When I met Luna a few years ago she was experiencing great levels of anxiety.
When she went to the doctor and explained her situation, they prescribed her with high levels of SSRI anti-depression medication. Months later, after reading all the endless long-term side effects of using those drugs, I immediately suggested she get off them.
My interest in Western psychology began as soon as I moved to Australia in my adolescence. For as long as I can remember I’ve been interested in the study of the mind’s relationship with life. Growing up, I was taught that everything in the world was interconnected, that our perceptions of a divided reality are veils of illusions and dreamlike perceptions we create. My great-grandmother had a saying I still remember to this day:
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En este mundo traidor; nada es verdad ni mentira, todo es según el color del cristal con que se mira.
‘In this deceitful world; nothing is true nor false, everything is the color of glass through which you look at life.’
Understanding the Fallacy of Medicine
Western Medicine overlooks an essential aspect of “mind-body disorders” and that is the assumption that all body conditions are chemically caused.
This key assumption is what forces doctors to misdiagnose anxiety and depression and address it in an adequate way. Our doctors assume that anxiety and depression are caused by an imbalance of brain chemicals, as opposed to the brain chemical imbalance being caused by anxiety and depression. In other words; they confuse the cause with the effect.
There are only a few true mental chemical imbalances (schizophrenia for instance) that require serious prescription medication, yet in 90% of the cases you mention anxiety or depression, they will medicate you.
In fact depression is an advanced form of anxiety towards life gone untreated, and anxiety itself, with the exception of some brain atrophies, is a cognitive disorder. In other words, we’ve created a perception of reality, a dream, by believing our negative thought patterns and identifying them as “rules” about ourselves. For example: “I suck at socializing” or “I always have such bad luck in everything”.
These observations we make about ourselves that come from a few bad experiences, can turn into automatic subconscious rules, or dreams, that repeat themselves in the future. Our unconscious minds are so powerful they automate things for us, such as how when we learn to drive a car, soon the process is “auto-piloted”. In a similar fashion, our subconscious minds can learn to repeat negative words and beliefs in the back of our minds automatically.
Whatever you feed your subconscious mind will turn into a rule (yes, your subconscious is not very smart!) That is why to reverse your anxiety, you have be very conscious and aware of what information you’re accumulating and molding a dream out of.
You may perceive anxiety as a feeling, but in fact, anxiety is a thought. Your thoughts are the cause of anxiety, the feeling of anxiety is the result. To treat feelings you have, you can use chemicals (SSRI’s), vitamins, diets etc. But to treat thoughts, all you have to do is learn how to be aware of your thinking and learn how to think correctly.
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How to Free Yourself From Anxiety
Once you realize that anxiety isn’t the result of feelings or chemicals but by automated thoughts you create, it gives you the freedom and control to change your thinking.
You can aid yourself by using your phone or a piece of paper to create a list of all the thoughts you have that are causing your anxiety.
The following are some of the most common subconscious perception patterns you may come across:
1. Mind Reading
We all like thinking we’re capable of predicting what other people are thinking, but more often than not, we simply jump to conclusions believing assumptions that aren’t true. Have you ever caught yourself thinking: “I like my poem but I know people are going to think it’s stupid”, “My teacher doesn’t notice the effort I put into that essay” or “My co-workers think I’m lazy and do nothing”? All these thoughts are just one possibility out of an infinity of thoughts, yet our unconscious minds confuse them with factual statements and create the appropriate feelings of anger or resent.
Solution: Instead of absolutes, rephrase the statement as a possibility (“They might think …”). You could also ask them directly what they think, or imagine a positive statement they might have about you instead.
2. Future Telling
This is the same as mind reading, only now instead of predicting people’s thoughts, we believe we can predict life itself. “I’m not going to get that job”, “I’ll probably end up last in the race”, “Today is going to be horrible”. Your unconscious mind will take that as a fact, and will already have that outlook, usually attracting it to occur.
Solution: Ask yourself mindfully, “Do I honestly know this will happen?” “What proof have I got to verify this assumption?“
3. Black and White
This is one of the most common negative thought patterns. Do you ever catch yourself using words like “always“, “every” and “never“? It’s a great way to convey intense exaggeration of feeling about something to other people, for instance: “I always fall in love with the bad boy”. Unfortunately, our subconscious minds will interpret that literally and repeat the cycle.
Solution: Consciously analyze these hyperbole’s and objectionably ask whether they are true or not. Is every single person you’ve ever dated a heart breaker, for example? Rephrasing your sentence to: “Many of the people I like have been unwise choices” makes all the difference in preventing your subconscious mind from acting on your thoughts.
4. One-sided Filter
There are times when someone will provide you with a lot of encouragement for your work and also some criticism to improve on, yet all you can seem to focus on is the criticism, ignoring anything good they said. You’ll later think back on this moment and only remember all the bad things that you did, and none of the good. Eventually, your subconscious negative narcissist is going to look for ways to reaffirm its insecurities and low opinion of yourself.
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Solution: The best approach is to be objective about the feedback you receive. You should either take positive and negative feedback together, or reject them both, because by accepting criticism it also means you’ll have to accept the accolades.
5. Self Dismissal
Often, you will find that even when you do something well, you will be the one to reject anything good you accomplish, and dismiss it entirely, or put it down to mere coincidence or luck. For example: “I did score a goal but there are better players in the team than me“, “That was just a fluke“.
Solution: Think back to all the great accomplishments you’ve achieved, write them down as a list, and read them out loud whenever you’re feeling like you have some inadequacy.
6. Catastrophizing
Catastrophizing is a feeling based on an irrational thought of believing that something is far worse than it actually is. Catastrophizing can generally can take two forms. The first comes from a situation, for example, you’re going through a rough patch of bad luck in a job or relationship and immediately you feel like everything will end badly, you’ll lose your job, or break up from a relationship. The second form is closely linked to the ‘Future Teller’ in which you envision the future and predict everything that is going to go wrong based on your current negative outlook.
Solution: Use self-exploration, and ask your “Why” you are perceiving everything so negatively. Once you have the answer, objectively ask yourself: “What’s the worst that can happen?” Is it probable you’ll get fired? If you get fired, will it provide an opportunity to find a job you enjoy more?
7. Generalizing
In order to be more efficient, your subconscious mind runs on auto-pilot most of the time. That is why time seemed longer as a child than it does as an adult: as a child you were experiencing many things for the first time, but afterwards, your subconscious labels everything with a “general” idea, for example: “That’s an apple“, the shades and the subtleties don’t matter. Your subconscious does the same with bad experiences, “I was embarrassing and awkward when I asked those last two girls out, I’d rather avoid it.“
Solution: Writing down your thoughts is a great way to make your perspective more objective. Ask yourself “Should past experiences define future experiences?” and write down the answer that pops into your mind and what evidence you have to back it up.
8. Identification
We are so unaware of our authentic selves that we begin finding our identities in the wrong places, for example, how ‘our’sports team performs, or how our children can easily become reflections of ourselves. Even when girl says: “All the men I meet are jerks“, we begin to ask ourselves, “Am Ione of these jerks?” Our subconscious self-preservation instincts kick in and we begin to feel anxious.
Solution: Be consciously aware of what you choose to find identification with, example of poor choices are countries, cultures, children and even passing comments.
9. Blaming
The opposite of identification, when you blame others for your problems and faults, you lose the responsibility for them and consequently the power to change. Unconsciously you feel all these bad things are happening to you, but it’s other people’s fault, not yours.
Solution: Before you blame anyone else for some misfortune in your life, ask yourself whether you could possibly be responsible or somehow involved in causing the situation. It’s natural to want to avoid blame or change, as most of us feel as though it will reflect on our worth as human beings. But once you take responsibility for your problems, you feel empowered because you can fix them. Also, the anxiety of believing that bad things just come into your life out of nowhere, goes away.
10. Should’s
Whenever you create an ideal self by stating, “I should be more social”, “I should be more punctual”, you’re making your subconscious mind anxious by telling it that “we have to be this way otherwise our survival is threatened”.
Solution: Be mindful of the words you use, if you seek to improve in some area, state to yourself: “I’d like to work on my socializing or punctuality”.
11. Labels
Labeling involves identification and generalizing, and is where you find a word that reflects how you feel and begin identifying with it. If you make a few mistakes or have a few accidents in public, for instance, you might immediately tell yourself, “I’m such a klutzy person“, “what a loser!” or “I’m a moron“. Labels can condition us into feeling anxious all the time, believing that we are one thing or another.
Solution: Speaking out loud allows your subconscious mind to hear your statements – that is why positive affirmations work so well. Whenever you consciously catch yourself trying to label yourself in a certain way, correct yourself aloud by stating the truth; “I am not always like this, so where is the evidence that I am a moron? Or klutz? It has only happened a few times“.
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12. Perfectionism
A lot of people struggle with this. Perfectionism is judging your self-worth on the outcome of your actions. To approach life with a perfectionistic attitude is to tell your subconscious that “my whole life depends on this“, and causes you to feel stress and anxiety, contributing to problems like burnout and health issues.
Solution: To overcome perfectionism, you must walk the path of self-discovery, knowing that there is no such thing as perfection, and we all possess the exact same worth, and it is natural (and even healthy) to make mistakes now and then.
***
It is time for Western medicine to stop treating any issue we have as a biological one instead of a mental one. Numbing the side-effects of an issue with medications without changing the root cause, is the same as thinking cough pills are curing the common cold when in reality they are only alleviating the discomfort.
It’s no coincidence that in consumerist countries this mentality goes unquestioned; when pharmaceutical industries are financed and backed up by drug companies, what else can you expect but a self-perpetuating cycle of illness and misdiagnosis? We try to spread awareness through inner work of this issue, and welcome everyone to encourage awareness however they can.
What are your thoughts on this issue? Have you had any experience with these medications, or dreamlike perceptions, in the past or present?
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Very good article. EYE never ever taken any kind of medication eye NEVA listen to any DINOSES the DRS gives. I gave a son and a daughter. I did not let them gave any of my BBY THOSES toxic shots. It is so crazy with theses DINOSES that theses inhuman DRS tell PPL and most DONT research. When I tell others look u can heal UR own self with herbs and good thought. They say u AINT no dr. But yet u get WROST and one DINISE leads to another ANC next thing u no u have a cabinet full of pills to kill. It’s all a money hurry disgusting business. The pharmacy and DRS work together. They alllll need to be out in jail because they or. The world’s. BIGGEST DOPE PUSHERS SENSE THE HISTORY OF MAN KIND. YOU SUD HERE TBE NAME DRS. NAME AND TOLD MY ANCESTORS SLAVERY. EXAMPLE. DR CARITE SO CALLPROFESOR IN NEW ORLEANS. SAID. HARRIET TUBMAN. FREDDICK DOUGLAS AND MANY MORE WAS DINOSE WITH DRAKE-TO-MO-E-YA. IT MEANT RUNAWAY SLAVE AND THE CURE WAS TO WHIPAND BEAT THE SHIT OUT YOU. IF U GUYS ONLY KNEW THE NAMES AND SHIT THESES INHUMA REPTILES. CAME UP… Read more »
I go through life with a convoluted set of social rules that I can’t articulate but somehow know when they’re broken. It’s going to take me some time to unlearn what I’ve been taught about depression, though I don’t think I can ever believe my personal depression is “an advanced form of anxiety” because the soul-ripping loss of will to live came before anxiety and as a result of abuse. But hey, I haven’t offed myself yet so that’s a good thing.
As always, an interesting article. I would like to point out however, that while doctors may still mention the chemical imbalance explanation to their patients, in general, thie field of psychology and mental health care has abandonded this theory. It is a gross oversimplification of what may really happen in the brain of a depressed person, so much so that it is in fact, a myth. Sadly, the damage has already been done. While the field of mental health care is moving away from this myth, many doctors still tell it to their patients, and the general public is hardly aware of the falsity of the chemical imbalance theory. Feelings of depression and anxiety may cause changes in the levels of neurotransmitters, but interestingly, no one can directly measure the levels of neurotransmitters in a living person – they can only be derived by other measurements. This is something to keep in mind when there is talk of levels of neurotransmitters. Years ago, I had a friend who is a diabetic. His wife, sadly, suffered from severe depression. She benefited from antidepressants, as is sometimes the case in people with severe depression. He likened her dependency on antidepressants to his… Read more »
I absolutely love the Lonerwolf website and everything that you guys write, but I think it is very irresponsible to suggest that SSRIs are always a bad thing. You just have to look on the internet to see that a lot of depressed people have had a very positive and extremely life-changing experience with them, which has allowed them to leave depression and anxiety behind and lead positive lives for the first time. I was in a very dark place before I was prescribed with SSRI’s and I hate to think what would have happened to me if I hadn’t started taking them. Before Celexa I felt like I was drowning in a kind of suffocating swamp, in a never-ending Dark Night of the Soul, unable to lift my head above the mud, full of crushing thoughts about how useless and awful I was – and how my life would never amount to anything. Since taking SSRI’s I’ve had a kind of spiritual awakening. I actually have self-esteem for the first time ever, which is an extremely unusual experience for me. I’m no longer unable to focus on anything but my own misery, and have, over the past few years,… Read more »
I really believe more time should be invested in teaching children to deal with anxiety, depression and fear. It would go such a long way in creating a better, healthier world. Thank you, Mateo, your wisdom packaged in humility, always well received. Any thoughts on a series of videos on this topic? It would be perfect to use in a classroom, for this generation of non-readers.
Brilliantly written and insightful article. I think I’ve been lucky with most of my life – until recently I hadn’t suffered with the majority of the issues you mentioned in this article. And when I have, I seem to have had a subconscious self-repair mechanism in my head that fixed it for me. My wife on the other hand has struggled through many of the issues you’ve mentioned above. We’ve been on a journey where she has started to overcome a lot of these issues. However, during her journey, there were some things we both had to face some things within our relationship which caused me to inadvertently introduce some of these conditions into my own psyche -it led me down into a path of severe (close to suicidal) depression. I didn’t feel that discussing the issue with anyone through counselling or even talking with friends would help as the issue was purely to do with my wife’s perception of me. I didn’t want or need anyone telling me that one or both of us was right or wrong – it was just something that we needed to work through together, and that would require time. I didn’t want to… Read more »
I’ve dealt with depression and anxiety since I can remember. It’s a right nightmare to live with, and for a long time I’ve never really felt like anything I personally did was going to help. I ended up thinking that western medicine like I was getting would be the best possible solution I’d ever have. I’ve begun to seriously doubt that now. Our minds are powerful tools and words can make or break. It’ll probably take some time, and it may not be easy, but I’ve begun trying to tackle the roots of my problems and my negative thoughts. It’s great to find articles written about these things.
Thank you for this. I am a writer, musician and artist who has been suffering from “obsessive compulsive disorder” and “depression” since I was still small enough to hide in the toy box at the back of my closet. Though recently, several decades later, after leaving an abusive marriage, going bankrupt and quitting a college program that I just couldn’t bring myself to commit to, I began to develop both general and social anxiety. Suddenly at the supermarket I was having these intense and disorienting panic attacks that only swelled with the certainty that everyone was looking at me, wondering just what the heck was wrong with me. It’s the stuff of nightmares, only ten times worse then any dream you ever had where you showed up somewhere naked. I even get this soul crushing anxiety with loved ones now whenever I try to talk to them about anything even remotely serious and I feel their eyes on me. I have never felt more helpless and frightened in all my life. I have very little faith in Western medicine and have been trying to regain my peace and calm through meditation and self reflection which has been somewhat helpful when… Read more »
It’s interesting that you mention schizophrenia as a serious mental health condition that requires medication – I don’t believe that at all.
when I first started seeing a doctor for MH I could have easily been diagnosed. It’s not been medication that has kept me stable but self-care and self-discovery, the same as you would recommend for anxiety and depression.
With any sort of psychosis or reality disturbance, the problem is fear. If you don’t fear delusions, your rational mind is free to work again and you can logic your way back to a comfortable reality.
My life has changed in many ways in the last 7 years. During that time I learned to live alone. I work part time and try to keep busy with my grandson just about every weekend. I presently have no close friends and have not dated or had any interest in men in the last 7 years. I have become a sort of recluse, but enjoy my personal time. Relationships in the past have damaged me emotionally. I find it very difficult to start over and no longer bounce back like I used to. Where I work there is no opportunities for forming any new friendships, it is purely professional, but I have a lot of aquaintances. As a sensitive individual I can easily make friends. If I choose to, but trust is another matter. My trust has been broken many times and family members have betrayed me in the past and no longer talk to me. I’m constantly stuck in the past and I try to forgive and forget, but when around my parents. It all resurfaces again. I would like to move forward, but I don’t know how…This situation causes a lot of anxiety in my life…I think… Read more »