It is incomprehensible that most doctors never were interested in studying nutrition. It is the key to good health for the body and mind. They are not separate and both the body and mind need the right nutrition. As someone who has studied nutrition for a lifetime...91 years. I have experienced the result of starving the mind of the nutrients it needs...mental illness. The answer to mental illness in the past was locking up people in insane asylums. Doctors did not know anything about the causes of mental illness. The mind needs to be fed..and most people are not getting the nutrients the mind needs in our society today. The wrong food wipes out nutrients and can cause mood swings, such as, sugar. My father was a 'sugar-holic' and had a very bad temper. I didn't understand it as a child, but I learned, after I got into the study of nutrition in 1961. The first thing I did was eliminate sugar, white flour, and all additives, preservatives and chemicals in the foods my family consumed. My son who had been very hyperactive and had been put on tranquilizers... settled down and went on to graduate high school as an honor roll student. Doctors dispense drugs...when drugs destroy the human brain, lower intelligence, destroy memory, ambition and drive. Tranquilizers stunt the growing organs of children...and doctors don't seem to know this information. My son was given tranquilizers at four years of age, after the doctor created his hyperactivity with the sugar-laden diet he told me to feed the child. I followed the doctor's advice, because I was totally ignorant about nutrition. When i started reading nutrition and health books in 1961...because of this sick child...it became a lifelong search for the truth. My newsletter: Journey to Wellness. barbaracharis.substack.com
I have had many challenges in my own life, too. For my first 29 years, I was nutrient-deprived. Born during the Great Depression, no food for years. Then, when there was food, it was the worst processed food. My mother knew nothing about nutrition.. A very stressful incident occurred in 1963... and I wound up in a very strange mental hospital....and once you have been in a mental hospital...you are considered a mental patient forever, as far as the system goes. I had no psychological problems before this occurred. I had lots of friends and got along well with everybody. My husband was the mental case who liked having a sick wife. I learned a great deal from the experiences I had...and when my book was published in 1995, one of my 8 chapters was entitled Mental or Malnourished.
In 1973, I gave up cigarettes, coffee, plus meat, poultry and fish. I had already given up sugar, white flour, additives in foods, in 1961. I detested the taste of alcohol... and stopped drinking at 21. I kept giving up other foods (nightshades & cruciferous vegetables) during my lifetime, too. After no coffee for over 23 years, I started drinking coffee in 1997, but not as much. I occasionally eat fish (sardines and salmon), but I am aware fish has elements in it, which are toxic. My father told me as a child that dairy was for baby calves not humans. When I ate dairy, I wound up with a tumor; and another time sick in bed for weeks. So, I gave it up forever in the 1990s. I eat very specific organic, non-processed foods...and I am healthy going on 92. I share info on my newsletter Journey to Wellness. barbaracharis.substack.com, because I would love everyone to be healthy and feel good.
This is brilliant, Sarah. Just like your book Pathological. You have mental strength to analyze and put on paper your clear insight in human psychology.
Thanks for this essay. Since you started in France, I wondered where European countries were in their attitudes toward recovery and cure.
They don’t use the DSM. That says a lot.
Yes yes absolutely. But, also - Foucault, modern psychiatry, state regulation of lives, the dragged DSM (hisssssss!) and pharmacological reductionism.
Yes!
It is incomprehensible that most doctors never were interested in studying nutrition. It is the key to good health for the body and mind. They are not separate and both the body and mind need the right nutrition. As someone who has studied nutrition for a lifetime...91 years. I have experienced the result of starving the mind of the nutrients it needs...mental illness. The answer to mental illness in the past was locking up people in insane asylums. Doctors did not know anything about the causes of mental illness. The mind needs to be fed..and most people are not getting the nutrients the mind needs in our society today. The wrong food wipes out nutrients and can cause mood swings, such as, sugar. My father was a 'sugar-holic' and had a very bad temper. I didn't understand it as a child, but I learned, after I got into the study of nutrition in 1961. The first thing I did was eliminate sugar, white flour, and all additives, preservatives and chemicals in the foods my family consumed. My son who had been very hyperactive and had been put on tranquilizers... settled down and went on to graduate high school as an honor roll student. Doctors dispense drugs...when drugs destroy the human brain, lower intelligence, destroy memory, ambition and drive. Tranquilizers stunt the growing organs of children...and doctors don't seem to know this information. My son was given tranquilizers at four years of age, after the doctor created his hyperactivity with the sugar-laden diet he told me to feed the child. I followed the doctor's advice, because I was totally ignorant about nutrition. When i started reading nutrition and health books in 1961...because of this sick child...it became a lifelong search for the truth. My newsletter: Journey to Wellness. barbaracharis.substack.com
You’re so right. Truly, my recovery came once I gave up caffeine, sugar, white flour, and of course, I didn’t drink or do drugs.
I have had many challenges in my own life, too. For my first 29 years, I was nutrient-deprived. Born during the Great Depression, no food for years. Then, when there was food, it was the worst processed food. My mother knew nothing about nutrition.. A very stressful incident occurred in 1963... and I wound up in a very strange mental hospital....and once you have been in a mental hospital...you are considered a mental patient forever, as far as the system goes. I had no psychological problems before this occurred. I had lots of friends and got along well with everybody. My husband was the mental case who liked having a sick wife. I learned a great deal from the experiences I had...and when my book was published in 1995, one of my 8 chapters was entitled Mental or Malnourished.
In 1973, I gave up cigarettes, coffee, plus meat, poultry and fish. I had already given up sugar, white flour, additives in foods, in 1961. I detested the taste of alcohol... and stopped drinking at 21. I kept giving up other foods (nightshades & cruciferous vegetables) during my lifetime, too. After no coffee for over 23 years, I started drinking coffee in 1997, but not as much. I occasionally eat fish (sardines and salmon), but I am aware fish has elements in it, which are toxic. My father told me as a child that dairy was for baby calves not humans. When I ate dairy, I wound up with a tumor; and another time sick in bed for weeks. So, I gave it up forever in the 1990s. I eat very specific organic, non-processed foods...and I am healthy going on 92. I share info on my newsletter Journey to Wellness. barbaracharis.substack.com, because I would love everyone to be healthy and feel good.
This is brilliant, Sarah. Just like your book Pathological. You have mental strength to analyze and put on paper your clear insight in human psychology.
"We worsen not because we have a mental illness but in response to how we’re treated." Love this.