Mental Illness

OCD is a hassle. I've been battling it for years. Logic is impaired, and sane stability seems impossible to grip. Ridiculously irrational worries leak into and flood the mind. To ease them, compulsions are created. My first manifested about three years ago. I would tap something with my left hand three times every time I worried of something. Like a punishment, in order to be granted tranquility one has to pay by counter-intuitively doing insanely irrational tics. These concession, in my experience, wreak more havoc on your mind. Complying with this faulty mechanism only tangles up the already screwed up wiring we have. So like those with phobias, I find that refusing to comply and confronting them is a huge step in combating this. I was surprised at the level of ease this brought. With me, this problem is also accompanied by social anxiety. These conditions make life dreadful and therefore get me down.(so, add depression in there). But I've found things that bring considerable improvements to these burdens.

The most important decision I've made in improving my mental health is diet. Eating a more natural diet has brought more sanity. The healthiest diets are those we are designed to eat. Dr. Weston A Price was a dentist who traveled the world trying to figure out why traditional cultures never got the horrible diseases of the west. In all of the many cases he found that these primitive cultures were free of debilitating modern diseases, and when modern western food became available, these diseases became common. He noted that there were changes in behaivior linked to diet shifts. My journey to an ancestral diet started with a strict paleo diet. I feel paleo is a great starting point because it eliminates all possible food intolerances for a month. Some foods can have influence the mind greatly. Foods like wheat and vegetable oil should be completely removed from the diet. Eventually you introduce the natural but iffy foods like dairy, white rice, starches, nuts. Introduce them one by one, in order to gauge what each does to you. For me, dairy, nuts, and white rice cause reactions.

My experiences with a strict paleo diet were interesting. I began it to control by social anxiety. Many times I began to feel panicky while in the subway. Instantly I felt improvement. My mood was much less roller-coaster like, more stable. I was also thinking much more clearly. But I concluded that it wasn't sustainable, at least for me. By the afternoon, I felt like I was ready to faint. A horrible sense of lack of energy. I was miserable. Furthermore there was this horrible sense of irritating monotony. Evidence that it wasn't sustainable, was me binging on gluten free cereals and pastries on the weekends after school. I'd come home, and eat almost a whole box of Fruity Pebbles. Even after being achingly full I'd continue to eat, trying to numb the misery. Fortunately I stumbled on Paul and Shou- Ching Jaminet's blog. Like me, they experienced pleasing results on this diet, but were far from great. Adding starches and more fat to their diet sealed the deal. Foods like sweet potatoes, taro, plantains, and yams instantly bettered my mood. With them I was able to obtain glucose without toxic elements like lectins and gluten. Furthermore I've gone even more ancestral by eliminating salt, which counters the Jaminet approach(Can't follow anyone like a god). Nutrition has played a pivotal role in grappling with my mental issues.

Now here's a list of things I've noticed results with. Things that produce what I call macrochanges lol(noticeble improvements)

-Increasing my carbohydrate intake- Made life much more colorful again. Gave me a great sense of optimism and improved my terrible brain fog.

-Saturated Fat- Increasing intake of them give me a great sense of euphoria. Saturated fat is nothing of how its made out to be. Countless studies have disproved the mainstream mantra of his causing heart disease. Many traditional culture ingest gallons of this stuff and are among the healthiest. Google the Maasai tribe or the French paradox(there are none in science lol). I'm currently eating a higher carb diet, so not taking in as much as I used to.

-Correctly treating hormonal problems. In my case its the thyroid. I feel better on bio-identical hormone replacement therapy(Armour Thyroid) than the synthetic variety. Everyone's different though, I've seen people who feel horrible on this.

-Exercise- Pushups & pullups make me feel great. Also walking lots like traditional peoples lessen my social anxiety.

Social life- I feel my best when I'm socializing. Unfortunately I still have ways to go in this department. But optimizing this brings great relief and stability.

-IIntellectual stimulation- reading for some reasons seems to improve my logic. Therefore good for ocd.

-Expressing yourself

-Patience- Sometimes all this crap seems impossible to surmount. But it gets better.

Ill definitely continue to write more about this. Hopefully I can help some who are on the same straits.