Schizophrenia

Hey there, fellow diet-recoverers. I’m wondering if anyone has thoughts on a Matt Stone-esque form of eating in relation to healing various forms of mental illness.

Just to provide a bit of my own history, I’ve struggled with a minor form of schizophrenia for about three years and have gone on and off of various diets in attempts to clear up various symptoms related to that illness. One interesting thing is that the illness actually began to show itself around the time I started trying to eat in more of a healthy fashion. I began eating more “naturally” and “organically” and thus began limiting the variety of foods I allowed myself to eat shortly before the illness started to rear its ugly head. I didn’t truly make this association between food deprivation and potential partial activation of the illness until rather recently, as crazy as that sounds.

Anyway, I’ve tried about every diet there is. I just completed about six months of a “Ray Peat” form of eating in which I mainly subsisted on fruit, dairy, gelatin, etc. I used a lot of recipes from Josh Rubin’s (East West Healing’s) cookbook, which allowed me to eat a wider variety of foods. Interestingly, I started doing about the best I’ve done in the last three years. My thinking was quite clear, my energy were high, my anxiety levels went down, but from a practical standpoint, it’s a diet difficult to maintain, as most diets are. I somehow still didn’t quite feel right and got tired of drinking so many liquids. As Matt talks about, it’s hard to drink so many liquids and keep body temperatures up, even when consuming lots of salt, especially when winter’s fast approaching.

I’d love to be able to eat whatever I want whenever I want. About a week ago, I did sorta say “screw it” and started eating more of a Standard American Diet-we’re talking pizza, bagels, sandwiches, you name it-but I’ve noticed my paranoia’s started up again. My libido seems a little higher than it was doing the Peat regimen, which I take as a good sign. In regard to the paranoia, I seem to be especially sensitive to items such as gluten and dairy when not the dairy’s not ingested as part of a Ray Peat regimen. Do you think I’ll overcome such sensitivities if I simply eat until my temperatures go up again? Gluten and A1 milk (if you’re familiar with that issue) are notorious allergens for schizophrenics, but I’ve experienced the thrill of overcoming the allergy to A1 milk when I was doing the Peat thing, so I imagine the gluten allergy could also be overcome.

Thanks if you made it through my long post. Does anyone think my mental health will improve if I continue to follow Matt’s insructions?