Hi,
I wanted to drop you quick note about something
that came up with someone that works for
me with bipolar disorder. This person
does a great job. I’ve never had any problems
with her in almost 2 years.
Yesterday however we were fighting with
computer software and we were both losing.
She said, “I hate these stupid software
programs because they never work right.”
I said, “Yea, they never do that’s why
I try not to buy new ones.”
Then she really started getting mad. I was
probably 15 times MORE mad than her. She
said to me, “I can’t get mad, or they will
think that my medication needs to be changed
and I am going into an episode.”
We both laughed and finally got the problem
fixed. If she needed her medication changed
for getting mad and I was 15 times more
mad than me, what would that say about me?
So then I was thinking about bipolar
disorder and medication. First let me say
I am NOT a doctor, lawyer, accountant,
or anything else “professional.” So
I am NOT giving any kind of advice like that.
What I will say is this. If you are supporting
someone with bipolar disorder, you have to have
realistic expectations with medication. You
also have to realize that a person is allowed
to have emotions and normal moods. Bipolar Disorder
is a mood disorder with extreme moods up or down.
It’s the extremes you are looking for not the
normal moods and emotions you see in everyone.
What do I mean? For example, with what I just
wrote and the software program. If someone is
fighting with a software program, which I do
almost everyday and lose, and that person gets
really, really mad and has bipolar disorder,
does that mean his/her medications is messed
up or they are going into an episode?
It could but probably not. Let me give you another
example as to what happen with myself. After my
mom was out of the outpatient program a while ago,
I was at my mom and dad’s house with my brother.
My mom came back mad and my brother said, “Oh
here she goes again.” I asked my mom why she
was mad, and she said she had been cut off
by someone who screamed at her and then made
all kinds of hand gestures. So she got
mad.
When I heard this, I thought, “Who wouldn’t
get mad about that?” Then I pointed out to
my brother he flies into road rage for the
slightest things, if someone cuts him off or
gives him the finger (which in the US is an obscene
hand gesture, and maybe other places too but
I don’t know,) so if getting mad about
a driving incident is a sign a person is
going into an episode and needs their medication
changed, that means he is going into an episode
and needs his medication changed based on the
transitive property of equality.
The transitive property of equality in
math dictates
if a = b and b = c, then a = c
My brother doesn’t have bipolar disorder and
isn’t taking medication but I am sure you see
where I am going.
When I told my brother that, he got all mad
at me and then I said, “If you are getting
mad, that might be a sign too.” Then he got
quiet and shook his head at me and walked
away mad mumbled something like “What the
heck is wrong with him?”
Sometimes people think that I am crazy because
I use math in normal everyday conversations.
I have seen even my dad take a normal incident
that my mom may have and talk about maybe her
medication might have to be changed.
To me it’s so easy to determine what are signs
and what aren’t signs. I have a flow chart in my
head. Actually I cheated, for a year, I used
these worksheets and checklists that I made
to teach myself how to know what are signs
and aren’t signs.
But even if I didn’t have any worksheets or checklists,
I would know that a person with bipolar disorder
or any person will have normal emotions and
I wouldn’t want to medicate someone into a robot.
So, the bottom line is, you have to have realistic
expectations about what medication can do. It’s
best to talk it over with your loved one’s doctor
about what to expect.
Do NOT expect medication to create a perfect person
who never gets mad, sad, etc. That won’t happen.
I hope this all make sense to you.
If you are wondering about my checklists, they
are in my supporter courses/systems.
SUPPORTING AN ADULT?
Visit:
http://www.bipolarsupporter.com/report11
SUPPORTING A CHILD/TEEN?
Visit:
http://www.bipolarparenting.com
HAVE BIPOLAR DISORDER?
Visit:
http://www.survivebipolar.net
Dave
FINALLY! YES! This happens to me all the time. I am not allowed to have any strong emotion or I am” having an episode” Thank you for ths insight, David… Thank you!
Thank you for your revalation. I am sure that most all of us with bipolar have experienced this situation at some time or the other. So very good to see it brought to light. I wish I could post your email for all the world to see. Thanks again.
Nicely articulated email. My boyfriend will go so far even to say, “Have you taken your medication today?” if I seem to be getting frustrated or angry at normal, everyday things. We are both learning where to draw the line w/ moods and emotions. Some days I can even recognize when I am winding myself up and when I just need to take a frustration time-out. Thanks again for your info and support!!!
I too hate it when people think when I am mad about something they think that my medication is not up to par. I try to inform them that just like everyone else , I too am allowed to get mad. That you are allowed too have the same emotions just like everyone else.
>G< I really enjoyed today's column. Dave, early on I remember my daughter being happy, silly, goofy and thinking "oh, oh, she's going manic". Then either she said, "don't give me that look". And i grinned and said, "i guess you're allowed to be happy when you're bipolar". Important to remember !!! We really don't want them drugged into zombies, do we ?
Dear Dave,
Yesterday I posted a blog on the previous e-mail about your mom handling the pen and editing well while she’s in an episode. The blog didn’t go through right so I’m posting it today, or as much of it as I can remember. It may well flow into today’s comment.
When my fiance’ is in his mania or in an episode or spiralling, that is when he is great at chess. Nothing matters but chess. It comes before me and even his job. He misses work sometimes for it and is obsessed with it. He is almost a chess-master. Chess takes strategy, extreme mind, and some manipulation tactics. When he spirals out of control, which is every day, approximately couple of hours, chess is the only thing that he feels that he has complete control over. When night time comes and I get home from work and then I cook for him (which the foods he eats affect him, and he must eat and sleep alot or he’ll be extremely violent)- I get done cooking for him and myself; he eats his and shuts out all of the lights on me in the house-leaving me with my plate sitting in the dark, claiming it’s time for bed. That is controlling to the extreme and that is Bipolar. Part of the button-pushing technique that he uses to start an argument so that he can be able to become violent.
Getting to the pen and editing, I’m not a doctor and I’m not giving advice, but it seems like the chess and his great ability with it when he’s in an episode is the same as the pen. I may be mistaken.
One of my fiance’s few personalities that he goes into every-day is that of what my son’s was when he was about eight years old. The constant need for attention and the name-calling the button-pushing etc. like most eight year olds if they want attention. I took the attention wanting and put it into positive aspects like the State counselors who I requested come into my home to help, have taught me. They helped me tremendously and thank-God, that today my son is twenty-one years old and is extremely mentally and physically healthy and is a successful business-man.
He still needs coached along the way though. With my fiance’, it’s hard, but when he does extreme button-pushing, I’ve now gotten it down to only a fifteen-minute time wasting per day versus what used to be fifteen hours. I immediately tell him that I am fully aware of what he is doing and that he probably is looking for a way to become violent. Then I immediately tell him that I’m not going to waste my time with it, and that if he feels like being violent that he can Baker Act himself. I then walk away and get ahold of something positive for him to do such as help me with our cat or excersize or have him help me with my car engine.
He will do anything to cause an argument, including give me the complete silent treatment. If I ask what’s wrong or give any care at all, he will most of the time come back with the most vile swear words to me and will of course be staring at the chess screen all night. Then he’ll go to bed rudely without even saying good night. These things and much more happen in cycles everyday. He’s aware of what he does but can’t help doing it.
There are the times when he uses his bipolar-psychomania to cheat and run around. He sometimes doesn’t come home for 24 hours only to find he was with other women and has spent all of the money (hundreds in a day, sometimes thousands) and not only do I have to find it to forgive him, and recognize that he’s using his bipolar when he says that”he just wasn’t thinking of me at all and forgot to come home and spent all of his money on the women of his choice that night and romantically spent his time with them in a jacuzzi at a fancy hotel right up the street. Things he’s never done with me. That is using his bipolar to just cheat. I know the difference between the promiscuity from his cycles and his planning to cheat and his lying. One may feed the other, I’m not sure yet. I over-all just am the caretaker so that he can keep his job and function, I love what I knew before he was so sick (as it’s progressivly getting worse) and I hope to one-day see him better. He doesn’t think that he needs help as now he’s almost constantly in a mania of some sort. (too many to describe that occur in cycles) This is bipolar I believe.
xx i think ur all special people.. h0w i wish i could feel a euphoria in the ways some of u experience…it’s beautiful 2watch… xx
David re: Today’s email, the young woman working with you is partly correct. On my every visit to my psychiatrist I’m asked HOWS YOUR MOOD and depending on my answer dictates a potential change in medications. The questions is not and should be how have your moods been before making any assessment so I’ve learned to curb my tongue and try real hard to function on an even plain I would never say for example that it is easy but it can be done. Since January 2005 I’ve been on auto-pilot letting a lot of things slide not getting upset the way I used to do. I spend way to much time at my computer but its my pacifier I’m trying to start an Internet business and I like to write the two seem to go hand in hand. Folks suffering with Bipolar require so sort of outlet a channel if you will. Something to do to occupy the mind instead of dreading the next episode which is not to say it won’t come. But I believe with the mind engaged the space between episodes increases. I know that it has for me however like you I’m no doctor, lawyer or professional miracle worker although at one time I was a Professional Musician. In my own writings about Bipolar not published yet I write about having a hobby it helps to focus the mind and eleminate wandering. Instlling a sense of purpose and gratification. I have the Internet and several other things that I do to keep me from unnecessary medication changes.
Those hobbies may be as simple as going for a walk, painting any stimuli is just as valued as the next and just as important.
We’ve tried medications, they made my fiance’ deathly ill. We had to take him off of everything also because he was eating his meds like candy while drinking lots of alcohol and taking many many packets of the “goody acetaminophen” by the whole packload. He got into a car accident while on them. I called his doctors and nurses at the Hospital that he was seen as an outpatient and they claimed that he had to get himself help. Can you imagine? When the police wanted to take him to baker act him at that point, I should have let them. A week later, he lost his driver’s license on a third dui. (which probably was a good thing) His license is now gone for ten years. He may get it back for a hardship next year but I don’t think that he should have it because he has not gone through therapy at all, he’s on no meds, I feed him and make sure that he eats very balanced meals and alot of omega fatty three, to try to balance him.
It was just as you’ve said Dave, his doctors would not diagnose him properly. They still haven’t. They have instead diagnosed him with depression and alcoholism. If he’s not bipolar than I’m Santa Clause. He is definitely bipolar and does ALL of things that you have recently written about including the “I’m not attracted to you” part, the “I don’t love you” the “I hate you” everyday. The delusional “you are trying to hurt me” sentence comes once in awhile, incidentally, it came at 4:00 this morning as he woke me to ask me about an apartment, or used it to try to start a fight and try to get violent. Of course I caught it and told him that when he said that”I was trying to hurt him” that he was projecting and that he was really was really trying to hurt me, as he was sitting right on me with his finger in my face. He admitted that he had racing thoughts and than wanted me to be quiet. I told him that either he controls himself or he checks himself into a psych ward. He was quiet after that and rolled over and went to sleep and just like most nights that he does these types of things, he got up hugging me and being very nice as if nothing had ever happened. He becomes a whole other personality and then plays another bipolar game to gain my confidence and then less than an hour later, plays a different card and laughs about what he did during the early morning at 4am. I stayed quiet, got dressed for work, cooked him his lunch so he could go to work with it, and he offered to walk with me to the bus (as sometimes I use that rather than the car to save gas)well, having less than five minutes to get to the corner where the bus picks me up, he decides to walk extremely slow…slower than I’ve ever seen him walk ever. What can I compare it to? I asked literally if he could walk a little faster, please (in a nice tone so that he wouldn’t try to start a fight) instead he just turned himself around and began walking back home as if I had hurt his feelings. I followed him asking what was wrong, which of course made him feel completely powerful in his complete bipolar game for control and I had to recognize what it was, stop the potential argument that he wanted and tell him I love him, give him a kiss and that I’d see him after work. Then I left as he walked back into the house. He knew at that point that he couldn’t ruin my day like he tried to essentially from the time he got home and gave me the silent treatment the night before, and on into the morning at 4am. and on with the up and down while walking to the bus stop. This goes on everyday all day long. Is this bipolar.
Dear Dave,
Just wanted to thank you for the e-mails that have finally confirmed for me the things of which I have been hearing my fiance’ say for the past 2 and 1/2 years. I couldn’t figure out for the first year and a half what was going on, as I have never seen behavior as bad as what I have been seeing. He used to cover it with alcohol, so everyone thought that it was just alcohol, but it’s not. Thank God for you and your e-mails.
David thank you for all you teach me in your e-mails. I do apreciate it as it is financialy not posible to get your course. My love one stays with his mother now. Although he stays well its not a ideal situation. I hope we can one day be together again. David the medication keeps him from getting exited,happy,angry. Is that how it must effect him? He are also getting so fat and stopped shaving and cutting his hair. He just sit in front of the tv. or lay on his bed and read. Once a week he takes his mother shopping. I wrote a schetch about his life some two years ago and would like to send it to you with your permission. His is a very sad story. I only see him once a month as he lives far now.
Thank you! This also is something that drives me crazy! People can get upset without having someone expecting you to need your meds fixed or something–I hate it!!
My mother never accepted “manic depression” because she said I wasn’t a “maniac.” This came at a time when my best friend was constantly monitoring my chemical intake at any sign of emotion. Needless to say, I got rid of that “best friend.” I now have quite a network of a “support unit.” My best lady friend is 75, and we met during jury duty in 2001. Although she is a non-paying Christian counselor, she has always said she sees me without my medications. I have told her repeatedly that I NEED my anti-psychotics and anti-depressants, but she has ALWAYS seen me as “normal.” No amount of convincing will work with her. We took a mini-vacation last spring, and got along really well. My boyfriend’s friends have asked him if he’s not “scared” to be dating a bipolar – his mother is even worried! The only thing he does that bothers me is, like last weekend, when I couldn’t sleep, he asked me if he was to call the local mental health facility for assistance! He’s a little over-protective at times; he’s never seen me in an episode, and the last time I was hospitalized wasin 1977. I have been treated several times on an out-patient basis since then (like after the sudden deaths of my two husbands, and work-related stress), and had my meds regulated. As I see it, the only reason for hospitalization any more, IS to regulate one’s meds. I feel I am a highly-functional bipolar; if people are afraid of me, then there goes the “boogy man” theory of mental illness – the stigma still exists…
AT LAST!!!! If I didnt know better I would think you had been listening in on our conversations at home. Only the other night I was told to calm down, calm down. How calm would anyone be who has been told that their sons ex-girlfriend is pregnant at 17 with no money, no job, and has made up her mind to be a mum.!!! How many of us would have flipped their lid ??? I wonder.
How I agree with you! There is a relationship between emotion and mood – but I think in the bp case – mood is a lens/ a filter thru which emotions go – BPs have to be aware of what’s going on inside of them and outside of them on an emotionally level to try to discern MOOD as caused by neurotransmitters! I think we have to as aware and sane as possible to make these distinctions….The more we work on ourselves and remove the character flaws most normies can get away with on some level, the better we are able to cope with the neurochemical tides we are subject to….And them with our chemical surf boards we can tweak and make adjustments & better ride the waves….
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Hahaha Dave this is too funny. My hubby tries to use that “have you had your pill today?” line when ever I am in a fine fit. I learned that a tilt of the head and the narrowed eyes look is what works best when we reach that neck of the woods. If ONLY there really was a pill to make me HAPPY all the time. Just think the fidge quit working, the kids have torn up the new sofa, the dog ate my favorit book and our son is in dentention for yelling at a teacher but HEY I am skipping around the house singing “Happy do da.. what a wonderful day!” Wow. Imagine all that and I don’t have a smile plastered to my face. Shame on me.
Sometime you just have to laugh at life because if you didn’t well then I suppose we would miss out on the best it has to offer.
David, I signed up for the free emails and whatnot for advice on dating a bipolar.
I want to help him alot, i love him very much, and care for him. When he has his down moments, he is really down and depressed where he confuses me and i dont know how to react to it. He does things like where his dad says something bad to him or when some one wont help him get his truck fixed and he is depressed im not helping out good enough and im a horrible person and he’ll curse at me and i’ll cry and get upset because it’s hard for me to cope when i have a illness myself but it’s an emotional problem i get upset very easily and it’s hard to control my crying and depression. I just want him to be able to know and notice that i care for him and want to help him and aknowlede it because he forgets and tells me im a liar. please give me some answeres