Question:
Youre blaming your mental illness on coffee, tea, and soda pop?
Answer:
Research has shown that in psychiatric wards when patients are only allowed
decaffeinated coffee/tea, etc., then their drug requirements can be dramatically
reduced - even stopped altogether in some cases.
I had occasion to visit people in two separate hospitals. In one patients were allowed
constant access to tea and coffee. Having little else to do many patients consumed a
great deal more caffeine than they would outside the hospital. Patients here were
noticeably "disturbed".
In the other hospital patients had no access to caffeine. Most of the patients seemed
"normal" in their behaviour.
To quote a researcher into the effect of caffeine on psychiatric patients:
"When a patient is admitted to hospital with delusional mania the first thing a
psychiatrist should do is check to see how much coffee they have been drinking"
Caffeine can definitely cause delusional experiences.
Caffeine is a fake amino acid that can block reception of real amino
acids and set all sorts of processes to work. So you're right, caffeine
allergy is probably nasty. During my last major psychotic episode, even my voices were telling me
to stay away from coffee. But I think I'm addicted to coffee now.
During last year's blackout, when making coffee was impossible for
hundreds of kilometres in any direction from me, I suffered withdrawal
symptoms and raced to make coffee the moment power came back on.
Keep a few candles in the house, if the worse comes to the worse and it may
take a long time, but you can heat up a small pot over a candle! I once
nearly got so paranoid about power cuts and not being able to make
tea/coffee that I was going to buy one of those little petrol/paraffin
camping stoves. During the blackout, I swore up and down that I would buy a camp stove
the second the stores reopened, but ended up not doing it to this day. Ive got an old, real small, camping stove from the 50's. Its what my father
and uncle used to heat their food with when they went hunting/camping. Id
bet its pretty rare. Ive never stopped using it. Its a wonderful, and convenient thing to have.
It can heat up a cup of water to boiling faster than my microwave or oven.
