Author Archives: David Joel Miller

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About David Joel Miller

David Miller is a California Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Clinical Counselor, faculty member at a local college, certified trainer and writer.

Why we need to talk about mental illness, drugs and alcohol in combination

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Drugs.

Drugs.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.

Why you need to know about mental illness, substance abuse, and co-occurring disorders.

Most people identify with one major problem, they have a mental illness, they are addicts or alcoholics or they may just have a “communication problem” with their significant other. No matter what you identify as your primary problem there are reasons you need to know about the other possible problems and how they may affect you.

Why “normal” people should know about both mental illness and addiction.

In the course of any given year, 25% of all Americans (numbers in other countries are about the same for most issues) will experience symptoms of a mental or emotional problem that are severe enough to be diagnosed. Most of those people will first see a medical doctor thinking that their loss of energy or their nerves is a physical, medical problem.

Most people who die from a mental illness have been to see a primary care or medical doctor in the 30 days before they die. When there is no medical cause for their suffering found they may fail to go for mental health treatment.

In their lifetime, about 50% of all Americans will experience an episode of an emotional or mental illness. Many of these issues can be mild if caught and treated early but untreated they get worse. The old practice of pretending you are O. K. even when you are in pain did and does not work. If you have a mental illness it needs treatment and getting it treated is no more giving in than going for treatment for a heart problem or cancer.

Many people will experience at least one episode of substance abuse, some get away with it a few times. Some abuse drugs and alcohol on a regular basis and do not get caught for a while, but eventually, most people have difficulties.

Even if you do not do drugs or alcohol there is a high likelihood that someone in your family or social circle will become an alcoholic or addict. For every substance abuse out there we estimate that there 5 to 8 people directly affected by the substance abuser’s disease.

Why the mentally ill need to know about substance abuse issues.

Not all mentally ill people abuse substances but the overlap is larger than most people would care to recognize.

Those with a mental illness are drawn to using drugs and alcohol to try to cope with their symptoms. Many Bipolar people like the mood swings that accompany alcohol use. If you like the mood swing you are likely to continue using or drinking.

When the depressed person drinks it helps them forget their problems for a while. Then the alcohol wears off and the problems return. There is often a rebound effect and the result is that your mental health issues are now worse than when you started. This leads to more and more frequent drinking.

Using drugs or alcohol to change the way you feel is a risky way to use them. If you are an emotional user you are at increased risk to develop an addiction.

Most psychiatric meds do not work that way, they do not suddenly and miraculously make you feel good, and then when the med wears off you feel worse. This is why psychiatric meds which only help you function, not cure your problems, need to be taken as prescribed and every day for a period of time before most of them will begin to help.

Why addicts and alcoholics need to know about mental illnesses.

A great many people in substance abuse recovery initially feel great, they are clean and this feels good. They the good feeling wear off and they are at high risk for relapse.

Many people began using and drinking at such an early age they do not know what it feels like to be without the drugs in their system. We often find that the early symptoms of a mental illness were there before the person first experienced drugs. But the long-term use obscured the emotional part of their problems.

Using drugs, the lifestyle, the drug, or alcohol experiences, distort your development. People who go for years using and drinking do not undergo the developmental milestones they should have experienced, and as a result, they are unprepared for life without drugs. The drug of choice and that could include alcohol or gambling or any other addictive behavior, has been your best friend and now when you give that friend up you may go through a period of grieving.

So drug and alcohol use may have hidden the symptoms of a mental illness, the emotional or mental illness may have been caused by the drug use or may occur when you give the drug up and discover that there is a whole lot of wreckage that you now need to clean up.

People just do not get through life having only one problem. The chances are high that you or someone close to you will have multiple problems in their lifetime. Having a mental or emotional illness and substance abuse or misuse is one of the more common cases of having multiple problems.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

If you think fast are you crazy? Does jumping to conclusions make you delusional?

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Delusions.

Delusions.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

People with delusions and delusion like thinking have been linked to fast thinking.

There is a body of research that links jumping to conclusions with having delusional thinking.

This has me concerned for several reasons. I have read a number of these studies recently and while they seem to have been rigorously done, I think there are flaws in their logic. I am also concerned that if we define one reasoning pattern as “normal” and another way of thinking as “delusion” there may be implications for the way these people get treated.

There are two problems with this research. Who gets labeled delusional and how that gets measured. I am suspicious that both are biased.

Who gets called delusional?

One study reports that a constant finding in the research is that the younger you are the more “delusional” you are. Presumably, this definition of delusional has to do with looking at a set of facts and circumstances and coming up with the “wrong” answer. In these studies, the wrong or “delusional” answer was anything the researcher did not agree with.

Another group that has higher than expected rates of “delusional” diagnosis is urban residents. This is disconcerting as this century is reported to be the first time in the history of the world that the majority of people on earth now live in urban settings. From this line of reasoning moving to the city makes you delusional.

Having a lower-income, living alone, and being unemployed also result in receiving a label of delusional. Men and non-English speaking immigrants also get labeled delusional more often as do those who are never married or divorced.

One other factor that increases the likelihood of being given a designation of delusional is a history of alcohol abuse and drug abuse, especially marijuana use.

All in all, it would appear that minorities and lower socioeconomic status groups are more likely to be labeled delusional.

The tests for delusions.

Groups of research subjects were given a test to assess their thinking process and its relationship to delusions. The thing being studied is a way of thinking called “jumping to conclusions.”

For now, I will accept the tests or screening devices and focus on the connection between the “delusion-prone group” and the Jumping to conclusion experiment.

The marbles (or bead) test.

Participants in this experiment were shown two jars of beads, one jar contains 85 white beads and 15 black ones. The other jar contains 85 black beads and 15 white ones.

The researcher then hides the jars and begins drawing beads from one of the jars. They wanted to see how many beads you will need to make a decision on which jar they are coming from. They also compared the “delusion-prone group.” to an apparently normal control group.

Most psychology experiments are conducted on rats. When rats are not available the researchers use the next best thing, college undergraduate students. Most “Jumping to conclusions” experiments are conducted on college undergraduates, a group not known for its rationality.

One thing that I do not see mentioned is the significance of being right or wrong on your estimate of which jar the beds come from. This may be invalidating the whole jumping to conclusions research paradigm.

What are the advantages of being right and the disadvantages of being wrong in this experiment? Would those intangible payoffs overpower the Jumping to conclusion effects?

What if your life or the life of someone you loved depended on getting the right answer? How sure would you need to be then?

Say the first bead is white. There is an 85% chance that the jar is mostly white and a 15% chance the jar is mostly black. Let’s say, to keep the math simple, you make a hypothesis that this bead came from the white jar, are you willing to bet your life? The second bead is also white. There is now a .025 % chance two white beads in a row are coming from the black jar.  By the fourth white bead, we are down to about 4 chances out of 10,000 that these are coming from the black jar.

Now, are you willing to bet your life?

Since there is no gain to be had for risking my life in this scenario I would hold out until there have been 16 white beads drawn. This could require as many as 36 draws. At that point, all the low occurrence beads should have been drawn and whichever color has 16 has to tell me the jar. So if my life depended on it I would hold out until the very last draw needed to be absolutely certain.

What if you could win money?

What if the experimenter offered me $100 if I could guess correctly on the first bead and the amount I would win declined by half after each draw? Assume the risk of death is off the table now.

Some of us would take a shot after one draw and go for the whole $100. Some of you more cautious types would want the second bead to increase your chances even though you now get only $50. A very few of you would wait for the third bead and play it safe to improve your chances even at the risk of only getting $12.50. My guess is that how long you wait will not be anywhere near as long as if your life was at stake.

Last example.

Let’s say the money was on a table behind a door. There is a whole string of doors. But behind one door there is a hungry lion that would eat you. To see the jar in this room you need to enter the room and then find the light switch to turn on the light. If you opened the door a crack and heard a lion roar would you go ahead and go in there and see if the lion was really there? Or would you try another door?

I would slam that door fast and then open the next one a crack to see if I got the roar again even if I was not sure which door the roar had come from.

Now back to the whole jumping to conclusions test. Would a group of accounting students tend to be more conservative and wait longer to make choices? Would a group of day traders make quicker decisions?

So while making quick decisions may increase the risk of making errors and some of these errors could be seen as delusions. At some point in our human history the ability to make quick decisions could have strong advantages. If you live in a poor, crime-ridden, neighborhood today, those quick decisions could save your life.

I am a lot suspicions that the researchers have proved that those people who make quick decisions, they term it that, jumping to conclusions have established a connection between their jar of beads and delusions.

I might try to guess after the first draw just to try to beat their game and they being more conservative and needing lots of evidence before they can conclude anything, would wait as long as possible before concluding anything.

More to come on delusions and how they may be affecting your life.

But the take away from all this, I remain unconvinced that making quick decisions even when you will make more wrong things is a bad thing or that we should call this delusional. Creative people try more things, some of these efforts work out and some do not. That does not equal delusional or mentally ill in my book.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Delusions are a leading cause of homicides; if you were delusional would you know?

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Brain

Mental illness.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

What exactly is a delusion and why are they so hard to recognize beforehand?

One particular delusion has been implicated as a leading cause of homicides. Related delusions may also play a major role in other violent acts even though professionals have such a hard time recognizing them.

Delusions are one of those things like art or pornography we have great difficulty in defining but we all think we will recognize it when we see it. Unfortunately, it often goes unrecognized until way too late.

While not necessarily a particular mental illness, Delusions are a symptom of a number of mental illnesses. In practice professionals rarely seem to pick out the delusion first. The person gets diagnosed with a particular mental illness and then the descriptor with delusions gets tossed in later like that tells us much about what is going on.

Some mental status exam forms and assessment forms include checkboxes to mark off delusions. Since deciding if someone is delusional is such an extreme judgment call, this decision often comes after the diagnosis not before. Also, note that the one delusion that results in many homicides is not usually included in the list of delusions that we are presented to check off.

The commonly considered delusions are, Paranoid, Grandiose, Religious, and Persecutory. Let’s look at these one at a time and see why they can be problematic. Some of these examples are slightly exaggerated and embroidered for effect. Can you tell which are which?

When paranoia is not a delusion.

A client told me that he was being followed; that the police were out to get him and that it was not safe to walk the streets. Clearly, he was sounding paranoid. On Monday I learned that he had been arrested after the police responded to a shooting at his house. The police were quick to respond as they were only a couple of blocks down. They had been watching his house. He was found in possession of a large quantity of drugs.

Was he paranoid? As I tell students in the substance abuse counseling program, if the client thinks people are watching him and he has a kilo of dope in the trunk of his car this is not paranoia, it is common sense.

How Grandiose is Grandiose.

If I told you that an African-American though he could run for president and have a chance of winning in this the 21 century that would sound Grandiose wouldn’t it?  And if that Black man was a first-term Senator from the mid-west – any psychiatrist worth his salt would know right off that this person was Grandiose.

Thank goodness no one told President Obama those things. Or if they did, it is a good thing that he did not listen. Whatever your political affiliation, it is clear that President Obama ought not to be diagnosed as Grandiose, not since he won anyway.

So it is not grandiosity if you are actually able to do something. This makes me nervous when I put down that someone is having grandiose delusions. How do I know for a fact that they are delusional? In my mind, any doubt goes to the client.

Your religion is delusional mine is doing what God wants.

All religions are based on Beliefs. They customarily urge you to act on faith and have belief. Unfortunately, they all seem to have a different group of these essential beliefs.

In mental health, if something occurs to you and most of the other people in your community think this is correct, we do not diagnose this as a mental illness.

If a Catholic believes that they see the Virgin Mary we let that go.
Where this becomes a problem is if you move to a country where no one believes in the Virgin Mary and now if you keep seeing her they can lock you up as delusional. That whole community values thing is a rabbit hole down which the truth can disappear in an instant.

If you are now thinking of sending me a nasty comment or e-mail about how far off I am about your religious beliefs please read the next section before hitting send.

Persecutory Delusions.

It is not persecutory if people are after you. Like paranoid this one is a matter of degree and judgment.

If you think that people are out to get you and then you start getting written death threats, that is probably not a persecution delusion.

This like all the others is a matter of fact and judgment.

Which major delusion is not on a lot of forms?

We don’t like to look for and may miss jealousy delusions. People who believe that their partner is cheating on them can and do frequently get violent. Sometimes after they shot or kill someone they discover that their partner was not in fact cheating on them but at the time the evidence looked to them like that partner was clearly cheating.

One article I read recently reported that someone killed a man he believed was cheating with the client’s wife. He was arrested. The victim now dead was clearly not having an affair with the client’s wife. This belief was called a delusion.

Later it came out that the wife was, in fact, having an affair, the client just got the identity of the man she was cheating with wrong.

Was he delusional? I let you decide that.

Certain groups are far more likely than others to be described as delusional. I worry that if you do not agree with the assessor you will get called delusional.

Say you are sent for an evaluation and the assessor is a member of the Church of the Religious Egg. They teach that you should cover yourself with plastic and surround yourself with plastic objects three times a day to meditate. You report that this whole idea is crazy. The assessor reports that you are having religious delusions because you believe in some other deity.

At this point who are we thinking is delusional?

Please do not misunderstand here. I do believe that people, with or without mental illness, can and do have delusions, some more bizarre than others. My point is that we need to be careful about what we call a delusion and what we let go.

So in some future posts, we will need to talk about the research on delusions and why certain groups get that label more often than other groups.

Until next time, stay happy.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Did psychology and psychiatry get a divorce- or are they just separated

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Divorce.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Why talking about mental health, mental illness and personality are so confusing.

Psychology and mental health treatment started out in a pretty close intimate relationship. Over the years the two disciplines have drifted apart.

Freud and Jung started us on the path to using talk therapy to help people overcome life problems and to treat mental illnesses.

The longer we have been on this path the more the disciplines of psychology and mental health have diverged. Today it seems that they are not even talking as we use very different language to describe the same or similar situations.

One place this results in confusion is when people tell their mental health practitioner about a symptom using psychology terms to describe what they are going through. One definition of Psychology is an academic and applied discipline that involves the scientific study of mental functions and behaviors.

This is quite different from the study of mental illness through the two may at times overlap. Both fields are struggling with finding and measuring mental wellness.

Psychiatry is mostly about diagnosing an illness.

In this way of thinking, you are sick or you are not. Some of this distinction comes from the ongoing division between categorical approaches, you have A or you do not have A, and continuum methods in which you move from mild symptoms to more severe symptoms and at some point, they get severe enough to need treatment.

Psychology talks a lot about how your brain works and how people make decisions. So one group of practitioners gives you one label and another gives you a different one. They aren’t even talking about the same things.

I see things in posts about being an ENTJ or similar designation. This comes from psychology’s effort to classify people’s basic personality. You will not find these designations in the DSM-5 which the mental health community uses to diagnose an illness. This results in some extreme frustration on the part of clients when we say there is nothing wrong with them and they know they are suffering.

An example.

You say you are shy. There is nothing called shyness in the DSM, therefore you are not mentally ill.  You say “but you don’t understand, I am very very shy.” Sorry, that is not a mental illness and your insurance company or the public system will not pay to treat your personality. They also do not pay for personal development or growth experiences. You need to be sick to get treated.

You say but I am so shy I can’t leave my house to work. I am afraid of being around people and I can’t see my friends anymore. My shyness is keeping me a prisoner in my own home. Your clinician says sorry, shy is not a mental illness we can’t treat that.

WAIT A MINUTE – Did you say you can’t leave the house? That could be Agoraphobia. You can’t be around people – could that be Social Phobia? While we can’t treat shy we can treat Agoraphobia or Social anxiety disorders.

See how the difference in terminology can cause problems?

Hyperthymic vs. Bipolar.

This came up in my series of posts on Hyperthymia. In mental health, you have Bipolar I, Bipolar II, Bipolar NOS, or Cyclothymia. Hyperthymia is a personality type, not a mental illness so we don’t treat personality types.  We consider most types of personality as just the way you are. So until it gets severe and we can give you a diagnosis this is not an illness and this is, from our viewpoint not serious.

Personality “Disorders” are whole other creature, again only loosely related to these personality types people learn in psychology classes.

In past posts, I have talked about the research on Hypothermia. Most of this is academic research and they see hypothermia as on a continuum. You could have varying levels of Hyperthymia. Some Hyperthymia is severe and needs treatment in their book. But since it is not in the DSM we therapists types look at this as one of those “just how you are” things. We don’t treat it until it gets severe enough to be reclassified as a disorder on the Bipolar spectrum. Once we call it something else it gets treated.

In upcoming posts, I want to talk about Delusions. For mental health practitioners delusions are symptoms of a relatively few mental illnesses. For the psychology researchers there are delusions and delusion-like experiences and so on. Since we have varying definitions and criteria this material may take a little translating. Hence I have tried to explain in this post why the various sorts of similar professions may not agree about what the research says and means.

Until next time stay happy or on your path to happiness and let’s see where this adventure we call recovery may take us.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Every day is April Fools’ Day when you are fooling yourself

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Fool.

Fool.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Do you know what is real and what is a hoax?

Today is April First. In many places, people will be celebrating April Fools’ Day. This day is dedicated to a whole lot of fun practical jokes and good times. Not everyone should be laughing.

The challenge in life is to tell the difference between the truth and things that are not true, regardless of the label we choose to put on those less-than-true thoughts and comments. Today you may be able to get away with some untruths if you can tell the difference, but not every day.

The falsehoods told today in the course of the April Fools’ Day festivities are in the medieval tradition when Fools were jokesters, comedians, and the like. When we know things are exaggerated and overblown they can be laughable and a bit of silly fun. Not all untruths are innocent.

The most dangerous type of lies is the kind we tell ourselves. People in recovery, from whatever they chose to call their problem, may find that they have been telling lies, giving people stories, so much they have begun to believe their own dishonesty. Substance abusers, required to be dishonest to continue their addiction are at special risk to have stopped seeing the distinction between the true and the false in their own minds.

If you have been telling yourself things that are not true and have started to believe those stories they can be a huge obstacle to overcome on your road to recovery.

People in recovery need to stop worrying about who they told what and begin to get honest with themselves. The most important person to tell the truth to is you.

Some recovering people have been told a lot of things that were not true. Those lies create a lot of pain and sometimes separating the true from the false can be a chore. When the addict starts to get honest the others around them are at risk to become confused about what is true and what is false.

Some people have families who have kept deep dark secrets. Those families can’t stand, to tell the truth. They pressure the other family members to deny things happened and to continue to rely on the make-believe family tale

Lie, falsehoods, and the like are not the only untrue information that takes up residence in our heads. False memories and beliefs, delusions, and hallucinations are also traps for the unwary.

There are technical distinctions between hallucinations and things that are really there. There is a realm of in-between things that the profession has to call in or out. Did you really see that or were you hallucinating? There are reports of things that look like a hallucination but are not.

People with addiction and mental illness may have seen and experienced things that other people tell you never happened.

Sometimes we see something and we decide what that means. If we are correct in our apprised that is all well and good. But what if you are mistaken in what you think this means or what has happened? We might call these false beliefs or even delusions.

It is likely that we can tell when someone else around us is delusional but can you tell when you are delusional? Are there things that kind of look like delusions but are not?

So while walking the road to recovery we need to take a look at hallucinations, false memories, and delusions and try to find ways to understand why our own mind may trick us into believing things that just are not so.

This whole area of what is true what is false and what you think you know is a lot confusing. In some posts over this month I want to explore delusions, hallucinations both true and pseudo, and some other aspects of getting honest with ourselves. Since psychologists and therapists call some of these phenomena by different names and understand it differently I want to start by looking at how these two professions get such different answers and then proceed to some thoughts about why your brain and our survival may have benefited at times from believing things that turn out to not be true.

Stay tuned for more on the subject of the real and the false, truth, and lies over the coming month. These posts will be interspersed with some other topics as they come up so as not to put all the readers to sleep at the same time.

Have a great day fooling around and we will return to the search for reality and recovery tomorrow.

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Happy Happy Day

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Happy faces

Happiness.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Happy Happy Day.

This day should especially be devoted to being happy. My longtime readers know that the basic premise of my blog has been that despite the challenges of mental illness and substance abuse, sometimes both, it is possible to recover and to have a happy life.

It is not my intention to take sides in any particular religious disagreement, but many of you, of the Christian persuasion, are today celebrating Easter Sunday. This day is particularly different from other holidays on our calendar.

This day is connected to the lunar calendar and to the older Jewish tradition of celebrating Passover. The result is that rather than falling on the same date each year it can move about the calendar dramatically. It is also celebrated on different dates depending on your particular religious tradition.

Some writers also connect this day with older pre-Christian (pagan) celebrations. In this year of 2013, the Spring or March equinox falls on 3/20 followed by the March Solstice on March 21. It is said that in ancient times our forbearers celebrated the point in the spring when the days became longer than the nights and there was ample evidence that the sun was not deserting us. This time period reaffirms the continuance of life here on planet earth.

The use of the term March Equinox has begun to be used more commonly to avoid or reduce our all too common northern hemisphere biases.

Whatever your tradition or beliefs this time period is a chance to celebrate one more transition in our planet’s life cycle as we move in the northern hemisphere to more hours of daylight, from the long periods of darkness.

Those of you south of the equator, you are now moving into winter and an increase in the nighttime. Get plenty of rest.

However, you chose to interpret this day it remains a confirmation of the continued life here on our planet. The cycles of our seasons continue and so do the cycles of our lives.

Today is a good day to savor what has been positive in our lives and to plan for a more positive next cycle in our existence.

So here is wishing you a happy whatever this day means to you. For those of you who take no special note of this day may I make a suggestion to spend some time at this point in the change of season’s reflecting on what your higher power means to you? Consider also how you will move yourself towards happiness and help move our planet as a whole to the place where all people are able to continue their pursuit of happiness.

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

counselorssoapbox.com most read posts – March 2013

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Counselorssoapbox.com

counselorssoapbox.com most-read posts March 2013

By David Joel Miller.

Here are the most-read posts here at counselorssoapbox.com  for the month of March 2013.

How much should you tell a therapist? 

Is nicotine a stimulant or a depressant?

What is the difference between Depression and Major Depressive Disorder?

Do people really forget what happened when drinking? – Blackouts

Levels or types of Borderline Personality Disorder  

Which border is Borderline Intellectual Functioning on?    

Why can’t we forget the painful past?

Do therapists have to report a crime?

6 ways to recover from Complex Trauma or Complex PTSD   

Are you Hyperthymic?

Thanks to all of you who have read a post, become a follower, and especially an extra helping of thanks to those who have left a like or comment.

Thanks again.

David Joel Miller

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Do the mentally ill go to jail? Should they?

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

To the mentally ill go to jail?
Picture courtesy of Pixabay

Why do so many mentally ill people end up in jail?

Mentally ill people are not supposed to end up in jail simply because they are mentally ill. Unfortunately, our jails and prisons are clogging up with the mentally ill because our systems can’t always find appropriate housing and treatment options.

At this point, I need to point out that we are finding more and more that there are NOT two distinct groups – the mentally ill and the “Normal People.”  People with mental illness can have episodes where they get better or worse. Some mentally ill do recovery. There are also a lot of people who look normal for most of their life and then something happens that they can’t cope with and they find themselves in the mentally ill group.

The person who finds out their partner is cheating may “flip out.” And show up at that worksite with a gun. Before they found out about the affair they were apparently normal people but once they start shooting up the workplace they get reclassified as “mentally ill.” In that respect, people with long-term mental illnesses get a bad rap. The chronically mentally ill are more likely to be victimized than to attack others. They are also way more likely to get murdered than to kill anyone.

There are three principal reasons that law enforcement comes in contact with the mentally ill.

1. The person is thinking of harming themselves or they are so disabled they can’t care for themselves.

While completing suicide is illegal in most places, the person who has tried to kill themselves really does not belong in jail.

Most places have a system called involuntary commitment that allows this person to be placed in a mental hospital BRIEFLY for observation and treatment. Unfortunately, once they stop wanting to kill themselves they get released. We can offer services but it is difficult to impossible to make that person stay in treatment for any length of time.

Additionally, in far too many places there is a shortage of resources for these people and often waiting times to access services.

Just because the person is suicidal does not make this an easy situation for first responders. The suicidal person may harm a bystander in their efforts to end their life, especially if authorities try to stop this attempt. There is also the risk that they will threaten law enforcement, resulting in the increasingly more common “suicide-by-cop.”

2. They are doing something illegal or causing someone a problem.

Police encounter the mentally ill in all sorts of situations. They try to sleep in people’s yards and use their water. Unfortunately, there are a whole lot of mentally ill that have ended up homeless. Add together the distortions in thinking that come from their disorder and the life skills homeless people need to develop to get by and they come into conflict with authority a lot.

When the mentally ill get too loud, don’t move along when told to do so, or act hostile and scare someone, the police get called. Usually, after a confrontation, the only alternative is to take them in.

Even if the police would prefer to not keep this person many communities just have no other place to house them. So minor lawbreakers, vagrants, petty shoplifters, and the like, with mental illnesses, end up in jail for a period of time.

Sheriffs from two of our larger American cities have been quoted recently as saying they are now the largest residential housing facility for the mentally ill in their state. There just is no place to put many of these folks.

3. They are under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

Anyone who does drugs and alcohol to excess can have a problem. The mentally ill are at high risk to abuse substances. In our American culture, those without a diagnosed mental illness are also at high risk to abuse substances.

There is a huge overlap between mental illness and substance abuse. Some mentally ill use alcohol or drugs to mask their symptoms while others started out drinking and drugging and now have developed symptoms of a mental health disorder as a result of their substance abuse.

It is also worth noting that a whole lot of people are in jail for drug and alcohol-related offenses. Those who are fortunate enough to end up in rehab programs are often found to have a mental or emotional disorder.

Incarcerating people in jails has not been working to reduce either mental illness or substance abuse. More treatment options are desperately needed.

Shockingly the most common response from the politicians and the general public is to get tough on all these people and lock them up. The proponents of more incarceration hold that view until they or someone in their family ends up in jail or prison and then they ask why there were not more treatment options available earlier.

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Running out of gas, when your self-improvement program stalls.

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Have you run out of fuel?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Has your self-improvement plan run out of gas?

We see this in all the creative professions. Writers complain about writer’s block. Artists run out of creative ideas. Businesses become stale and stagnate. Why is it so hard to stay creative, to keep making progress on your recovery? What can you do about those out of gas episodes?

As a counselor, I see a similar phenomenon. The client who is making lots of progress and then suddenly after one particularly great session they return and this subsequent session seems to go nowhere. What happened to the resolve to change?

We have different words to use to describe these occurrences but the common thread is that after a period of successful activity there is a period of needing to rest, relax, and recharge your batteries. One thing we learn in mindfulness is that you can’t fix a car when it is being driven at 65. The creative mind needs some time of rest if the creativity is going to keep coming.

Sometimes when we open up and reveal the true us, in counseling or in relationships, we fear we have gone too far in changing, gotten ahead of where we are comfortable and we need to pull back and reevaluate.

The client who has breakthroughs, who achieves insight, sometimes feels they have overdone, over shared, and the next time they are in the office they retreat to a safer, less involved place. The challenge is to not let this pullback, this need to recharge, become an end to our efforts to make things better.

How, if you are making significant progress on an issue do you sustain that effort? What keeps this uncomfortable place from becoming a place of permanently stuck?

How does the creative person recharge their batteries and pick up the process without long periods of being unproductive? Most writers have had episodes of writer’s block but if those episodes last too long then you stop being a writer. The writer writes, the creative business person conducts business and the parent needs to keep on parenting even when they run out of answers.

One reason that your productivity declines after a period of accomplishment are that your interest in the project or the field has decreased. We see this in college majors frequently. The first year and into the second the student wants to learn all they can. By the last year, they just want to get done and get a job. Somewhere along the way, for many of us, the passion ends long before the relationship.

A novelist starts out wanting to tell the story. Partway through the story, the essential ingredients are all down on paper, the plot the characters, and so on. From then and there the author knows how the characters will respond to events, the outcome becomes more predictable. The writer’s problem is to maintain the level of interest in what will happen and in telling the stories of his characters that he had at the beginning.

This same phenomenon happens to businesses. They grow and expand in the early stages and then the owners, having put in all that effort begin to lose interest, the fire of desire has gone out and the new innovative ideas stop flowing. Recharging brains helps but relighting the fires of interest is what is really needed.

We know that good relationships, romantic, parental, or relationships with self, do not just happen. To keep that relationship alive you need to invest some time and effort in maintaining those relationships.

What we all need to learn to do is to spend some time maintaining that one relationship that will last a lifetime, our relationship with ourselves.

What have you done recently to put the fun back into your life? How will you choose to take care of yourself? What specific actions will you take to maintain your relationship with your partner and with your children? How will you find ways to make that job you do, that career or business you own, fun again.

To put that creative spark back in all you do you first need to put the excitement back into what you are doing and how that will get done.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

How sure are you about that goal?

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Hitting a target

Goal.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Is your goal taking you in the right direction?

Lots of self-improvement books talk at length about how to set goals and how to achieve them. Rarely do you see anything about how to test a goal? Is this a goal you should be trying to achieve? Will it really be something you will want once you reach it? Lots of people spend a chunk of their life working towards a goal only to decide once they get there that they picked the wrong objective.

1. Is this goal worth doing?

People set off to accomplish something and never ask themselves if they are successful at getting there will they really feel that this was worth doing.

Many a student signs up for a training program without ever asking if there are any jobs in that field.

If you accomplish this goal will it have been worth the effort? Is this about being selfish? Doing something to be better than someone else? Will you really feel good about yourself if you defeat a one-legged man in a race?

Ever heard the one about the girl who went to great length to take a boyfriend away from a rival only to find out that he was not worth having?

2. Is this goal really possible?

It is possible to devote your life to trying to do something that really can’t be done. Consider if it is possible and consider further getting some advice from people you trust about whether this is a doable goal.

There are those who have accomplished things that the rest of the world told them could never be done. The one thing they had that changed that whole equation was an unshakable belief that this was possible. If you don’t have that belief and can’t convince yourself then you are probably devoting your efforts to a losing cause.

3. Are you the person to do this?

Sometimes there are things that need doing, great important things, but they require giving up other things. If you spend years of your life trying to accomplish something only to find there were other people with more talent already doing this you will be setting yourself up for failure.

We see this often in business. There is an opportunity, there is a need for a product, and this might be profitable. So a small company starts out to do this. But they find that some other much larger company, the one with lots of money behind them, is already opening stores to market this product.

Now if you have a different slant on the problem, you will do it differently, then you have a chance. But if your plan depends on working harder or cheaper, the end result may be that the goal will not be worth doing.

4. What will get in your way?

The first thought in setting off on a journey is how great this will be, how wonderful it will be to accomplish this goal. What we often neglect to consider is what will get in our way.

Does this goal take more money than we have or can raise? Will it take too much time?

5. What will you have to do to get past those obstacles?

Will you need a lot more education? Will you need to raise some money? Will you need to turn over control to someone else? Will you have to do things that violate your morals or ethics to reach this goal? Will it cost you, friends, or family?

Having difficult obstacles in your way should not deter you if the goal is really worth doing, but you need to know what is required to overcome those obstacles.

What you do to get past the obstacles will have a price. You always need to consider if that price is one that is worth paying or having given up that much will you resent the price even if you get to the goal.

6. If you try and don’t get this can you still be happy for having made the effort?

Some goals are only worthwhile if you can be successful. For other people the pursuit of the goal is sufficient. Be clear if doing your best will be good enough or if you need to reach the goal to feel good about your journey.

7. When you get it all done will the pursuit of this goal have been worth the price you had to pay to get there?

Every time you do something there are one or more other things that you can’t do. If you go away to school you spend time away from your family. If you stay at home then you can’t attend that prestigious school somewhere else.

Those lost opportunities, things given up to pursue a life goal can add up after a while. It is worth thinking about all those possible losses before you embark on a course that you can’t easily change.

This Goal testing process is not particularly new or original. It is found in several of the old mental improvement texts. Many of these older self-improvement books are available online and free if you find the right source. They inspired me to think about this subject and to write this post.

What goals have you set for yourself and have you tested them before you embark on the journey to be sure that you will want the result when you get there?

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel