Category: Co-Occurring Disorders

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Co-Occurring Disorders

Co-occurring Disorders: PTSD and Alcoholism

What Is PTSD and Why Does It Develop?

Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a very serious, painful condition that can develop when we are exposed to something too intense for the human psyche.

As the name indicates, PTSD develops after going through an incident or series of extremely stressful incidents. PTSD is commonly diagnosed alongside alcoholism and other substance addictions as a co-occurring disorder.

PTSD is a risk for people who are exposed to war, sexual assault, child abuse, violence, poverty, and car accidents, among other things. It’s not uncommon for people involved in these kinds of events to come away with shattered nervous systems.

A shattered nervous system creates a life of acute personal misery, of constantly being stuck in a state of high stress. People with shattered nervous systems very often turn to alcohol, drugs, and other self-destructive behaviors out of desperation to modulate their inner experiences.

Trauma can also come from repeated, long-term exposure to less acute but still very damaging and still life-threatening conditions, such as what happens in childhood if we are not appropriately cared for at all levels of our being.

Many experiences that are considered part of a normal childhood are trauma risks for human beings. Attachment trauma – when we do not have enough of a psychologically healthy and secure bond with a parent – is very widespread. Certainly sexual, physical, and psychological harm and neglect of childhood emotional needs are demonstrably damaging to human development.

All in all, PTSD and chronic trauma are epidemic among women, operating side by side with addiction to cause severe suffering across America.

The Problem With Traumatic Stress

All the above-mentioned situations are damaging to women because they are extremely stressful. Stress is a natural biological response that gets activated in us at the pre-conscious bodily level when something potentially dangerous or harmful is taking place.

Stress operates more or less the same way in all mammals – heart rate increases to pump blood into our muscles, we’re flooded with adrenaline, cortisol, and other body chemicals, and we breathe rapidly to increase oxygen levels.

Stress is natural and life-protective, but it’s not healthy to be in a state of stress for longer than a few moments or it damages the body and nervous system. Many important bodily processes, like digestion, healing, learning, and psychological development, are disturbed and put on pause while we’re in a state of stress, and if we don’t exit the stress state quickly enough, it leaves lasting wounds in the body and nervous system.

Psychologically, stress disrupts our empathy, our higher mental functioning, and certainly our creativity, pleasure, and joy, replacing our humanity with emergency mode. No one is their real or best self while in a state of stress. So it’s very important that stress is a temporary state with a clear ending, and that after the stressful incident, we are allowed and able to float back down to more whole, embodied, relaxed states of being.

We need to relax again for our naturally loving, creative, and calm human nature to re-inhabit our bodies and continue with the process of growing up into the wonderful selves we’re here to be.

How Can Trauma and PTSD Lead to Problems With Alcohol?

For women who develop PTSD, a return to relaxation and feelings of safety never really happens. We stay stuck in the nightmarish, surreal, hyper-stressed condition of perceiving danger everywhere. This also means that our lives are on pause and our human development is arrested in some ways.

To be able to release the stress response, all women need time, space, and the opportunity for physical, and emotional release. We also need help making sense of the experience, and integrating it into our understanding of ourselves and the world.

Many of us do not get that time. Instead, the stress response gets trapped in the body, where it becomes a source of living hell of permanent physical and emotional distress.

People with trauma are at exceptionally high risk of addiction, including alcoholism. Why? Because we need something to help us cope.

PTSD is characterized by intrusive obsessive thoughts, disturbing memories and flashbacks, nightmares, and night terrors, and feelings of extreme dread, helplessness, anger, and shame. It is one of the worst experiences known to mankind.

How Can Alcohol Problems Lead To Trauma and Problematic Relationships?

Tragically, people who have alcohol addiction also are likely to expose themselves to more and more traumatizing situations.

Alcohol numbs our higher functioning, and leads women towards emotional and physical harm, as can happen when driving under the influence or entering into risky sexual situations because of lowered inhibitions and being in the wrong places at the wrong times.

There is a high correlation between domestic violence and alcohol, as well, on both sides of the equation. Many abused women use substances to deal with their victimization.

We will discover upon getting sober just how many terrible situations we have endured and survived. And while our conscious mind has been numbed into forgetting, our nervous system remembers forever what happened to us.

Our trauma is waiting for us to heal it. The return to warm, connected safety that never happened still needs to happen. The good news is, no matter how long ago the events that damaged us were, our return to safety can happen now, with some help through trauma-informed treatment.

Treatment for Alcohol and PTSD

If you have trauma, what your soul and body need is a chance to heal it. Alcohol is the opposite of that. For people who have PTSD, alcohol is a misleading solution, one that works in the short term and makes everything worse in the long term.

All trauma symptoms are worsened by alcohol – anxiety, dread, anger, panic, and the desperate urge to flee one’s own nightmarish experience are increased by the presence of alcohol.

The restoration of peace, goodness, and safety inside yourself is possible, but not as long as you’re drinking. That’s why it’s very important if you have alcohol addiction to receive help for it.

Alcoholism is notoriously tricky to beat and almost impossible to conquer alone. You don’t have to do it alone, because there are many resources and loving people who will help you recover. After all, it’s personally meaningful for them to help other women out of the nightmare that they also lived through.

Villa Kali Ma takes our mission of healing women very seriously. We know the misery inside and out, we know the path to healing and the joy that’s possible even after living in hell. If you’re seeking help for PTSD and alcoholism, think about whether you might want to come to start your trauma-healing journey with us. We’d love to have you.

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Co-Occurring Disorders

Alcohol and Depression in Women

What Is Depression?

Depression is the clinical word for feeling very down, low, or blue. Depression can feel like our life force has been drained out of us: we have no energy, we feel sad and hopeless, with a dark outlook.

Temporary depression can be a perfectly normal response to difficult chapters of life, so it doesn’t necessarily mean something is wrong with you. Some people argue that depression is a natural reaction to a deeply unwell world.

Depression can be an important part of grieving, recovering from abuse, and waking up to who you are and want to be in this world. Depression is a messenger from the soul like all other symptoms and doesn’t have to be treated as a completely bad thing.

That said, depression is tricky and we can also get trapped in depression in a way that doesn’t serve us. Depression may be a signal from the soul, but we often need help from other people to figure out what it’s trying to tell us!

Depression Is Treatable

Perhaps unsurprisingly, depression is widespread in contemporary life. Many people meet the diagnostic criteria of the so-called spectrum of “depressive disorders.” Depressive disorders can become dangerous because of the link to suicidal feelings, so they are important to pay attention to.

The most important thing to understand about depression is that it is very responsive to help. Simple changes, for example in habits of thought, diet, and lifestyle can go a long way with depression.

Depression affects the body, mind, and emotions in equal measure, so you have many ways of changing your life to feel better: through exercise, training yourself to think better thoughts about yourself and the world, and prioritizing positive people and activities that fill you with joy, for example.

With time, you may even come to value your depression as a way of deepening your relationship with yourself, as it is known in the world of psychotherapy as a call to go inward to get to know the real you. In other words, when you’re living out of alignment with who you are in your deepest nature, that tell-tale depression will pop up to let you know it.

All of that said, depression is a formidable dragon to slay – it’s best to get help on the quest, in the form of kind, knowledgeable people who can help you because they understand the nature of the beast. You don’t have to do it alone.

Symptoms of Depression

People don’t always realize that they’re depressed while it’s happening, but there are a couple of clues that can help you catch it.

Depression is characterized by certain types of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. When you’re depressed your thoughts will be more negative, gloomy, and doom-oriented, usually with a kind of “what’s the point of trying, it will always be this way” vibration.

When you are thinking thoughts that make you feel demoralized, beaten down, and hopeless, those are depression thoughts. It’s important to understand depressed thoughts as distortions: they are interpretations of reality, not facts.

Depressed thoughts can feel logical and true to us, but they’re full of assumptions about a future we cannot possibly predict, including obvious fallacies like, I will always feel the same as I do right now. We also tend to interpret other people’s feelings and behaviors towards us with a negative slant, without even noticing that we’re doing that.

The emotional tones that go with depression are a mixture of sadness, being unable to face things, a feeling of “I don’t have what it takes to get through this”, low self-esteem, and hidden, often unrecognized anger.

We can feel tired, like our bodies are extra heavy, as though we have no vitality in us that could be used to move or get something positive going for us.

Behaviorally, we might decide to skip, cancel last minute, or even totally stop doing positive, self-loving, and self-caring behaviors. Staying connected with people, hobbies, eating well, exercising, and self-care activities that normally make us feel good are at risk when we are depressed (these are also the things that will help us feel better again if we start doing them again).

How Does Alcohol Affect a Woman’s Mood?

Alcohol creates depression. It is classed as a “depressant” substance for a reason. It also exacerbates pre-existing depression.

Although when depressed we may temporarily feel better through self-medicating with alcohol, the starting state of depression will be far worse after the effects of inebriation wear off. We often don’t see the connection between depression and our alcohol use, but the correlation is a strong and direct one.

Does Depression Drive You to Drink?

Even though alcohol makes depression worse, many women who start drinking to excess were depressed as a starting condition. It’s not rocket science – if you feel bad all the time, you may get roped into using substances as a way to cope.

So yes, depression may drive you to drink. If you have a disordered relationship with alcohol, you can be fairly sure that underneath the desire to drink lies a hurt self full of negative thoughts and feelings, who is actually in need of love and kind attention.

What Is the Relationship Between Depression and Binge Drinking?

Depression is a direct biological effect of binge drinking, part of the damage that alcohol does to the body. Since binge drinking is also connected to self-destructive behavior and making poor decisions, there is a secondary effect, which is that the life we wake up to after drinking too much is usually more depressing than it would be without the impacts of alcohol.

Drinking too much damages relationships, careers, and the things in life that give joy. Sooner or later alcohol erodes our native ability to feel happy in our skin.

What Should You Do if You’re Struggling With Alcohol and Depression?

If you’re struggling with alcohol and depression at the same time, first of all, our heart goes out to you. You’re truly not the only one, this is a widespread problem and there are solutions to get your natural life force and happiness back.

If this is you, it’s best to get some kind of help that will address the destructive behaviors associated with alcohol and will also help you meaningfully get at the emotional and mental pain you’re carrying, that is causing you to seek relief through substance addiction.

The twin burdens of trying to stop drinking and also trying to face down depression can be too much to handle for most women without someone to be in your corner and help you figure it all out.

And there’s no shame in that. The cure for pain lies within you, but it is in connection to other people that you can learn to activate that for yourself.

If you’re looking for treatment or a holistic approach that can address your alcohol use and your depression at the same time, and you like the idea of a positive, whole-woman approach, Villa Kali Ma could be the right place for you. We’d love to help you, sister.

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Co-Occurring Disorders

Co-occurring Disorders: Trauma and Anxiety

What Is Trauma?

The word trauma is used a lot these days! Well, good.

Why is that good? Because trauma is the elephant in the room. Trauma is what underlies all the things that are truly hard about human life.

Trauma is why people treat each other badly. Trauma is why people become addicts, and why the ego defense mechanisms we all have, and through which we hurt each other every day, are necessary in the first place. Trauma creates psychopaths, victimizers, and victims.

Let’s face it, humanity, we are not ok. We’re mentally ill, socially isolated, self-destructive, violent, addicted, and disconnected. Whether I’m coping a little better or a little worse than the person next to me, the fact remains that I’m coping.

Coping with what? A wounded soul.

The Wound

In the mental health context, trauma means psychological wounding.

There are biological parts of trauma – the permanently keyed-up nervous system, the numbing and dissociating, the terrible, indescribable dread.

The body creates these sensations, the way that your screen creates a TV show. Through tiny chemical interactions and electromagnetic signals firing on and off, a message, an experience, a whole show is transmitted to you through the wiring of your nervous system and brain.

But what is the trauma show that your body is broadcasting? Is it a feel-good rom-com, a story of human triumph, a Hallmark channel movie?

Nope, it’s a horror show, a surreal nightmare. How do you feel when you watch a scary movie? That’s right, afraid.

What Is Anxiety?

The clinical word for fear is anxiety. Like all emotions, fear runs a spectrum from soul-annihilating terror to vague, floaty unease.

Anxiety can be so intense as to represent a serious interruption to a person’s ability to live their life and participate in the world. When that’s the case, doctors and psychologists say this person has an anxiety disorder.

The anxiety-disordered person may be given habit-forming anxiolytic medications or, if they’re lucky, steered towards the many holistic solutions for anxiety (yoga, meditation, diet, vigorous exercise, hypnotherapy, time in nature, and creative hobbies are just a few of the widely available options that help with anxiety).

The question might still be asked, though, why are we anxious in the first place? What are we so afraid of?

Why is the body acting as though this is a life-or-death situation when all it is is a phone call from someone I haven’t talked to in a while? Why does my heart pound like I’m in the deep end with the shark from Jaws when someone asks me a question in a work meeting that I wasn’t prepared for? Why can’t I stop thinking, why can’t I breathe deeply, why can’t I relax?

I’ll tell you why: trauma. That’s right – trauma and anxiety are very, very closely related.

How Do Trauma and Anxiety Interact?

Trauma and anxiety are so close as to almost be the same thing. Traumatization, when it shows up at clinical levels, is diagnosed as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which used to be classed as an anxiety disorder until it was decided that traumatization deserves its category.

The difference is really that anxiety is a key component of the trauma experience, but not the only aspect of trauma. Anxiety stands alone as a diagnostic category of its own, as a certain flavor of experience that may or may not be mixed with the other aspects of traumatization.

However the distinctions between diagnostic categories are blurry, and the phenomenon of “co-occurring disorders” – in which you qualify for more than one diagnosis – is widespread.

When you throw substance abuse into the mix, things become even more complicated, as substance use creates many problems in the human experience, such as depression, anxiety, brain damage, loss of empathy, and psychosis. In other words, substance abuse creates effects that would earn you a mental health diagnosis if it wasn’t coming from the substance abuse.

Trauma and anxiety are both about fear, and they’re reflections of a tragic aspect of human experience: our inability to feel safe after we were exposed to something damagingly scary that we never quite got over.

How Does Trauma Lead to Anxiety?

When people are exposed to life-threatening events, it shocks the human nervous system. A lot of the time, we can release the shock out of our systems, provided that the event is not too intense, and doesn’t keep happening over and over again.

We can get over a shock, even a big one if we have time, space, and support to feel the feelings, make sense of what happened, and if we come out of the experience knowing that even though that bad thing happened, we are still good, loved, worthy, capable, connected to our loved ones, and safe in this world.

Suppose instead you go through an event and you have no support, connection, love, and understanding to help you make sense of it. In that case, you will likely form one of the following conclusions: this is somehow my fault, I am bad, this happened because of something I did or didn’t do, and I have to figure out how to live differently so that this never happens again. And since I can’t quite figure out how I could have stopped it, it’s at risk of happening again, right now, right here, any time, any place. This is a threat forever. 

Whatever the origin, trauma leads to anxiety, because both trauma and anxiety are about having lost your ability to feel fully safe.

What Is Trauma-Induced Anxiety and How Can I Heal It?

Trauma-induced anxiety is anxiety sourcing from shocking experiences you went through at some point in your past. You most likely do not fully remember the events consciously, but the body remembers them and recreates the memories even when you’re in a different situation entirely, sometimes in baffling and exasperating ways.

The symptoms are the same as other forms of anxiety, effects as rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, nervousness, tension, sleep problems, sweating, and trembling. You probably also have some kind of rapid, obsessive, or intrusive thoughts, and feel unsettled, uneasy, full of dread, or even panic.

Anxiety is a symptom of something serious that needs to be healed at the root cause level. The good news is, it can be healed. Yes, it takes some effort, but the difference between living life with a relaxed nervous system versus a keyed-up one is worth however long it takes to restore yourself to sanity.

Villa Kali Ma’s New Offering for Women With Trauma: The Retreat

More and more is learned every day about how to help the human body, mind and spirit recover from traumatization. Wonderful new healing therapies and approaches are offered at more and more facilities.

Villa Kali Ma’s own new residential trauma treatment program, The Retreat, is one option you have available to you if you’re thinking of getting some help for your trauma-induced struggles with life.

The Retreat is offered in service for women who want to retrieve their lives from the nightmare of traumatization, to instead discover how possible it is to create lives of peace, meaning, and human connection.

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Co-Occurring Disorders

Co-occurring Disorders: Trauma and Depression

What Is Depression?

When we’re depressed, we have a low mood, coupled with negative thoughts about ourselves and the world. We may feel very heavy-hearted and sad, as the old word for depression, “melancholia”, captures.

Depression can feel like we’re over-grieving without even knowing what we’re so blue about, maybe even grieving our own lives or who we used to be. We can feel isolated, still, and broken.

It is not unusual if we’re depressed to start to think about our own death. Even if we don’t think we would ever act on it, if we have some degree of longing to exit our life experience because we have no hope of ever being happy, that’s depression.

When we’ve got it bad, depression interferes with our ability to live our lives. The presence of depression and its signature bad feelings and low energy can make it very hard to complete our necessary life tasks. Seemingly simple things like participation in work and family life can feel impossible! If ignored for too long, depression worsens to an active desire to harm and even kill ourselves.

Depression is a symptom of deep heartsickness, and it can come from many things. One starting point of depression is trauma.

How Are Depression and Trauma Related?

Trauma leaves a tragic legacy of unresolved fear, anger, and helplessness in the nervous systems of affected people.

What is recorded in the nervous system as biological information is experienced by us subjectively as our lives, who we are and what are our life stories. When trauma has shaped us, we feel and think about our lives through the lens of dysregulated, imbalanced states: deep disconnection, anxiety, shame, suppressed rage, unworthiness, loneliness, and a profound lack of safety.

The trauma response is biological – it feels like death to the mammal you are because trauma is related to your natural, instinctual gifts for survival and self-protection at the deepest levels of your body and being.

When something we lived through activates our survival instincts into high gear, and we never quite get the opportunity to fully complete and resolve that experience and return to true, total safety, we may struggle with trauma symptoms until we finally have the chance to do so.

One clue of the relationship between depression and trauma lies in the fact that depression carries a strong note of helplessness, which is the essence of the trauma experience.

Depression is anecdotally sometimes called “anger turned inwards”. In the case of trauma-generated depression that is literally true. The lingering feelings of life-protecting anger (think mama bear protecting cub) that were once a natural biological response to extreme boundary violation or life threat, turn toxically against the self.

The more trauma is researched and understood, the more it looks to be the case that most mental health problems originate in, or at the very least are inextricably interwoven with the phenomenon of traumatization.

How Is Depression Treated?

Depression can be treated in a lot of ways, so think about your values and what matters to you, as you will probably be able to find help that fits to your best and highest nature and beliefs if you look around a bit. From yoga to functional medicine, art therapy to somatic experiencing, logotherapy to plant medicine, many different avenues to healing from this particular kind of pain exist.

Quite commonly in the mainstream, people with depression are given prescriptions for anti-depressants. Many voices within the mental health field represent the point of view that anti-depressants are not a good solution for many reasons, so it is wise to inform yourself before necessarily taking that route. If you are curious to evaluate this for yourself, a good starting point resource may be the website Mad in America, which takes a critical look at whether or not psychotropic medications are delivering the benefits they are advertised as delivering.

Regardless of your decision about whether or not to medicate, depression is beneficially supported by many other paths as well. Cognitive-behavioral therapy teaches you to think better thoughts, Parts Work and other trauma modalities help you feel safe and valuable again, and the many tried and true forms of traditional psychotherapy have helped many women before you.

Finally, a healthy lifestyle, food choices, and exercise should not be underestimated or overlooked when treating depression, as these are nature’s most powerful allies for returning your body to the land of the living.

What Should I Do About Feelings of Depression?

If you’re struggling with depression, the first thing we urge you to do is stop blaming yourself for it. No one wants to be depressed or get depressed on purpose. This is a case for compassion, not criticism! That said, take it seriously. It is causing more harm than you probably are in a condition to fully see.

You are not alone if you have depression. Even though our very disconnected society makes it hard for us to have those conversations, the truth is that many, many other people also deal with the challenges of this particular soul sickness.

On the positive side, many people who know what depression is like have found viable, joyful paths out of it, and live happily enough on the other side. You can too.

It is a good idea to get help. It is very hard to cure depression from within the experience because having positive, kind attention is a human necessity to even see ourselves and understand what’s going on.

Once you’ve had enough help from another person, you will know how to handle it on your own most of the time, and you don’t have to worry about becoming dependent on therapy. In the beginning of figuring out how to get out from under a depression, kind, compassionate, smart help is key.

The nervous system learns what safety and balance are mainly through the mechanism of mirror neurons, that co-regulate us to the nervous system of someone who’s not in a state of trauma, so just being around other people is a big part of healing.

If you are struggling with depression and trauma, you may want to get support from us here at Villa Kali Ma, at our new treatment center, The Retreat! We have opened the doors of this very special trauma-focused treatment center so women can have a safe, beautiful space to reside while they turn over a new leaf. Consider it – we’d love to have you.

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Co-Occurring Disorders

How to Cope with Anxiety and Depression

Anxiety and depression are common burdens for human beings, and while they are painful, the good news is that they are very responsive to help. 

Professional assistance in the form of therapy is often a great relief for people struggling with one or both of these two particular bugaboos, not only because a burden shared with another human is a burden halved, but because professionals can give you tailored support that really works to change your experience more quickly. 

To use a metaphor, while you can learn to play an instrument on your own, it’s also nice to have a teacher to encourage you, witness you, and show you time-tested methods that have been used by generations of musicians before you. 

You can think of a therapist as someone who teaches you how to relate to yourself in a healthy way – someone who cheers you on and helps you see yourself with more kindness. Therapists can educate us about how the human psyche works, what it needs to feel happy and safe, and through being compassionate and attentive to us, therapists also model what safe human relationships can be like. 

But with or without professional assistance you can also learn to work with your own depression and anxiety on your own too. Here are my top 2 most important tips for you today.

1. Work with the body to release pent-up energy

Do some form of vigorous physical exercise. Both anxiety and depression have to do with the nervous system, and particularly with the trauma response (fight-flight-freeze) not being fully released out of us yet. 

When we had experiences in younger life of not feeling fully safe (including not being fully loved unconditionally in our human condition), the body carries a residue of fear and/or anger. You could say the body has unfinished business around the topic of whether or not we will safely belong as ourselves, or whether we will re-experience something we experienced as a painful shock in the past, such as a threat to our right to belong or to our right to feel lovably and worthy just as we are. Fear lingering from past shocks turns into anxiety, and anger about crossed boundaries and unmet developmental needs turns into depression.  

Pent-up trauma response energy exits the body when it is used up, and exercise is the best way to do that. So if you have a chronic tendency towards anxiety and depression, the best thing you can do for yourself is to make sure that you give your body a chance to work it out at the physical level. It is suggested that activities where you get to literally simulate the “running away” reaction – such as jogging, long-distance running, or a sport that involves sprinting, like soccer – as well as the “fight off your attacker” reaction – such as martial arts – can be especially satisfying and effective. 

2. Work with your thoughts to see the distortions

Both anxiety and depression are characterized by distorted cognitions, in other words, they fill you with thoughts that are not strictly true, although they feel true. 

Both anxiety and depression have specific interpretations of reality out there. By writing down everything you’re thinking while you’re in an anxious or depressed state, you can more clearly see the distortions for what they are. 

You can identify cognitive errors, such as “mind-reading” (thinking you know what other people are thinking), or “catastrophizing” (imagining the worst possible outcome) or overgeneralizing: “people don’t like me”. Here is a list of some cognitive errors that most of us make when we’re feeling depressed or anxious: https://www.therapistaid.com/worksheets/cognitive-distortions.pdf

Once you have written down your thoughts, you can make corrections to the record, changing your thoughts to more accurate, fair statements. Looking at your cognitions, you ask “Is this really true? How do I know it’s true? If it is true sometimes, in which situations is it not true? Is this factual or rather an emotional interpretation of things?” 

Just seeing the distortions in our thoughts is enormously relieving, as we start to question the pronouncements of the unkind narrator in our heads. Over time, we’ll see that we can actually choose how we interpret life’s events. 

Just as in a wildlife documentary, the voice of the narrator has so much influence on what we’re looking at. What if you replaced the doom-and-gloom voiceover with a warmer, kinder, truer voice, one who makes life feel easier to live?

To play with this, here’s an exercise: What do you wish that you believed, even if you don’t quite buy it yet? What voiceover would you like to be hearing over your life? Have fun with this 🙂 

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Co-Occurring Disorders

“Addiction and”: 5 Common Co-Occurring Disorders

When you’re struggling, it can be difficult to determine what to ask for help with first- or even how to ask for help at all. Substance use disorders are one of the most commonly co-diagnosed disorders, meaning they’re often diagnosed with one or more other conditions that work alongside addiction to create the symptoms you experience. This makes it difficult to identify where to begin or what you’re feeling. 

As a holistic recovery facility, Villa Kali Ma specializes in identifying and responding to each aspect of your treatment as it impacts you now and into the future. Below is a list of the struggles we most often see as co-occurring disorders and how they impact your relationship with addiction. 

Eating Disorders

So much is out of your control when you’re struggling with addiction that it’s no wonder some people find solace in creating that control elsewhere—like food. Eating disorders impact the lives of nearly 10% of all Americans at some point, and they’re the second highest cause of mental illness-related death (second only to opioid overdose). Even in the statistics, a relationship seems plausible. 

Eating disorders include anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, avoidant food intake, body dysmorphia, and pica. When you’re struggling to control the urges and intake of substances at the height of addiction, it can feel almost gratifying to instead begin to control your food. Some people may suffer from more than one eating disorder, just as others suffer from multiple substance use difficulties.

Mood disorders

The most well-known mood disorder is bipolar disorder, which is characterized by prolonged periods of mania and depression- vastly differing mood spaces where your responses may be unpredictable, and your inhibitions may be directly responsive to those moods. Other mood disorders like major depression are also common, and the correlation between the two is so high that there’s a mood disorder distinctly related to addiction called substance-induced mood disorder.

Often, people begin using substances to alter their perception of an experience. As it tumbles out of control, many people are simply chasing the effect they initially found in their substance use. Mood regulation may become more difficult as bodies become used to the substances put into them and eventually both unresponsive to and reliant on them. 

Anxiety Disorder 

Anxiety may sound like it belongs in a category with mood disorders, but anxiety is a state of being, not a mood. Rooted in feelings of powerlessness and overwhelming fear of a particular trigger, anxiety disorders come in a few forms. The most common are generalized anxiety, panic disorder, and phobias (a debilitating fear of a particular thing). 

When anxiety presents alongside substance use, it’s often a tactic to divert the feelings anxiety brings on into something else. Anxiety is uncomfortable, and worry can be consuming. The physical impact is tiring and overwhelming. For those who also use substances, an anxiety attack may be self-medicated with their substance of choice. This often makes the two feel not only co-occurring but so intricately linked that they can’t fathom how to handle the anxiety without the substance. 

Attention Deficit and Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD)

For brains that move so quickly, you often feel like thoughts are shooting stars instead of ideas, substance use can be a respite of calm. ADHD creates a struggle of executive dysfunction and energy in a race to participate in your life at a stable speed. When combined with the use of substances, they may feel like a way to sit down, slow down, and actually get something done. 

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

PTSD makes you 14 times more likely to experience substance abuse disorder—and it’s really no wonder that these things are co-diagnosed. After experiencing trauma, life can feel like a battlefield. Finding any and everything you can to cope with the intrusion of trauma responses that occur in daily situations may feel like the only way to get through it. 

Using substances as a coping mechanism may feel like the only option, but they are tools that can be weaponized against you as they contribute to heightened responses that may worsen your PTSD. 

Getting the holistic help you’re hoping for is possible

Tangled symptoms and fear of failure may be holding you back, but it doesn’t have to. There are options to support all of your needs, and there is no need for you to choose just one. When you’re ready, Villa Kali Ma will be here with options for the recovery you need, no matter what’s co-occurring in your world.

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Co-Occurring Disorders

What is a Co-Occurring Disorder?

A co-occurring disorder refers to an individual who has two (or more) mental health or medical conditions at the same time. Their onset may not have been the same, but they exist in tandem now. Substance abuse disorders are often found to be co-occurring with mental health disorders. 

Those who find themselves with a co-occurring disorder may not even realize it. This is why it is so important to have a thorough understanding of what it means to be dually diagnosed – and seek treatment specific for both. 

Substance Use Disorders

There are different types of substance use disorders that can find themselves side-by-side with a mental health disorder. Most commonly, substance use and substance dependence. 

Alcohol or drug abuse occurs when the use of a substance interferes with daily responsibilities, such as functioning at work, interpersonal relationships, daily responsibilities at home, and so forth. It may also be diagnosed if the use of substances takes place in dangerous situations or if it worsens a medical condition.

Alcohol or drug dependence is when physical addiction sets in. This is more severe than abuse. Those using may find that it is next to impossible to quit or abstain from substance use. A heightened tolerance and physiological dependence are usually also present. A tough withdrawal is usually inevitable at this stage. 

Mental Health Disorders

Mental health disorders are common on their own. A large number of the population will, at some point in life, either personally experience mental health disorders or know someone who has. These may be mildly bothersome or may interfere greatly with one’s quality of life. This is largely due to some symptoms being mild and manageable, but without treatment, these symptoms can also be severe and out of control. 

What is a Co-occurring Disorder?

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a 2019 survey revealed that, in the U.S, 9.5 million people between the ages of 18 and 25 were diagnosed with both a mental health and substance abuse disorder. Only 7.8% of these people (or 742,000) received treatment for both disorders simultaneously. 

When it is determined that someone with an addiction has a mental health condition, it is recommended that both disorders be treated together. The inverse is also true: someone with a mental health disorder who is found to also have a substance abuse problem should seek treatment for both diagnoses simultaneously. This is referred to as dual-diagnosis. 

It doesn’t matter which issue arose first. One illness may appear and aggravate the other. An individual could have never experienced symptoms of a mental health disorder until he or she started using certain substances, for instance. 

Thorough research by the National Institute on Drug Abuse has determined that there are three possible reasons that explain the prevalence of co-occurring disorders. These include: 

  1. Self-Medication. Those who are suffering from a mental illness may not know how to properly handle the symptoms. And when the symptoms become too much to handle, it is common for individuals to turn to drugs and alcohol to soothe them. Unfortunately, this only masks the symptoms and, in fact, can make the entire situation worse. 
  2. Chemical Changes in the Brain from Drug Use. Using a substance can alter the chemicals in the brain. The most common areas to be disrupted are the areas of the brain connected to mood, anxiety disorders, impulse control, and even the manic symptoms associated with schizophrenia. Changing the chemicals due to substance use can trigger the onset of a mental disorder.
  3. Common Risk Factors for Both. There are many similarities in risk factors when it comes to mental illness and substance use. Situations that include certain environmental factors or trauma make someone more susceptible to developing co-occurring disorders. 

The Most Common Co-Occurring Disorders

There is no limit on the mental illnesses that surface alongside a substance use disorder. Any condition can appear, but there are a few very common mental health conditions that seem to be more common than any others, including: 

  • Anxiety disorders. Anxiety can be a pestering condition that can make life heavy to deal with. Drinking or drug use – especially prescription drug use – is often used to calm anxious feelings, especially in social settings. Unfortunately, the addiction starts and anxiety amplifies.
  • Mood disorders, such as bipolar disorder or depression. It is not uncommon for someone to turn to drugs or alcohol to feel a bit of joy or pleasure. This is a way to numb the sadness, if only for a moment. It is an artificial relief and only exacerbates the problem.
  • Personality disorders. Personality disorders, such as Borderline Personality Disorder, can make a person feel out of control. Many who have it use substances as a means of making the symptoms more controllable.
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD can wreak havoc on the mind of someone who has been through a lot. All too often, these individuals seek relief from drugs or alcohol. Again, it only makes things worse. 

It is pretty easy to see the pattern of needing help, turning to drugs or alcohol for relief, and ending up in a worse position. Substances and mental health conditions aren’t sustainable – especially in the long run. The symptoms will only get worse unless both issues are addressed and treated. 

Treating Co-Occurring Disorders

Diagnosing co-occurring disorders can be tough. Addiction symptoms can sometimes mask mental health disorders and, at the same time, the symptoms of mental illness may mask or impersonate addiction. Though they may be difficult to diagnose, it is necessary to treat both mental illness and substance abuse at the same time. 

Cooccurring addiction treatment should include:

  • Multidisciplinary team to address both diagnoses from all angles. 
  • A comprehensive treatment program. 
  • Individual and/or group therapy. 
  • Treatment specific to the substance use disorder. 
  • Treatment specific to the mental health disorder. 
  • Medical treatment to address any other underlying issues. 
  • Lifestyle counseling for positive changes. 
  • A high level of support, specialized in both conditions. 

Because mental illness and substance use can become so interdependent on one another, treating one without the other will leave the individuals in a state of vulnerability. An integrative approach to treatment is necessary if you want someone to thoroughly and wholly get better. It is the only way to take a step in the direction of healing.

 

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