It bothers me to think that people expect a quick fix to this. As if they could get over a tragedy fast. They don’t seem to realize that for us BP’s the episodes are likened to tragedys it takes time to learn to cope and deal with what triggered this or what we may have done or said. It is not easy for us too. To know that you said or did something that hurt someone close to you. So be patient as you would expect for your self.

I know it doesn’t take just days or weeks to get better as I am bipolar. This is the hardest thing I have had to deal with, but with the right people helping me I will in time start to feel better.

I was first diagnosed with manic depression while in the U.S. Army in 1968. After I had been hospitalized for thirty days I was sent to Viet Nam. While I was in country I had two more episodes. My impulsive behavior and oblivion to risks made me an asset during fire fights. In the 39 years that I had this chemical imbalance I can safely say that there were no quick fix. In the seven years after I was honorable discharged I alienated every loved one I had.

David,
If I asked for advice, I didn’t mean right away. Bipolar Schitzophrenia is what my father has. But what I do want to say is it scares me to know someone who has it and being around them who don’t take their medicine. Thank you for listening.
Your friend,

Christina Carter

i understand entirely. Thanks for your e mails – forgive my berevity!
S

I am not sure how anyone could expect you to perform a miracle such as that it took over 20 years for a professional doctor to diagnosis my sister correctly. I doubt anyone of us
could comprehend and completely understand such an undertaking in such a short time.
One thing I have already learned my bipolar people work at warp speed and they tire me out just trying to keep up with the way their minds change second to second. I will take it
slow and hopefully minimize my mistakes I am going to make. Of course we have questions but patience and understanding is more important now. You seem to be covering all that I can handle at the moment. Another thing I have learned you can not please all the people all the time. We have to learn we are only human.
Your doing an awesome job please do not change your program. I do believe if you need
a specific question answered go find the answer for your situation where you live. I find it hard to believe people can expect you to supply all the answers.

It takes along time to understand bipolor I know I have had it for 45 yres and am just now getting it under control . It is not like the common cold it is a disorder and takes time for those who have it to understand it let alone those who don’t and that is not going to happen over night.

I personally am bipolar, and thank the higher power that I realized this when my 15 year old son began his episodes. The only thing he will take is clonzapine, which only helps a little. He has been prescribed another med, but will not accept it. I am 68 year old now.

I personally use 1mg of Clonzapine 3 x a day, along for 40mg of Paxil once a day. It works for me very very well.

I would not ever suggest that others rush to the doctors and ask for the same as everyones body chemistry is different.

Episode free for months now.

Thank You for the Emails. Keep them coming.

That is something i have to learn as a supporter of someone who is bipolar. My bestfriend is bipolar and sometimes it really affects him.My parents are scared to death for me to be around him. In the past my family has seen the bad side of bipolar. My great grandfather, grandmother’s sister, and grandmother’s brother had it. Infact my dad’s cousin killed himself because he had either bipolar or schezophrina . These family members were not under the care of a psyctrist, nor would they keep doctor’s apointments, and wouldn’t take medications as directed. Therefore my dad has seen first hand how bad this diease is and has it processed in his brain that there is no hope for my boyfriend. I believe there is hope. He is under the care of a psyatrist, psychologist, and a primary doctor. So somehow between all three of his doctors am hopeful he can get himself straightened out. So we can have a strong relationship.

Hello David…I am in a real quandry.

Help! My 16 yr old son was admitted to a residential care facility last Friday. For the entire week previous to his admittance, he exhibited extreme impulse control issues, disproportional anger, was suspended from school, held in inschool suspension, extremely antagonistic, violent, extremely narcissitic and filled with grandiose confidence, expressed extreme sadness about how he treated a a girl he was fond of, but told me that while he could see what he was doing at the time–could not control it etc. etc. He has been labeled ADHD since 4th grade, never had success with any of the meds, and has become increasingly unstable this past year or so. Drugs have now complicated his situation and become the catalyst for extreme behavoirs in which he presents himself as a danger to others. He tells me he tried to hang himself in 5th grade with his karate belt. 4-5th grade were horrible years for us resulting in a break down of relationship with his father, who still remains my husband of 20 years today. While he was admitted under Mood Disorder, the doctor is now backtracking to address this as a drug rehab issue. While I understand this is the first step, the behavioral health diagnosis is what will allow me to best serve his medical needs so I am fighting to hold “mood disorder” and most preferably “bipolar” as a primary diagnosis. It is the difference between 30 days of treatment and indefinite. Do I get an advocate? Do I get a new doctor? Can another doctor override this doctor’s diagnosis? I feel overwhelmed and extremely fearful that if he doesn’t get thappropriate help-that i will lose him. The horrible truth is that my own mother tried to drug overdose, her brother blew his head off with a shotgun, my other uncle overdosed, and my aunt hung herself in a jail cell. I also have a great grand father who killed himself. This is about brain chemistry and i am faced with a doctor who thinks that my son’s primary problem is his interest in THC, a legitimate concern, but not the legitamite sole diagnosis. HOW COULD HE NOT TAKE THE HISTORY INTO CONSIDERATION?

Quite right, there is not quick fix. Worse still is trying to accept there is NO fix! Our condition is treatable but it’s not curable. And even worse, IT can get worse!!

I think I am: I seem to be getting increasingly short-tempered, impatient, irritable and angry. I was never like that before, save for when I was taking Prozac. (I was then switched to Cipramil, which seemed to help at the time, but this was before my local Doctor knew the Psychiatrist had previously diagnosed Manic Depression 10 years earlier. She didn’t tell me either, although I always suspected it was the case after an inmate in a psychiatric hospital told me it was so! (Seems people who are mentally ill are often better at spotting others who are also ill, and those who are faking it, than the doctos who treat them!)

However, while I can accept I have this illness, what I do find hard to deal with is in knowing that, while the depressive episodes always come to an end, they always come back again! It becomes easier to spot the early signs and get help, but experiencing the depression does not get any easier! One doesn’t become immune to the “pain”, turmoil and confusion it brings with it. I suspect that, one day, I will have had enough of it.In my case, the Bi Polar condition is overlayed by Dysthymia, or is it the other way around?! Which came first? The chicken or the egg? In all probability ot was the Dysthymia and that may have been the trigger, or it might not have been since there appears to be a history of Bi Polar in my family.

However … did you know some Psychiatrists now think that SOME Bi Polar incidents are caused by Tricyclic drugs given to treat clinical depression! My local doctor does have a patient who experiences mood swings and manic episodes when she take Prozac, but goes back to “normal depression” when she stops taking it!

To LESLIE: Just like “normal” people, those with bipolar disorder often hurt the ones they love most because they are THERE to accept the abuse. Try to see BEYOND the illness to what you say/do that sets him off – I know, it often makes it seem that you are “walking on eggshells” to be around him – but DON’T try to “second-guess” the trigger that would enrage him. All bipolars are NOT the same, just like all “normal” people are not the same. You have taken on yourself an awful burden by loving a bipolar person; you can either accept him for who he is, or you will have to leave the relationship. There’s really NO middle ground. Bipolars can be charming, witty, romantic, intelligent, creative – all the things that drew you to him in the first place. BUT – he has an illness that oftentimes CONTROLS him, and, being a chemical imbalance, he will act in ways that can/will hurt you. In an episode, he will often say/do things he doesn’t mean, and will feel guilty/humiliated when he comes to the realization that he’s done them. If you are going to stay with him, you are going to have to be VERY patient and VERY forgiving. If you find you can’t live with his abuse – get out NOW before he damages YOUR psyche and makes YOU feel like YOU are the person with the illness.

Dave, you are right when you say there are no “quick fixes” for bipolar disorder. After hospitalization, it usually took me nearly a YEAR to recover sufficiently that I could realize the damage I did in an episode, and NOT feel guilty/humiliated with my family and friends. Thank God I had such a support unit that recognized when I was “bad off” in a full-blown manic episode and send/take me to a hospital for treatment! You can’t say “Abracadabra” and make it go away. It takes MONTHS to regulate medications for a bipolar, and during this period of trial-and-error, many mistakes will be made.

I highly urge supporters of bipolar disorder to become aware of the stages of the illness and recognize what would trigger a major manic/depressive episode. We, as bipolars, often DON’T/CAN’T get the help we need because we are feeling soooo good, why lose the feeling? “If it ain’t broken, why fix it?” is the reaction we have when we’re manic. But – then, the BAD things start to happen, and our lives truly are in danger. There are no “magic words” that would lead us to get treatment; it often takes criminal activity or suicidal thoughts to register in our brains that SOMETHING is terribly wrong, and we need HELP.

BIG HUGS to all bipolars and the ones who love them. God loves you, and so do I.

well dang, Dave.. ya mean there’s no lil package with exactly how to make it all work ???

i’m soooooooooooo disappointed 🙂 more like, frustrated, confusled and soooooooooooooooooooo tired.

Someone told me early on when i was thinking, ok, maybe 6 months of this. She said, “Bets, I don’t want to freak you out, but it took 3 years for my son to get a handle on this disease.” so now i’m thinking anything close to 3 years or ‘it’ll sort itself out when it sorts itself out’.

(((hugs))) we will get through this, folks, honest we will.. one day at a time, one hour at a time, sometimes one minute at a time.

my boyfriend mike has bipolor and symtems of paranioyia scitsophrantic and i just dont know what to do or how to deal with hisannoying ways. please help, love paula

I would love a plan to getting through November and December its awful every year. However strangely this year my partner has slipped a disc and cannot physically or shout whilst going through it (lovely for me as he can’t lose his head and get depressed as he is too busy with the pain. However I wonder if I will get a very bad episode after recovery, which I know is not in the very near future yet. But all that energy soon will turn him MANIC!! the Dr’s still refuse to help, they say he is just depressed HUH! yeah sure he is. So we cannot even see a psychiatric dr. I am trying to convince him that private maybe the only way but he has had so much bad luck he really believes now they don’t give a monkeys. I won’t give up!

I have a question rather than a comment. I’m a bit confused and suspect that my husband of 10 years may be bipolar. It runs in his family (parent and 2 siblings). My husband changed since the birth of our child and the spiral has finally came to the point where he left me. He is COMPLETELY opposite of what I know him as. He used to be very compassionate, giving, loving, loyal, trustworthy. He became completely self-absorbed, and is very concentrated on his lack of freedom. He is blaming me for everything and has said things that are so incredibly cruel, that I am in shock that this is the same person. He is very inconsistent and doesn’t remember half the things he says to me. According to him I am the reason for all things wrong in his life. I love him very much and believe that this is stemmed from a mental illness. He is running so fast from all responsibility that it would make your head spin. Although his version would be quite different. It has actually gotten to the point where he has assaulted me a few times this year. NOT a characteristic of him AT ALL. I’m willing to be patient, but all he talks about is getting rid of our home and getting a divorce as fast as possible. When I found out that he wasn’t dating someone else, it was then I realized that it may be something more complex. I read a book called ‘Living with a Black Dog, his name is Depression’. I could have listed examples on every page that described him. My question is, is it possible to hide this from others? Because he’s claiming that he’s like this ONLY when he is around me. I’m very confused, but it’s as if someone replaced my Knight with a Dragon. I’m willing to walk thru this darkness with him, as long as I am able to, just don’t know the best approach to take that will be the most respectful and effective. I don’t want him to lose his family and all that we have worked for. I wouldn’t give up on him if he had a brain tumor, so I’m not about to give up on him if this is another form of illness.
Positive advice would be greatly appreciated.