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If you’ve been going through a nasty divorce or child custody battle that has lasted years, it’s likely you have experienced a great deal of chronic stress. Years of such stress can create devastating health problems that are often misunderstood and inadequately treated. The stress of dealing with a high-conflict co-parent is particularly likely to badly damage a person’s health as the troubles often continue until well after the children grow into adulthood. But often medical professionals treat these problems as merely mental health issues when in fact there has been significant physiological to the body. This article points out some of the common symptoms of the physiological damage and refers you to additional reading on medical tests that can help you determine appropriate treatment for such conditions.

Personality Disorders and “High Conflict Personalities” Can Cause Severe Mental and Medical Damage

Parents who are dealing with a person who appears to suffer from a personality disorder such as Borderline, Narcissistic, Histrionic, Antisocial, or Paranoid personality disorders are particularly prone to devastating health effects. Often these people engage in parental alienation child abuse such as by blocking the children from contact with a capable or loving parent and trying to force the children to hate that parent. The children are clearly being abused along with the target parent. It’s entirely possible that the young ones will develop mental and physiological injuries from this abuse, too.

Some are literally driven to their deaths by years of abuse. A few even commit suicide to escape it. Others end up on work disability and require expensive medical care for many years. Yet for them, the symptoms still linger for even decades because often medical professionals treat these people as if they are simply suffering from “major depression” or “generalized anxiety disorder” when in fact they are physiologically very ill and in need of medical care, not just counseling and psychotherapy.

Common Symptoms of Physiological Damage from Chronic Stress

The following symptoms are often signs of long-term damage to the stress management systems in the body. Every one of them can result from damage to the adrenal glands after they have been forced to pump out vast quantities of cortisol for years trying to help you cope with the ex’s harassment and attacks.
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Dr. Richard Warshak is a widely known psychologist who has focused his career on the impact of divorce on children. As the author of the 5-star reviewed book Divorce Poison New and Updated Edition: How to Protect Your Family from Bad-mouthing and Brainwashing, he’s built a wide following among parents, grandparents, and relatives of children suffering from parental alienation child abuse.

While Divorce Poison does a great job explaining parental alienation and some of the possible countermeasures to it. But it is written for adults. While adult children suffering from the fallout of parental alienation might benefit from it, it’s not intended for reading by younger children.

There is a dire need for educational material for children to help them fight the destructive brainwashing coming from an emotionally abusive parent out to make them hate the other parent. Aside from Dr. Amy Baker’s book for middle school kids and teens that I discussed last year in my article Kids’ Parental Alienation Book: “I Don’t Want to Choose!”, there has been little material for kids available.

Helping Kids and Adults Understand Parental Alienation

Into this void arrives the Welcome Back Pluto video. Dr. Warshak teamed up with Trace Productions to create a video for everybody in the family about parental alienation, including kids. Possibly the only people who won’t benefit from it are some of the alienating parents and their allies who cannot accept that children need both their parents. Even kids who are not experiencing alienation themselves may benefit because they may become better able to help their friends and classmates cope with the abuse coming from an alienating parent.
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A study conducted by Rhode Island Hospital has shown that the common Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ) test used for screening for bipolar disorder often results in a person who appears to be suffering from BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. Yet despite this confusion, these two conditions are very different. For one, there are no approved medications for BPD at present whereas there are medications approved for treating bipolar disorder. Additionally, psychotherapy programs such as DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) which have been developed for use with BPD patients and shown to be effective are not commonly used with bipolar patients. Consequently, there is a significant risk that people wrongly diagnosed with bipolar disorder who are actually suffering from BPD may be prescribed ineffective medications that may have adverse side effects and will not receive psychotherapy that could help them manage their BPD.
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Reading through Dr. Tara Palmatier’s excellent and entertaining website A Shrink For Men, one can see how men are frequently abused by mentally ill women. The women may have grown up in abusive homes, have hormonal imbalances, or just are “plain crazy” perhaps with a personality disorder (especially the DSM-IV Cluster B ones including Borderline, Narcissistic, Histrionic, and Antisocial) or two mixed in. Add in some other disorders, such as common co-morbid conditions including bipolar disorder, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, and an eating disorder and you’ve got almost a purpose-built “killing machine” who can and will attack and ruin anybody who gets in her way. She’ll likely get away with it, too.

Our society enables and encourages women to abuse others. From domestic violence to child abuse to psychological terror, women are treated as if they are authorized to ruin the lives of others with no repercussions on themselves. Amazingly, they often are able to recruit “professionals” to help them conduct their abuse campaigns against men. Besides the typical gender biased CPS social workers and other government servants, one of the most notable of these abuse allies are incompetent mental health professionals.
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If you’re taking advantage of the buy 1 get 2 free sale at Puritan’s Pride and buying $25 or more of products, enter the coupon code 200903 during your checkout to get another $5. That’s enough to cover the standard $4.95 shipping amount with a nickel to spare. The coupon code is claimed to last until September 30, 2009, but the buy 1 get 2 free sales is over September 19, 2009.

Puritan’s Pride carries a huge variety of dietary supplements, vitamins, amino acids, skin care formulas, and other products for your well-being. Some of our favorite Puritan’s Pride products useful to a lot of people are their Vitamin D3 5000 IU softgels and 5-HTP 100mg mood and sleep aid capsules.
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Life Extension’s Mega EPA/DHA fish oil is on sale through September 14, 2009, at 65% off regular price. It is a very good quality fish oil supplement and also very well priced at $6.98 per bottle of 120 softgels. It is a double strength formulation with reduced cholesterol, meaning that it is equivalent of 240 typical fish oil softgels. As you may know, fish oil is well-reputed for managing blood lipid levels, particularly helping to lower LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. What you may not know is that many common brands of fish oil supplements contain a considerable amount of cholesterol in each softgel. Mega EPA/DHA has twice the EPA and DHA (the primary beneficial Omega-3 fish oil compounds), half the calories, and 80% less cholesterol per softgel versus Costco’s Kirkland Signature Fish Oil Concentrate that is regularly priced at $9.69 (plus tax) for 400 regular strength softgels.

Life Extension Mega EPA/DHA Fish Oil is useful for improving your health in many ways. In addition to helping cut down unhealthy blood lipid levels (LDL cholesterol and triglycerides), it is also helpful for reducing the risk of depression, blood clots, inflammation disorders, heart attacks, and strokes. Fish oils containing significant quantities of DHA in particular are believed to improve brain and nervous system health.

Dr. Broda Barnes spent 52 years of his life researching the human thyroid gland and its impact on health. Although he died in 1988, his work lives on through the Broda O. Barnes M.D. Research Foundation as well as books and many in the alternative medicine community who believe he was on the right track regarding a hidden widespread epidemic of low thyroid functioning begin responsible for rising levels of metabolic related health problems. The 40% of the population affected by the rising epidemics of high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome interestingly approximate the 40% of the population whom Dr. Barnes suspected have hypothyroidism, the vast majority of whom have never been diagnosed with the condition. Among Dr. Broda’s many writings on thyroid disease and treatment, his book Hypothyroidism: The Unsuspected Illness stands out as popular, relevant, and well-reviewed even decades after its original publication. The book explains how to detect low thyroid function, the adverse health effects it causes, and how to improve thyroid hormone levels to restore health.
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With the increasing worldwide news coverage of widespread vitamin D deficiency and the high rates of associated diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression, and autism, you may wonder just how much vitamin D is too much? Many doctors are clueless about vitamin D toxicity and believe that 2000 IU per day of vitamin D3 on a daily basis could be deadly, and 100,000 IU in one dose would surely kill you. Surprising to some, these common beliefs of doctors are grossly mistaken. New research argues for 10,000 IU per day of vitamin D3 on a daily basis for long periods being the upper recommended limit for adult dietary intake and that single doses of 100,000 IU are helpful for rapidly building up levels of vitamin D in the body.
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If you’re trying to save money in these sorry economic times, one way to do it may be to consult with your doctor on switching to common generic medications available at low prices via Walmart Pharmacy. Often newer medications don’t work much better than older ones, yet they usually carry higher prices and sometimes unknown long-term side effects. Click on the Walmart $4 Prescription Program for more information.

Print out a copy of the $4 generic prescription medicines list and take it to your doctor visits for your doctor to consult if you need refills or new prescriptions. Doctors are often not particularly conscious of how much medications cost, so this could help you save a lot of money if a low-cost generic can be used rather than a newer name-brand drug. Also ask your doctor about writing prescriptions for 90 days rather than 30 days. This may help you save a little additional money as many prescriptions are available for $10 for 90 days, thus saving you about another $8 per year.

Some of the most widely used generic medications available on this program include Glyburide and Metformin used widely by people with pre-diabetes and diabetes, Lovastatin and Pravastatin which are used for lowering LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, and Amitriptyline and Citalopram and Trazodone which are commonly used as antidepressants.

Further Reading

Cost-Effective Medications and Supplements

More Data + Less Care = Lower Cost + Better Health

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The products mentioned on this post are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Are you stressed out and depressed? Having trouble falling asleep each night? Feeling like you could use some help? A lot of us going through high-conflict divorces, child custody battles, divorce-induced bankruptcy, mental illnesses (depression, panic attacks, etc.), job troubles, and other life problems have such symptoms. The ongoing economic crisis may be compounding such troubles, or enough to stress you out on its own. Rather than resorting to the typical psychiatric medicines like anti-depressants and anxiolytics, consider drinking tea or taking L-theanine, a natural substance extracted from tea that may help reduce anxiety and depression.
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