Hi,
How’s it going?
I hope you are doing well.
Actually tomorrow I have a situation. I have a weekend seminar. I am not sure when I am going to send the daily email. Hmmm. I guess I will have to get up super early.
I will get it out to you 🙂
Anywway, here is today’s news.
To read this week’s news visit:
http://www.bipolarcentral.com/bipolarnews401
‘Bipolar Boy’ balances comedy, mental illness
DO> Hmm, what do you think about this?
Church Pastors Too Quick to Dismiss Mental Illness
DO> Boy isn’t this the truth many times unfortunately
Madness and creativity
DO> I don’t like the word “madness” the people are “mad.” Agree?
Johns overwhelmed by funding as charity walk begins
DO> Great for society.
Pedophile John Reid jailed for 12 years
DO> Sad article. No reflection on him having bipolar. Can’t use it as an excuse. Agree?
For these stories and more, please visit:
http://www.bipolarcentral.com/bipolarnews401
==>Help with ALL aspects of bipolar disorder<<==
Check out all my resources, programs and information for all aspects of bipolar disorder by visiting:
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Your Friend,
Dave
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.
Post responses below
wife is now trying to get court order to have me removed from home due to her bipolar and activities with a man 17 years younger, she has no regard for the kids or I
David,
Don’t worry about sending the daily bipolar news until you are done with you are done with your weekend seminar.
I can survive until Monday. This has been going on for 23 years with my son.
Annette
My son, who lives in another state pretty far from me, is Bi-Polar…or so the Dr.’ have diagnosed. However, he was diagnosed while under the influence of alcohol (he is an alcoholic & addict, as well) & a few other unknown drugs. Was the diagnosis reliable?? His “flare-ups” seem to happen when he mixes his med.’s w/ mind altering drugs-alcohol. He insults people who try to love him unconditionally, then once sober, apologizes. In AA, we’ve been taught to finally cut people off, so to speak, when they continue this behavior for any length of time-disrupting everyone’s lives around them. He has a wife, who “trys” to support him, but his sister, myself, & other relatives are getting to where we can’t handle the disruption on our lives. He is a very angry person, blaming all his troubles on everyone else instead of facing reality. We’re all at a loss as to what to do & how to react. No one should “get away” w/ attacking people who try to love them, should they? As for your writings on the “church” situation…Maybe there Are pastors who do not recognize this disease, and that is very unfortunate. However, my son condemns anyone who enjoys their worship referring to them as “Holier Than Thou” & similar narrowminded references. This may be preventing some who are suffering from Bipolar from having a great support system from a local church. In my son’s case, he uses it for an excuse to isolate. He seems to “enjoy” using the diagnosis as an excuse to act however he pleases & expects all of us to just accept it. I would appreciate any insight you might be able to give on all of this. Thank you for your desire to be of help! We appreciate it.
great job
David,
After months of receiving your emails, I consider you a friend and
encourager. But, I must tell you that I am returning the “Quick Cash” book
that I ordered from you. Maybe you did not know, but the medications that
BP people take cause a problem for plasma donation….they cannot be donors.
I am the mother of a 25 yr old BP daughter who is running out of money on
her SSDI check. The only thing that she could cut out her life to lower her
expenses is to quit smoking, and that does not seem to be an option. I am
in charge of her monies and the back pay that we received a little over a
year ago, after paying off old bills, that money is almost gone. She
receives a monthly SSDI ck and food stamps, but that only covers food, rent,
water, trash, the cheapest cell phone service and the cheapest electric
service (which she also gets a 20% discount on in Tx since she is
disabled)…but the heat is Tx creates monster bills. I bought thermal
drapes for her apt to try to help that. She does not have cable TV.
I was going to do the plama donation also to help her raise money. I got so
excited thinking we would do it each once a week and that would give her $70
extra a week. The technician called me into a office to tell me that I take
medications that prohibit me from donating…clonazepam and Cymbalta. I
cried. Another brick wall to run up against. I cried.
As much a I love and cherish my daughter, I would like to suggest that you
do not suggest to BP people to donate eggs or sperm. There is no cure for
BP, as you know, and it can create terrible problems for the BP person and
their loved ones. And, these eggs and sperm have a 50% chance or creating
another BP person. It almost hits me as encouraging someone with AIDS to
donate blood. David, you are doing a wonderful job encouraging others, so I
hope you do not take this as a criticism against you. I think that it is
good that you have your bodybuilding and hikiing as something that gets you
away from the everyday BP and I hope that you can always continue this for
your own good.
“Bipolar Boy” – I’ve seen his website. Frankly very few of the US-based motivational speakers I’ve come across motivate me! Yes, even the great Steven Covey. The delivery of their messages all seem so contrived, as in false! They gush such enthusiasm too akin to some slime-ball trying to sell a bum automobile. That said, I think he offers a positive example of what can be done if you are BP Type I. It seems he uses his Bipolar to create his teaching, but it appears he doesn’t do this by invoking a “creative” manic/hypo manic episode. People who do that deliberately … fools.
Paedophile John Reid. Hmmmm … The thing about Bipolar is, I think, that it releases inhibited desires that are already there but were controlled. In other words, he may well have been a latent paedophile when he was well – someone who maybe consciously or sub-consciously sexually desired children. There will probably be many such people, people who in the ordinary way, control their desires. But then, the BP releases the inhibitions and away they go! Does this sound too much? Well, let me give you a real life example in s similar vain … A very talented writer that I know – she adores writing – becomes rampant when she becomes manic. It distorts her thinking entirely. She becomes a different person, a nymphomaniac. One week she is saying how she feared losing the editorial job she loved because she was taking so much time off work because of depression, and the next week she’s given up her meds and telling me she’d decided she loves sex so much she’s decided to become a hooker! Big difference, big change, all down to the BP. She’s back on the meds now but I don’t know if she’s managed to escape her Pimp and gone back to writing. And then, we know of how some people with BP have seemingly become homicidal. They weren’t murderous before! We seem prepared to accept non-culpability when someone is ill and they kill someone, but we find it harder to forgive someone who doesn’t kill but abuses children. Paedophilia is dreadful snd it evokes murderous thoughts in me! But is it any worse than murder, than taking someone’s life? IF – big “if” – his acts of paedophilia were a result of BP breaking down his self-control, is that any worse than murder triggered by a BP episode? I don;t have an answer, just that I don’t know. I used to be so quick to condemn paedophilia, thinking there could never be any mitigating circumstances but now I’m not sure.
Church pastors …. Oh, if any more of them tell me that God gave me BP so I could help other people with BP, I’ll shoot! And then there are those others who think that it only takes faith to heal any damned illness, even BP. Members of the Flat Earth Society …
Madness/Mad? I have no problem with using these words or having them used about me. But then, I’m notoriously un-PC!!!
To GRAHAM: I heartily agree with you that the bipolar illness unleashes usually “controlled” impulses. But – I believe that once a pedophile, ALWAYS a pedophile. Once that “monster” is released, it’s awfully hard for a person to go back to his “normal” state. I “think” that murder (under a bipolar manic state) can ultimately be controlled by putting the person behind bars – or in an institution primarily for mental illness – so that s/he learns a lesson, and becomes totally harmless afterward.
I DO agree, also, with your personal female friend who becomes totally PROMISCUOUS under a bipolar manic episode. In all three of my full blown manic episodes (which led to hospitalizations), I could have USED a pimp – I would have brought him soooo much money!!! The sex-urge, I believe, comes from 1) a desire for intimacy, 2) physical yearning, and 3) freedom to “do what you want.”
At the time of all 3 manias, my Mother was living, and part of the sexual role-playing was in rebellion to her. I was in my 20s during each hospitalization, and have had NO full blown manic episodes since.
I DO have mini-episodes, but they are controlled by regulating medications and dealing with the local Community Mental Health Clinic on an out-patient basis. I have not been hospitalized since I was 29 – and I’m 60 now!!
Graham – you are soooo articulate in the way you describe things, and, ultimately, I find myself agreeing with you!! Keep on keeping on with your comments; I am a willing student at your feet…
BIG HUGS to all bipolar survivors and those who love us. May God bless you real good. My prayers are with you.
Re: Cythia’s note:
I’ve not read the “quick cash” book so I don’t know what is in it. But I would be astonished if Dave has suggested suggested someone with BP should give blood. The drugs we take, the drugs unipolar folk take as well, are powerful and toxic. We only take them because we have to! (“Take the pill or get a permanent chill!!!” Remember, you heard that line here first , and I penned it!) I very much regret that it took me many years to pluck up the courage to donate blood. I did it the once and never been able to do so since because, shortly afterwards, I had The Big Crash and have been taking serious meds ever since. I asked of I could give, and they said, “No way, Jose!” (At the time I was “only” taking Prozac. Now I’m on Lamotrigine – imagine that one getting into someone’s blood, an anti-convulsant. Or what about Lithium? Yikes! I hear “major law suits”!) If anyone is taking any medicines they should ALWAYS say so, and the medics can then decide if it’s safe to use the blood.
………………………………………………………
But what is this I hear? In the US you folks SELL your blood?? Is there nothing you won’t sell???!!! What next? Grandma for medical research…?!
“Hey, she’s old and past her best but she’s still god enough to test these new drugs on – much better than using a monkey.”
Sorry, but the idea of selling something that another person’s life may depend seems to me to be totally immoral. Blood isn’t bought and sold (usually) in the UK. The “Blood Transfusion Service” send out teams who travel across the entire country collecting blood from VOLUNTEERS. We GIVE blood because we want to help people, not to make a few bucks. Sheesh!
This is, as a former British Prime Minister would have said, an “…unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism.”
Rita
When we folk with BP have an unpleasant episode – these can be a frustrated hypo manic one or – worse still – a mixed episode, our nerves are on edge (to say the least) and we often want to be left alone because having someone even talking to us is an emotional pressure. We want to have space and some quiet from people so we have a chance to let the emotions subside.
But we can’t do that if some well-meaning person keeps trying to jivvy us out of the bad time!!! We need the space and we ain’t getting it because Mr or Mrs Well-meaning keeps encroaching on our space! Patience is short because we can’t get rid of this dreadful emotional turmoil. And we start to snap. The more you push into that space the harder we push back. Keep pushing and the insults and aggression will increase in kind to drive you out of that space. You can come back in again when we are feeling better; but until then just get out of our face!! We’ll be okay eventually if you’d only leave us alone…
See what I mean? Sometimes the best way to help someone in an episode is to leave them alone. You can let them know you are there is they need you, but they ought to know that already!!!.
Don’t force yourself onto your loved one when he’s feeling bad. Just give him space.
The article about the clergy dismissing mental illness really made me squirm. Just who is “mental” here? Since my experience with a loved one in a full manic episode, which included a lot of religious preaching, I wonder how many preachers have bipolar disorder. In particular those people who stop you in the street and go on and on and on about God and never let you get a word in edgeways. They seem to be in a manic episode. They tell you that God has chosen them (or even you) for a special purpose and the devil is trying to stop you, possibly in the shape of your doctor. Some experiment with drugs and some try to convince you that all drugs, including prescriptions are evil. Then, of course, there are those who believe that exorcism would cast out the bipolar demon. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t have faith in a God, Spirit, etc. Prayer can have a lot of power, some people have a gift of healing. Miracles can happen occasionally, but they wouldn’t be miracles if they weren’t very rare. What are the chances of being cured of bipolar disorder? Much the same as winning the lottery and being struck by lightning on the same day.
A very sad story is that of Mr. Stevens who killed his ex-wife. Some of his symptoms, like hearing voices, seem more schizophrenic than bipolar. Maybe he has both, but he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. When he lost his job he could no longer afford his medication. The US health service has a lot to answer for. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to give those people free prescriptions than to keep them in jail for decades? Not to mention the fact that Mrs. Stevens would most likely still be alive if her ex-husband had been able to stay on his meds.
Nightlady
I read that scientists have discovered which part of the brain and activity is suposedly responsible for religious mania.
See:
Persinger, M.A., “People Who report Religious Experiences May Also Display Enhanced Temporal-Lobe Signs”. Perceptual and Motor Skills,1984, 58, 963-975.
Persinger, M.A. “Religious and Mystical Experiences as Artifacts of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis.”, Perceptual and Motor Skills 1983, 57, 1255-1262
Persinger, M.A. “;Enhanced Incidence of the “;Sensed Presence”; in People Who have learned to Meditate: Support for the Right Hemispheric Intrusion Hypothesis”; Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1992, 75, 1308-1310
It’s something to do with a “temporal lobe lability…when two structures within the temporal lobes have their normal communications between one another disturbed. This can happen between the two hemispheres, or between two structures , within the limbic system (deep in the temporal lobes), or between a deep structure and the surface of the temporal lobes.” Apparently that is a description of a very small epileptic fit, a “micro seizure”.
Apparently, this of itself doesn’t directly create a manic religious experience, but an irreversible change in thes personality of someone thus affected, where their sense of who they are is alerted. just as in a “normal” epileptic fit. If I understand this correctly, this state of mind makes the person more likely to feel that words or thoughts mean something more than they appear to mean in a literal sense. (The Mind is a bar##d for that!) When a thought becomes meaningful the mind wants to find a context for that meaning, which is where not just religious fervor occurs but any kind of extreme behaviour and thinking patterns, such as religious terrorism i.e. “Jihad, doing God’s will, martyrdom, etc. Death. In ‘His’ name”
Source: Neurobiology of Religious Terrorism by Todd Murphy, Researching Behavioral Neuroscientist. See http://www.shaktitechnology.com/terrorism.htm
So, here endeth today’s Lesson … Ooops! I must have just had a temporal lobe libility.
;oD
To Graham: Whenever I am able to participate, I sell my lungs to test new medications to help control COPD, Asthma, Emphysema and Chronic Bronchitis. It pays quite well and I am in the final stage of emphysema anyways so what have I got to lose? Besides increasing the piddling amount Social Security (which is an oxymoron in itself) allows my husband and I to receive each month. However, I have never sold any blood, except for the amounts they take during a drug study, simply because I hate needles! And believe it or not there are people who have less than we do and they do sell their blood for an income because that is all they have left to sell. The ones who do not need the money just donate it. No we so not sell other relatives, only ourselves. Everyone has this idea that the US is so rich. All I have to say is come over and live as a citizen for a while and see how rich we are not!
Hi Helen.
Yes, I know that many folk in the US are not rich – the money is there but it hasn’t trickled down to the poor saps at the bottom of the pyramid.
I am also aware that folk in the US can get caught in the middle of not being able to pay for the meds but not be poor enough to get … what is it, MediAid? MediCare? In the UK we don’t have that problem. Our issues with the health system are different, like not enough income to engage doctors privately, and having to rely on the National Health System, where you cannot choose your doctor, where there are long waiting lists (2 years to see a Medical Psychologist…), where the docs are NOT available just on call except in dire emergencies (e.g. “The meds don’t seem to be working …” ” Okay, see at the next appointment in 3 months time and we’ll review it…” to “I’m off to jump under a bus…” and only then does anything happen. Then there can be a lack of uptodate life saving equipment, a shortage of medical staff (many of the best migrate to the US because theyu get paid more, so we end up getting doctors and nurses from Asia, Africa and the Indian content, some of whom can’t even speak English properly. (Can you imagine that? It was not so long ago that the consultant psychiatrist here didn’t speak English properly … he couldn’t understand what was said to him very well, and the patients had no chance of being understood by him. He wa so bad my family doctor decided not to let me see the guy, to try to treat me by himself. You don’t get a choice over here – if you can’t afford a private doc, and very few here can, you have to take whatever doctor the NHS tell you you can have. Plus we’re always behind the US is getting the latest medicines – some of the take years before they are approved. Yet, on average, the US standard of living is higher than it is here in terms of incomes, cost of food and fuel, etc. but we seem to get more leisure time. Otherwise, our Social Security system is a bit of an oxymoron, too.
However, I think we can think ourselves lucky on both sides of the Pond when we might compare our lot with 90% of the rest of the World, where there are no Social Security systems at all, where there are too few – if any – doctors, let alone psychiatists. What is it? Something daft like the US having 10% of the World’s population (nah, got to be less) but 90% of the wealth? It probably doesn’t feel like it, does it. But then, at least we have clothes on our backs, enough food to eat and clean water to drink, no marauding paramilitaries shooting the men and raping the women, no real wars on our soil, and it seems we can afford to spend Zillions of $$$s on wars, and over here on this side of the Pond we even have people think they are in poverty because they are barely able to afford 20 cigarettes a day, they can only afford a second hand television, their PC isn’t the latest model, and they have to walk to work because they can’t afford to buy a car. The other day I heard on the radio some guy saying how badly the economic recession is hitting the rich folk in London, with some of them having to trade down the cars they drive, quoting some of the Lamborghini owners had to replace them Porches … my heart bleeds for them.
All that said, just me personally, I couldn’t sell my blood. Perhaps it’s the Socialist bit of my character that insists there are some lines that should never be crossed and for me that is one of them. I’d rather sell Crack, Hash, Heroin and Lucy to people who *want* the stuff than sell blood to people who *need* it to save lives. (Of course, selling Narcotics is one fast way to make money if you’re prepared to risk your life doing it! I’m not.)
The Health Service is generally better in the UK than in Ireland, while the social security system is better here. Pensions are also higher and pensioners get a lot of perks. However, our recent budget and the protest against it is threatening to bring down the government. Generally we don’t have a free health service. But those on low income (like me), on disability (like my boyfriend) and other benefits get free treatment with a medical card. Therefore people on low / part time income are often better off than those on slightly higher income. Up to now everyone over 70 automatically got a medical card. Now they want to means test it. People are up in arms! It looks like it won’t go through, as there is too much protest. Sometimes it’s good to see people power. I am in 2 minds about this. e.g. we know some very rich people who exploit those less fortunate to the full and are generally very selfish. Why should they get free treatment just because they’re over 70, when they could quite easily pay for it? Some younger people may develop an illness just because they can’t afford to see a doctor, when their income is just a few cents too high.
My boyfriend has nothing to fear, as he is likely to stay on disability pay for the rest of his life.
We don’t sell blood here either. There have been rumours of some refugees offering to sell their kidneys and other parts – this doesn’t bear thinking about. Health and hygiene has become very strict in the European Union – sometimes too extreme. I have tried several times to donate my blood, in the UK and in Ireland, and have always been rejected. Although I’m relatively healthy, I have a tendency to low blood pressure and poor circulation. Whenever I need a blood test for any reason it takes ages to get enough out of me. My boyfriend’s blood being full of bipolar drugs is also unacceptable. If I understand this rightly, in the US anyone can sell their blood. I hope that if I ever need a blood transfusion for any reason, I’m not in the US at the time, as goodness knows what else I could be getting with it. It sounds quite scary.