I had a relatively mild clinical case in the past, yes. Conventional treatments worked quite well, which is part of why it makes me uncomfortable when people knock them. The other part is because I get concerned about people not getting the help they need because of misplaced ideas about mental illness or mental health professionals. I watched a friend wallow in his own self-misery for years because of that sort of thing. On one level it was painful to watch, and on the other level I ended up acting as his counselor, which was a very difficult thing to do. But when your friend flat out refuses to see a professional, what can you do? Just say "screw you and die already?" Yeah right.
Is conventional treatment the
only way? No. Is it a darned good idea to start off with it? Absolutely. Thinking you know more than the professionals is just dumb. But I've got family in the medical field, so you could say I was raised with a respect for wellness professions, physical and mental. I also have an acute awareness of the level of care these professionals truly have for their clients and how demanding that is on the practitioners. There's this odd balance they have to hit between professionalism, emotional investment, and detachment. I don't know how they manage, because I don't think that I could. When I ended up as an unprofessional counselor for my friend, the ramifications in terms of responsibility alone were crushing. What I said or didn't say could mean life or death. That was... very uncomfortable.
It is true, though, that one's own mind can be a great asset in dealing with mental illnesses of all sorts. The problem is that sometimes we are not really aware of our own mental dialogue, so we can't see the problem. That is where it helps to have a counselor who can note patterns in your way of thinking and suggest alternatives. I would say practices like meditation would be more helpful in this regard than any particular religious path. Certain forms of meditation have the deliberate goal of making us aware of our thought processes, as well as learning how to reign them in. Just one of the many reasons I feel meditation should be taught in basic health and wellness for high school kids.
