Your identity (ego-self) is experienced in a duality of mind and body and just as you have only one brain (bodily organ), you have only one mind. Differentiating disorders of 'mind' from disorders of the brain may be the chief factor in achieving health and improved functioning.
I often meet with individuals who have surrendered to the brain as a separate entity completely outside their control. Yet, they continue to refer to this separate entity as "my mind." Hence there is an ownership of the dysfunctional thought processes of the brain, but also denial of that dysfunction by claiming it is a product of the mind or the 'self.'
They tend to deny brain functioning (and malfunctioning) and speak as if there were two minds at work, one mind under the their control and one mind running its own show outside 'self' control. They complain that, "my mind won't shut off," "my mind thinks this way" or "my mind makes me do this," almost as if their mind were some mean spirited doppleganger sitting next to them on the couch with a shite eating grin, exclaiming "he thinks what I tell him to think, teehee."
However, there are times when these same individuals are in complete control of their thoughts, as opposed to the times when "my mind" simply takes over.
Like the woman afflicted with bipolar who, while in a long-standing manic period, gets up on the morning of her appointment, eats breakfast, showers, walks the dog, dresses appropriately and drives the required miles to my office so that we can discuss how she can improve her ability to cope with this current episode that her "mind" has provoked. Yet, during that time, prior to her appointment and while her "mind" was running amok, she performed adequately enough to make her appointment.
I point out all the rational behaviors she performed prior to this appointment and ask how could she possibly have performed all those tasks as well as she did, while her mind was generating intrusive thoughts? She provides no rational explanation but, on further analysis, it seems evident that at times she easily assumes control while at other times she surrenders control to the dysfunctional mechanizations of the brain disorder.
Indeed, there is no doubt that various neuro-chemically based brain disorders are often outside the control of ego-self (I-me), in terms of the symptoms that such disorders generate due to neuro-chemical imbalances. However, in recognizing that it is a brain disorder, and not an 'ego-self' or mental/mind disorder, control over those symptoms and the behaviors that arise, becomes more manageable.
You may not have complete control over brain disorders, but you do have control of your mind and your mind is only a problem when it completely surrenders control to the brain, denying the I-me identity that controls so many other aspects and variables of your life.
The 'ego-self' is in your mind and your mind is "you." The brain can be electro-chemically chaotic due to imbalanced and dysfunctional neuro-chemical synaptic impulses, but the "you" within that instability still has a locus-of-control easily accessible simply by acknowledging that locus-of-control exists and is not victim to the brain.
It seems one reason simply engaging nominal control over basic functions in times of neuro-chemical dysfunction is hard for so many is that for decades the medical profession has extracted the possibility of control and replaced it with the surrender to medications and drugs, without informing and educating the patient that the chief purpose of the medication is to allow you the time to learn (mind) to implement control over your own thought processes, regardless of the brain's dysfunctional impulses, so that, eventually, the medications can be reduced to the lowest level necessary for effective functioning.
Conversely, the current message of psychiatry is to surrender to the drugs as the only means of self-control and mood management, which literally makes "you" a slave to brain malfunctions. This demands increased tolerance to the drugs requiring progressively higher doses with possibly worse side-effects and even additional symptoms.
There is no doubt that medications can be helpful. But total reliance on chemical manipulation of neuro-chemical outcomes is to demand that the brain be in complete control of your mood states, thereby, demanding you surrender control of your own mind and the thoughts that your mind generates.
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