June 30, 2011
I have Bipolar and Major Depression. My meds have my symptoms in check. In April my husband passed away. I have cried very little and wonder if the antidepressants I take are preventing me from grieving and mourning like I should be. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thanks for your question. I am so sorry to hear about your loss. I can only imagine how difficult that must be. I think everyone grieves differently. My grandmother passed away in February. Where that probably is not as tragic as losing your husband, it was still difficult. I had a very rough time with it, but the only time I cried was the during the memorial and funeral and burial. After that, nothing. I kind of went numb and dropped into a big depression. Grieving is very difficult, I think even more so for us with bipolar. There is a good percentage of time where we [...]
June 29, 2011
I am at the end of my rope, barely hanging on. My husband, stepdaughter and stepson all are bipolar. They are driving me crazy. They are right and everybody else is wrong. I get cussed at put down and feel like nothing more than a maid to my husband. I have dealt with this almost 20 years and I am about to walk out. I just need to vent. The sights I have been to say not to take it personally when they say unkind things but you can’t help but take it personally. Especially when they don’t admit they have a problem. The son and daughter both have been diagnosed as bipolar but they do not take their medication as prescribed and my husband thinks there is nothing wrong with him. I have developed fibrmyalgia and depression since living this way and I just can’t do it anymore. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [...]
June 28, 2011
This is a direct entry from my journal. Sometimes I have to look back to see how far I have come and to remind myself where I DONT want to go…… September 16, 2006 I spent the day with a friend from group. I had a good time. My boyfriends’s friend gave us his tickets to go see the musical Wicked and we went. This was the second night in a row I felt normal. I mean, we talked a bit about group and some other things related to our illness, but for the most part, we just had fun. It was nice to be outside of therapy. Therapy is so emotionally draining. My friend and I were talking about how we both needed some intellectual stimulation though because we feel like our brains are dying. All I hear about lately is depression, mania, bipolar, schizophrenia, and low self-esteem & confidence, which is good [...]
June 27, 2011
Well it’s not just that, it’s the fact that I wouldn’t go to my mother and tell her I may have bipolar disorder, take me to a doctor…She gets temperamental when I tell her I need glasses, what would happen if I tell her I have some kind of mental disorder, she’d laugh it off and tell me I’m imagining things or go crazy on me and start yelling…she doesn’t know what bipolar is and I can’t explain it to her, she wouldn’t let me, cause maybe just maybe if I do explain it she would understand but then again she won’t listen to ‘my’ reasoning. What can I do? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Well it’s not just that, it’s the fact that I wouldn’t go to my mother and tell her I may have bipolar disorder, take me to a doctor…She gets temperamental when I tell her I need glasses, what would [...]
June 26, 2011
fail·ure/ˈfālyər/Noun 1. Lack of success. 2. An unsuccessful person, enterprise, or thing. See, well now that just gives me a whole new question. If failure is lack of success, who defines success? Well the dictionary defines it as so … suc·cess/səkˈses/Noun 1. The accomplishment of an aim or purpose. 2. The attainment of popularity or profit Okay, fair enough. But wait … to attain popularity. So if I’m not popular, I’m a failure? Yeah, I’m not so sure I agree with that. But to accomplish an aim or purpose … I can buy that. HOWEVER Who assigns us our aim or purpose? I mean who REALLY determines what becomes a failure, and what is just small roadblock to attaining that purpose? Just because it isn’t attained the first time, does that actually mean we can’t try again? I mean is there a time frame on success? Yeah, I don’t [...]
June 25, 2011
Well I’m going to ask a question anyway! Cuz I’m considerate like that. My weight tends to fluctuate with my moods. I’m wondering if everyone experiences this? The more extreme my mood is, the more extreme the weight change. When I’m massively manic, I’m pin skinny. I don’t have time to eat, and I definitely don’t want to eat because um HELLO, I look awesome right now, food would ruin that. The depression is the weird one for me though. If I’m mildly depressed, I just don’t care. I eat what I want when I want and could care less. But if I’m majorly depressed, I’m back to not eating again. I already hate my body because while the depression was not so sever I gained a few pounds, and the more severe it gets the more I start to feel guilty about it. Not to mention the fact that [...]
June 23, 2011
I’ve read the post “My Boyfriend with BP is pulling away? What do I do?”, and I’m in a similar/different situation. We had a wonderful relationship, but he was going through tough times with medication switches and additional stresses. He spent time at a treatment facility daily and did a lot of “digging”, which I take to mean self-evaluation. At the beginning of the year he wasn’t in a great place with himself, though he was still very comfortable with me and shared intimate moments and feelings. He then very unexpectedly broke up with me, saying “I can’t do this to you”, “I don’t want to hurt you”, etc. I have been disallowed to talk to or approach him or mutual friends; I got no follow-up conversations, no chance to ask questions; and I have no clue how he’s doing. Occasionally I spot him at school and he looks dead [...]
June 22, 2011
I need help!! I am 21 years old and have been in an extremely rocky, unhealthy relationship with my bipolar boyfriend for the past year and a half. He is 23 now and has only recently started to take anti-depressants. He has been so busy lastly that he has run out of his meds and has still not gone to get another prescription. Over night i saw a change in him! He broke up with me a couple of months ago and it was very sudden and out of the blue. he said he “just couldn’t do it anymore.” This has been a common issue in our relationship, he loves me to pieces one moment and then the next day he wants nothing to do with me. I have read blogs and articles and i see this is common thing. He came back to me apologising and saying that he [...]
June 21, 2011
If you had the choice to not be a person with bipolar disorder any more would you take it or do you think that being bipolar has made you a stronger person? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wow. That question had me thinking. I was weighing pros and cons, meds and no meds, and after some thought (and just short of opening up Excel and creating a spreadsheet with all my analytics) I realized that the answer was actually really quite simple. No. No I would not choose to no longer have bipolar disorder. Ok, so everyone who read my Facebook posts yesterday is probably jumping up and down right now screaming “WHAT!!! That’s not what you were saying yesterday!!!” while throwing rotten tomatoes at the computer screen, but then again, I’m sure they are also all too familiar with the extreme highs and extreme lows (one day you may hate the mailman for delivering you [...]
June 20, 2011
Bipolar Disorder and a Life-Threatening Illness As a person with Bipolar Disorder, I have always feared getting a life-threatening illness. Well, that happened to me in June of 2007. I was diagnosed with bladder and kidney cancers. It was a fearful time and the first thing I thought was, “Oh no! How am I going to control my Bipolar Disorder with this illness?” Knowing that chemotherapy usually makes people very sick, I was very worried about how I would keep my pills in my stomach without vomiting them up. Well, this is my story on how I coped with it all. I started chemotherapy right away. I had a conversation with my psychiatrist over how I would stay stable since my medications would be messed with due to the therapy. She said we would do what we could so I could stay functioning. After I started chemotherapy the hardest part [...]
June 19, 2011
Number One … Bob Rocks … So much, in fact, my sister renamed today “Bob’s Day“. Just needed to make sure we are all on the same page. After I first got diagnosed with bipolar, my life took an unexpected turn when only weeks after I received a call from my mother saying my awesomesauce daddy was going to need bypass surgery. Though I was devastated, it put much in perspective for me. How? By the way he approached the situation. Bypass surgery is terrifying … for the whole family … but my dad stayed overwhelmingly positive through the entire process. To this day, I believe it was his attitude that got him through. And if he could stay optimistic during such a time of uncertainty, what was I doing pissing and moaning for having an illness which is NOT life threatening, and NOT something that requires surgery, and NOT [...]
June 18, 2011
I’ve had depression for years which i have been treated for but recently was correctly and finally diagnosed with bipolar. When starting new meds does anyone feel “weird” like not having the mood swings isn’t normal? It’s hard to describe but I’m ‘feeling” odd with these new “normal” moods. Is this common? Thanks ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Being misdiagnosed and treated first for depression, seems to be quite common. I also was misdiagnosed for many years with depression, so when I was being treated, my treatments were just for depression so the bipolar symptoms were always present. When I was finally diagnosed with bipolar and put on a different medication regime, it definitely felt different. Those lingering symptoms from previous treatments had started to fade. It definitely felt weird because those previously untreated symptoms had been a part of my life for a very long time. When you have something for a long [...]
June 17, 2011
My son has been living with me for over a year. He is going through a divorce,no children, and has lost his house and job and dog. He was seeing a psychiatrist for meds, lamictal and adderal. But, he became fixated on his divorce and insisted that instead of seeing the therapist to talk to he just went to the psychiatrist for the adderal. He did not fill the lamictal prescriptions. Several times recently he became violent with me. I have an order of protection and he has been in jail for two months because we cannot make bail. I need to know if he is on probation and lives with me taking his medications am I safe. I am the only one in the family with a place for him to stay. I am hoping he will be given and accept inpatient treatment and probation and don’t know what [...]
What should someone do when their adult child gets violent? Little bit of background…42 year old child, we live in Michigan, she is currently in jail on a Domestic Violence charge against mom, has prescribed meds but goes off them, sees counselor at local Community Mental Health…it has gotten to the point that mom is scared of daughter and cannot have her in her home any longer. Counselor doesn’t seem to think she needs any inpatient treatment. Mom has asked for help with filing forms to have her ordered to inpatient treatment but is refused. Daughter does well when she does take her meds. How can she get help for her daughter? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is a complicated one for you and your family… and from what you write here it sounds like the person is fine and then doesn’t stay on the medication that helped her with her moods. There [...]
June 16, 2011
My son is 19 years old and has been diagnosed by two different doctors as BP I disorder. The most recent episode (or current) mixed moderate degree. He is completely non-compliant. If he starts meds, he stops taking them before they have a chance to work or when he’s feeling better. He isn’t seeing anyone and continues to cycle through mania/agitation/depression. He has stopped going to college, and loses jobs when he has them (although he lies to me about losing them). He is extremely artistically talented, very, very intelligent (tested as a “genius”…) and amazingly funny and charming when he’s either well or manic. How do I handle this situation. His first dr. told me it was time to use “tough love” (i.e., if you don’t get help, get compliant, you’re out of my house), but I’m hesitant to do that when he’s ill. He says he’d never hurt [...]
June 15, 2011
My brother has struggled with depression for the past 14 years since our dad died. My family and I have become increasingly concerned about his well being. He is self-medicating with alcohol and resistant to any type of treatment. Do you have any advice as to how I can help him understand that treatment can be beneficial? Thank you. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ First, I am sorry about the passing of your father. I can only imagine how difficult that must have been for your entire family, especially having to cope with brother and his poor choice of coping therapy. Second, this is one of the most difficult questions for two reasons. 1) Are you asking for help for his depression, or his alcoholism? 2) It is nearly impossible to convince someone who does NOT want treatment that treatment is the best thing for them. Though many with bipolar and/or depression have a [...]
June 13, 2011
How do I help my boyfriend understand my bi-polar? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Although this may sound like a simple task if given the proper instructions, you may encounter some complications in the process. Which brings me to pose the most important question you’ll need to address before sharing the wealth of knowledge available to your boyfriend. Does he want to understand? Unless our significant others want to understand, no amount of books, blogs or other sources of information are going to do a dang thing. Because if they don’t want to learn about it, everything we teach them is going to run right through them like a spicy been burrito, in one end and out the other! Two things can happen in a case such as this. 1) They can learn to accept you for who you are and quit their complaining because it’s their fault they don’t get what you’re going [...]
June 12, 2011
On Raising a Child With Bipolar Disorder: The Realness of It All I remember those words loud and clear. “I believe Curtis has early onset Bipolar Disorder.” Huh? What did you just say? Ummm…..no, I think you are talking to the wrong parent. But in reality, that doctor did have the right parents and that was us. Us meaning Roy and Shari F: the parents of Curtis! We are now the parents of a child with a formal diagnosis. Many, many feelings took place over the next few weeks. We knew our child had a problem, but come on, it couldn’t be Bipolar Disorder. But it was and it is and it’s real. And it brought a sense of grief. Why grief you ask? Well, we started to grieve the fact that our son will not live a typical child’s life and will always have significant struggles. He had already [...]
June 7, 2011
Ive been going out with a young man that is bipolar.We have tried to be a couple but he has left me three times now, but he always comes back. Its really hurtful going out with him because when he wants me he pressures till i fall again and after going out with him he emotionally disconnects as if he hated me.You either love someone or you don’t, but you cant go behind then tell them you don’t love them, have sex with them and later not call in a week. Ive arrived to the conclusion i must accept him as he is or i will become mad.So the answer for me was to be friends with benefits that way when he didn’t call me i wouldn’t feel rejected.He just is unable to act as a normal boyfriend. But i ask myself what is the best attitude in this cases: [...]
June 6, 2011
What has helped you to manage symptoms you experience with bipolar disorder? What is the least helpful thing another person can do for you? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are so many different things I have done to cope with my symptoms, I couldn’t begin to tell you what they all are… And some things that have worked for me in the past no longer work for me, just as things that never used to work, work now… I know for me, I have to constantly be diligent about my coping skills and using them when I need to, as well as using them correctly… I don’t really have any one skill that has helped me manage all my symptoms… Well, one that’s positive and that I can actually recommend anyways… However, I have noticed that a lot of the skills I have kind of center around one thing-getting out the emotions and [...]
June 5, 2011
It was our great pleasure to be able to interview the most AWESOME and inspirational author, Marya Hornbacher. Here’s how it went down … ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CHRISTI: In both Wasted and Madness, you discuss some painful memories (physically and emotionally), was that therapeutic, or do you think that remembering those things were triggers and kept “fueling the fire”. MARYA: Neither, actually. It certainly wasn’t therapeutic in the sense one might expect, viz. it didn’t feel like catharsis, and there was no sense of unburdening myself of a psychic weight. But writing about these things also didn’t fuel the fire. It was simply very painful at times—particularly in writing Wasted—to remember the history, and really very instructive at other times, particularly w/re: Madness, to put the pieces together on the page. CHRISTI: Of all the therapies, medications, doctors, and procedures you have experienced (you discussed quite a few in your book Madness), [...]
June 3, 2011
Ok scratch that, it may be we little to some…but it’s freaking huge to me!!! So I wrote a book. Then I edited that book. And now I have published the book. And I think you should read said book … over and over and over! (you should buy it!) Ebook Price: $9.99 USD You can also preview it by scrolling down to here and choosing a sample version In short, without trying to sound all professional and OMG this is perfect for the Jacket cover … here’s what it’s about … Annabelle has a massively shitty day. First she’s accused by the family therapist that she resents her brother, Blake, for being bipolar, then her boyfriend dumps her … via text! … only to come home to find out that Blake just lost his scholarship to MSU and was kicked off the track team. Instinctively, she decided to help [...]
June 2, 2011
What can family members do to help a loved one with schizophrenia accept that they have an illness? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There is a lot that family can do to help a loved one with mental illness accept that they have the illness itself. I am using mental illness here because there are several mental illnesses that people can be suffering from at any one time. The first thing that comes to mind is to get educated about your loved one’s illness. Whether it be Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder or Depression they are all misunderstood illnesses that people need to find out about to help their loved one. Contact your local NAMI chapter, Bipolar Lifestyles or other websites to help you learn about the illness at hand. Once you have educated yourself, hopefully it will be a tad easier to help the one you love. Let me give you some pointers that can [...]
June 1, 2011
How do you manage your highs and lows and what strategies can you use to help you manage your manic states? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I’ve been in the middle of a mixed state for a while now, but in the past few days, I’ve become a bit more hypo. I crash a little in the evening, but then I’m back up again — the hypomania is quickly taking over. Sure, hypomania is better than a mixed state (just my personal opinion), but I also know the dangers and so I’m trying to use the beginning of this state to help keep myself in check. In the past, I would just deal with my highs and low as they came, but I’ve come to realize that’s probably not the best way to handle this disorder. With my newfound energy and focus, I’ve started doing a few things that I’m hoping will become habit [...]
