bi polar meditators

[befriend]

hi
i have bi polar and it seems everytime i get serious about practice, meaning consistent and for atleast an hour a day sometimes 3 my illness stops me in my tracks.
are there any other bi polar meditators that this happens to? do i keep meditating and try to get past it? didnt someone say there were western students who had schizophrenia or bi polar in thailand and they went crazy from too much meditation?

[whynotme]

Dear befriend

I don't think you should keep meditation with your current state, even you really want it and try very hard. I have an example, one person want to go from Thailand to India (just random positions) by walking, with many goods and devices on his backpack. This person will sooner get tired and cant get to his destination no matter what he is trying, because he bring too many things with him, something even useless. Like that, you try to meditate with many things on your mind, and no matter how hard you try, you will soon get tired and even going the wrong way.

In the above example, if the person is wise, he should look at his backpack, he should know what is worth what is not and throw away everything useless. By this way, with appropriate trying, he can get to his destination as he want. Similar, you should look at your mind, there are many thing will create obstacle for your meditation, you should throw them away before start your journey. This way, you will get it easier, otherwise, even you want it really much, trying really hard, but like a wet log, you can't have fire from them.

You can ask yourself these: why do you seek meditation? You think it can solve your problems? What problems you want to solve by seeking meditation? Are you sure meditation can solve it? Be honest and you may find something that help.

Meditation is for a healthy mind, no weak mind even with trying really hard can get there.

Regards

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Try to befriend your bipolar disorder — i.e. stop wishing for it to go away. Accept the negative emotions as they are.

[David N. Snyder]

Follow your doctor's advice and Rx and be sure to take medication as instructed. I wish you well. When it is not working out, are you off the medication or past the time when you are supposed to have taken it?

[marc108]

are you working with an experienced teacher? an experienced teacher may be able to offer you instruction so that you can keep up the intensity of your practice without having it effect your illness.

[befriend]

i always take my medication like clockwork i never stop taking it. i think im just going to do yoga and some healing meditations for now.

[Alobha]

hi
i have bi polar and it seems everytime i get serious about practice, meaning consistent and for atleast an hour a day sometimes 3 my illness stops me in my tracks.
are there any other bi polar meditators that this happens to? do i keep meditating and try to get past it?

At least Mindfulness based cognitive Therapy (MBCT) seems to be good, which is based on Kabat Zinns meditation program MBSR:
http://journals.lww.com/practicalpsychi ... lar.5.aspx
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... x/abstract

The spikes you experience are most likely not caused by meditation, but are bi-polar spikes. Of course you're best advised to speak to your doctor about it. There are therapeutic tools that can be used to assess whether you feel better or worse if you plan to stop meditating for some time. This would help you on your decision how to proceed if you compare the meditation-period with the no-meditation-period afterwards.

didnt someone say there were western students who had schizophrenia or bi polar in thailand and they went crazy from too much meditation?

The more likely reason is not "too much" meditation, but no medical treatment and/or therapy, not enough medication or not the right one. Basically, if people who suffer from schizophrenia don't get medication, the disorder is most likely to get worse and worse, even if they meditate.

[befriend]

thanks for the input everyone, praise buddha for making us so compassionate hes still here working through us:)

[rowyourboat]

Hi befriend

Being aware (mindful) of the mind and emotions can be helpful to keep track of their fluctuations but also to control the unhelpful ones as and when they arise (see the link to vitakkasantana sutta):

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

Walking meditation -just focusing on the sensations at the bottom of the feet- can help to calm an agitated mind. Metta meditation helps with anger. Foulness of the body meditation helps with craving for the body. Above all have faith (Saddha) that the practice of the dhamma will protect you. When you become skilled with mindfulness of the mind -citranupassana- you will become able to dissolve subtle depressive mind states, irritations, disinhibition etc before they get out of hand. Keep taking the medication. Charting the culprit mental states can be helpful, just so that you know that you are headed in the right direction. For information on other aspects of bipolar:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1851686991

With metta