Tardive Dyskinesia (TD) is a condition of involuntary, repetitive movements of the jaw, tongue or other body movements. It frequently is a side effect of the long-term use of antipsychotic drugs used to treat schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. It is almost always permanent. I’ve been told Vitamin E might help a bit. Benzodiazepines have also been used with mixed results on a short-term basis.
Some examples of these types of involuntary movements include:
Grimacing
Tongue movements
Lip smacking
Lip puckering
Pursing of the lips
Excessive eye blinking
(Wikipedia)
I recently was diagnosed as having TD after the use of Zyprexa. My version is my lower jaw moves from side-to-side, unless I concentrate on not doing it. I quickly revert to this involuntary movement when I’m not aware of it. I recently saw a video of myself (with my family) and sure enough there I was, doing the ‘jaw thing.’ It was very obvious. It was also very embarrassing. (I have the ‘lithium jitters’— where my hands always shake, but TD is different.)
There are a couple of things I might mention:
1) I’ve discovered that there is a real social isolation with this TD stuff. To be doing this in public is “not acceptable.” I have had people come up to me wanting to know what’s my problem. Since I can’t control the movement I just say, “It’s my meds— they affect me this way.” In a way it’s like wearing a neon sign saying, “I’m a fruit cake.” Having a mental illness is stigma enough, but the TD just puts a new edge on it.
2) As a natural introvert the isolation has only deepened. (I avoid crowds and most social engagements.) I guess if the truth be told, I’m uncomfortable when others look at me strangely or whisper to each other. My standard ‘paranoia level’ has taken a new twist. I feel I’m compelled to explain. I guess I’m embarrassed when others are embarrassed.
3) I settle myself down in my faith to cope. I know I’m not alone in this– the Lord Jesus is always with me. He holds me tight through all these twists and turns. Since I isolate myself so much, I savor the connection I have with a few friends who have become inured to my condition. Social media helps out— Facebook is a big help, as well as my two blogs.
4) One of the things I try to remember are the issues of selfishness and pride. I keep reminding myself it’s not about me all the time. One of the significant areas mentally ill people deal with is self-absorbed thinking. It seems it comes with the illness.
5) I try to keep a sense of humor everyday. It breaks down the mental pain to tolerable levels. We can take ourselves too seriously sometimes. Be more patient with yourself. I know I have to.
I ask that you remember me in prayer from time-to-time. I’m in ‘uncharted waters’ (it seems) and I sometimes feel all alone with my mental illness and all its tangents. I want good to come out of this. (An instantaneous healing would be o.k. But, I’m not too finicky.) Sorry for so much.
If you can’t pray, don’t feel at all impinged upon.
Inspector Clouseau, (Upon discovering stolen artifacts) in The Pink Panther 2
“Ah yes, the Shroud of Turin! We will have to dry clean it before we return it.”
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I honestly think that our bumbling attempts to follow Jesus are entertaining angels who watch our efforts and shake their heads in astonishment. “Did you see what Bryan just did?”
I’m the “Inspector Clouseau” of the spiritual realm. 😁
Maybe you can relate?
Clumsy and very much oblivious, I bungle my way down the path of discipleship, without a clue. It seems when something right happens, I still end up butchering it. The Holy Spirit has His hands full. Scripture tells me He has no regrets.
We have experienced so much, and been given so much light.
And yet we consistently choose to trade it for a lie. For the most part, I don’t sin automatically, I sometimes choose it deliberately. People don’t sin because they feel they have to. We sin because we like the pleasure it brings. We sin because it feels nice. It’s often a mask to cover the pain.
It’s a patch for the pain of my twisted up life.
We sin because it brings a thrill to our bodies, and excitement to the boredom of our everyday lives. We sin because we believe the lie that the pleasure it brings, though passing (Heb. 11:25).
Sin happens when I look at anything or anyone other than God.
The issues I have are both spiritual and medical. I survived a brain tumor and I need to walk with a cane. I have constant vertigo. My right arm is paralyzed. I struggle hard sometimes. I have some struggles with social anxiety. But God gives me buckets of His grace. I know first-hand his agape love for me.
But He will not bless my disobedience and rebellion.
When we announce to the world that “Jesus is Lord” we can expect God will hold our feet to the fire over this. The Holy Spirit will not negotiate when we suddenly decide we are hungry for sin. Apprehended by grace, we must fully surrender all claims we have to sample sin’s delights.
Who do we find joy in? It really does matter.
In the middle of my battles to be a believer, I must remember joy. I cannot imagine being without it. I’ve been clinically depressed pushed to the point of suicide. But God gives me joy in my darkness.
“The joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Nehemiah 8:10
“For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation.”
You and I have often felt that experience, that disappointment. There has arisen, mayhap [‘perhaps’] a great opportunity for Christian service. Some are sent to the front; some are sent to the middle. But WE are made to lie down in the rear.
Perhaps sickness has come; perhaps poverty has come; perhaps obloquy [‘censure, blame’] has come; in any case we are hindered and we feel sore. We do not see why we should be excluded from a part in the Christian life. It seems like an unjust thing that, seeing we have been allowed to enter the garden, no path should be assigned to us there.
It is a hard thing to be kept in the background at a time of crisis. In the Garden of Gethsemane eight of the eleven disciples were left to do nothing. Jesus went to the front to pray; Peter, James and John went to the middle to watch; the rest sat down in the rear to wait.
Methinks that party in the rear must have murmured. They were IN the garden, but that was all; they had no share in the cultivation of its flowers. It was a time of crisis, a time of storm and stress; and yet they were not suffered to work.
Be still, my soul, it is not as thou deemest! Thou art NOT excluded from a part of the Christian life. Thinkest thou that the garden of the Lord has only a place for those who walk and for those who stand! Nay, it has a spot consecrated to those who are compelled to SIT…….
When that experience comes to thee, remember, thou art not shunted. Remember it is CHRIST that say ‘Sit ye here.’ THY spot in the garden has ALSO been consecrated. It has a special name. It is not ‘the spot of wrestling,’ not ‘the place of watching’, but ‘the place of waiting.’
There are lives that come into this world neither to do great work, nor to bear great burdens, but simply to be; …….they are the flowers of the garden which have had no active mission. They have wreathed no chaplet; they have graced no table; they have gladdened the sight of JESUS. By their mere perfume, by their mere beauty, they have brought Him joy; by the very preservation of their loveliness in the valley they have lifted the Master’s heart. Thou needst not murmur shouldst thou be one of these flowers!”
o
J. R. Miller (1840 – 1912) James Russell Miller was born on March 20, 1840 at Frankfort Springs, Pennsylvania and died on July 2, 1912. Besides authoring over 80 books, booklets, and pamphlets, Dr. J.R. Miller was the Editorial Superintendent of the Presbyterian Board of Publication, and a very active pastor in a succession of churches. He had a strong popularity among that generation of believers.
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This was sent to me from a dear friend; she had taken it from a very old devotional, published in 1925. However, the truths are not dated. They speak to us, long after the writer has gone to heaven.
These principles come to us, especially with our disabilities– mental, emotional and physical. Perhaps they meet us in a hard place, but they can lead us into hope and purpose.
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Psalm 23:4, ESV
“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”
Psalm 116:15, ESV
“Death is like my car. It takes me where I want to go.”
Pastor John Piper
Our generation simply doesn’t know how to die well. There are so many conflicting messages and attitudes which have steered us away from the reality of dying. Much of it is the natural development of unbelief. Our pop culture develops this and gives it momentum. We are trying to convince ourselves that “death is impossible, my life will not end.’ But we’re escaping into a delusion. We are running from what is real.
There is a Latin phrase, Ars moriendi (“The Art of Dying”) which the Church practiced in past generations. In past time, Christians would be buried as close as possible to the Church building. Many would be interred within the very walls of the Church. The understanding was that the dead were part of the congregation. That there was only a thin veil that stood between the living and the dead. The dead didn’t just vanish. They are with us.
My generation is confused. We have forced death to wear a mask. We insist on a significant camouflage to hide the reality of sickness and death. No one really ever talks about it, and so no instructions are given on how to die well. So we don’t, we die poorly–in ICUs and LTCs, completely sedated, separated and unable to process it or help our families process it. There can be no solid connection between the living and the dying. And to be very honest, this is not working.
For many, the fear of dying is intense and paralyzing. Death brings us a terror that twists us; we don’t know how to respond to it. Additionally there seems that there is no one available to direct us. Death is a spooky taboo that no one really explains. The implication is that we are simply to avoid death, ‘it may not come for you’. But that is not what is real.
“Death avoidance” pretends to lift us above the issue, where we can imagine that we will stay separated somehow from its obscenity and ugliness. Funerals are nothing more then an aberration. We have become ‘teflonized’, these things just slide on and off. We just refuse to calculate, or accept what is happening. We have ‘molded’ our fear into a more desirable shape. We simply cannot function in the steady gaze of what is real. We just shut down and refuse to function. We simply pretend.
Its time for the Church to step up and guide us to our next step. Our pastors and elders have got to prepare us to die well. It is a part of being a disciple. It is discipleship, and dying is inclusive. We need somebody to prepare us for the inevitable and the certainty that is approaching us. I need someone that will help me face my own death.
You know what? No one escapes. And the reality of that drives some of us mad, or addicted, or psychotic. The idea of filling a casket up for forever is incomprehensible. We cannot live with this sick idea of dying. It disturbs us on the deepest level possible. It is completely evil.
Psalm 23 has been pure comfort and healing for generations. And it is an excellent starting point for us. Verse 4 develops the idea of traversing death. The writer has incredible insight of passing through death. This verse alone is worth “billions of dollars in gold”. Psalm 23 has made me a very wealthy man. His Word has become my rich treasure.
Broken Believers 