mental well being and coping strategies

Andy is one step ahead of me (not hard to be, given there are tortoises who can run laps around me).

He and I had been discussing this subject recently, and I had undertaken to start a Thread in the near future. He has taken up the gauntlet, which is great and to be commended, as readers could be forgiven for getting tired of "hearing" my mouth engaged in gear :p

I have 8 clinically diagnosed mental disorders, being -
  • (Adult) ADD-ADHD
  • Agoraphobia
  • Asperger's Syndrome
  • Narcissism
  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
  • Panic Disorder
  • Paranoia
  • Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified
I am 62, but not diagnosed until I was 44.



Name rings a bell, tell us more.

Thank you Andy for being up front, and for being such an asset (not a handicap) to this site ;)

We should promote you from Captain to General.

Cheers all, and it's Friday here in Oz, so

Avagudweegend

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
I think at least ass burger people are honest, you know where you stand with them.
 


@lekkerlinux -- South Park is the only reference that made any sense to me. Call me dense (I don't care), but are you talking of Canucks or what?
. . . to avoid any misunderstanding. I'm sure I'm not the only one not watching commercial TV.
 
I'll let my friend from the Republic of South Africa field that one - they have a good cricket team. :)
 
call me dense
@sp331yi oh i can beat you on that one ... I read it quite literally ....ass burger...so was thinking context of my spiritual mentor Gino D'Acampo thinking i've had cheese burger, ham burger, beef burger and even Cherval burger in France. yep tasted em all ... so I was about to ask..how


Now if you think about live biological systems its pretty mundane stuff; keep blood pressure not to high not to low, sugar level- not too high not too low, heart rate- not too high not too low. Generally there is a feedback mechanism to get things back on track to a steady state

So the next one i will throw in is a way to look at responses what leads up to them and how you might might moderate them to not too but instead at an acceptable steady state. Its along the lines of cognitive behavioral therapy (cbt) , the core principal is not necessarily to fix underlying issues but to steer you to behave in an acceptable manner.



place holder add diagram(added)

use and explanation: so the diagram could be said to be a model showing factors that might influence responses to events.

Lets get the mood ( on the right) one out of the way first ; put simply its like a series of levels so of like the security services red alert and so on. What are the consequences ? well do you remember the electrician going to work on the tube in London shot dead on the tube . Red alert levels tend to be less time for consideration you could call it "trigger happy" at top and chilled at bottom.

Scenarios that tend to trigger extreme response tend to be related to " thats not going according how i think it should, my authority or ego is being challenged, they are doing that deliberatley against me personally" .

Now lets looks at couple of scenarios and see how it plays out.

Generally adults don't scream at a toddler learning to walk exclaiming something like " can you stop crashing into things and just get up and walk "! Nor when a puppy wee's on the floor do you scream " can you not go to the toilet left the lid and wee into the pan like your supposed to".

Your belief system has a bearing along the lines they are simply not able to do that , so its understandable why they are not doing it.

Sometimes we wrongly assume things that elicit unnecessary responses. My father had a saying "kids have a way of getting under your skin" he was a rather aloof person and of course I completely blame him for the emotionally damaged person, I am today ? :^ )

If you simply consider that kids, animals and other people are either incapable of behaving to your arbitrary standards its easier to have a philosophical view.

Now the model is not bad. it demonstrates areas to work on. Maybe take up meditation to control mood. Think whether its really about the other person and nothing pefrsonal against you etc.

In my expereince there is one flaw or caveate to the model and its this : in order to be able not to byepass the appraisal process , you have to catch yourself or count to ten
 

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Here in the US, "Anger Management" classes teach along similar lines, and cognitive psychology incorporates similar techniques.

Still, no answer -- evidence of cognitive avoidance? (Having fun here!)
 
@lekkerlinux -- South Park is the only reference that made any sense to me. Call me dense (I don't care), but are you talking of Canucks or what?
. . . to avoid any misunderstanding. I'm sure I'm not the only one not watching commercial TV.
I'm joking about the Americans that think up a bunch of conditions and everyone just believing what they say because they make lots of money.
 
Now if you think about live biological systems its pretty mundane stuff; keep blood pressure not to high not to low, sugar level- not too high not too low, heart rate- not too high not too low. Generally there is a feedback mechanism to get things back on track to a steady state
I was thinking the same thing when they banned nicotiana tabacum in South Africa at the start of the crown virus pandemic over here in March.

I could buy cigarettes on the black market but it was too expensive.

Then they told everyone you could grow your own marijuana for personal use. So I started reading and found ut there are many kinds.

The bad news was that the one that didn't get you too high was the most expensive seeds to purchase and it takes more than two months to flower and then you have to dry and cure the buds before it's ready to smake as medicine.

That was a very traumatic experience! I got my hope so high and than came crashing down.
 
I was thinking the same thing when they banned nicotiana tabacum in South Africa at the start of the crown virus pandemic over here in March.

I remember you saying that elsewhere and thinking WOW.

Did they explain why, Mate?

Chris
 
I remember you saying that elsewhere and thinking WOW.

Did they explain why, Mate?

Chris
Some big shot woman in the government said that smokers were more vulnerable to this corona or crown virus and will fill up the hospitals beds. Then the casualties came from diabetics, high blood pressure and obese people.

Smokers are underrepresented everywhere from China to France in hospitals and mortuaries, during this pandemic. Don't know why.

Alcohol was also banned because people who drive drunk and fight etc would also fill up the emergency rooms, according to the government of South Africa. Today I read that 27% of fatal car crashes in South Africa are caused by drunk drivers and I presume the rest must be crazy sober people!

Both alcohol and tobacco got unbanned two weeks or so ago.

As far as the government allowing marijuana to be grown for personal use is concerned, it must be a bad joke because it's so difficult to do and the street kind you can buy at the traffic light will make me forget my Ubuntu log on password.

Third world government that takes more than it gives.
 
We are probably dancing on the edge of Off Topic here (if we can be off topic in off topic?), and I don't want to derail the OP's Thread.

Andy @captain-sensible I hope knows me well enough by now to know that he can subtly ask me to piss off elsewhere to discuss these matters. OK, Andy?

That being said, I have been both a smoker and a drinker for 45 years now, and if it was enforced upon me to give those up, my "mental well-being and coping strategies" would likely go down the toilet.

Wizard
 
its an eclectic thread plenty of room for divergence. I don't smoke due to underlying potential for Asthma. I have no intention of giving up drinking. There was a bloke called paracelus and in terms of toxicity he showed that for the majority of substances it is not the substance itself that defines whether it is toxic but the "doseage" for example I was once put on a course of strychnine due to be "hyper" in my youth. It was a very low dosage. So to end my monolog the trick is managed drinking. @lekkerlinux since you are from SOuth Africa do you remember or have heard of the heart surgeon Christiaan Neethling Barnard stated "a glass of red wine is good for your health" or course the job worthies have disputed that but the French have one of the lowest heart issues
 
if you look at the diagram at post #44 there is stuff to work on. If you look at belief on the left side you can questions your belief in regard to the situation , trigger and response. For instance if you conclude you were wrong when the next scenario comes up you will probably act different. eg Recently i driver wound down his window and called me a ;)'er i concluded it was all about his mood and nothing to do with me, so it elicited no reaction and probably none in further scenarios
 
We are probably dancing on the edge of Off Topic here (if we can be off topic in off topic?), and I don't want to derail the OP's Thread.

Andy @captain-sensible I hope knows me well enough by now to know that he can subtly ask me to piss off elsewhere to discuss these matters. OK, Andy?

That being said, I have been both a smoker and a drinker for 45 years now, and if it was enforced upon me to give those up, my "mental well-being and coping strategies" would likely go down the toilet.

Wizard
I had the strangest experience during this crazy time on this crazy country.

After months of no tobacco and beer, the first cigarette and the first beer was the most rewarding experience.

I just drink beer now, no more cheap vodka that messes with your eye sight or cheap cigarettes either. I am learning to smoke a pipe. It's more trouble, so I smoke less.

The experts woulds say that's not a good way to deal with drug addiction.

All I though when they banned alcohol, was the first miracle of Jesus Christ. Turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana.

Praise the Lord!
 
I just drink beer now, no more cheap vodka that messes with your eye sight


IN Ghana they have spirit called " Akpeteshie" which is produced by locals using their own distillation apparatus. There are many varieties some with mahogany wood chips in it; they call that one "waist and power" . There are suspect ones that might have suspect substances in it. But i've noticed that a lot of locals including masons, sparky's and chippies have died before their age. One common chemical thats often present in home distillation of spirits where the intended end product is ethanol , (due to inefficiency) is methanol [ch3oh] one symptom of that is damage to the eyes, so be careful
 
All I wanted to do is end up with a low alcohol ginger beer, just using naturally fermented yeast from sugar, water and the yeast found on the skins of the ginger.

I have been ending up with sugary water with a ginger kick and a sugar rush to the head for months now.

I can see the yeast at the bottom of the plastic bottle, but it's till too sweat, even after three weeks.
 
How much sugar are you using for what quantity of product fermented?

I'm seriously uneasy about this in a mental health thread, shall we peel off and form a home-brewing thread?

I've been brewing for 26 years next month. :)

Wiz
 
maybe broaden the remit hobbies ? or at least something like "brewing, baking and imbibing " to include maybe wine varieties of interest for the connoisseur, ginger beer , elderflower wine etc I tasted a dornfelder for first time only recently
 
Sounds good, Andy - I'll sleep on that.

Nite all

Wiz
 
How much sugar are you using for what quantity of product fermented?

I'm seriously uneasy about this in a mental health thread, shall we peel off and form a home-brewing thread?

I've been brewing for 26 years next month. :)

Wiz
I wanted to brew my own ginger beer, just to see if I can do something myself, not depending on government or business. The Covid-19 house arrest makes one feel rather powerless.

I have tried various recipes, some with more sugar than others. What makes it more difficult, is I am trying to grow my own yeast culture and it sometimes failed. It's easier to buy Champagne yeast from a brew shop and use that, instead of trying a wild yeast ferment method.

I hope with the summer approaching here, the fermentation should be more active.

My original coping meganisme of brewing to feel less powerless, have now developed into a fixation with ginger beer.

I should have tried scrap booking instead.
 
i've also been experimenting with wild yeast but for sourdough baking.
If you look on the outside of ripe red grapes there is a light white film, thats wild yeast. An Italian wine brewer once told me he used no commercial yeast. Simply crush the grapes amd let the wild yeast do the job. I've had a go with doing culture of wild yeast for baking but its slow going. Probably will have another go next week . On the issue of mental health one might say that distraction intervention - some call it hobbies might be +vely beneficial
 

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