Bipolar Disorder
I know this is far from the best place to ask, but does anybody here have any experiences with (yourself, or people close to you having) bipolar disorder?
In particular, any experiences with medication or natural healing?
My mother who is LSE has it I believe. Not yet psych MD diagnosed but our family doctor has suggested it as an offshoot of post-partum depression.
I have an ILI friend who has that.
He takes medication for it.
He's an online friend, so my experience is limited. But he's pretty open and I could ask if there's a question.
@Director Abbie That's really too kind of you, I really appreciate your offer itself.
I am curious about people's experiences with different medication and how it's helped/affected them. If it's out of the ordinary for you to bring up though please don't worry about it. I really appreciate you've offered anyway.
Medication for bipolar disorder is a poison. It's called anti-psychotic medication. It doesn't cure the cause of the condition but slows or "disconnects" the brain, and the "better" medication then it does it more. There are serious side effects from long term taking like permanent tremor and weight gain, which has some major health consequences.
Regarding how it works on brain it's like not having slightest idea what to do in the morning and trouble waking up. It's also called "zombification". You are like zombie no interests, no energy, no ideas. It takes a lot of effort to get into normal life routine. Over half of people on them tries to commit suicide at some point, but in this case mainly I mean one of the strongest drugs for strongest conditions, like Risperidone.
If the condition doesn't threaten the life of patient or others then it's best to go without medication and just live with condition, especially if it's not long lasting like result of post-partum depression. It's best no to try these drugs because they may leave the brain different afterwards even after short period (friend of mine got permanent tremors after 2 shots of Risperidone). It may also cause schizophrenia, so if you do not have some very extremely strong symptoms it's really good not to take them.
Psychiatrist will give it to you for no real reason and will advise you to take it all the time, they are reckless with drugs, but that's the only thing they can really do about it.
@falsehope Yeah upon researching this more tonight and the recommendation of a friend I decided to order the non-prescription amino acid sarcosine to give a try (I'll use myself as a guinea pig first). Her issues aren't life threatening so I don't want to go down the medication route. Not to mention she's really conservative and would probably never agree to it anyway. Thanks for the feedback/info. How did you become familiar with this information if you want to share?
A close family member of mine has Bipolar I. She lives with me, and when she had her first psychotic break during mania I had no idea what was going on. I took her to the ER, and after many many tests to rule out any kind of physical cause or neurology problem she was diagnosed Bipolar I with psychosis. This means that when manic she acts very much like someone with schizophrenia except because it's with mania her energy is also extreme, and she doesn't sleep. The first time she didn't sleep at all for several days in a row, and when I got her to the hospital (which was a struggle because she kept running around yelling random things and jumping out of the car as soon as I got her in) she then started running around the hospital. She tried to hang herself on the curtains in the exam room, and she had to be put in restraints on her hospital bed. Medication most definitely helped.
That was 2 years ago and then last year after reducing her meds since she was doing so well, she had a second episode. Shorter, milder, but required hospitalization for a couple weeks. So, her doc thinks she may be very sensitive to any kind of medication change, but people will vary. He also said that Bipolar I is more responsive to medication than Bipolar II, and that when diagnosed as a teenager or young adult (when a person's brain in undergoing many changes and reorganization) that many people do completely recover and are able to go med-free.
Another family member has been diagnosed with Bipolar II, and for that, meds don't seem as crucial. I'd personally prefer to go with natural methods in that case, unless they have severe and suicidal depression. I've read a lot of info, and have books laying about on conventional and alternative means of dealing with it, so we'll see what I can pull from my memory. One medication that is often prescribed is lithium, blood levels have to be monitored to make sure they stay in the range between therapeutic and toxic. Magnesium operates much the way lithium does, but is less potent, and also less dangerous. Taking magnesium before bed also helps people sleep (and going without sleep can trigger mania). One old method people had for dealing with mania before lithium was to lay for a time in a completely dark, completely silent room, with no stimulation. Now, someone in full-blown mania is not going to be able to do that, and may not even be able to sit still, but milder cases that may help. Fish oil also helps balance moods, and it can be effective for helping to lift depression. Everything that helps depression (exercise, sunlight, stimulation) the opposite is required for mania.
And, from my bookshelf, you might want to get a copy of Wiley Concise Guides to Mental Health for Bipolar Disorder for a lot of information on the condition and treatment of it. Another book I have, that isn't as mainstream but you might also find useful is "Natural Healing for Bipolar Disorder - A Compendium of Nutritional Approaches" by Eva Edelman.
@falsehope’s post above agrees with my experience.
One of the smartest guys I ever knew was bipolar. He was ILI and was setting the grade curves in University physics classes when he was invited to be a principal in a startup. He quit school, developed the company, sold it for cubic money, and bought himself a building and filled it with scientific equipment so he could do more research.
At about age 26-28, he met a free-spirit SEE female from one of the Nordic countries, fell in love with her and followed her home (to Sweden, Denmark?), where her family and friends criticized him (he was German but looked Turkish), she refused to marry him, and he had his first bipolar breakdown.
He returned to the States without her, but never stopped yearning for her.
I met him in connection with some work I was doing and we became friends. He was absolutely brilliant and really fucking strange, and it took me a long time to figure out that most of the strangeness was due to the drugs he was taking to treat his bipolar disorder.
I’d visit him and there’d be some new, beautiful girl with him whom he’d ignore. I didn’t know at the time he was stuck on his SEE.
When his medicine would stop working, he would do things like pile all his furniture up on the front lawn, realize that that was not normal, and would call the hospital.
He tried to commit suicide twice that I know of, but probably he did it more than that. Once, I got a call from the psychiatric ward after one of his attempts, asking me to care for his dog. I got his dog and took him to visit Karl in the hospital, and it was one of the saddest experiences of my life. They had him so sedated that he didn’t know me, he just wanted to go home, and kept trying the door only to find it was locked.
The drugs they gave him reduced a brilliant man to a vegetable.
I’m crying as I write this. He didn’t ask for what he got.
He eventually was released and returned to his work, but was growing more feeble and disconnected.
I got a call from one of his on-line friends saying they hadn’t heard from him in a couple days. I went to check up on him and found him dead of a brain aneurysm.
The only cure for mental disorders is finding the root cause (usually emotional) deep in the psyche of a person, that's causing the issue. The "disorder", is just a symptom. Once this is achieved, the self-regeneration process can begin. You might not recover completely, but in 99% of cases, you will be able to live a normal life. Medication is just a patch that doesn't solve anything (but it might really be necessary in some cases, but only in an acute phase of an episode). The problen is that shrinks hand out medication like candy, and think they are doing society a favor. It wouId be very interesting to do a study of the psychology of shrinks.
I would advise against taking medication unless you want to live the remaining of your life semi-lobotomized.
Hmm I just watched a tv show about this not long ago. According to the tv show, bipolar is when a person experiences cycles of mania followed by depression? Also, life-long medication is required for this illness, according to that tv show that I watched.
Well i had it... But fortunately, upon studying psychology, being single and independent removes my bipolarity.
Which means, people around me causes my bipolar.
I hangout and deal with wrong people which makes me be in an Ni grip or tertiary loop or whatever the fuck is making me unhealthy.
Being aware of your weaknesses prevents bipolarity I guess
Plus too much feelings or use of it triggers my bipolarity.
I don't use much feelings anymore. :/
But unfortunately I'm turning into a dude.
I really disagree that the root cause is usually some emotional whatever. The mind is just a tiny little bit more complex than that...Originally Posted by lavos
I LLOLed (literally laughed out loud, as opposed to just thinking "LOL.")
Then you'd be wrong. It is the usual cause, since they are diseases of the mind, and not of the physical brain. But to each his own. I assume you condone chemical lobotomy then...
Thanks for the detailed and touching personal replies everyone. Out of respect for the weight of what some have shared here I'm closing this thread before it turns into a debate.
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