The world market is overflooded by relaxation and meditation techniques. Therefore we ask ourselves which one to try. People with schizoaffective disorder for example should avoid any deep meditation techniques. I am not capable of giving you a list of such techniques. But I personally feel rebirthing for example would be too much for me. I am not even compelled to ASK my psychiatrist whether I should try. There is no need to ask, since I simply feel rebirthing would be too stressful for my brain. A friend of mine does rebirthing regularly, but she is mentally healthy. When she told me what such...

In 1996 when I fell ill for the first time, my friends tried to stick with me at first. However after a while it got too hard for them to look at somebody who was quiet all the time and looked like a walking corpse. I did not say it out loud, but they must have felt I was thinking of suicide a lot. Today I am glad they limited their contacts to me to a few times a year. They had to do it for their own protection, for bad mood is catchy as you well know. It would have worn them out. In 1999 I met my future husband and since I practically had no friends, I attached myself too much to him. It was not the...

Last year I noticed that writing my book tires me. I got headaches and some kind of weird tiredness while writing the first version of the book from October 2008 to December 2009. This kind of tiredness I also got after weekend seminars of various personal growth approaches. It should not have come as a surprise, since writing therapy is a personal growth approach too. When we write about our past — distant or recent — we in a way go through all those painful experiences once more. This is good for us in the long run, for we will be able to overcome the pain our memories bring us sooner, if we...

In my previous blog I wrote about the importance of self-observation. Nonetheless sometimes we are in denial. We get the usual symptoms, but we think we are all-right. This is the time when people who live with us can help. It is very helpful if we live with at least one person we can trust. Thus this person can tell us that we are behaving in an unusual way. I read often on different internet sites that the people we live with do not understand us. Sometimes this can be true. However sometimes we can get this feeling because we are in denial. Thus our goal could be to learn to differentiate between...

The relationship between a psychiatrist and a patient is a very complex thing. I will probably never understand it fully. However as a patient I have come to a conclusion that in my opinion is very important. I believe it helps if we see ourselves as equally clever as our psychiatrists. It might seem too bold of me to say a thing like that, but let me explain. The psychiatrist has enormous theoretical knowledge and also broad knowledge of differences between individual patients. However I as a patient am the only one that is present 24 hours a day. In other words: I can observe myself all the time,...