I’M Hopeless, I’M Crazy: How My Mother Recovered from the Ravages of Mental Illness Through Natural Medicine and Integrated Therapies

By Linda Rae Anderson

This book is about my mothers search to regain her mental and emotional health and my account of that journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524554521

Linda Rae Anderson

Linda has studied and practiced in the field of natural medicine for over 40 years. Beginning with the study of Botanical Medicine which is still her greatest passion. After completing Apprenticeship training at Herb-Pharm in Williams, OR., in 1985 she then opened “EARTH EMPORIUM,” an herb store from 1986-1992 offering high quality organically grown and wildcrafted herbs and herbal products, which she continues to do to this present day. Over the years she has studied Nutrition//Food Preparation and received certifications in Botanical Medicine, Massage Therapy, Aromatherapy and in 1992 completed studies in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine becoming licensed Nationally, in CA. and AZ.. She studied Ayurvedic Aromatherapy in India in 2008. In 2011 she became certified as an ADS (Addiction De-tox Specialist) through NADA (National Acupuncture De-toxificaton Association) offering The NADA Protocol now referred to as “ACU WELLNESS.” Linda has been in private practice since 1992 and currently integrates these healing disciplines in an educational manner to give clients/students tools to manage their health. As a private consultant she facilitates “Wellness Groups.” She aspires to reach more people with the message of safe, effective, economical health care. “The People's Medicine” for most of the world. Any precious leisure time is spent in the garden or with her animals that she adores in her high desert home in Campo, CA.. Linda can be reached at: [e-mail]

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Copyright © 2016 by Linda Rae Anderson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The information contained in this book is for educational purposes only and is not to be used for diagnosis or treatment.

Rev. date: 12/30/2016

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Contents

Prefix

Chapter 1 The Early Years

Chapter 2 Mom Goes Away

Chapter 3 In Mom’s Absence

Chapter 4 Mom Starts Over and I Fall Into the Abyss

Chapter 5 A Glimmer of Hope in the Wake of More Trials

Chapter 6 Change of Heart; Self Discovery

Chapter 7 New Directions

Chapter 8 The Beginning of the End

Chapter 9 At Death’s Door

Chapter 10 Reversing Roles

Chapter 11 Changing Strategy

Chapter 12 A Flicker of Light

Chapter 13 Beginning to Wake Up

Chapter 14 Family Tragedy

Chapter 15 Phoenix Rising

Chapter 16 Completing the Puzzle

Chapter 17 Summary

Epilogue

Orthomolecular Psychiatry

Electro-Convulsion Therapy (ECT)

Related Newspaper Articles

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I credit my mother. Without her life and spirit, neither my life nor these words would be possible. There are so many others who have touched my life and helped me arrive at the peace and space in my life to write and finish this book.

Mykal, my long time love and companion has been there all the way, caring for our home life while I have taken this writing sojourn. My brother, Mark, who passed unexpectedly and tragically in 1978 is ever present in my heart. He is the reason I started on my path towards inner truth, health and well-being. My children and grandchildren have always given me reason to keep going in the most difficult times of my life. I will be ever grateful to my former husband Ralph. Brandon Rossi was a life-saver to me when almost everything needed repair in our remote home in Costa Rica, the site for writing the book. He took the helm. He brought everything back to a functional state and kept a steady flow of produce coming from the vegetable man. Many thanks, Rossi.

I feel enduring gratitude to Maureen Durkee, Shelly and my nephew, Isaac, for offering to proofread and critique the manuscript. Maureen and Shelly, you have encouraged me all the way about the importance of this story and the need to finish the book. Maureen, going through this manuscript a second time was crucial in helping me fine-tune the details. My daughter Shannon invested her time and skills in editing the manuscript, bringing it closer to fruition. This was not an easy task, but so appreciated. Lastly Marguerite English has been steadfast in her service of finalizing the editing, inserting photos and tying it all together. Her daughter Carole designed the cover and spent many hours photo shopping the aged pictures. I could not have finished the book without you both. I mention Nancy Reib for sending me a notebook of inspiring articles promoting a creative flow for writing. I have a deep affection for my only living aunt and uncle. Aunt Lois and Uncle Phil, you have truly healed my childhood. I am blessed daily by your presence.

I know that my mother would not have recovered without Dr. D, Dr. K and the Licensed Vocational Nurse, Arlene. They all played a vital role in my Mother’s healing. I feel deep gratitude to all of them. To other family members, caring friends and teachers you know who you are. You have added great richness to my life. All my pets, past and present, have given me comfort when there was no one else to turn to. I appreciate all the wild flora and fauna which nurture my spirit.

Thank you and well wishes to each individual who is drawn to read this book.

Prefix

This book is about my mother’s search to regain her mental and emotional health and my account of that journey. My belief in the natural order of life served to lead her to a complete recovery after thirty five years of being diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic. At best, she lived with chronic mental insecurities. She would then face intermittent acute episodes, with severe depression, which led to multiple lengthy detainments in hospitals and institutions.

I am unable to write about this outside the context of my own life. My mother’s problems intertwined and greatly affected the first thirty years of my life and have contributed to shaping the person that I am today. I cannot over-emphasize the far-reaching and damaging effects on others beyond the affected individual from mental and emotional disorders.

The majority of my mother’s problems occurred during the early 1950’s through the late 1970’s, a time when mental illness carried a much greater stigma than it does today. It was something that no one talked about or dealt with outwardly. It was viewed as an invisible foreign entity. This was before biochemical imbalance was a part of conventional psychiatric terminology. When those in the lower economic class, like my mother, reached the point of being incapable of facing daily life, they were simply committed by loved ones and their physicians or voluntarily self-committed to a mental hospital. They received such therapies as psychotropic drugs, ECT (electro convulsive therapy), or lobotomies. They were removed from any semblance of home and society, put into a dark place, and virtually shut away. Very little psychotherapy was used. Most contact with the psychiatrist was for treating, monitoring and medical assessment only.

When the patients reached a point after years of treatment, and had exhausted all resources, they were coined hopelessly insane. They lived out their remaining years alone and isolated, swimming in their own crazy thoughts until they died in the institution. Most all of those, except the wealthy, ended up in state institutions referred to and justly named snake pits. Suicides, homicides, inadequate treatment, and miss-diagnosis continue, see (Appendix 3, Related Newspaper Articles). This demonstrates that the conditions have not improved over the years. Patton State Mental Hospital is now referred to as a forensic hospital. I wonder how many of these present patient (inmates) could have avoided ending up there had they approached their illness differently, before they progressed to the point that they had. Until State Psychiatric Institutions become models genuinely promoting mental health and well-being, this will continue to remain inhumane and unjust.

Today, the need for truth in psychiatric care seems to be even more relevant, due to the fragmentation of society. Social, economic, cultural inequalities, unemployment, underemployment, unfulfilling jobs, lack of purpose and military conflict have led to unrelenting stress. In addition the prevalence of poor nutrition and sedentary lifestyles in affluent nations are causing psychological imbalances to become epidemic. To keep people out of hospitals, the pharmaceutical industry’s multi-billion dollar answer is to manufacture a gamut of designer drugs i.e. Prozac, Paxil, Welbutrin, Zoloft, etc. These drugs are geared to numb these woes and control the problem. This may keep people out of hospitals but it does not solve the problem.

These drugs often have a multitude of unpleasant and unsettling side effects. This can lead to refusal of medication, socially unacceptable behaviors and, in extreme cases, suicide or homicide. At best these medicines should be used only to bring temporary relief while seeking out the underlying emotional/environmental causes. This would correct the imbalance, therefore strengthening and stabilizing the individual. Once balance has been restored through nutrition, psycho-therapy and life style corrections, inner security and personal achievement can be realized. The mastery of one’s thoughts become the key to a positive state of mind and general well-being. Linus Pauling, Abram Hoffer and others have been researching, clinically validating and speaking out about the merits and successes of orthomolecular psychiatry since the 1950’s. However, due to financial profit and Big Pharma’s penchant for the convenient fix, psychotropic medicine still remains the standard. An inquiring individual needs to reach out beyond the status quo for other safe, effective, and more permanent solutions.

Each individual’s needs are uniquely different; however there are basic tools used daily that work in harmony to promote mental health and well-being. This book is not for those seeking the quick, convenient fix, but instead for those who want to delve into the real causes behind their own, or a loved one’s mental and emotional insecurities and make it their top priority to attain and maintain sound mental health.

I believe that you can literally cripple yourself or heal and free yourself through your thoughts; that same creative energy is available to all of us. It’s the way you direct it that’s important. Mental illness is still the most misunderstood and mistreated of all illnesses. If only one person can benefit from this book then it will have been worth the effort.

Chapter 1

The Early Years

My mother, Elaine was born on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1916, in Cleveland, Ohio. She shared her birth with her fraternal twin sister, Eleanor. They were the youngest of seven children, with 20 years between them and their oldest sister. There were six girls and one boy in the family. Their parents, my maternal grandparents, were Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary and were processed through Ellis Island in the late 1800’s.

My grandmother was thirteen when she arrived in America. She spoke Yiddish and worked in the sweatshops of New York to survive. I don’t know how she met my grandfather, but I understand they were distant cousins. At some point, they married and moved to Cleveland. I know little about them, as my grandmother passed at a relatively young age from angina, which was untreatable at that time. I remember my grandfather when he came to visit us. I was about seven or eight. He appeared to be very old. I thought it odd that he was sitting at the kitchen table eating pickled chicken feet. He seemed like a gentle, kind man. Through my mother’s words, pictures I have of my grandmother and later interaction with my maternal aunts and uncle, l believe that my grandmother too, was a loving soul.

Grandpa had a mercantile, and even during the depression, the family didn’t suffer too much. They all lived together in a two or three-story tenement. For a while after my mother’s oldest sister married, she and her new husband also lived with them on the upper floor. This information is vague, as this is all bits and pieces of my own memory and all of my maternal aunts and uncle have passed.

The entire family coddled and doted upon the twins because they were the youngest. In those days they were dressed the same, had the same haircuts (boyish bobs) and placed in the same classroom. They both learned to play tennis, the cello, and grew to become inseparable. Even though they were fraternal twins, looking at their childhood pictures you could hardly tell them apart. As far back as I can remember, I would constantly mistake them on the phone. They had the same voice and mannerisms.

The twins grew into young adult women, finished high school and continued with business school. At the age of twenty-three, my aunt married my uncle her dependable companion for the next sixty-plus years. A few years later they started their family of seven children, my cousins; six boys, the last one a girl. Two of the boys were a set of fraternal twins.

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As young girls in the 1920’s, my mother Elaine on the right and her twin sister, Eleanor, on the left with their older sister’s Scottish terriers. The picture illustrates their likeness in appearance, dress and haircuts.

image02.jpg

My mother, Elaine, in her early 20’s

Shortly thereafter, my mother who felt she had lost her other half, married