Some basic things I did to return to mental health

This is the second part of how I dealt with mental illness. It took time and effort and it was well worth it. Experiencing depression and anxiety is awful and to find relief and health is pretty impressive. In walking with the fat man, one of the things I try to do is share some of the things that I've done to improve my health. And when it comes to mental illness I think it's important for me to be strong on the subject. Mental illness in my opinion has taking on the added burden of moral quality which I think can interfere with the progress of it. 
It is true that the way we think, and behave, and socially interact with each other comes down to our spiritual and our mental health. Even now we get along with others plays into this subject. But I think there are things like our personality, and a behavior, and even our thinking which is not affected by some form of disability or dysfunction of the brain. A healthy person can choose to be a jerk. A healthy person can choose to miss behave.
But like many things in our body it is quite possible that things go wrong. Sometimes things like depression can come on because of aging, I read a recent article where it' reported that 25% of people who are 63 suffer from chronic depression. In my opinion it's unreasonable to think that in the same way our body breaks down whether it's our bones, muscles, nervous system, organs, and certainly our brain has issues as we move along in life. One of our reactions to this kind of problem is hiding our condition and keeps things secret. People may do this when they come across various heart complaints for example. Rather than deal with that by going to a doctor; they fearfully will ignore it and sometimes suffer tragic consequences.  So rather than hide from it or ignore it, I chose to get help and deal with it as best I can.
First, it wasn’t just my evaluation that I needed help, but my family also took note of my problem and

let me know their input. Secondly, it was agreed that I would seek the best help possible. I knew from my looking around that I wanted to go to a hospital outside my area which had a good reputation for helping people. I knew that they would aggressively apply their knowledge to my situation and I wouldn’t just be sitting around resting. I wanted to do something about my insomnia, and long-term depressive state that I was in, and I also wanted to relook at anger issues and things like that.

Third, while I was in the hospital I kept the big picture in mind and I didn't bother myself with all the little quirky things that people do in the hospital. My roommate was an older gentleman who was struggling with dementia. He had this thing to steal everything and put it in his closet, particularly he focused on diet Pepsi cups that they use in the drinks. He would steal things of mine but I had the inside track. When he left the room and on his treasure hunt I would just go in the closet and got my stuff and put it back into my area. I dressed simply and just had a few things so it was easy to keep track of. In return this kind old gentleman did me a favor by going to bed every night at 9 o'clock at night and he would sleep until nine in the morning. This allowed me a quiet room at night where I could read and begin to deal with the sleep medicine that I needed to do. They asked if I would like to move to another room, but I said “No, I got this I'm okay.” Along with flexibility my devotions were simple and God was with me through it all. I knew I was dealing with a illness and not sin.
Fourth, I focused on what I had to do and I learn from others. After a couple days the doctors felt that I would benefit from a day program. The day program was perfect. I was being monitored as to my medicines, and I was learning and dealing with things, and I could practice them at home where I had the support of my family to help me. In particular not believing the lies of depression and learning ways to distract from anxiety to disarm anxieties grip on me.
Since medicine was a part of my treatment one thing that really helped was to drink plenty of water. I was able to continually process the medicine and at no time did I feel strange or tired with it. But I was able to sleep for the first time in several years and I continued to make progress dealing with depression and anxiety.
Two years later I went back into the day program where my medicine was readjusted and I was able to look at particularly post-traumatic stress. Overall I have dealt with depression pretty good, and I really overcome anxiety. I continue to learn about chemical imbalances, post-traumatic stress, and anxiety.  I practice many things I have learned in therapy and in my research. It takes a combination of working on your therapy and medicine to be successful with something that's really is a mental illness problem.
Three things I know I do not want to define my life as I move on is one, I do not want to live in depression and two, I want to be able to sleep on normally and third thing, I want to make sure post-traumatic stress doesn't define my behavior. I see a psychiatrist every three months, and that may change down the road one way or another.
Are my problems in remission? Or have I been healed? I would say a little of both. But I do feel that I have become healthier. One I think medication is helped. I also think that group therapy was very insightful. I learned a lot from other people going through similar struggles and how they were dealing with it or not dealing with it. Having therapy and reading new material I found very helpful. I was trained years ago in psychology and it was kind of fun to update myself on stuff going on today.
Don't you find that kind of fascinating yourself as you deal with your health problems? A friend of mine recently had cataract surgery; think about how cataract surgery was done 50 years ago. We are really come along way. In mental health I think there's been a lot of progress. If there is one thing I could take away from the process it would be for anyone not to be ashamed, or guilty over having a problem. The true numbers of health are out there and there are a lot of people in the same boat.
It took seven weeks of some type of outpatient care. It took professional help from several doctors who treated me. There were many hours of therapy that I was involved with. But if you think about any possible disease that can take your life there are similar investments of time and energy in overcoming those problems.
And so the fat man walks in finding something worthwhile to keep going and maybe encouraging other people. Keep walking