Hi,
How’s it going?
Hope you have a great day.
Well the blog is working out really well. Some people are having a few problems finding where to post.
You have to click the link below for the blog and then SCROLL down. Make sure you do that if you are interested.
Okay, there was a huge earthquake in China.
I wanted to say I’m sorry to anyone and everyone affected with this terrible natural disaster.
If you don’t know what I am talking about, let me post something from CNN:
“BEIJING, China (CNN) — China warned Sunday that dozens of dams were in danger of collapse in Sichuan province following the 7.9-maginitude earthquake that devastated the region earlier this month.
A woman and child walk among collapsed houses in Zundao township Saturday in Sichuan province.
more photos > The warning came as authorities revised up the death toll from the May 12 disaster to 62,664 with another 23,775 missing and a powerful magnitude 5.8 aftershock hit the area killing at least one person and injuring 400 others.
The aftershock — the strongest since another of equal magnitude a day after the quake — was felt in the provincial capital Chengdu, 240 kilometers from the aftershock’s epicenter.”
This is obviously a really terrible natural disaster. I have been following this story because it was a documentary on earthquakes that I saw years ago that prepared me for something related to bipolar disorder – the episodes after a major bipolar episode and how destructive they are.
Okay, here’s the deal.
If you are dealing with bipolar disorder, you may or may not have seen a major bipolar episode. That’s when a person becomes totally unstable and is really out of their mind for an extended period of time. The person normally does a whole lot of bad things including but not limited to: spending tons of money, making things up, saying and doing things they would never say or do and many other destructive things.
Once a bipolar supporter figures out this is a bipolar episode and how severe it is, he/she works hard to try to get the person stable. It could take a year or longer. It could be shorter. But generally not a few weeks.
Then the bipolar supporter thinks, “Wow, that was terrible. Thank God this is over. I hope this never happens again. Now that the worst has passed, I can rest because we just had a major episode.”
It’s this kind of thinking, the kind that I did myself that leads to even a bigger disaster.
When my mom went through her first major, gigantic bipolar episode, after 1 year, I helped her become stable.
NOTE-I am NOT a doctor or therapist and NOT offering medical advice. When I say “helped her” I mean find a doctor, create a system, etc.
Anyway, after she was stable, I swear I thought this in my head, “Wow, that was the worst, I never want this to happen again. I am glad the worst is behind us. Hopefully she won’t have another major episode like this for like 7 to 10 years.”
I seriously said that “7 to 10 years.” I thought that would be about right in my head. I thought “you would never have two major episodes back to back.”
THIS WAS TOTALLY WRONG.
Well, I let my guard down. I didn’t pay attention to the systems. Guess what? Within a year, my mom went into another major episode REALLY quickly and the next one was almost worse than the first one.
Why? Well we were already weak and tired from the first episode and still recovering (my dad and myself). So it wasn’t that hard for a few things to really impact us.
It’s the same as the Chinese Massive Earthquake. If you reread what’s above you see how the aftershock which is like another earthquake also did major damage and killed people as well.
Scientists and experts expect aftershocks and prepare for them so less people get killed than in the old days. Why? Because people know. They know aftershocks will occur. Emergency people prepare for them. But they are still destructive.
With bipolar disorder, NO ONE that I know of talks about the episodes after major bipolar episodes.
I actually go over this extensively in my bipolar doomsday scenario course you can read about here:
http://www.bipolarcentral.com/bipolardoomsday/
You can actually get it f.ree to review and plus get $50. It’s kind of crazy that I am offering this. Check it out if you are interested.
Anyway, back to my lesson today. The deal is, there are episodes after big episodes.
In my courses/systems below,
SUPPORTING AN ADULT WITH BIPOLAR DISORDER?
Visit:
http://www.bipolarsupporter.com/report11
SUPPORTING A CHILD/TEEN WITH BIPOLAR DISORDER?
Visit:
http://www.bipolarparenting.com
HAVE BIPOLAR DISORDER?
Visit:
I talk about how several people had one major episode that almost destroyed the family. And then with a year or so another big episode that really just knocked the family down for years.
The last episode was so hard to deal with because it came after a major bipolar episode and the families were not prepared.
Just remember this. I hate to bring up something super negative like the earthquake but I wanted to remind everyone about this.
The more I think about it, people have to talk about the hard truth about bipolar disorder. It’s a SERIOUS disorder that many people die from. Many. Studies aren’t exact but I have read and seen stats that say:
20% of people will attempt suicide NOTE-Of the people who work for me, 50% have tried suicide several times.
They say that 25% of all homeless people have a disorder like bipolar disorder.
I have seen 15 to 20% of people in jail have a mental illness (many having bipolar disorder).
Unfortunately, when you see really bad, random killings that don’t make sense, many times it’s someone with bipolar disorder who was OFF medication.
In every case that I listed above, note, the people are almost always off medication.
If you have bipolar disorder, don’t get worried and think you are going to end up having massive problems just because you have this disorder. When you look at virtually all the cases like I talked about (homelessness, suicide, homicide, etc), you find the person was not following a proper treatment plan and was OFF medication.
I know I will get tons and tons and tons of hate mail about this. People will say that is not true, and that I overly promote mediation.
I promote the importance of medication because I have seen it work in so many cases.
And seen (or have gotten letters about) too many people die because they didn’t take their medication!
Well I have to go. One last thing, if you had someone affected by the Chinese earthquake my condolences to you.
FIND OUT WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT ME
Visit: http://www.bipolarcentral.com/testimonials
David Oliver is the author of the shocking guide “Bipolar Disorder—The REAL Silent Killer.” Click Here to get FREE Information sent via email on how and why bipolar disorder kills.
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This is so true! I’ve lived through this with my son and daughter-in-law(parents of my BP grandaughter). The aftershocks hit when you are so vulnerable and super sensitized from the emotional trauma of seeing a child/loved one suffer so much. Then comes the anger that your child who is so intelligent has this “thorn in the flesh”, which is how I’ve come to think of it. We have to stay connected, forgiven and positive in our approaches to survive. We want her to thrive!!
So happy to have the blog back. I hope to see Graham, Suzannawa, Sue and many more return with their postings. I gained so much from their insite, you included Dave. Todays post is a great reminder to always be prepared. I wish all sufferers and supporters strength to manage this horrible illness.
Good Morning Dave and kteescarl. I am still reading all the information on these matters, and do appreciate what you are doing to help others. I am learning alot. I and my family have a very good friend who has had an episode just like what you both have described and I in particular, do believe that it is very possible that another could approach very soon. We/I am prepared for this, though very aware that it will not be easy. We love our friend dearly and wish to be there, and help. And always to be positive and forgiving for our friend.We are also all aware that our friend is doing the best possible to cope and is very remorseful of problems caused by this episode. It is very difficult at times but with a great deal of prayer and faith we will endure. All of us. Dave you a very right to compare these episodes to the earth quakes plagueing the poor people in China. It is so very much like that at times.And honestly it is quite frightening at times, but we stand and are still here. It can be heartbreaking. But we are all surviving through this and so is our friend. We will continue to be diligent. And what you have to offer here is a great help Dave. Thankyou. It does help us all to have hope. And I will be looking in here and other places to hear more from you and try to benefit from your experience. Be well Dave and Thankyou again.
I have seen the affects of bi polar 1st hand and it does so much dammage that it ruins friendships and leaves emotional scars that take years to get over.and some people dont look at its a disorder that the person is out if control,possably off medication yet i’ve also seen people use the diganosis to get away with things that they were in controil of.so theres a fine line there to.my first husband cornered me and said if i have to kill somebody to survive I will and a few days later was picked up on murder charge and he told me he would get off and basically got a slap on the wrist and a pat on the back.I talked to his psycritrist and told him he knew what he was doing ans he agreed.I lost a very dear friend becouse of a explosion her son went off and she let him break every window in her house and her windsheild and she let him get away with it and he was on medication but she had him in the stress unit for 48 hours he came home and blew up on her again this time on my daughter I had to make him go home and its been a year and my daughter still cant stand to hear his name he scared her so.but he was prevoked to blow up becouse they were friends since secound grade and we were moving so his biological mother told him he would never see her again and it triggered the eposode they had been friends over 14 years.
i love having someone else understand all this sh*t for a change. as i said in my personal info, i don’t know which medications i should turn to, so i’ve been suffering through it all without them. granted, for a time, i “self-medicated” myself with crystal-meth to keep the arguments in my head down to a whisper, but when that no longer worked, i turned to cutting myself to focus my thoughts. the pain crystallized my focus to a point where i could DEAL with the things happening around me, y’know? maybe you don’t know, but that’s my POINT: how do i deal as i grow older (i’m 39), when the prices of medications are out of my reach? episodes are easier to deal with when i’ve got resources to turn to, but i’m technically-homeless and haven’t had a steady job in years because i also seem to have issues dealing with public-contact situations, and it’s not always easy trying to make bipolar-I sit in the background while i try to make a living in this freakin’ world!!!!
sorry i rambled-on there, but it takes me only a second to get worked-up nowadays! i hope i don’t offend anyone out there, ok?
This is a scary thought. My boyfriend has been in the psych ward for over a month now and is at last beginning to stabilise. His manic episode may have been manageable if he had stayed on his meds. He refused to take his meds because of side effects and apparently they stifled his creativity. Within only a week he went very high and then told me that the doctors were trying to prevent his mission to save the world as God’s special ambassador with their drugs. He would “never again take any medication or see a doctor.” Now I know what to watch out for. If he talks too much and too fast and becomes God’s ambassador he is going into an episode. If he stays on his meds and keeps up his regular psychiatric appointments he should be ok. I hope to be able to help him avoid the stressors which could trigger another episode. They are still trying to work out the right doses for 4 different meds. Some days he is quite cheerful and almost back to earth level, while other days he seems very drugged. It may take another couple of weeks.
Hi David and all: I know you always want to be positive in your emails and want only positive responses left here as well but the cold hard truth is that for their to be a positive side of anything their has to a negative side. Like good and evil, everything has a balance, and unfortunately when you are dealing with the negative side of Bi-polar, or any other illness for that matter, it is not very pleasant but you have to deal with the negativity in order to get to the positive side. And in dealing with the negative side of bi-po and other mental disorders, it seems to take forever to get past it because you rarely ever hit the right combination of medications to maintain the person’s stability on the first or 2nd or many times as in my daughter’s case. She is somewhat stable now but still on the teeter-totter and just takes a little stress to see the manic start in her.