping for the best. Wish me luck!

Perceiving value in your life is not a thought form of perception (awareness) at all. Rather, it is an emotional awareness. In other words, our emotions do not have some sort of mind control effect on us where they force us to perceive, through our thinking, our lives being good or bad to us. It is purely the emotions themselves that allow us to see values in our lives. Emotions are actually a sense like sight. They allow us to see the values that things and situations hold in our lives. It is only our positive emotions that allow us to see the positive qualities of life (i.e. the good values) while it is only our negative emotions that allow us to see the negative qualities of life (i.e. the bad values). Having neither positive nor negative emotions would be no different than a blind person. No value judgment can allow this blind person to see just as how no value judgment or mindset can allow us to see the values in our lives.

Hi there, I'm new on Crazyboards but have benefited as a visitor from many a post. I have a rather unusual request/question. I have sleep anxiety like nobody's business. What I mean by this is that I worry/obsess that I won't get enough sleep AND if I wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep I get out-of-control anxiety and then, of course, can't fall back to sleep. I sweat, get heart palpitations, GI issues, you name it. And the horrible thing is, these symptoms go into the next day and then usually continue into the next night. The thing is, before all this happened I was always a naturally great sleeper. I could sleep anytime and I loved my sleep. This all started years ago when my first child was born. I went on Paxil and it worked great except for bad side effects. I have since gone off Paxil and had quite a few "sleep anxiety-free years" (always had GAD though). But this has started to rear its ugly head again, off and on for the past couple years. I have started Trintellix and have worked up to 10mg. I have also taken .5mg Klonopin for years. When I started the Trintellix my pdoc bumped me up to 1mg Klonopin but it's not working (!) and this COMPLETELY freaks me out. I have basically been going to sleep at 11:00, waking up at 3:00, and MIGHT get an additional fitful hour in there by about 5 or 6. I have started CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). I'm doing it on my own for now, using a workbook called The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook by Edmund Bourne. I understand basically that I need to change my thinking about this problem if I am to make any progress. But this is extremely hard for me to imagine doing. What I am asking for is for feedback from people who have gotten only 4 or so hours of sleep a night for a period of time AND IT HASN'T RUINED THEIR LIFE. I need to be able to tell myself that this isn't the end of the world to only get 4 hours of sleep for a while (and this will be indefinitely until, hopefully, the CBT starts helping). I'm not working on an insomnia plan because I don't have sleep problems per se; I have major, unbearable ANXIETY problems that make it impossible to sleep. You might be wondering why I started the Trintellix: it is for the sleep anxiety but also for pretty intense GAD. However, I am really, really hopeful that I can manage this with CBT after some time. I may need to stay on the Trintellix, but the sleep anxiety is so horrible (it continues all the next day) that I feel I need to at least try something besides meds. I thank you immensely for your reassurances

Most people who experience panic attacks only have a few per day or a few every other day. This is because panic is caused by a perceived threat (either real or irrational) which means that these people only perceive a threat every once in a while and they have control over their panic overall. However, there are very severe cases like me in which the perceived threat is constant which causes constant recurring panic attacks. These people like me have no control over this horrifying experience no matter what they tell themselves and no matter what relaxation techniques they use. People like me are unable to calm down. I have a strong phobia which is a fear of me speeding. Therefore, since the Earth is constantly speeding, that is then a constant perceived threat that caused me continuous uncontrollable panic that just might have lead me into being shot up in a hospital. I felt that I might never get it under control and that I would be doomed to be in this near constant state of panic everyday for my entire life which made the panic that much worse. My experience was that I had a panic attack which lasted for 15-20 seconds. After which, I then had 15-20 seconds of relief and then another panic attack immediately afterwards. This process continued on and I thought it might never stop. But fortunately, I now have severe chronic anhedonia (emotional numbness) which has numbed my fear. However, it has also numbed my ability to experience any good feelings whatsoever and I now no longer have any ability to experience pleasure. Usually people who have phobias (such as a spider phobia) go through exposure therapy in having a spider walk on his/her arm. This person would then panic at first, but the panic would then subside and the person would now be virtually cured of his/her phobia. This is unlike me since I could not calm down no matter what and my panic was constantly recurring. I wish to know if there are others who have also perceived a constant threat that was a part of their everyday lives that caused them continuous uncontrollable recurring panic attacks and that if these people ever managed to get something like this under control somehow.

Around 8 months ago, my psychiatrist decided that I might benefit from CBT for my SZA and AsPD. I'd had a worsening of symptoms around four years previous that earlier pdoc's had attempted to treat with meds, but had met with limited success. Anyway, finally got with the new pdoc who was the first to suggest therapy and on to the waiting list I went. Fast forward to last Friday and I receive a text message from an NHS therapist saying they will call me today for a review and find out how they can best help. "The wait is finally coming to an end" I thought. Let's see what they have to say. 30 minutes ago, I receive a phone call from the therapist who had sent the text. She asks me a few questions about medication (which I thought would have been forwarded by my pdoc) and then finally about my diagnosis... Which is where things got a bit silly. Turns out that the NHS team I was referred to do not offer CBT for psychotic illnessess. She felt she might have been able to help with the AsPD, but as I was also diagnosed with SZA she would not be able to see me. She did tell me that new legislation is coming in for second-line patients where specific therapists are hired for individual treament, but wasn't sure when that was happening. Eight. Fucking. Months. I have a pretty hard time trusting MI professionals at my best, but after this massive balls-up I know everybody is going to be accusing everyone else of being in the wrong. It's the most basic piece of information to be passed on to someone, how can it have been forgotten/ignored? The trust goes out the window and I am back to square one. I phoned my case worker as my pdoc is away on holiday at the moment. I put the question to him and asked him to find out what had happened. He's as much use as an inflatable dartboard though, so I'm not holding my breath for answers. And now I'm left in Limbo. Symptoms are still there, medication not really working but I've been managing to get by. Next pdoc appt is not until next Wednesday, so looks like I'll be waiting until then to find out what the next step is. Once again the NHS is showing it's absolute disregard for MI patients. I just wish I had been surprised when everything went to shit again.

Do you resist it and do you know why? Or, why don't you resist it? I resist it, but I'm not really sure I know why. Am I just being a jerk? I don't resist meds at all and get a lot out of my individual and group therapy. My tdoc is very into CBT and after just a few sessions of getting to know me, he dove right into the work of it. I resisted right from the start, but kinda got into it, did the work for a while but mostly because I knew I needed help of any kind. I researched it online and thought a lot about my resistance. He seems to have just given up after I said that I didn't really see the model as complete or covering everything or even making much sense to me. Now we focus on what I've been thinking and writing and doing or having a hard time with. But, our sessions do get off track sometimes. Sometimes it feels trivial. We laugh a lot (which I think is great!). Yet, I wonder if we need some more structure...? But, hell No, not CBT (or DBT, AIG, STH, or any other damned thing)! You?

Does anyone have any experience with the dbt or cbt? Does it help? Can it be a realistic alternative to meds?

Just wondering has anyone been in a CBT group, aimed specifically for people with Bipolar. I was referred to the group by a community psych nurse who knows me well. There will be 8 people in the group and it will last 6 weeks. The therapist is a psych nurse and also qualified as a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist. Not too sure how the Group CBT will work and a bit anxious about it * Mods :Not too sure if this should be in the therapy section or the bipolar section, so feel free to move it to appropriate place

Has anyone been able to go beyond the periodic med management and receive such services as cognitive behavioral therapy while on Medicare?