What causes mental illness?

[Rescued One]

I couldn't figure out where to post this question, so here it is.

 

[Carl Emerson]

There are a variety of causes - some chemical, some spiritual, some from trauma and abuse, some from a combination of some or all of these.

 

[Rescued One]

Thank you. I feel better because of your answer. A non-Christian told me that people have no excuse for mistreating others and then he walked away. I think we need to understand that some people's actions are the result of various life circumstances.

 

[NomNomPizza]

I couldn't figure out where to post this question, so here it is.

When your soul can't connect to somewhat damaged brain and operate it properly

 

[Bob Crowley]

Taking Schizophrenia as just one issue, the Mayo Clinic had this to say about the causes.

Schizophrenia - Symptoms and causes

Causes
It's not known what causes schizophrenia, but researchers believe that a combination of genetics, brain chemistry and environment contributes to development of the disorder.

Problems with certain naturally occurring brain chemicals, including neurotransmitters called dopamine and glutamate, may contribute to schizophrenia. Neuroimaging studies show differences in the brain structure and central nervous system of people with schizophrenia. While researchers aren't certain about the significance of these changes, they indicate that schizophrenia is a brain disease.

 

[Landon Caeli]

I couldn't figure out where to post this question, so here it is.

I think the entire human race has various levels of one mental illness or another... I think there's no perfect person.

...So I guess the cause would be that it's a natural condition for everyone in varying degrees.

 

[Rescued One]

I think the entire human race has various levels of one mental illness or another... I think there's no perfect person.

...So I guess the cause would be that it's a natural condition for everyone in varying degrees.

I think it depends on issues listed by Carl Emerson.

Ephesians 4:32

 

[Sophrosyne]

Bad choices

 

[bèlla]

Thank you. I feel better because of your answer. A non-Christian told me that people have no excuse for mistreating others and then he walked away. I think we need to understand that some people's actions are the result of various life circumstances.

Painful experiences don't excuse bad behavior or its consequences. It provides insight on some contributing factors. But personal accountability still exists.

For example, understanding the reason someone's abusive doesn't alleviate the harm they've caused. We have to be careful that we don't minimize the impact of their actions in our attempt to understand and empathize.

~bella

 

[Heavenhome]

There are a variety of causes - some chemical, some spiritual, some from trauma and abuse, some from a combination of some or all of these.

Well said Carl, I agree.

 

[Love Others]

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[Joyous Song]

An imbalance in mind, body and spirit. All three components must be treated simultaneously.

MIND:

Trauma, unresolved emotional issues, thought patterns, cognitive distortions, abuse, harmful beliefs (that we are worthless, not good enough, about God), etc.

BODY:

Food intolerances (e.g. gluten intolerance can cause inflammation in the brain, neuroinflammation, leading to mental health problems), hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) caused by refined foods and irregular eating patterns, harmful additives (artificial colourants (e.g. tartrazine), preservatives, flavour enhancers (e.g. MSG), artificial sweeteners (e.g. aspartame), sugar, caffeine, chocolate (due to spikes in neurotransmitters, leading highs and lows) and substances (alcohol, drugs, nicotine). The body needs a natural whole food diet, created by God (except for the foods we are intolerant to). Lack of nutrition, exercise, water, sunshine (not sunburn), temperance, fresh air, and rest.

SPIRIT:

Being disconnected from God, either through false beliefs or because of unconfessed sins. We need to be connected to God to have a heathy mind.

That you, I started falling toward psychotic episodes, and praying was led to the grain free diet. On that diet those symptoms disappeared. My doctor wanted to understand why so I returned to a normal diet then had a series of blood tests. Conclusion was: I was gluten intolerant, and allergic to walnuts and peanuts. These damaged my causing my illness. Now I stay away from what made me sick, I still on recovery but metal issues are gone.

 

[Love Others]

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[Joyous Song]

That was my experience as well. I only found out many years after being very sick that gluten was causing inflammation in my brain, causing the episodes. I am now on a strict gluten free diet and I am doing much better. I haven't had one episode. It is amazing. I also have stopped using nuts. I got reactions from that too. I use sunflower seed butter now instead of peanut butter and where almond flour is needed in a recipe, I use ground sunflower seeds.

Love Others said: That was my expedience as well. I only found out many years after being very sick that gluten was causing inflammation in my brain, causing episodes. I now on a strict gluten free diet and I am doing much better. I haven’t had one episode. Its amazing. I also have stopped using nuts. I got reactions from that too, I use sunflower seeds butter now instead of peanut butter and where almond flour is needed in a recipe, I use ground sunflower seeds.


JS: Just curious, how old were you when you got tested? And when is the first time you remember feeling sick? I was in my late fifties when I got tested and remember being a toddler with IBS so I had this near to the time I started eating whole foods.

Gluten intolerance has risen along side the growing levels of gluten in wheat. Wheat went from 2 - 3 % gluten in its bond a hundred years ago, to over 50% today. So people who could go normally could have tolerated gluten, no longer can and the number suffering has blossomed. Gluten sensitivity is another modern condition brought on by the rising levels of bonded gluten in wheat.

Some doctors suspect gluten sensitivity may have always existed before but was never diagnosed because it usually happened to the elderly who would die long before they crossed over to Gluten intolerance.

My family’s history of old members going insane going back as far as the English Tutor monarchy certainly suggests as much (at one or two per generation in extreme old age).I have to wonder how many elderly schizophrenics long ago had adult onset gluten in intolerance and no one knew.

Yet as gluten increased in wheat products all this changed and now gluten sensitivity leads to intolerance is showing up earlier and earlier in people. Well sort of, there are still detractors who claim those of us in our forties and fifties that test positive always were intolerant and gluten sensitivity does not exist.

This is the best thing that happen to me because of what fallowed. Their are a number of grains out there full of nutrition we just don’t eat. I now do and I’m creating recipes to use these. When I ate gluten I ate only wheat products with some oats for breakfast and barley once in a while in soup.

Now I consume millet in brownies, cassava in tortillas, sorghum in my pizza, and in bagels, flax seed in crackers, sourdough rice flour calzones; the list goes on. Each of these flours are packed full of nutrition. I’m designing a cassava/flax meal cereal right now, because a blast of vitamin c is good in the morning. Its still in its early stages but I now know I can make this with a little more tweaking.

Still, to lose all nuts would be horrid, I was lucky to find I only had problems with two. I also noticed that sometimes other nuts gave me trouble. I checked the package (because the blood test only showed walnuts and peanuts) and found every bag my husband picked up of nuts, even organic, had risk of contamination from other nuts (and sometimes wheat)!

So now I buy only whole nuts and grind my own flours. The flours are not as good as the store bought ones, I use a blender, but I feel much better. Also, as a result I tend to use those other flours more often because I can get gluten free grains and root flours without contamination risks and by not having to grind them myself.

I found the same problem of wheat contamination or nut contamination risks in some seed mixtures as well (sunflowers are the worse). They are so careful keeping out peanuts they ignore those with other nut allergies and grain intolerance. Still walnut allergy is rare likely but there is no excise for Wheat!

 

[Love Others]

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[Joyous Song]

I was tested two years ago (I am 41 now). It took a while to figure out what I could eat and to be able to go completely gluten free. But I have managed eventually and I'm still coming up with new recipes. I also include all those grains that you mentioned, such as millet, sorghum, gluten free oats, amarynth, quinoa, etc.

My health problems started when I was 9, and I was a poor eater as a child. I felt nauseous after eating. I was always very cold inside, and I only understand now that I was cold because of the inflammation. I had those chills that you get when you have a fever, constantly. I also had IBS. My stomach always hurt. My hair started falling out when I got older because of the gluten. My heart beats really fast if I eat gluten (same with nuts), that's how I can tell if I accidentally ingested gluten. It starts an hour after I have eaten it and carries on beating like mad for an hour. I can feel my body is not entirely healed yet, but my mind is like it has never been. I feel clear minded, and my moods are stable. I just struggle a bit with my gym because my muscles are not that strong yet. But I'm getting there.

Oh, I almost forgot, I think you will find this article interesting:

Is Gluten Killing Your Brain? | Kresser Institute

Love Others said: My health problems started when I was 9, and I was a poor eater as a child. I felt nauseous after eating. I was always very cold inside, and I only know now I was cold because of inflammation. I had those chills that you get when you have a fear, constantly. I also had IBS. My stomach always hurt. My hair started falling out when I got older because of gluten. It did a lot of damage to my body.

I can feel my body is not entirely healed yet, but my mind is like it has never been. I feel clearer minded, and my moods are stable. I just struggle a bit with my gym because my muscles are not as strong yet. But I’m getting there.

JS: I glad your improving, so am I. Our experiences are both similar and different. I wondered over this. After talking with my husband I suspect this is because we handled our early symptoms differently. To explain, I do not know a time when I wasn’t nauseous and suffering bowel and stomach problems before my mid thirties brought a change.

I always woke nauseous. Eating always seemed to make it better but two hours later I get sick to my stomach again. So I grazed throughout the day and sometimes didn’t eat at all. As a result I was always thin at least till my mid to late thirties. I learned about Celeriac Sprue (those born with gluten intolerance) for the first time in the mid thirties.

I had every symptom but diarrhea. Still when I asked my mom she confirmed I once had sever diarrhea, but with fiber in my diet it improved. What really happen is that by my mid teens my bowel was rocks and hard to pass and slowed to a trickle (once a week would be fast). I also do not remember my childhood and teen years much as I walked through them in a fog (thought it was seasonal allergies).

The only doctors I saw about this condition between five and twenty were two. At five I was told my parents who had explained my symptoms exactly (which were classic Celeriac Sprue). He failed to see this and accused my parents of neglect; needless to say that was the last time they took me to any doctor.

Years later my sister told me her doctor was excellent. By now my bowel did not match, but other symptoms did. He tried to prescribe Valium. I left him and did not see a doctor till my late twenties when I was struggling to carry children.

Fast forward to my mid to late thirties I had a GI test for gluten intolerance that came back “negative” but the doctor was incompetent which my new GI Doctor was able to prove. That was just last year (I was fifty eight) when he put me back on gluten and followed up with a blood test, and the rest is history.

Still after that bad doctors botched examine I went off gluten for years at a time only to test it again, get sick (nauseous in the morning) and IBS in steroids , and return to gluten free. So my system has had far less gluten even though I was older than you when it was finally diagnosed. I also believe clearing away the dross so to speak in that grain free diet helped heal my system more quickly.

Still like you, I will never heal perfectly my doctor warned me,my brain issues are a sign of leaky gut; thirty plus years of gluten still took its tole. Like you, it took me about six months before I saw real changes from exercise, yet once these started I’ve improved significantly. And like you my mind cleared, it wasn’t allergies! I been so long without nausea I almost forget what it like to wake hungry and at first I did gain too much weight (I didn’t gain any with pregnancy and gluten in my diet).

The classic symptom of gluten intolerance is a failure to thrive. It should not take till we start loosing our minds for doctors to order up blood tests. The system is broken, clearly.Lastly, thank you for that article, I copied it out and will have to read it later.

 

[Love Others]

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[Joyous Song]

Dear Joyous Song

Your story sounds a lot like mine. I went from one doctor to another, to another, and all they could give me was antidepressants or mood stabilizers and something for IBS. I wish I could have known about intolerances sooner. My life would have been different had I known. I lost out on a lot in life. But, the good news is, we can help others now with what we have learnt. If that is what I had to suffer for, then it was worth it. I'm glad that you are better now. That article I sent you was the last puzzle piece I needed to finally understand exactly what was wrong with me. It was that aha moment that I was looking for, for so long.

JS: agreed. I find every problem, weakness and sickness as well as my disabilities, are also blessings because I can help others also struggling. Besides from that positive test forward, we both are getting healthy again. Maybe we lost something, but we also gained.

 

[Love Others]

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[Rescued One]

God converts people and He judges. I do neither. Many people have never owned a Bible, or never read one.

1 Corinthians 3
5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? 6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. 7 So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.

I don't think my grandparents owned one. My husband gave my elderly mother one. She said that she put it in another room and sometimes rubbed her hand across it.