I have had a daughter with bipolar disorder but cannot find her. the courts were suppose to let me know what and how she was doing when she went to california with my eldest daughter nothing. This is crazy i worked with her so long. my house was under 24 hours around the clock for anything that my doctors would need to know. very brilliant the medicine she was on sometimes quiet. read all her medical files. then i ended up in the middle. told psychologist they were crazy. i had a spiritual outlook and needed to handle this situation. sometimes one personally would speak and than another. very brilliant child now she is 33 years old trying to find her. somewhere in fresno california. working with people with differnet personalities are very difficult but i handled it until the family did not understand what was going on. i ended up in court one side family and myself by myself. long story but sometimes you have to be alert. i did not even know what was going on doctors to doctors until the last doctor a women found out what was wrong. i had a hard time with her suppose i did not take the time now i cannot find her. the courts did not respond to me. the records are in archives. love her very much. family was against me but i forgive them i know what i was dealing with. now i wonder how she is doing. i told the psychologist they were crazy after working and going to the hospital i had to do it to keep up on the medicines and her care. now i am on the hunt for her. i am a mother in search. i know nobody knows what it is like but your writings i do. not easy they change on you like now i am living in independent living taking care of someone. they change. i am highly spiritual and they will not take their medicine. well had to think of someway to get it to them. they are not on medicine for biolar disorder. but they change. i now am on my journey to get my own place but times are hard. but to reach out to a person like my daughter was hard. now what

Dave, I am so excited you said that about forums. I went on one and it was the most negative experience I have had. I enjoy reading your stuff. I fell in love with a man with bipolar and before I new he had BP I broke it off with him. We still are not back together, but reading your information has given me an understanding and a hopeful outlook. Thank you for oyur work.

Hi.
I agree with you.
I’m trying to solve my own problems and I’m looking for ideas everywhere.
I think so: when you try to solve something, first you define very clear the problem, collect informations, sort them and decide what’s good for you.
It’s nothing wrong to discuss or argue in a forum, if you like so. Discussions sometimes can elucidates some problems.
But nobody decides what to do; it’s you who decide.
Bye

That is good insight. I agree that forums are not a solution to the problem and any questions, ideas, situations, suggestion, recommendations, testimonials, experiences, expressed by others should not be mistaken as treatment or solutions. Forums are sort of a precursor to peoples needs to get and find answers.

I mean when you look at it, it’s like therapy on line. I think that one is more apt to discuss and take-in more information about their concerns than seek out public entities that make people wait days and months for information, resources, and research that you are able to get straight from the horses mouth with people living and supporting people going through the ordeal.
All you do in therapy any way is discuss what is happening with you and listen to others people experiences to. Half of the time you don’t know if the person or people conducting the therapy are capable of providing what is needed. They do not give you extensive resources or proven facts that Dave has put together in some of his studies and courses offered.

For the people who realizes that forums are just community meetings of people coming together to try to get the best information and hope that they can find. And to be able to do that in the privacy of your own home, or at your own pace is really wonderful.
Doctor’s and therapist don’t always offer the best recourse to help. Often they complicate things more. Not saying that their services are inadequate but, they just always seem to be overwhelmed with too many patients and more concerned with the paperwork than anything else.
Bottom line, I think that if you learn of ways to get the information that you seek, and find it useful, why not share and apply it.
If one choose to take the advice of a non-professional by going off what worked for them, then that’s the risk they took of their own choosing.
You constantly make it clear that you are not a doctor or lawyer but find it in your heart to share your knowledge with what you have researched and lived through.

If someone finds peace and comfort from the stories and experiences commented from what is shared on your blogs –Good for them. For the ones that it doesn’t work for, they know what to do.
Nothing is forced.
Peace Out!

I think when it comes to forums it is so that one cannot always get the best answers for problems but one can get very helpful information. It’s about listening to a lot of opinions and then makes your own decision. By listening to what people are saying for instance that are experiencing the same problem as you can help you understand the problem better. This might not cure the problem but it can put you in the right direction. Look at it this way. If you go to a professional person that has studied let’s say bipolar disorder but who never had bipolar himself can give the medication for it and so on, but a person who are experiencing bipolar knows how it feels to have it. So it’s good to talk to a person who has it as well as a professional. I haven’t got a lot of experiences with forums but have come across very helpful answers from people who do not have an idée of a certain subject, so I would say forums is not to through away when it comes to professional issues. When it comes to going to war it is so that if you listen to people who have never been in war they might not give you good directions but there is still some valuable information. Say it’s your first time one goes to war and you can find a forum of old soldiers who had been to war. I think you can learn some valuable lessons from them.

Have a good day

I trust what you are saying. My 29 year old daughter has bipolar but thank goodness that she came to me and said that something is wrong with her and that I must please help her. So we went to all the doctors and she is now on medication. For 29 years we did not know what was wrong with her. I will need all your info and support to help her even if she is now on medication. If people can not admit that something is wrong, I think the road forward is very hard. Thank goodness my daughter asked for help. My worry is if her child will also have it, She is 2 years old and at the moment stays with me. What must I look out for at this young age.
Thanks Lynn

I have had mixed reactions about forums. Now, if I post, just as when I post to blogs, I do not expect any kind of miracle answers. In fact, if I do get a response, I am usually surprised. But a few days ago I wrote in response to something I read on a website for people with ADDADHD. That is one of the many conditions, both mental and physical, with which I constantly deal. I got a dozen or so comments, some inviting me to another interactive group. I do not engage in a lot of what people call “social networking”, but in that instance, I was responding to an article where comments were elicited and I made one, as I sometimes do here, and I got some positive affirmations that I was not alone in the things I wrote about. I was not, however, asking for professional advice. Although I vented some feelings, I made it clear that I was not trying to complain, just to connect. One thing I learned early is that nobody, even professionals, has all the answers. So I read. I research. If a doctor prescribes a medication, I find out from the doc as much as possible. I research online from sources I know to be accurate and not biased in favor of a specific drug company. I note the many reported side effects but, knowing that the information given at the pharmacy must list any side effects that ever were reported in the clinical trials, I know that, for one thing, there are always some symptoms that appear at the top of the list of many drugs. e.g., headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea etc. Some list diarrhea and constipation. So you have to learn not to panic because you see a side effect on the package insert. One of my medications, on the other hand, can have a certain side effect that, if it’s going to happen, will happen early in the course of the medication treatment. The name is not important. But the reason the doctors increase that one so gradually is that if a certain side effect, specific to that medication, occurs (and it’s something that, if it happened, it would jump right out at you because it is so unusual) then it has the potential to be life-threatening so if your doctor is being responsible, he or she should warn you about it when it is prescribed. If you’re not told, that side there is a black box warning on the medication that says if these particular symptoms happen, discontinue the medication immediately and call your doctor. Now that, I’d take seriously. It is up to both supporters and survivors to be informed consumers.
With the exception of that one forum, my experiences have not been very good partly because people are in and out of them so much that you can’t make meaningful connections very easily. Besides that, you can’t just believe everything people say on forums and blogs or books or even everything that your doctor or therapist says. They’re human. So there’s nothing wrong with asking for a second opinion. When I had surgery a year ago, I consulted with two doctors about it. Based on the info I got from them as well as my own research, I decided which doctor to choose and which procedure I had done. I chose a doctor and surgery that was not covered by insurance and it was very expensive and I had to dip into savings that was going to be for something else. But you do what you have to do.

I just got a stack of books from my library today. Most of them have to do with bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder or schizophrenia. they are written for different audiences and emphasize different things. One is a book called “Mind Race” and though I have only read a couple of chapters, I think it’s a book that will fill a void because it is written by a professional psychologist who has bipolar and had his first symptoms at age eleven and his bipolar diagnosis at age 15. The book is written as a part of a series of books addressing adolescent mental health issues. The book is concise and packs a lot of information into a relatively short space. It tells of his struggles with moving from place to place with his family, school issues etc. and it talks about how a teen can communicate effectively with family and friends about the illness. The author’s descriptions of manic, depressive and mixed states and psychotic thinking will ring true for many, both supporters and survivors but the book stresses that each person is unique and their treatment plan should be unique.
I have another book I’m also reading which is specifically written for parents of bipolar children. It’s next on my list I think and I have three promising ones on borderline personality disorder and a couple on schizophrenia and one on PTSD in borderlines, some on dissociative disorders, and I’m not any kind of professional, though I am well educated and have worked professionally as a teacher, musician, community theater performer, music therapist, medical transcriptionist in a mental health clinic, and yes, I have the graduate degrees and all that. In addition, I am a strong advocate for the disability community.

I love the independence the Internet has given me as far as getting access to more information. But it is my responsibility, as it is for supporters and for survivors when they are stable, to get as much reliable information as possible, don’t put your trust in any one person, (any professional who isn’t secure enough to understand that someone might question him/her probably isn’t worth going to, at least not on a permanent basis. A doctor or therapist should welcome questions and be willing to admit when they don’t know something and offer to find it out and get back to the patient/client ASAP.

I once had a nurse in a psychiatric facility blatantly lie to me when I asked about a drug. A doctor was trying to prescribe two drugs to me which I knew both from research and personal experience and observation of others were not to be taken together. So, I asked the nurse a question. I asked if one of the drugs was in a certain class or another class. I knew the answer. The nurse did not. But rather than say, “I don’t know but I”ll look it up in the nurse’s drug book” (there really is such a thing sort of like the PDA (physicians drug reference) but written for nurses and if he had admitted that he didn’t know (after all, who expects a nurse to know every drug in every class without sometimes having to look something up? If he had said that instead of telling me a lie which could have been dangerous, I would have respected that. I should note, too, that the prescribing doctor in that psychiatric agency who was the medical director and who had prescribed those two drugs was later dismissed. Unfortunately, the nurse, who is still insecure, lazy and trying to pass himself off as a doctor, is still there. (I’m working on it. There’s no excuse for such incompetence and this is in a private agency but one that treats mostly low income people with no insurance or mainly those on MEDICARE or MEDICAID who can’t afford to get treatment in better settings. It kind of reminds me of the blog entry from Dave about people who are rich being able to walk in and get the best treatments whenever they want and the rest of us “regular” people having to settle for less ideal or even substandard treatment. Well, I’ve been in the mental health system first as a patient since the age of nine and as a part of a treatment team and a trained peer counselor and all sorts of things. I’m also not stupid and I know that if they’re like many places, they inflate their costs and bill MEDICARE and MEDICAID for as much as they can. I don’t have a problem with that but if they’re going to do that then they have to be accountable. The place has some really good therapists there and the medical director they have now is good. But people were hurt by that previous medical director and I knew what he was doing and wish I had been more outspoken earlier. Fortunately, the damage done to patients was not irreparable. But I can’t emphasize enough the importance of not being afraid to ask questions of the doctor or therapist or nurse and asking them to explain about the meds they give you. It’s frustrating, I know, because they often have little time to give and want to rush you through. That’s why it’s so important if you can to write down a list of questions you want to ask and make sure you understand as much as possible about the treatment that is being offered to you or your loved one.

Forums can be helpful for support sometimes, it’s kind of like with support groups off line. Many are not very helpful because either the people there are not stable enough to help others or the group gets mired down with people complaining and being negative without also wanting and trying to find solutions. I don’t have a problem with people venting. Supporters really do need to take care of themselves, talk to other supporters and so on. But I’m always a little put off by people who try to tell me that this medication or that one is what I should be taking. I listen when people say what they’re taking but I don’t automatically run to the doc and say I want to be on that med. If my meds are not working and I find out about one I haven’t tried, I might bring it up as a question for the doc. But lots of times the doc knows things I don’t and tells lme why he wouldn’t recommend a certain med or meds.

Another thing that reminds me of is the whole med compliance thing. I know a couple of people who have bipolar and who drive me nuts because they’ll say to me, “Oh, man, I feel so great! I’ve got this great new job. I’m dealing with paying my overdue bills. I feel so good that I don’t need my meds anymore.

No! I want to wring their necks! It’s not because I like meds. Some of them make me feel, well, not exactly wonderful. But it’s a trade off. I know that every time I’ve seen someone with bipolar go off meds, it’s been a disaster. I had a friend go off for two years and start taking herbal supplements. He was great for awhile. But then he committed suicide. I know a couple of other people who get stable for awhile, go off their meds and wind up in the hospital and sometimes they’ve done a lot of damage to their finances or their relationships before they finally get in the hospital or to the doctor and get back on meds. I really do hope they come up with a cure for bipolar. I know research is being done and more and more is being found out about how the chemicals in the brain work. I know there’s genetic research going on. But there’s not a cure. People with bipolar can live a much better quality of life than they used to before things like lithium and then later drugs came along. If you do get a med change, I know it’s maddening, but some of them take awhile to get enough built up in your system for them to have maximum effectiveness. This is particularly true of antidepressants. I know there’s a big debate about prescribing antidepressants for some people who have bipolar but have more manic than depressive episodes so I know they should be prescribed with care and it’s an individual thing.Just don’t accept stock answers except for this: Don’t go off your meds unless you’ve been told to because of a specific side effect that your doctor has warned you about in advance. If there’s a problem with a med, call the doctor, don’t just go off it till your next appointment. Some meds need to be tapered off and if you go cold turkey you could end up in worse trouble.

I know I’m only saying things that Dave has probably said hundreds of times in emails. But there arre always new people being added to the list, which is why he keeps emphasizing some things.

Every day is a new day of hope. Things can get better.

Good Morning David,
My boyfriend was and still is diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. What angries me is I am still left in the dark when we go to the doctor. He has and still has siezures. Praise the lord he has not had one recently. However, his last doctor couldn’t find anything wrong, even after a EEG test was done. So they transferred him to another doctor. And in the visit the doctor wouldn’t hardly even let him talk. All he did was kept punching on his little computer. He is getting help from the state, so it is not costing us money except our expense driving to and from all of his doctor’s visits. I have begged him to go to our regular doctor that my kids and I use (she’s not a mental doctor). He is afraid that if we switch doctors and pay for this newer doctor, as I think the other doctors are quacks.The state will stop helping, what should we do ? He has had very high blood pressure, and the state doctors have not given him any medicine to help control it. Is his gaining a bookoo of weight, because of his medicine. When we asked the doctor, he said “Well would you rather have your head feel better or lose weight.” But then (Charles gets depressed again and then we are right back to square one. Is there not a medium, where he can take his medicine for bi-polar, angxiety, and depression, and still feel good about himself, without gaining so much weight. And with him getting so over weight, and having high blood pressure, to me that’s a heartattack waiting to happen. Dave I hope you can help me I’m so lost. I thank God for you everyday that I remember. You are the only one I have found that is helping. God bless you Dave!!

this is not a comment on the last mail.
but my last cry for help I am 21 years old and now have BP for about 3 years now and I can not take it ennymore the ups and down like a roler coster and if I don`t get help soon I well not servive.