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This cannot be overstated enough, I think, beyond just the effects of severe sleep deprivation. It's very true in my personal experience with major depression as well.
Also good to do: eat well, get exercise, get sunlight. Minds don't exist in isolation from the body, it's all the same sack of chemicals.
Wait, I've never heard of hallucinations from bipolar disorder and these sounded super heavy duty? Was this something more? But I am really glad they got help, even responsible enough to get help.
Well he also said he basically didn't sleep for 10 days. I think that would contribute a lot.
Just a wild guess but this sounds like something more and bipolar was an effect not the cause.
Wait, I've never heard of hallucinations from bipolar disorder and these sounded super heavy duty? Was this something more? But I am really glad they got help, even responsible enough to get help.
Source: diagnosed in 1987 as a type II.
> Sleep is really important. This cannot be overstated enough, I think, beyond just the effects of severe sleep deprivation. It's very true in my personal experience with major depression as well. Also good to do: eat well, get exercise, get sunlight. Minds don't exist in isolation from the body, it's all the same sack of chemicals.
I sometimes wonder if these kind of first hand experiences are something that should be a part of the education system, such as depriving yourself of sleep and recording the results, or exercising on and off for several weeks and recording your mood, etc. I find this kind of self experimentation highly informative, and these days I can easily 'feel' the effects of drinking/smoking/dieting/exercising/etc on my well-being and mood, which in turn gives me a lot more willpower to see things through when I can logically infer the cause of bad feelings/moods and know they are temporary.
Overall I think that a lot of people would benefit from the occasional mystical perspective on life. It's awesome for creative problem solving! And most people have become a bit too secular and boring. But if they go on and apply the "work hard on it and take it seriously" pattern to spirituality they'll just go and OD on it.
The "westernly refined eastern spirituality" seems as close to the original thing as purified cocaine is to chewed coca leaves: very different concentrations, very different use scenarios. How can it not go wrong for the more psychology sensitive individuals among us?
People should go and read/listen some of Allan Watts' book/recordings. You can try starting with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8130_-3d3PA . He had some good ideas on how to use an occasional mystical perspective to enrich one's life, without taking it too seriously and completely loosing it. Mind it, I don't agree with most of his ideas, but they are still better than what others are selling.
A well written and brutally honest article - the author should be commended as this kind of honesty is what's needed in beginning to address mental health issues. I did feel the last throwaway point "don't date the crazy chick" let it down slightly - by his own hypothesis she too was suffering (bad) mental health issues and blithely shifting blame to her seems a little off.
I'm curious what kind of drugs were involved. Crazy chick, traveling the world, doing shamanistic rituals (which often use drugs), sleep depriving oneself until hallucinating, etc. He doesn't say it outright but had he not taken part in these damaging things, he may not have had the psychotic episode and wouldn't know he was bipolar. http://www.elle.com/beauty/health-fitness/advice/a14193/ayah... http://www.dailymail…
1) If you really can work days and days on end without feeling tired or feeling the need for sleep (as someone who works very, very excessive hours, I can safely say I spend most of that time yearning for my bed), in all likelihood you are going to come crashing down at some point;
2) You can definitely start hallucinating purely from lack of sleep, after "only" a couple of days, without the assistance of any hallucinogenic drugs.
A well written and brutally honest article - the author should be commended as this kind of honesty is what's needed in beginning to address mental health issues. I did feel the last throwaway point "don't date the crazy chick" let it down slightly - by his own hypothesis she too was suffering (bad) mental health issues and blithely shifting blame to her seems a little off.
Having a partner of either sex that also suffers mental illness (perhaps more severely than you do) can exacerbate un-healthy or unhelpful ways of thinking.
I don't think the writer was placing entire blame with the partner, but actually making a good point earlier about the psychological reinforcement from being around them
I personally found out that coding before sleep is a horrible thing for you - your mind keeps working on problems long after you close your IDE.
Though the tired mind is often very keen to simply recurse over thoughts you've already had opposed to think of new ones. If you find you can't stop yourself going over the day though, then 10-15 mins of meditation, where you force yourself to concentrate on clearing your mind, can stop these thoughts so you can sleep. Do this every night for a few weeks and it becomes second nature.