Well most of you know me here and I have Bi-Polar Disorder. Manifestations of the disorder are a Social Anxiety disorder as well as a Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Basically off medication I go through periods of depressions and mania. During the depressive times everything makes me sad which makes me want to isolate myself so that others can't see the sadness. Being alone makes me feel worthless and the entire situation makes me dwell on the situation which mentally exhausts me. The mental exhaustion leads to physical exhaustion which leads to me wanting to sleep and stay in bed all the time. Waking up feeling this way only starts the cycle and multiplies the effect.
One of the ways that I and others tried to stop this cycle is through self medication or reckless behavior. Self medicating is self explanatory and can be done with alcohol or drugs, prescription or otherwise. Reckless behavior often means spending money you don't have because of the thrill you get from having something new. Some will have sexual affairs and/or hire prostitutes, drive excessively fast, steal or do other things where they can be caught as it's dangerous and satisfies the need for getting that "high" to get rid of the lows.
Once the depression is turned into the mania then I get the feeling of euphoria and omnipotence. You feel that you can continue to self medicate and do dangerous and reckless things because you aren't getting caught. I talk faster and my mind races. Sleeping and following to sleep becomes very difficult and I lose my appetite and stop eating properly. I lose weight, which of course feeds the mania because I feel better about the way I look and feel.
Then eventually you run out of money, or drugs, or booze, or get caught doing something like having an affair or stealing something or whatever. Then everything crashes and it all starts all over again. The ups and downs can last long periods or times or short times. it's different for every person. My mother, who also has Bi Polar Disorder can go through the above process right in front of you in a matter of seconds. For me the cycles are long and drawn out.
I have discovered that the worst depressive cycles for me start right around the end of march early April. Off medication I have become incapable to get out of my severe, severe depression during some years into October. On medication, my depression is much more controllable during the spring and it lasts a couple of weeks. This last year it was the shortest it has ever been since I was a teenager, just a little over a week.
It took many years for me to personally recognize that I had this illness. Then I spent years denying it because of the stigma most are taught about being "crazy" or "weak minded" or "psycho". It then took years of experimenting with psychotropic medications and therapists and psychiatrists to get the proper mixture and doses that worked for my particular type of illness. I lost a decade or more of my life to this disease.
But now, I take my medication religiously. I see my psychiatrist and therapist regularly and they work as a team to recognize when things are happening and how best to help me. And I have to help myself. Education of the science behind the illness was very important. Education of how the medications work was very important.
Understanding that Bi Polar Disorder effects your emotions and not your actions was probably the most important thing of all. To properly handle the disease one MUST use your brain and self control to overcome your emotions and what they try to lead you to do. A calm living environment is important. being surrounded by supportive, loving, caring people who can talk to you when they see change in you is vital. Being able to recognize you feelings are changing and knowing that you have to be honest with those feelings and telling your medical team about them is also one of the most important things you can do to control it.
Yoga, meditation, exercise, proper diet and keeping oneself out of stressful situations you can not handle are also extremely important in the care of the disease.
It is very easy to give into this disease and let it control you and let it ruin you. Growing up with it to you feels normal and you think everyone has these feelings. Medication takes that away and there are a lot of nasty side effects to the medication like weight gain, sexual impotency, speeding thoughts, lack of appetite, lack of sleep, lethargy, etc. etc. Taking medicines to make you feel not normal for what you think is normal but what others say is normal and then have it give you bad side effects is one of the reasons people give up on the meds. Others, once they start feeling better think it's like taking aspirins and that it has cured the headache and so are cured and don't need it anymore. Some, though I think it is the minority, stop taking them because they enjoy the depressive and manic episodes.
One thing you need to know about the depression end of Bi Polar Disorder, once you go into a prolonged depressive episode while not being treated for the disease, you enter into and exponentially higher risk to have another and when you have the next one it is exponentially a worse depressive episode. This is not a linear situation of increasing frequency and severity of the depressive episodes. It's exponential.
Hence, medical experts are trying harder and harder to find ways to diagnose the disease early in life and find the proper medication early so that people can then have long fruitful productive lives. Most people, before running to a doctor to talk about their depression and so forth have experienced many depressive episodes and unfortunately can look forward to a long tough road to getting control of their lives back from the disease.
So, if you know for certain that mental illness runs in either your family or the family of your partner/spouse who you have children with, get those kids to see a therapist before puberty to see if there are any tell tale signs. If either parent has a history of mental illness(properly diagnosed) then there about a 33% chance the child will have it as well.If they say there are signs, REFUSE to give them medication. Let the therapists do all the initial work. If they think the signs are there, they will work with your child through therapy helping to teach the child emotional control and proper decision making. Only when they become young adults if the therapy is not working should you try medication.
If they don't see the signs they will tell you and just have your child in for a yearly visit to talk and keep track of things. It's no big deal!!!!!!!! All three of my kids have been to therapists since they were 10. None, thank god have shown any signs of anything. Though another thing one needs to know is that alcohol and drugs can trigger a latent case so once they become young adults, still keep an eye out.
For me, so far so good, hopefully it has skipped that generation. But I teach my kids about it and have made it clear they have to do for their kids what I did for them to keep that eye out for it. The proper education hopefully will someday prevent one of my grandkids or great grand kids not have to lose a decade or more of their life like their grandfather or great grandfather or maybe if they have a severe case, maybe that education and early detection will save their lives.
