Testimonials

I’m sure no one expects to get PND, but it hit me so unexpectedly because I’d had such a happy pregnancy and was so looking forward to my son being born. But, after a very scary birth and 4 weeks of sleep deprivation, I started on a downward spiral. I felt like I was in the film ‘Groundhog Day’, where every day is the same, and that the nightmare would never end. I felt totally trapped by the new life that motherhood brings. I wept for my lost life, missing all the freedoms that I had taken for granted. Every day felt as if I was walking in slow motion, every morning I cried and threw up, and barely ate. I lost the will to live.

I adored my son, but felt completely out of my depth looking after him, and wanted a way out. I walked out once, but my husband persuaded me back. I fantasised about getting into an accident that would put me in hospital, so I could get away. I thought about how to kill myself constantly. And, all the while, I drove myself even crazier as I saw how, seemingly, everyone else took motherhood in their stride and I was a total wreck.

The insomnia was unbearable, and the panic attacks made me feel terrified.

I was completely without hope, unable to see that this constant panic would ever end, though everyone tried to tell me it would. I felt hopeless and desperate. I didn’t think I’d make it.

My husband saw Lionel’s ad in the paper when my son was 6 months old, and insisted I go. I must admit, I was totally sceptical. I’m not a fan of any so called ‘alternative’ therapies, and a firm believer in science and traditional medicine as the cure for life’s ills. But my Dr had referred me to CBT (Therapy), and I’d hated it, and I didn’t want to take anti depressants as I was breast feeding. So I went along the first time, in my usual state of heightened panic, on the verge of nausea and in tears, thinking it wouldn’t help. I couldn’t believe that anything could make me better, I was so desperately unhappy it didn’t seem possible.

I liked Lionel instantly, and he gave me a realistic idea of how much we’d be able to do, and how long it would take. For the first time in months, I could at least see someone thought I could get out of this, and that he believed in me being able to get better. That in itself was a big step.

Don’t get me wrong, there is no instant cure, you can’t expect magic, but Lionel took me from a  suicidal, desperate wreck, who felt totally detached from the world, to someone who could feel hope, could sleep, and who could believe in a ‘cure’ in a matter of 8 weeks. I wasn’t better, but, for the first time ever, I felt hope that I could recover. Bit by bit, Lionel and I put the jigsaw back together – I’d been shattered and needed all the pieces put back together. I’d been a confident, clever, funny, sassy career woman, and he helped me see that I could incorporate my son into that life too. He helped me see a future where I would be happy. I began to totally believe that I would get better, that my life was not over, that I had everything to live for. I would never have believed it possible just a couple of months earlier.

All in all, it took about 5 months to make me ‘normal’ again. And now, I like to think, I’m a much better version of me. I know how to control the demons, and am a far happier, more confident, and nicer person than before.

It is no exaggeration to say that Lionel saved my life or, as he would say, taught me how to save myself.

I would not be here without him.

Please don’t suffer alone. Please don’t cry alone. Please don’t think you’re the only one – it’s so so common. Now, when I mention I had PND, so many women tell me similar tales.

Above all, please take a step to make yourself better. Good luck…. you can find hope again, I promise.

Samantha

A Client with Bi Polar Depression

Hypnotherapy comes to the Harrow support group.

Last Thursday (January 14^th) I invited the hypnotherapist, Lionel Sinclair, to come to talk to the Harrow MDF support group.  I have been working with Lionel since spring of last year and he has helped me to such an extent that I was very keen to let fellow ‘bipolars’ know more about his work and the kinds of benefits he can bring.

He began by distancing himself and his work from stage-hypnotism of the Paul McKenna type, explaining how hypnotherapy essentially works with the subconscious part of the mind, inducing a state of deep relaxation, in which the subconscious can be influenced in various ways.  Although the subconscious normally lies hidden underneath the conscious part of our brain, to which we have ready access, it actually accounts for the vast majority of our mind and determines much of our behaviour.  As well as controlling autonomic bodily functions, such as breathing and heartbeat, it is the seat of our habitual practices and emotions, permanent memories, and our spiritual and creative powers and beliefs.  As such its influence over every level of our well-being is limitless.

As long as a client is open and willing, a hypnotherapist can take them into a state of deep relaxation, in which he is able to work with the subconscious and initiate changes in patterns of behaviour.  The inter-related benefits of hypnotherapy are, in this way, two-fold, insofar as it helps a person reach a state of relaxation which is deeper and more regenerative than sleep itself, at the same time as giving them a means to alter aspects of their behaviour.  In practical terms, Lionel’s initial session/s with a client are usually devoted to inducing this deep relaxation and readying them for further work.  Once this ability to relax and access the subconscious is established, he will move on to deal with more specific aspects of behaviour.  For some, this can be problematic habits, such as smoking or diet.  For others, it is a quest to find ways of coping with long-term or ongoing problems and conditions, and it is here that hypnotherapy is probably most pertinent to the bipolar sufferer.

Lionel explained how, over the years, he has come to work with a number of bipolar clients and how dealing with this condition has almost become a area of specialism for him.  As his understanding of bipolarity has deepened, he has developed his own ideas and something of a system for treating the problems specific to the bipolar individual.  He talked about some of the similarities and differences between working with bipolarity and unipolar depression, and how hard it is for those who have not themselves experienced mental illness to come to a true understanding of what it involves.  In Lionel’s own case, it was the extent to which hypnotherapy helped him recover from a very severe episode of depression which inspired him to change direction and become a hypnotherapist himself.  I have certainly found, in working with him, that his own past experience of mental illness has given him a degree of insight which is rarely found.

One thing which Lionel was particularly keen to make clear is that hypnotherapy is very much a ‘complementary’ treatment, a way of helping bipolar sufferers manage the symptoms of their condition which works in conjunction with, and not by replacing, conventional medicine and psychiatric treatment.  It is, rather, a way in which people can learn to deal more effectively with the symptoms and concomitant problems caused by the illness and can, hopefully, become another strategy for ‘self-management’, with which one can maintain better mental health and reduce the risk of major episodes.  There is no claim that it will, in some way, ‘cure’ the condition or eradicate the need for medication.

In Lionel’s experience, many people come to hypnotherapy as a ‘last resort’, having tried almost every other type of ‘therapy’ on offer, and are amazed by its effectiveness and how it finally helps them with problems which they had come to believe were insoluble.  He pointed out its advantages over, for example, many sorts of traditional ‘talking-therapies’.  While these allow someone to gain a degree of conscious understanding of their problems, unlike hypnotherapy, they have no means of facilitating change over emotions and behaviours which are essentially lodged in the subconscious.  This certainly reflects my own experience.  When a doctor friend of my parents suggested that I go to see Lionel, I was recovering from one of a sequence of major episodes I have gone through in the past few years.  These episodes and their treatments had left me physically and mentally exhausted, depressed, and deeply sceptical, having tried so many ‘alternative’ therapies, with so little success.  I agreed to give it a try and turned up with little or no expectations that hypnotherapy would actually manage to alleviate any of my symptoms.  By the end of the first session I was hooked.  For the first time in years, without the use of tranquilisers or alcohol, my mind had stopped racing.  He had induced a state of deep calm which I had come to believe was no longer possible and, although this was temporary, the enormous benefits of having been able to reach such a state were immediately recognisable.  Nor was this restricted to our sessions together.  Lionel provides all his clients with a recording of each session, so that they are able to progress with his work whenever they wish.

Once Lionel had answered a number of questions raised by members of the group, he asked whether he could do a brief relaxation session for everyone, to bring things to a close.  Even with my deep faith in hypnotherapy, I was concerned as to how well this would work in a room crowded with relatively stimulated people.  Fifteen minutes later I came to, feeling deeply relaxed, and it seemed, from the absolute silence and stillness in the room, that this had been a fairly common experience.  To reduce twenty or so bipolar people to a state of calm in the space of minutes must surely be an achievement which speaks for itself!

Where then does hypnotherapy fit in with bipolarity?  At the present time, bipolar sufferers are coming more and more to recognise that ‘alternative’ strategies for self-management can help in keeping the condition under control and improving the quality and stability of their lives.  Over time hypnotherapy might become one such valuable tool for increasing numbers of people and its benefits may even come to be more widely recognised amongst the psychiatric establishment.

From my own point of view it would be almost impossible to encapsulate the extent to which my life has been helped or even transformed by hypnotherapy.  These are sentiments which are shared by a number of those, bipolar and otherwise, who have, on my recommendation, visited Lionel; and it is not just the clients, but also those around them, who recognise the beneficial changes.  Most notably, in my case, it has helped to relieve me of a racing mind and a detachment which have, over the past few years, dominated my mental state.  Although my condition is not eradicated and I still experience episodes when extreme medical intervention is necessary, hypnotherapy has allowed my emotions to resurface, so that I am truly present within my own life, finding peace, the genuine resurgence of my personality, and a deep connection with those around me which, following a decline in my mental health four and a half years ago, I had come to believe I would never recapture.

Tania