Zen Dharma Mental Health Bipolar Recovery, Bipolar Creative Mania

Zen Dharma Mental Health Bipolar Recovery Bipolar Creative Mania No Responses »

Apr 142011

Bipolar Creative Mania can be a problem from which we can recovery and in the process learn much about Zen Dharma.

Creativity used to strike me most often around midnight and keep me up till dawn just in time to go to work. I seemed unable to stop thinking and go to sleep. Once in awhile this is ok. As a regular pattern it can cause chaos in one’s life.

This is a pattern i call bipolar creative mania.

It would lead to other kinds of mania kicking in ( see Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Patterns ) and to full blown mania, a crisis and possible homelessness once again. So creative mania I saw had to be dealt with. It became imperative to do something about it.

There were two issues to dealing with bipolar creative mania. How to let go of such beautiful thoughts? How to deal with the fear of the beautiful thoughts never coming back if I did let go.

While I recommend ujaya breathing for this, I found more was needed. (see Zen Not Knowing Ujaya Breath Supports Anxiety Recovery. Ujaya breath is a skillful means for many mental health recovery issues. Thus Zen Dharma Mental Health Recovery is the method we use. Letting go. Thinking non-thinking. It can be used with creative mania. However, I use other practices in addition. I also “enhance” the ujaya breath with counting up to ten. One in, two out, three in and so on…

In Japan there is a practice to address being attached to the beauty of one’s thoughts. It is this attachment from which creative mania arises. Thus non-attachment is essential to zen dharma mental health recovery.

The Japanese sit by the river and write short poems, called hiaku. ( Haiku-poems.50webs.com They are written on rice paper in lovely calligraphy and then thrown in the river. Peter Orlofski, Allen Ginsberg’s friend, said he and Allen would sit by the river and write poems but could never throw them in the water.

I had the same problem for the longest time. I could not let go of all those beautiful thoughts. That is until I could see my creative mania might make me homeless again.

So I faced the fear of loss of creative works and began to form hiaku in my mind as I sat waiting in the car for my wife. I let the haiku go without writing them down. I practiced diligently doing this for a few weeks.

I noticed after a few days that the creativity increased but the creative mania did not arise. I did not stay up all night. I could let go. I did not have other kinds of mania kick in.

I gained control over when my creativity happened. The muses were nolonger fickle. They came when i summoned them. I could be spontaneously creative whenever I liked. The loss of creativity that I feared never happened. That particular haiku was lost perhaps but many, many others replaced it. I also gained the ability to write and speak more spontaneously and concisely. I no longer feared bipolar creative mania. Nor was i any longer addicted to it.

Thus I could let go of creative thoughts at night while i lay in bed. Going to sleep was nolonger threatening. I could let go and sleep. Bipolar creative mania no longer dominated me.

The brain adjusts to the presence of medications. Getting off medications quickly without medical support is very likely to cause psychosis from rebound effects

Books of interest.

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Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Bipolar Anger Mania

Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Bipolar Anger Mania 2 Responses »

Apr 052011

Bipolar anger mania is mania triggered by anger. This is often diagnosed as type II bipolar. Coping with bipolar type 2 takes effort but is not impossible. In the typology here, It is the third of the six types of mania outlined in the first post on bipolar recovery. Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Patterns
My first understanding of mania was of bipolar anger mania.
For medical reasons I began to work with my psychiatrist to lower my mood stabilizer dosage. He is a meditator and has encourage my Zen practice and development of Zen Dharma Recovery Mental Health Meditation Links. In this case bipolar recovery.

I found in this journey that it is unfortunate the issue of anger is medicalized. It leads to the emotional de-skilling of our culture. Hence the bit of irony in my use of the term “bipolar anger mania.” One could as well simply say anger which becomes ANGER, which becomes AAANNGGGERRRR, which becomes anger out of control. How does this pattern develop? For me the motive is to keep from being subject to force. But more importantly to keep from making hurtful remarks to those I love as much as I can.

Mindfulness of when bipolar anger mania arises is the crucial skill to which I turned. See Zen Dharma Recovery Mental Health Video
Reflect : when does your mania arise?

Becoming mindful of these situations is your key to bipolar recovery.

I first became aware of hypomania arising when I was angry. The principle source of anger was the media, TV and news sources like papers, the internet…

Andrew Weil MD suggested in his writing “Take a vacation from the media.” I did. In a day my hypomania started to go down. After a week my life was much more peaceful. There was a much less speedy mind and body. I began to not be frightened by my tendency to bipolar anger mania. Bipolar recovery seemed possible.

This motivated me to practice more and I began to be aware of other bipolar anger mania generators.

These are the typical patterns of anger I found generating mania.

When I think my space is invaded.

The pattern of though boxes is “He is in my space. If I let this go on it will get worse and I won’t be able to stand it.”
I begin speaking irritably. When we speak in this way, the other person (as Bill W points out AA Big Book Free Download page 63) will “retaliate” or react. That makes me more irritable and feeds my anger thought which in turn sets off moving and talking faster to force my point. This may occur over a period of time. After a day or two, I may have trouble sleeping. My fatigued tired body reacts with an adrenalin surge and i latch on to it. I over ride what my body feels and get hyopmanic. (This is reaction formation mania and will be discussed in another blog). If the pattern continues and is added to with other angry situations I will move to full bipolar anger mania.

One needs to remember that “my space” is a concept. It varies with time, place, persons involved with us. At different times we feel “my space” to have quite different boundaries.

Essentially “my space” is a menial box which when rigidly clung to and enforced leads to anger which for some of us spirals out of control due to working ourselves up. We move toward bipolar anger mania. We can let go however. We can practice thinking non-thinking.

Another pattern of mental boxes similar to someone “getting in my space” is “I can’t let them get away with saying that”.

This can also develop into a feedback loop. In this pattern we hold tightly to what may or may not be said around us. We cling to ideas with which we identify. Again this may develop into a social feedback loop. We hear. We interpret as offensive. We speak with anger. The other person reacts. We interpret as even more offensive to us. We speak strongly with anger. We begin to speed up. We move toward bipolar anger mania.

Any rigidly held idea or belief over which we are easily offended can lead to an internal and social feedback loop leading to bipolar anger mania. The most rigidly held ideas I have are expectations. Expectations are pre-meditated resentments. I hold rigidly to the idea that others should be different than I am. I am tolerant of myself with the faults I get enraged about in others. As we say, “If you spot it you got it.” A gentleman I know says that he cannot pray just any prayer for that he hates. His special prayer on the occasions he must deal with people he hates is “Just Like Me”. Bipolar anger mania, or anger, ANGER, AAAANGGGERRR and then anger out of control, is diffused by him with this “special” “prayer.”

Applying Zen Mental Health Recovery to bipolar anger mania.

Mindfulness of the patterns of mental boxes and spirals of working myself up are needed for to cope with bipolar anger mania and achieve bipolar recovery.

Letting go is the next step once we are aware of our mental boxes leading to bipolar anger mania.

The steps are to coping with or transforming bipolar anger mania with Zen Mental Health Recovery are:

1) Mindfulness of our mental boxes. Seeing how we work ourselves up. Click here to begin to learn patterns of bipolar mania. See Zen Dharma Recovery Mental Health Video for general instructions on Zen and mental boxes See Jon Kabat Zinn teaching Mindfulness at Google offices.

Click here for enough free Buddhist Dharma Talks to last a lifetime.

2) Realizing one can let go of mental boxes as they arise and not be trapped by them.Click here for instructions on using Ujaya Breath to let go of mental boxes for mania. The instructions are at toward the end of the blog post. The blog is entitled Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Anxiety Mania.

4) Being in one’s body to keep from disconnecting from the present which will increase the mania in my experience see discussions in
Healing Ojectifying Self Meditation and again at end of Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Anxiety Mania you will find instructions on being in one’s body.

5) Dealing with changing relationships (not necessarily by leaving them) and how we deal with the social contexts we are in which generate anger.

In this process it is necessary to avoid what Abaham Low MD calls “symptom idiom” or symptom talk. Symptom talk when one sees one’s symptomns as unchangeable can lead to a feedback loop or vicious cycle of fear, symptom talk generating more fear leading to more symptom talk until one has a crisis.Mentral Health Through Will-Training
These kinds of patterns are also called strange loops in the contextual psychology of Steven Hayes Mindfulness and Acceptance: Expanding the Cognitive-Behavioral Tradition
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Bipolar Mental Health Recovery is very possible. Bipolar anger mania is NOT written in stone. It is changeable. Bipolar anger mania can be let go of.

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Dr Ed Knight Zen Dharma Mental Health Recovery Video | zen dharma mental health recovery

A Healing for Schizophrenia, Anxiety Meditation, Bipolar Zen Dharma Mental Health Recovery, Depression Mental Health Recovery, Dr Ed Knight Zen Dharma Mental Health Recovery Video 3 Responses »

Mar 292011

This is a video of Dr. Ed Knight describing Zen Dharma Mental Health Recovery (Dharma name Daigu Angyo, a Zen PeaceMaker Sangha senior).

He discusses the use of Zen sitting, zazen for Zen Dharma Mental Health Recovery or the transformation of mental and emotional extreme states.

We know that recovery is very possible even from the most serious diagnoses. See What Is The Actual Schizophrenia Recovery Rate ( Also see on Dharma Mental Health Recovery Ed Podvoll MD. Ed was a Tibetan Buddhist who founded the Windhorse Projects. These are treatment projects with no or low dose medications but mainly with the contemplative practice of bare or basic attendence by psychotherapists. Recovering Sanity: A Compassionate Approach to Understanding and Treating Pyschosis )

Daigu uses Zen Dharma in his own Mental Health Recovery. He was labeled with schizophrenia in 1969 and has since also dealt with mania, depression, several anxiety disorders and addictions.

Zen Dharma is usually thought of as applying only to addictions recovery. But Zen Dharma Mental Health Recovery is possible.

Ed’s life shows Zen Dharma applies to mental health recovery as well. This is of importance as Zen is seldom thought of in these terms. As a matter of fact there is prejudice against its use in mental health recovery. Though modern research does not support this stereotype, early anecdotes in the late 70s and early 80s which were called case studies brought on this stereotype. These were largely reports of someone going on a 10 day intensive retreat. No report if on or off medications or of the preparation for such an intensive.

Dr. Knight’s Sensei Ken Tetsuji Byalin is the founder of Staten Island Zen Community: Multi-Faith Zen.
Ed has studied Zen with Tetsuji for several years and applies it in his understanding of Zen Dharma to Mental Health Recovery.
Ed first began studying Zen Dharma to apply it to Mental HealthRecovery with Roshi Robert Joshen Althouse in 2002. He continued his studies of Zen Dharma to apply to Mental Health Recovery with Roshi Bernie Glassman. He studied with Roshi Bernie for about a year.

Prior to this Dr Knight had studied Insight or Theravadin Meditation for 7 years with Tempel Smith and Peter Doobinin.

He began using Dharma for Mental Health Recovery on his own by an intensive study of a book by Joseph Goldstein.

This book helped transform Ed’s life.

Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation (Shambhala Classics)

Zen Dharma Mental Health Recovery is the use of the art of thinking non-thinking.
Zen Dharma Mental Health Recovery is applying non-thinking to symptoms (preferred term extreme mind body states).
Zen Dharma Mental Health Recovery is primarily letting go of attachments to concepts, labels.
Zen Dharma Mental Health Recovery is balance and tolerance of very uncomfortable sensations.

Also of interest is Ed’s article on dealing with anxiety:First Attempt Transforming Anxiety Ed discusses his application of non-thinking or letting go of mental boxes and the use of an important yoga breath ujjayi breath or ocean breath to mental health recovery here. Zen Not Knowing Ujjayi Breath Meditation Anxiety Recovery Ujjayi breath is very similar to bamboo breathing described by Katsuki Sekida in Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy (Shambhala Classics)
Sekida’s koan commentaries are also helpful for penetrating non-thinking. Two Zen Classics: The Gateless Gate and The Blue Cliff Records
But there is no substitute for a Zen teacher or Sensei.

Ed taught Zen Dharma Mental Health Recovery as part of his training at ValueOptions where he was Vice President of Recovery, Rehabilitition and Mutual Support until he retired on May 13, 2011. Daigu also was an Adjunct Professor of Rehabilitation Counselling at Boston University until 2008 when the department closed.

Non-thinking discussed on the video can be used with bipolar “diagnoses” if one awakens to the thought patterns driving different kinds of mania. see Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Patterns
Non-thinking or as Roshi Bernie Glassman says not-knowing was the way Ed recovered from schizophrenia. Here is a beginning discussion of non-thinking and schizophrenia. Zen Dharma Schizophrenia Mental Health Recovery, Hearing Voices Coping A student of Roshi Bernie’s Dharma Holder Jim Daiken Bastien said to Ed when he was having a difficult time ” Schizophrenia is the Enlightened Way.” Daiken also relieved much of Ed’s suffering by his pith saying “Mind states do not exist.” Ed struggled for about a year to penetrate this pith saying and let go. Though Ed had been practicing for a number of years with letting go of voices, Jim’s wisdom released him from exploring unnecessarily the origin of “voices” and painful states allowing him to just move on.

Daigu’s approach to mental health system transformation is based on Bernie’s description of the One Body. Is That Me Bleeding? Full recognition of this led to Ed’s leaving managed care and devoting his life to research, consulting, lecturing and training.
Ed Daigu Knight,PhD,CPRP will be posting how he uses the 12 steps in his schizophrenia recovery. Keep an eye out for these posts. He has now taught this to many other people with mental labels and disabilities. He is manualizing his training at UCLA and it should be available in the fall for free. Ed is also working on a mindful mental health recovery project at Nathan Kline Institute. He will have an accompanying autobiographical book on serious life style changes needed for serious Zen Dharma Mental Health Recovery efforts.

Here is a link 6 guided silent body oriented meditations on audio for zen dharma mental health recovery. Guided Meditations

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Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Anxiety Mania

Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Anxiety Mania 5 Responses »

Mar 282011

This post is about anxiety mania and we discuss how to cope with bipolar.

This is the second post about Bipolar Mental Health Recovery where we discussed the six forms of mania.

Anxiety mania is mania induced by fear. Waking up to the thoughts in the fearful situation and the emotions of fear triggering mania we begin to learning how to cope with bipolar and achieving bipolar mental health recovery. How do we wake up to this pattern?

Awakening to the patterns of our conditioning and letting them go is Zen Dharma Recovery

It generally begins for anxiety mania with awareness of the thoughts, “I cannot handle what I am feeling and what I might feel if what I fear happens.” Before recognizing these kinds of thoughts how to cope with bipolar remained a mystery for me.

One needs to be specific about the social context in which we tend to get manic from fear, very specific.

(1) Waking up to the pattern of thoughts or mental boxes in fear mania is the first step to learning how to cope with bipolar.

First notice the spiraling thought pattern driving manic conduct. It generally is of the form. “I must get this solved right now. I can’t stand the fear i feel. I won’t be able to stand the fear I am going to feel if such and such happens. I won’t be able to stand it if I don’t solve what is causing this terrible anxiety.” One moves from the early warning sign of fear to moving faster into hypomania, then to full blown anxiety mania trying to solve the causes of fear. With insight about the mental boxes driving fear mania one begins to know how to cope with bipolar.

The mental box “I can’t handle the anxiety?” triggers fear. Working one’s self up to deal with the anxiety gets one moving fast. Moving fast is sensed as threatening often from past mania experience. That produces more fear which in turn triggers moving even faster. This is a basic mental/emotional feedback loop. When we begin to see this we begin to know how to cope with bipolar. We sense now the possibility of bipolar mental health recovery.

Notice again the pattern of one’s speech or thought. We begin “working ourselves self up.” We talk to ourselves about the urgency to get this done, to end the fear. Instead of ending the fear we drive anxiety mania. I repeat for emphasis.

We often experience this kind of fear as work related. One has deadlines to meet to keep a job or to get a raise. This happens also in relationships. We work hard to please. We worry we will not please. Or any other self imposed goal that we are highly motivated to achieve can be a fear generating situation. Begin to mindfully notice these kinds of situations and you will be on your way. This is part of how to cope with bipolar.

Worry strikes. About job. About relationship. “What if i don’t get this done?” We begin to work ourselves up. The fear talk or thought begins. Notice your own pattern of thoughts during this phase. Recall if you can how you have engaged in worry talk when first struck by job or relationship worry.

When we first become mindful we first notice AFTER something arises. As we practice we notice DURING the arising. And as we practice more we become aware BEFORE the arising. We become aware of what psychologists call “prodromal symptoms”. At this point what Abraham Low MD calls “symptom idiom” can begin to drive worry and worry drive symptom. This is another feedback loop. Low points out this can lead to a “relapse”. Fear talk and symptom talk can form a feedback loop as each drives the other. Fear drives symptom and symptom drives more fear. Once we begin to concretely grasp our feedback loops we are well on our way in knowing how to cope with bipolar.

There is a basic loop in most extreme mind body states. It operates in any form of mania.

Instead of panic we speed up to deal with the fear. We intentionally speed up to get things done. We are driven by worry. We think we can do nothing except do more and more and more. If we unskillfully try to slow down we run smack into the fear we are trying to escape.

The next phase is usually tiring out and adrenalin kicking in. Then reaction formation mania is operating. See discussion Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Patterns

(2) The next step in learning how to cope with bipolar is “not knowing”. By this i do not mean ignorance. I mean letting go of mental boxes, of thoughts driving mania. Using skillful means to let go of the thoughts or mental boxes in mania is very important.
This is the crux of how to cope with bipolar. Learning how to let go of the fear feedback loop is the key to bipolar mental health recovery. How are we working our selves up with fear talk? What are the mental boxes.

Ujaya breath does something very powerful. Here is the technique.

Just very slightly close your throat muscles and breath without effort otherwise. A simple way to do this is to silently say “hum” to yourself as you breath in and as you breath out. Sometimes with kids I call this Darth Vadar breath. But don’t close the throat that much or it will make you horse fast/ Just slightly close your throat. This is sometimes called “audible breathing”. But we are not roaring load. With our mouth closed we can “think” the sound hum. Or we just so very slightly close the throat and we will hear an internal breath sound. This is the basic know how to cope with bipolar.

Now we can begin to notice the power of ujaya breath. Thought is “subvocalization”. When we think thoughts we are ever so slightly moving our throat muscles. Thought is actually conduct or behavior. It is an activity of the body. Ujaya breathing interferes with subvocalization. So our thought activity slows down. We are beginning to let go of mental boxes. At this point we know how to cope with bipolar. We begin to gain mastery over bipolar mental health recovery. This is sometimes in Zen called “not-knowing” this process of letting go of thoughts. And at times it is called “thinking non-thinking”. This is how to cope with bipolar. It is to think non-thinking.

To let go of these fear and mania feedback loops of mental boxes one needs to connect to one’s body. Not take one’s body as an object. We generally experience mania, anxiety, depression as if we did not have a body, as if mania, fear, depression is only a mind thing. This disconnect from the body is clear in tiredness induced mania. Ujaya breath grounds one in one’s body. This is the key to slowing down. At this point we can tell our body to move slowly. We can tell our mouth muscles to talk slowly.

Another way to get into your body is to pay attention to your feet. Actually the Zen Master Kaizen said for speeding thoughts pay attention to the feet. The combination of ujaya breathing and focusing on the feet will get one into one’s body.

Taking one’s body as a object is basic disconnection. as James Joyce said “Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body.”

With ujaya breath be in your body and let go of thoughts. Let thoughts go by like clouds in the sky. Let thoughts be and they will let you be.

Realize what Recovery International folks know, one can tell one’s body what to do. One does not have to give in to impulses. One can tell one’s body to move slowly, to talk slowly. nofollow
To heighten this slowing down one can move to a quiet less stimulating place when one’s body is hyper.

Put it all together. Walk slowly in a quiet place paying attention to one’s feet. Breath with one’s throat slightly closed. Be in your body slowly. This is how to deal with bipolar.

Being connected to one’s body is very important in coping with mania to achieve bipolar mental health recovery.

This is the opposite of numbing one’s self out. This is the opposite of dumbing down. This is waking one’s self up about how to cope with bipolar.

Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Anxiety Mania by Edward L Knight, PhD, CPRP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Patterns

Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Patterns 13 Responses »

Mar 272011

Awareness that mania patterns originate in feedback loops is the beginning of bipolar mental health recovery. Mental and emotional symptoms are driven by strange loops ( Steven Hayes PhD) or vicious cycles (Abraham Low, MD). The most common strange loop is fear of fear which triggers panic.

Extreme states of mania, depression, anxiety, and voices, delusions, thought disorders and lack of motivation are all thought patterns. Bipolar mental health recovery depends like other recoveries on awareness of thought patterns. Zen Dharma Recovery facilitates this.

Each kind of extreme state has its own patterns of talk in working one’s self up. Until one is aware of these patterns one is driven by them.

When one awakens one’s own patterns then a greater degree of control is possible.

Then bipolar mental health recovery seems like an achievable goal.

There are six patterns of mania which i have found in working toward bipolar mental health recovery. Fuller discussions of each on separate blog posts will follow in the next few weeks.

The five forms of mania are (1) fear or anxiety mania, (2) anger mania , (3) creative mania, (4) rescuer mania, and (5) reaction formation mania, (6) excitement grasping mania.

These are NOT meant as diagnostic categories. Rather they are patterns one becomes aware of using mindfulness for bipolar mental health recovery.

The mania patterns are not unreal or “delusional” in the psychiatric use of that term. As a matter of fact the reality base is what drives the urgency of the pattern. Unattended these patterns become delusional. Early awareness is crucial to recovery.

Manic feedback loops or spirals are ways of working one’s self up. Increasingly intense thoughts driving mania are “I must get this done NOW. If i don’t what will happen will be terrible. Intolerable.” Practicing mindfulness brings awareness to these patterns of thought and allows bipolar mental health recovery.Zen Dharma Recovery Mental Health Links

Fear mania or Anxiety Mania is mania induced by fear. Waking up to the fearful situation triggering mania is a first step to bipolar mental health recovery.

The spiraling thought pattern driving conduct is “I must get this solved right now. I can’t stand the fear i feel. If I don’t solve what is causing this terrible anxiety i won’t be able to stand it” One moves from the early warning sign of fear to hypomania, then to mania trying to resolve the fear.

Anger mania is mania induced by anger.

Waking up to the anger situation triggering mania is another step to bipolar mental health recovery. The spiraling thought pattern driving conduct is “I must stop this person right now. This person is in my space. This is unjust. If I don’t stand up for my rights it will only get worse to the point that i can’t take it. I must act immediately and continue till they KNOW i will NOT tolerate them being in my space.” One moves from the early warning sign of anger to hypomania, then to mania trying to end the injustice large or small.

Creative mania is mania induced by clutching tightly one’s creative visions.

The urgency to “get it all down” or “get it all painted” when the “Muses speak” triggers creative mania. One must face this fear to resolve this kind of mania. As we shall see in later posts this fear does not materialize. Mindfulness of this pattern is another step to bipolar mental health recovery. The spiraling thought pattern driving conduct is “I must get this down right now. If I don’t it will never come again. I will lose it for ever. I don’t care if it is 1am. I can do without sleep.” One moves from the early warning sign of clutching at creativity to hypomania, then to mania trying to get it all expressed.

Rescuer mania is induced by grasping on to the need to rescue those around you or the world.

The urgency to rescue someone in dire condition and believing you are the only one who can drives this mania. And action must be immediate. These thought patterns trigger rescuer mania. Waking up to this pattern is vital to bipolar mental health recovery. The thought pattern is “I am the only one who can help. This must be done right now or things will bet worse. If I don’t act right now, it will be awful.” One again moves from urgent feelings to rescue to hypomania to mania working one’s self up.

Last week i was teaching a peer specialist class. Eleven people. Six women. All of them identified with this pattern. Five had a bipolar diagnosis. And five said the rescuer mania fit them. These patterns are all interrelated and we often have more than one. Usually one is dominant. In these women the rescuer mania was a dominant pattern. Recognizing the dominant pattern is important to bipolar mental health recovery.

Reaction formation mania is the key to all of them.

Reaction formation is a psychological concept not a self help concept. I seldom rely on psychological concepts but in this case i make an exception. Using such terms can lead to symptom talk and fear of getting “symptomatic”. The fear then as Abraham Low MD pointed out drives increasing symptoms and the increased symptoms drives more fear until one relapses. So careful how you use such terms. Bipolar mental health recovery depends on NOT seeing one’s symptoms as written in stone, as unchangeable. The Zen Dharma Recovery principle of impermanence is supports this crucial insight.

The basic use of reaction formation is in anxiety. One feels anxious and controls those in one’s vicinity. In mania the easiest case is getting very tired from overwork. Adrenalin kicks in and i tune into it. I disconnect my awareness from my tired body and tune into the charge of energy. Almost everyone experiences this.

Telling one’s body to move slowly, to speak slowly and to reconnect to the pain of one’s tired body is the remedy. One “crashes” to use the phrase in common use. This is a pattern similar to bipolar movement from depression to mania. Awareness of this pattern when it just begins is the crux of bipolar mental health recovery.

The diagnosis of bipolar is to move from depression to mania and crash going back to depression. Then starting again. I would hypothesize that the mania is a reaction formation to depression.

One’s body reacts to being depressed with an adrenalin burst. As in the case of being over tired, when this happens one tunes in to the relief of the adrenalin burst and grabs on to it. This shuts out all the pain of depression. Then we disconnect from awareness of our depressed body and spiral out of depression. If this were the end, it would be fine. But it is not. Our self talk keeps us worked up. We fear crashing. We think something like “Thank God for the energy. I must keep it up at any cost.” Other patterns kick in. And we move from a burst of energy to hypomania to full blown mania.

The sixth form of mania is mania just for the excitement. This is the most addictive form of mania. Usually one learns to deal with this pattern only through consequences, often fairly severe consequences. Here I would suggest 12 step work ( I will post soon on the 12 steps and mental diagnoses.) Or if one prefers Smart Recovery which is a cognitive behavioral in orientation. Smart Recovery is publicized for chemical addictions but is recommended for any behavior pattern one finds problematic. The skills we mention below are useful for all manias but the issue of “will” comes into play in this mania. Thus I recommend the above modalities. In the blog on excitement mania we will mention much more about this pattern.

Skillful means to deal with this are as follows:
(1) Waking up to the pattern of thoughts or mental boxes in each of the types of mania. Zen Dharma Recovery Mental Health Video
(2) Using skillful means to let go of the thoughts for example ujaya breath. Zen Not Knowing Ujaya Breath Meditation Anxiety Recovery>
(3) Connecting to one’s body. Not taking one’s body as an object. Healing Objectifying Self Meditation>
(4) Realizing that, as Recovery International> folks know, one can tell one’s body what to do. One does not have to give in to impulses. One can tell one’s body to move slowly, to talk slowly.
(5) When one’s body is hyper one can move to a quiet less stimulating place.

In the next few weeks we shall post on each of the six forms of mania and apply skillful means. Bipolar mental health recovery is for everyone.

Mania blogs:

Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Anxiety Mania

Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Patterns by Edward L Knight, PhD, CPRP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Steven Hayes book recommendations: Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Learning Act: An Acceptance & Commitment Therapy Skills-Training Manual for Therapists (Context / Nhp Context / Nhp)

Abraham Low, MD book recommendations: Mentral Health Through Will-Training

Do not forget that bipolar mental health recovery is possible for everyone.

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Professor Ed

Zen Dharma Mental Health Bipolar Recovery, Bipolar Creative Mania

This is a pattern i call bipolar creative mania.

There were two issues to dealing with bipolar creative mania. How to let go of such beautiful thoughts? How to deal with the fear of the beautiful thoughts never coming back if I did let go.

The brain adjusts to the presence of medications. Getting off medications quickly without medical support is very likely to cause psychosis from rebound effects

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Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Bipolar Anger Mania

Becoming mindful of these situations is your key to bipolar recovery.

These are the typical patterns of anger I found generating mania.

When I think my space is invaded.

Another pattern of mental boxes similar to someone “getting in my space” is “I can’t let them get away with saying that”.

Applying Zen Mental Health Recovery to bipolar anger mania.

The steps are to coping with or transforming bipolar anger mania with Zen Mental Health Recovery are:

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Dr Ed Knight Zen Dharma Mental Health Recovery Video | zen dharma mental health recovery

He discusses the use of Zen sitting, zazen for Zen Dharma Mental Health Recovery or the transformation of mental and emotional extreme states.

Zen Dharma is usually thought of as applying only to addictions recovery. But Zen Dharma Mental Health Recovery is possible.

This book helped transform Ed’s life.

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Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Anxiety Mania

Anxiety mania is mania induced by fear. Waking up to the thoughts in the fearful situation and the emotions of fear triggering mania we begin to learning how to cope with bipolar and achieving bipolar mental health recovery. How do we wake up to this pattern?

(1) Waking up to the pattern of thoughts or mental boxes in fear mania is the first step to learning how to cope with bipolar.

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Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Patterns

Awareness that mania patterns originate in feedback loops is the beginning of bipolar mental health recovery. Mental and emotional symptoms are driven by strange loops ( Steven Hayes PhD) or vicious cycles (Abraham Low, MD). The most common strange loop is fear of fear which triggers panic.

Extreme states of mania, depression, anxiety, and voices, delusions, thought disorders and lack of motivation are all thought patterns. Bipolar mental health recovery depends like other recoveries on awareness of thought patterns. Zen Dharma Recovery facilitates this.

When one awakens one’s own patterns then a greater degree of control is possible.

The five forms of mania are (1) fear or anxiety mania, (2) anger mania , (3) creative mania, (4) rescuer mania, and (5) reaction formation mania, (6) excitement grasping mania.

Fear mania or Anxiety Mania is mania induced by fear. Waking up to the fearful situation triggering mania is a first step to bipolar mental health recovery.

Anger mania is mania induced by anger.

Creative mania is mania induced by clutching tightly one’s creative visions.

Rescuer mania is induced by grasping on to the need to rescue those around you or the world.

Reaction formation mania is the key to all of them.

The diagnosis of bipolar is to move from depression to mania and crash going back to depression. Then starting again. I would hypothesize that the mania is a reaction formation to depression.

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Mental Health Recovery Blogs