By Karen Welch

Kathy Lynch is currently the New York State Office of Mental Health recipient affair’s specialist for the Western region. She has been a local leader in the peer movement and in the past, a psychiatric registered nurse. For many years, Kathy tried the traditional medications and therapies to recover from bipolar illness and trauma issues. She began to use alternative therapies in consultation with her therapists. Kathy sat down with Mental Health World to discuss her experiences in the use of alternative therapies to treat her own mental illness.

"Back when I started, medications were much more trial and error. I was considered a rapid recycler so I did not do well on medications. The doctors also thought my disassociation was caused by epilepsy so I was put on a lot of anti-convulsants.

Self-Help

"When I was in graduate school, I became very involved in self-help, and I began to explore alternative therapies. I was working with a trans-personal therapist and this person noted how much I lived in my head. I knew that I could be in therapy for 50 years and I could talk about things, but that I could not talk about my feelings. I would still have a lot of emotions that I would not be able to process and let go of. A lot of these emotions would either build in my body or come out in the mania or depression. I couldn’t control it, not recognizing a lot of the connections in my life that maybe I was avoiding. However, once I felt the connection to my emotions and my body, I started to process them.

"I also began to see a strong correlation between the trauma I had suffered and my mental illness. Several of us began trauma support groups. This began to end the isolation. We began to share our stories, our lives. This began the healing process for me.

"I used disassociation quite a bit as a coping mechanism. It was very easy for me to be in my head all the time, or to read a lot. Since the trauma was done to my body, I felt very comfortable in my head but not in my body. It was not until I made this connection to my trauma that I would be able to get on with my life.

"I finally found a very good therapist that I began to explore trauma issues with. I did a lot of wonderful work with this person. The trans-personal therapist I worked with embraced a lot of the alternative modalities. I had always toyed with these but I was also afraid since a lot of alterative therapies involve your body. I was so armored physically. Since I was so strongly supported by this therapist, I was able to start using alternative therapies such as massage therapy. I then also worked with this therapist to get reacquainted with bodily sensations. I began to get used to feeling fear again in my body. I was terrified of all of these emotions because as a child they were not permitted in my family. This is why disassociation and detachment from my body was so easy for me.

"Around this time, I also consulted with the folks at McClean Hospital and the National Institute of Mental Health. I also did a lot of my own research. I consulted with these folks and explained my mood disorders, my trauma background and the things that I was doing to confirm that I was on the right path. I also worked closely with my therapist and was seeing her on an increased basis as I was decreasing my medications.

"I was going to the self-help groups and I had a very close connection with my peers as I began exploring alternative therapies. They were able to point out triggers and behaviors that I was not yet aware of. My peers helped me recognize things about myself when I did not yet have full awareness. I was able to recognize triggers.

"I began doing massage therapy with a therapist who was very sensitive to the issues around trauma. Sometimes some of these issues would come up during the massage especially when she was working on areas of my body that had suffered the abuse. This massage therapist was a person that I really trusted tremendously. She viewed the body as a sacred space. Her office is also a healing space. When you walk into her office, you can feel this. It was a wonderful experience when I began to get in touch with the feelings in my body, I could talk this out with my therapist later. There were times when my massage therapist was willing to have my therapist come in when she was working on me to help me if emotions came up. Other times when things came up, I was able to detach. This is where disassociation can be helpful and healthy since you are able to compartmentalize feelings and memories and deal with it later.

"For everyone this is different, but for some folks, you must be in a stage of recovery where you can recognize that this connection to the body is very important. For me, I needed to become aware of these sensations, be able to process them and then be able to let go. I experienced several different kinds of massage including the Swedish massage, myofacial and the Healing Stones. The Healing Stones were a wonderfully warm sensation. Massage was a wonderful experience for someone like me who had initially experienced human touch as an invasive and violating experience. This was a way for me to experience touch as healing and comforting. This was a breakthrough for me.

"I also practiced a lot of yoga and meditation. Meditation is very helpful. I was able to practice meditation every day even during those times when I was not feeling centered. It became part of my everyday routine like brushing my teeth. I found it was a way of letting go of some of the negative thoughts and feelings that I would sometimes get stuck in and would then play out. For example, I would sometimes think, ‘I don’t need to sleep, or I don’t need to eat. I’m not like most people.’ I would then have this wonderful surge of energy when these things happened. I would have a heightened state of arousal. Meditation allowed me to become internally aware of this thought process and to be in tune with the shifts of energy in my body. I could then adjust my thoughts and energy level so that I remained centered.

"In my current job, I am often on the go which leads to much stimulation. If I find that sense of arousal in myself, I know that I need to go to a quiet place and center myself. I will then do some meditation, take a bath, and limit my stimulation. When the stimulation gets so vibrant and I am on the brink of mania, there are some things that I do. I practice linguistic programming techniques. When things become too bright, I can turn down the colors. Sounds can become very intense and I do things to turn down the volume. This allows me to tone down the arousal state. I must do it when I first begin to go into this state.

"I must practice these techniques every day when I am not aroused. I used to practice changing colors to black and white because it just dims that stimuli. When I used to get on the brink of mania, where it seemed I needed to be hospitalized, everything seemed brighter, sounds were so much louder. I would react to this stimuli around me plus I would react to the energy level and want to do everything. I would stop sleeping, my judgement would get impaired, and then would cross over into paranoia.

"I also got involved in some really basic stuff to help my mental state. I began to exercise, especially walking. I practiced tai chi. Yoga has also been very helpful. I notice that when I begin to feel depressed, there is a restriction in my body and mind. I am able to open up with the tai chi and yoga. My body opens up and I become more flexible, I find that my mind also expands and I am more flexible. In this way, I do not retreat as much when I am depressed. Whenever I start teetering toward depression, I tend to retreat. For me, if I can keep myself active with exercise, I tend to withdraw less ans seek social support.

"The flexibility that I get from practicing yoga allows me to be less hyper-focused on things or the problems at hand. This type of focus got me into trouble before in terms of my mood disorder. I am much more emotionally available now. I laugh more, I can enjoy more, I can express myself more readily. Before all of this activity, I was much more focused in my head, and now I respond to things in a much more fluid way. It was also incredible how the exercise of walking would mobilize my energy when I was depressed. It just generated an energy from within.Ayurveda

"I also use ayurveda. I discovered this through the Himalayan Institute. (Ayurveda is the ancient Indian medical science of health and longevity.) I find it helpful for me. The emphasis on the different energies, pita, vata, and kapha energy allows me to focus on my energy levels and determine what I need to do for myself. I often feel my pita energy rising when I take on leadership roles, do a lot of trainings and continue to be constantly on the go. This energy just builds until I feel it physiologically. It affects my body tremendously at times. I have difficulty sleeping at night, my mind keeps racing and I have difficulty shutting it off. Using the principles and methods of ayurveda helps to keep me balanced.

"The ayurvedic method has me using a lot of different herbs. I caution people that when I began these practices, I was very involved in the self-help movement, attending almost a meeting a day. I always tell people that if you are in therapy or treatment, always discuss the use of herbs with your physician or practitioner. Never just go to a holistic store or a health food store and start taking herbs. Herbs can often interact with traditional medications. You really need to know what you are doing with herbs. If your physician is not knowledgeable about herbs, find someone who is. Do not just blindly stop using traditional medications. It is a great concern to me when people begin putting things in their body and they are not knowledgeable about it.

"I have also gone to a holistic practitioner in Niagara Falls. This person incorporated ayurveda and Chinese medicine for me. I picked this up when I took some course work at the Himalayan Institute where they combined ayurveda with the yoga. I found that if I was really in tune with my body, and if I made the appropriate changes in my diet, that it helped me get centered and restored balance in my life.

"The concept of maintaining balance has been very helpful to me. It is really useful to folks to become aware of this. If some parts of me were out of balance mentally, then I was affected physically. For example, overstimulation led to problems with my gastrointestinal tract.

"Diet is another thing people should be aware of. Nutrition impacts mood. People should be aware of what they are putting in their bodies. I have worked hard to modify my diet. This was a major life transition for me. Certainly when I was living on coffee and sugar, I had a tendency to be very revved up. Today, I feel much more balanced, when I moderate my diet and incorporate more fruits and vegetables in my diet. I still love coffee but I limit the amount of coffee that I drink. I notice that I felt much better as I began to eat more healthily. I am not so reactive to events around me.

"I also use the practice of aromatherapy successfully. When I feel stressed, I use a couple of drops of eucalyptus oil. If I am feeling down, I use a little bit of bergamot or I use lavender to sleep or lemon to calm me down. The area of the brain that deals with the sense of smell is very primitive. There is something almost immediately triggered when you smell. The use of scent has a direct impact on my mood. I am able to go to a pleasant place when I use certain smells. This helps me relax and re-energize. I use these oils predominantly in my bath.

"As a kid, I was just so serious. Rediscovering the use of play has also helped me recover. I use puppets quite a bit to express myself and play. I do a lot of teaching on the use of puppets for those who have been affected by trauma. This has enabled me to express myself and rediscover the joy in playing. It has helped me stay in touch with my sense of humor. I also try to infuse my life with humor and end my day on a laugh. I watch Jay Leno’s monologue or read humor books or watch funny videos.

"These are things that are not emphasized in the traditional medical model of therapy. I hope the medical system begins to embrace some of these therapies since they can be extremely helpful. Creating a mind-body-spirit connection and maintaining balance is very important for recovery. When you only focus on the mind as if it is disconnected from our bodies, you do not really treat people effectively.

"When I talk to folks about the alternative therapies, many say that it is just too difficult, that they would rather just take a pill. That is a choice. I was sometimes exhausted by working on my recovery with alternative therapies. There was a lot of trial and error. However, I wanted to choose for myself. There was a time when I was on so many meds that I did not even recognize this stuff. I could not feel subtle changes to my body when I was on 11 medications.

"Everyone is different. Many folks need the medication to go forward in their lives. I wanted to try this path and for me it has worked. I have been off most medications for about 10 years. Since I was in a serious Amtrak accident in February 2001, I have been using a prescription to sleep sometimes. A major trauma can temporarily activate trauma from your past. After the accident, my body felt every trauma that it had ever experienced. I used EMDR and also increased counseling.

"The gift I gave to my mother before she died was seeing me well and standing on my own two feet. She knew how hard I worked on my recovery by exploring different paths in order to tap into what would be useful to me. This is something that I encourage people to explore. Always discuss it with your treatment provider but do explore alternatives. I know that it has made a tremendous difference in my life."