Cognitive Addictive Dissonance

The title of this article sounds heavy going, but fear not. We at Mindwalking are here to make it simple to understand.

Part 1: Addiction

Firstly addiction. Let's look at what nearly everyone across the globe does understand about that word. We understand that people who are addicted find it hard to stop doing the things that they have become unhealthily addicted to. We know that when people reach that stage it takes a lot of time, energy and resources to help them cut back and/or stop depending on what that particular addiction is doing to them to make them unwell.

When medical professionals identify one addiction they know all too well that actually people are talking about many addictions. Addictions to abuse require more and more access to power and money for them to be fed. Addictions to drink, drugs are the same as too are addictions to shopping, gadgets and indeed to acquiring knowledge itself. Addictions to speculation, assumptions and getting the wrong end of the stick ARE the most dangerous of all.

In short, that is why the whole planet is in the state it is currently in because it is part of our nature to always seek to find out more. It is also entirely necessary too for our own survival. It's not the question of knowledge should be broken, it is merely the levels that need to be within reasonable, safe and health limits; and when fact hunter you need to go to the source(s) that knows the most if they have time to tell you (such as your government, universities and especially medical teams right now). Sadly the UK's medical team has zero time for casual enquiries at present, so note your questions down for when you have a genuine need to see them.

We have become addicted to criticising more than addicted to praising people or thanking them; harming or ignoring people more than helping or healing each other and worrying, fearing and doubting rather than thinking, enjoying and trusting each other. The solution we hope now becomes obvious to rectify the problems. We follow the instructions to the letter of medics don't we, when we know they are right. Ah... we don't. That is not to say we shouldn't though. We simply need to try harder to do so given everything else that is fretting us all and getting us into a psychological pickle.

In many ways that ought to be enough and this article should end there but it can't for the very simple reason that everyone is affected and involved at the same time precisely because our gorgeous planet that we call home is at risk.

100 years ago we went to war because we all were pretty much in the same state of fear and panic as we are now. What's changed then? Why are we NOT in a global armed conflict now actually killing each other to the point of total annihilation? Quite simply because we have learnt a few more tricks to prevent that globally speaking.

It is thanks to all the boffins and world leaders at the top of the tree and the United Nations that we are not. It is thanks to everybody trading and sharing information globally that we are not. How much longer can we keep that up though if at the same time the same level of panic, worry, doubt, anger, bitterness and general muck-raking continues?

Sustained overloads of information always lead to mental illness and in most cases from there some form of psychosis. Think about that. By worrying we risk global destruction AND individual madness. "Yeah but, come on, look at the situation, how can we not worry?" we hear you cry.

The answer to that is to get busy with more helpful forms of... addiction; but rather than have merely one or two, vary those and add in a couple of new ones when ready which also help you toward getting rid of the harmful addictions too. Neat, tidy and above all simple except for all the days, weeks and years it takes to practise, practise, practise to get it just right.

We have to start at some point though, so why not today for five minutes and try to make it every day, just for five minutes. Next week or next month you might be able to manage ten minutes a day or even a whole day of just finding things to distract you from YOUR worries to enable YOU to function more calmly to combat YOUR addictions and fears. AND NEVER forget to pat yourself on the back when you have achieved something and ignore everyone who says otherwise, except of course... for properly trained medics.

Another helpful trick is to use 'mantras'. Mantras are merely catchphrases to help us remember what's important to us and to help us focus. There are many forms of mantra, there's the ones reminding us of our principles, morals, ethics and values (often coming under the heading of spirituality or laws) and then there are the daily ones - the practical reminders. Making lists of things to try to do is not quite the same thing although they too can help so long as you don't make such lists too long.

Mantras for practical things are the HOW TO mantras not the WHY mantras. (We know why well enough - to survive and be happy and live in peace). The 'how' mantras are things like "I will stay calm," or "I will take my time to get this right." and one of the most important of all is "I will not worry that I do not complete everything today."

Creditors can and DO wait if you tell them when you can pay them and there are many support agencies and legal teams to help you if they don't take your word for it so long as you are NOT lying about your financial situation. A GP on call and having a busy week attending to emergencies can't always pay their bills on time either - do they worry about it? No, they do not (while well at least), so why should we? So long as everyone does get paid it should never be a problem.

The final trick that often people find helps them the most is to focus on the number of things that are still working at all, in part or... most of all that NEVER get altered or fiddled with. You can also count the number of times others around you HAVE tried to support you as it will help your realise how loved and cared for you are by them, even if they snap at you or nag you sometimes or often!

People find it helpful to research facts before assuming the worst while recovering from mental illness. Sometimes though, that can make things worse as they may hit upon sad news too, as many researching their family trees are discovering right now. When we do such things together and look after each other while doing it; although it is hard work it is (generally speaking) a healthy and healing thing to do but only when people really feel they need to do it, never when they are forced to.

If the result of that is to distress people more then that suggests that those around them would best help by not talking about such things near vulnerable people. Talking about health and politics and climate change and conspiracies in public has always happened, it is therefore merely the volume and the passion that is the ONLY thing that has changed. Tone both down and everything for everyone automatically becomes much more manageable.

Part 2: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive what? The word cognitive refers to 'thinking'. As ever it's root comes from that 'dead' language that medical teams (among many others) love to use - Latin. They use Latin, not because it's a tradition but because it happens to work so well to help describe complicated concepts quite briefly to save time, so why change it when lives count on it? It strikes us all here that the less we meddle with things that are working the better right now. 'Dissonance' merely means a clash - it might be of ideas, principles, needs and or wants. Many people mislead us all when they say it means 'conflict' as that tends to conjure up ideas of violence for everyone which is far from helpful in our opinion.

Put the two meanings together and we end up with 'thinking clash' - or to put it another way... a problem. WRONG< WRONG WRONG! A thinking clash is what we deal with every day of our lives. "Do I want a cake or a biscuit?" "Do I buy this or that?" "Do I deal with this first or that?"

More crucially it also covers "who needs the most urgent help now?" Which member of your own family, group of friends or work colleagues never gets much attention, never gets thanked. Who gets thanked and praised too much do you think? Is that because of things you don't know anything about?

Without exception the most seriously ill from any ailment do not want endless fuss, monitoring and questions. Nor do they need endless incorrect assumptions, sadly the mentally ill are the only group who never get a break from all of that which explains why 80% of people who suffer one episode of mental illness suffer and more and more. People never stop raking up and abusing them by using the very fact that they have been ill (past tense) against them. We heard rumours that even managers of international charities are not permitted to litter pick on a voluntary basis to help after they've been mentally ill.

With things as they are making donations to charities, collecting money for them is not quite enough to get us out of our global, national or even individual troubles. Any who can do something to help strangers by donating time and skills could well be all we need, so long as they are are prepared to do exactly as instructed. If everyone gave just two hours a month it would be an improvement but realistically we need a few more prepared to give two hours a week or more.

No one should be lonely, homeless, starving or dying of injuries with no medication to keep them out of pain. No one would be either if we all just gave a little more by joining community groups, charities and local initiatives to help. It boils down to what sort of world do we all want to live in. Like anything else, if we want peace and harmony then we ourselves have to put the work in to earn, merit and get it and BE peaceful and harmonious wherever we go and whoever we meet.

We are superb at dealing with thinking clashes and yeah, sure we don't always get things sorted in the right order but the proof that we do sort things lies in the FACT that we are still here; that life continues, that we are not actually in a global war, that people are working on fixing everything by working in teams where they fit best to put their knowledge to the best of use. We are getting there slowly because at least everyone is beginning to be included into every kind of team you can imagine to do their bit. So...

Which team or teams would you fit best in? There are millions to choose from. How about looking for those closest to home first so that you can still have time off with your nearest and dearest and be closest to your own medical team should you need them? It really isn't as hard as people imagine to sort anything at all.

There, and you thought cognitive dissonance was complicated didn't you? For the professional medical teams working in mental health, yes it is but hey... that's they're headache. No one has or is forcing them to work on it are they?

Thankfully psychology, psychiatric and neurology teams are working on it and all aspects of mental health to try to save even more lives and these days, they don't give a fig about who to connect with across the globe to sort it. They used to, but have grown up because they've had to thanks to every mental health patient in the world telling them they've had to (with a lot of help from their supporters of course).

General medicine has been doing the same for much longer, but then it always did have more support. To help ALL medical services, ancillary staff and support agencies to continue to heal us, we just need to tone down on the volume and the aggression, join a group or two to lend a hand. We know that's possible because in two world wars we've done it before when we have most needed to.

To avert a world war or the planet itself dying, all we have to do is... calm down and act... as normal. Best we repeat that we think in bigger type...

"To avert a world war or the planet itself dying,
all we have to do is ... calm down... and act as normal."

"Really? I mean really, Mindwalking team... really? Is that it?"

Yup! Precisely, exactly, absolutely, neatly, tidily... just that. Who would have thought that we had the answer all the time with the phrase "Keep calm and carry on!" (Although if you could manage to help a little with recycling, being polite and cutting down on waste that might help too!)

ALL OUR VERY BEST WISHES FOR A PEACEFUL, LOVING
FESTIVE SEASON.

We hope no one this winter will feel totally alone and it is our deepest hope
and wish that all our readers and contributors are still with us in 2015. 

Oceans of love from the
Mindwalking Team 2014

Postscript: A bit more about the Mindwalking team. All are volunteers - some have mental health problems, some have not. Some are carers, family and friends and some are professional health care workers specialising in mental health and/or other areas. Some are charity workers and some are... people with disabilities who cannot read, write or even move yet over the years we have also included snippets of their stories too. How? Ah well... best to try talking to them yourselves to find that out!

The actual writers are few which remains a shame as we'd still welcome submissions for consideration. If worded carefully enough, it would be just published unaltered but it has to reach and make sense to all our readers at the same time at some level - which is impossible, but we do our best. (Just so you know should you ever fancy a go)!

Finally, feel free to comment. We haven't had one for quite a while now, but then, we've had our troubles and losses too. We never forget our loved ones either and think of them for every article posted. We know that each and everyone of them wanted us to make this a happy, peaceful world as much as we know YOU do too. So... get busy making it happen then! Doh! 

Empowerment through assertiveness

Years ago, three months after leaving a Mental Health hospital for what I hope is the last time, I found myself working for a council. I shan't name the council for their ways may have changed - for the better by now. Most of my working time was spent in the tearoom chatting but I got bored with that so I signed up for a course and told my employer I needed every Wednesday off to travel to London to attend. I was doing menial shift work so I couldn't see how it could be a problem, indeed I thought I was doing them a favour for paying for training for myself thereby making myself more useful to them at my expense and saving them money. They were not pleased but went along with it.

Meanwhile the work itself continued in the same way... chatting in the tearoom. Stimulated by my course I set about finding more things to do round the building until one day I had run out of ideas and spent the entire shift in the tearoom chatting with my colleagues. I'd had enough, so the following day I phoned up and said I wouldn't be in. I said I wasn't ill, and they were not to count my day of working from home as holiday either, but that I would be in the following day and expected to be given loads to do.

The manager I phoned understandably went into a rage, but not with me. When I returned to work my own line manager and the rest of the team didn't like me much and from that point forward I was blamed for every moan and grumble from our department until I left 6 months later. I went on to work in London, much to everyone's surprise because they thought having a mental health history there was no way I could possibly progress and indeed shouldn't. I worked hard and eventually became a manager myself.

Lessons learnt
Since that time I have worked for other councils and all have been hard working and diligent with regard to ensuring that the British tax payer gets their money's worth from each and every worker. I have also come across many other places where a lot of time is lost in idle chatter though too. To me lethargy is a breeding ground for misery and depression. When people are not inactive, negative thoughts, moans, grumbles and criticism take hold until all the whole of life, despite it's wealth of positive opportunities, becomes something to be cynical and sceptical about. Paranoia can set in and ultimately depression does.

This doesn't mean you have to or should work every minute of every day. It merely means that some people need to avoid too much stimulus to be well, while others like myself need lots, but to be well, we each need something to be of interest to us. We each need to actively seek and invest in things we find rewarding and pleasurable and so long as those pleasures and interests harm no one else then there's a chance we can all be happy whatever we choose to do with our lives. Indeed, among some of the most inspiring people I have met have been factory workers who chat all day while working, save their pennies up and then spend it on their kids and amazing holidays.

I do NOT advocate doing the same thing as I did if you are unhappy at work which may surprise you. Imagine if everyone told their employer they were not available for their work because they'd signed up to training course, or because they were bored - the result would be chaos. I consider myself lucky to have got away with it and I am sure I did so because my employer was fearful of the repercussions that would have arisen had they not been seen to be supportive of someone with a mental health history. I was lucky that the manager I spoke to understood mental health issues as his wife was a sufferer too.

It could be argued that I was empowering myself by being assertive of my needs and in some respects it's true, but... assertiveness should never be aggressive and my manner at the time without a doubt was forceful in that I was non-negotiable - therefore I was being aggressively assertive. A few counselling sessions later I discovered why.

Aggression is not assertiveness
In common with many who have been bullied, (I was at school among other places) learning to stand up for oneself does not come easy. It is a long and hard battle to find the confidence and self-belief to simply find one's own thoughts, let alone one's own voice. Once found I fell into the trap of becoming too self-centred, too selfish and defiant of anyone who stood in my way. My stance was that I was never going to allow anyone to bully me again.

What I was not doing was listening to or considering anyone else. Had I done so I might have opted for a different way of communicating my needs i.e. a less confrontational way and still achieved the same result but with the added benefit of making friends, being respected and supported by my colleagues and managers.

People often mistake aggression for assertiveness but the two are entirely different. I now regard anyone who describes themselves as strident, feisty, sassy or determined with a considerable amount of caution as often they behave this way with little or no regard for what other people's needs (not wants) are.

Needs are always more important than wants. They are the basic foundation stones to our well being, the essentials of life. They include (harking back to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - see previous blogpost) warmth, shelter, food and companionship; they include acknowledgement for who we are, what we think, say, do and feel. When we are not in receipt of such we feel hurt and often rejected and negated. The solution is simple... walk away from such people and find others willing and happy to value you.

Conflict of needs
I was recently told that I was selfish by someone who felt that I had the view that my thoughts and feelings were more important than theirs. They are - to me. But only to me. I am the centre of my universe but not theirs. They wanted to be acknowledged more and to have more say and that's fine. However, they seemed to think I was responsible for stopping them when I am not, they are. They have missed entirely that I enjoy their company and find their conversation so stimulating that I want to respond to virtually every utterance they make. I was accused to talking too much and told to shut-up. Not heard from them since so now we are both feeling hurt.

It's taken me over 40 years to find my own voice and to learn how to use it so I'm not about to give that up. With luck they will learn to do the same, I hope not aggressively but assertively which always means bearing in mind other people's needs and what we know of someone's personal history. We can never know everything about another person without being them, but we can strive to try to avoid what we know to be things that upset others until we and they are ready to talk about them and address those issues head on. We can but try and I believe that is better for all than not doing so.

We cannot resolve anything without communication. We cannot overcome difficulties without confronting them and learning what, how or why things went wrong. And we cannot cure ourselves without investing in the support of others be they family, friends, colleagues or professional help. We each need to believe in ourselves so much to let nothing divert us from our goal of well being. But, we can only address hurts when the time is right for us to do so. I hope the time will be right soon for my dear friend of over 10 years as I would like to see an end to his suffering and for him to embrace and enjoy life to the full as indeed I would wish for all.

Empowerment is not competitive
I often come across competitive people. I believe it is one of the sicknesses of world to engage in one-up-manship to quite such an extreme degree. That said it is perfectly normal and healthy to want to be better or the best at something for it gives us an added sense of self worth. From scoring well at test to winning at sport or being successful at work to merit a bonus or promotion - it helps us feel of value to achieve.

All well and good but... it isn't good when competitiveness leads to negating other people's potential. To empower others is to encourage others to reach that potential, not to keep that person down at heel disabling them to achieve their own ambitions and goals in life. Empowerment is all about equipping people to reach their goals, not spoon-feed them by doing things for them, but providing them with the knowledge, skills and tools to do these things for themselves. I have no desire to become a business or world leader, but respect and admire those whose talents lend themselves to such so long as they are also advocates of empowering others to do what they have an aptitude for.

The fear surrounding empowering others seems to stem from a phobia of others ending up being more talented or more successful which is not helpful to your ego and self esteem if you want to be the best at something. Realistically though no two people do anything in the same way, or in the same style so while some may favour another's efforts others will still favour yours. Even creative people get competitive, scathing, sneering and critical to the point of character assassination though my impression is not as much as others. Sports of course is designed to be competitive and is a good outlet to release tension, but no one is on top form all the time so the trick is to be gracious in defeat. The Olympics is upon us here in the UK and I sincerely hope all who win are those who will also help others to succeed thereafter. Surely there is no greater reward in life than to empower another to become happy so long as your own needs and happiness are not sacrificed in the process. People pleasing is not the way to go (covered in a previous blogpost on here).

Examples of bad practice
I'll finish with one final example from years ago of aggression and sadly it is a worrying one. While under CMHT (Community Mental Health Team) care I was asked as a 'service user' if I would like to go on a training course so that I could represent service users on interval panels for professionals in mental health care. I said yes.

On the course a mental health professional loudly and repeatedly 'asserted' his view that service users should not be on such interval panels to judge their skills. Throughout the whole course he kept popping out to check his phone as he was expecting to hear the results of a recent interview which would have been a promotion for him. His stance was very much that anyone who has been mentally ill is not capable of being sentient enough to be able to judge if a person is suitable to deal with anyone who is vulnerable or ill. My experience of working with the mentally ill is that they are never devoid of all powers of reasoning.

I can only hope that the other mental health professionals on that course did what they said they would and reported his appalling attitude to his line manager. I rather hope he didn't get the job. I rather hope he got sacked or that he got copious amounts of counselling to correct his attitude. After all, mental illness does not discriminate and there are many medical professionals who suffer from it as well and business leaders and even some world leaders... as the records of history so record. Fortunately in the UK at least such instances among the mental health professionals seem to be on the decrease... one day I hope there will be none to record.

My final example of non-empowerment comes from some Welfare to Work services who take the stance that if you have been a client with them you can never be considered to be an Employment Adviser. That's like saying you cannot enter the medial profession if you have ever had to see a doctor, or you cannot become a teacher if you have ever been a student. As I posted in my last article... it's not really surprising that mental illness is so rife when such is the attitude of those in power. There are times when I feel the real lunatics are the ones running a global asylum.

Best not to get too angry about it or aggressive. Better by far to assert your views with a degree of empathy for their being so ill as to not even notice the flaws in their arguments and above all... help them see sense by quoting their own nonsense back at them. For you see, some of them don't even listen to themselves. Then I recommend going off and treating yourself to some company you enjoy doing something of mutual interest. That's my coping strategy and it seems to be working quite well... time for a little more practice though as it's still a work in progress.

If you want others to be interested in you, be interested in yourself and them. Always, always, always strive to be kind to all, if you want others to be kind to you.