Throwing Copper and other Schizo-Affective Happenings

Well.  Let me just say that dealing with the high levels of copper you discover you're carrying in your body is only a tad more fun than impaling yourself on a bunch of freshly sharpened knives or being eaten alive by a plague of tarantulas.

Because hey, I like nothing better than walking around on my own personal rollercoaster.  Rather unlike Queensland, I've been beautiful one minute and suicidal the next.  I have had paranoia, anger and suspicion settle over me like a mantle since I have started detoxing this stuff, like the fine cloud of dust that settled over everything in our house during the Ash Wednesday fires several decades ago.  It's waxed and waned and I've had to remind myself over and over again that it's simply a physical reaction of this copper - called "the emotional mineral" - leaving my body.  And despairing about that.  Reading things into what everyone is saying that aren't there.  A feeling of hopelessness and depression.  Something that I really cannot explain to you.  The most strangest feeling.  I imagine it must be something like when people develop schizophrenia.

Indeed, high levels of copper have been reported in over 50% of schizophrenia cases.  I understand, just a little better, simply from doing this copper detox, a tiny little something of how that might feel.  I have wondered over the past few weeks if maybe I really am going crazy, even while knowing, in that small little watcher part of my brain that no, this is just detoxing.  I've been here before.  Just not quite as mental as this.  But I concede defeat - I can't continue on at the levels I've been doing this one.  The levels which are a one-size-fits-all on the bottle are too much, apparently, for me.  It takes a friend with CFS on the phone to convince me finally of this.

So I have cut my detoxing levels back to half the recommended levels. Because apart from having to deal with the psychological effects, this whole experience is taxing my already-depleted adrenal glands too, and so I am feeling like a car with too little oil - every little thing in my environment that changes, I feel the gears crunch and grind.  My adrenal glands are not properly manufacturing those beautiful, beautiful hormones, the ones which you don't even think about until they're not readily there.  The ones that enable you to float through your day, dealing with things in their proper context.  Not stressing out because you have to go to the supermarket.

I have found out that there is such a thing as a high copper personality.  Someone who tends to retain high levels of copper.  And that I pretty much fit the bill.  This feels like it's maybe one one of those big jigsaw puzzle pieces as to why I have not been able to regain enough energy post-CFS.  The at-home test for copper showed quite conclusively that I have high levels.  The other day I had a hair mineral analysis done, a  much more in-depth check to determine my copper levels.  I would bet a whole stack of money that the test will come back confirming what I have been experiencing as I have been detoxing.  This is a description of a high copper personality:

Positive traits include a warm, caring, sensitive, emotional nature, often with artistic orientation and a child-like quality. Often high-copper people are young-looking. Many traditionally feminine traits are associated with copper such as softness, gentleness and intuitiveness. This may relate to the qualities of metallic copper, which include softness, malleability and an excellent conductor of electricity.

When the personality is not fully integrated or the copper becomes too high, negative traits show up. These include spaciness, racing thoughts, living in a dream world and naiveté. Other qualities include childishness, excessive emotions, sentimentality, a tendency to depression, fearfulness, hidden anger and resentments, phobias, psychosis and violence. Artists, inventors and other high-copper types often "live on the edge", in part due to their high copper level.

The copper personality tends to accumulate copper easily. Copper can function as a psychological defense mechanism. It causes one to detach slightly from reality. This provides relief from stress for the sensitive individual. It works well as long as the copper does not become too high. Very high copper can cause a psychotic break from reality, a type of schizophrenia.

From DrWilson.com 

So, that's what I've been doing lately.  Struggling through this latest hellish thing which I know is going to help me in the long run.  But realising, finally, that it's just too much.  That I need to gear it down.  I have gained a respect for this damn mineral and just how destructive it can be to your psychological health.  Appreciative of how much better I am feeling after having a break from the whole thing yesterday (a birthday present for me).

I don't think you can really appreciate anything until you've lived on the underside of its tapestry.  I tell you what:  I appreciate mental health and a well-functioning body.  They are difficult things to maintain in this plastic-soaked world.  I appreciate knowledge and wisdom.  I appreciate extra pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. I appreciate peace.  I appreciate feeling up to writing here today.  I appreciate coming out the other side :)

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