Mental Illness Options

I'm beginning to wonder about different mental illnesses.

Night before last I had to look after a friend of mine who hasn't had her schizophrenia medication in over a week because she has nobody to pay for it anymore (moving out of parent's place complications)... and basically, I managed to remove her voices four times (each time they came back a bit angrier than the last, which has got me a little worried), make her forget that she even experienced voices three times (although it was creepy afterwards having the EXACT same conversation three times over, which always wound up with me reminding her about the voices) and banish her most feared apparition once.

Just from that it experience it seemed more like they were... not "medical" in origin. Any thoughts?

I would caution against this form of 'help'. It may well be that as a short term measure you are able to effect some relief, but I am concerned that you will then make the leap of logic to thinking you can 'cure' this person on the long term.

I am not saying that medication on its own is the right course of therapy. For some people medication may not be needed at all. It seems that for depression there is such a long wait for referrals to mental health professionals that general practitioners often give out medication as the first rather than the last resort.

I have never sought medical help for my depression. I am fortunate in that I have learned to control the illness myself (sometimes with less success that I would hope). IIRC it was in one of the books by Peter Carroll (Liber Kaos) where he describes helping a mentally ill neighbour, but I would caution against taking anything he writes too seriously as it seems to me his ego is the size of a mountain.

This is a very tricky subject. Reality is very subjective. I am currently reading 'Prometheus Rising' by R.A.W and this whole book is about reprogramming our reality tunnel. It seems to some down to the level to which your reality tunnel allows you to function in society. Mental illness sometimes manifests a reality tunnel that causes one to no longer function (total withdrawal, violence, peralized by fear etc).