I will say I’m blessed with family and friends that are more supportive than I could’ve hoped for.
The thinking of people as you referred to in your post never seem to realize one very, very important fact. Without recognition and treatment of the disorder, that’s exactly why many of us end up that way.
Thankfully you understand that important part of it. Good luck in your pursuits! 
I’ve got a mixed bag.
My friends have been almost uniformly great.
My family’s response has been surprising at times, but mostly underwhelming and/or downright disappointing. My sister is a doctor (albeit a pathologist, not a psychiatrist). She flat-out told me that she thought all my psychiatrists were wrong (I’ve had 5), and that I’m just “melodramatic.” She based her opinion on her 4 week long psychiatric rotation as a med student.
Stunning ignorance exists even in the medical profession.
I’ve been diagnosed bipolar (or “manic-depressive”, actually, the old name) and two different flavors of schizophrenic; been prescribed Mellaril, Stelazine, Lithium, Navane, and once on what was called an emergency basis, Haldol.
Most of it was in the 1980s (although I had to sign myself out against medical advice once in the 90s) and with few exceptions did not ever take my meds except when they were forced upon me.
The last mental hospital I was formally admitted to I left by dismantling the tongue-thingie on a double-door in the loading dock area and running for it and hitchhiking out of the area.
Choosing to go untreated, and/or choosing to dispute the validity of the profession’s diagnostic categories, and/or for that matter deciding that their available treatments don’t fix the problem as you perceive it, is not a path that is appropriate or perhaps possible for everyone. But I think you should know that some of us do walk that path.
In 1978-79, I thought there was something massively wrong with me, could not connect and socialize with anyone, and the world seemed unfit for human habitation and I contemplated suicide myself. In 1980, I decided the world made sense after all, in fact made so much more sense to me than it very obviously made to the confused denizens inhabiting the earth, and that my insights had so much to offer others, that I was obviously the fulfillment of all prophecies concerning a Messiah and/or Second Coming and/or Other Relevant Title, and furthermore that reality itself was bending around the force of my own imagination. All psychiatric inpatient experiences described above came after that point. (1980 first incarceration; 1982 second incarceration)
By 1985 I was an activist in the mental patients’ liberation movement and had long since been kicked out of one nuthouse and escaped from another, had accumulated my little “stamp collection” of psychiatric diagnosis (collect them all! amaze your friends!), been among New York City’s famous homeless mentally ill, and then gotten myself into college and was having lots of fun as the campus’s most Open and Out schizzy libber. By 1992 I was a published sociology theorist, and the contents of my article were the products of wheat-vs-chaff separation of the thoughts that had earned me my first incarceration. By 1993 I was a fully employed untreated escaped at-large dual-diagnosis mental patient, and working as a social worker, no less (MSW/ Elder Abuse). I’ve been among the fully employed taxpaying self-sufficient ever since.
NOTE A: In no way to I mean to trivialize or understate the personal agonies and miseries of being in the unfortunate condition or conditions they call “mentally ill”. It was real enough for me, and excruciatingly lonely and empty and hopeless-feeling. And yeah, sometimes I still feel like something is Bad Wrong With Me, although I’ve got a lot more confidence of my ability to cope with it. (At other times I think it’s Just Life and everyone has to cope with some portion of what I’ve been through, and it’s all just a matter of degree, whether it’s circumstances or biology that make the various differences). Yeah, I’m aware that my “tone of voice” tends to be this sort of cackling capering looney making light and delighting in ‘shocking’ folks when I can. I’m not unaware of it, I know I do it. It’s a coping mech, and a practical one too (the lighter tone lets me describe lots more stuff in fewer words and let folks’ imagination do the rest). Please don’t be insulted.
NOTE B: I also in no way mean to disparage anyone who has found psychiatric meds to be useful, helpful, beneficial, or vitally necessary. The stuff I want to emphasize is that the psych profession doesn’t have Magic Bullets that work for everyone. For some people the Pill that Works is the 17th one they try after going to 11 different doctors, some of whom they have to detach from very carefully to avoid involuntary confinement etc. For some people, the first doctor’s first prescribed med fixes everything. For some people all psychiatric meds are as beneficial as eating rat poison and our best outcomes are achieved by avoiding psychiatric services. There do exist some stats that indicate permanent recovery rates are better for those who bail on the system altogether. One could reasonably counter that with the hypothesis that those who opt out of psych treatment were more likely to have been misdiagnosed and weren’t mentally ill at all, which explains their better permanent recover rates. Just keep in mind that the profession does not tend to be very self-conscious about a hypothetically high rate of misdiagnosis of non-mentally-ill people, and that I was once suicidal and once inclined to lay claim to the mantle of Humankind’s Savior, among other things I kinda glossed over. I’m not saying the psychiatric profession’s doctors and staffpeople are wicked evil people, but I am saying that profession-wide they tend to lay claim to way more knowledge about the relevant subject matter than they actually have. They are still doing the metaphorical equiv of trephinations while claiming them to be qualitatively alongside of the most refined neurological procecures.
NOTE C: It is a good thing in all areas and reaches of the medical profession for patients to become as informed as possible, to become involved in their own treatment decisions and to do investigative research on their condition and the relevant possibilities. In my opinion, this is spectacularly true for psychiatric medical issues. Know your situation. Window-shop your doctors. Be pro-active. Network with other folks who have received identical or related diagnoses, and with other folks who have tried the treatments recommended for you. Know your legal rights. Know where your legal rights are truncated and under what circumstances and how it happens, within the confines of the mental hygiene statutes applicable to where you are.
WebbySite
Wow. We need an “agog” smiley.
FWIW – when I was diagnosed I had no preconceptions about bipolar people being “Crazy Nut Jobs”. My mom has been a social worker for so long, I’d met plenty of mentally ill people who suffered all sorts of things to varying degrees. Many of them lead average lives, hold down jobs, have families, etc.
Rather, I simply didn’t think the level of the hypomania and/or depression was anywhere near the intensity of what was felt by, for example, a biploar friend of mine. Her levels of depression are quite remarkable. And her elevated moods were conspicuous (although anyone who didn’t know better would think she was just in a great mood). I never thought that my mixed episodes had anywhere near the intensity of what she was feeling when she was in a bad cycle.
Kinda like, if I fell down and hurt my arm, would I go to the doctor in a few days or the ER right away? If the pain seemed bearable I’d think “Oh, well it can’t be broken because I’m not overwhelmed by unbearable pain. I won’t go to the ER. This isn’t an emergency.” What I never took into consideration was the analogous high pain threshold.
I guess I had assumed that when people felt bad, they all felt about as bad as me. And when people were feeling “stressed” (which was actually a mixed episode for me) that everyone felt kinda like that from time to time. I was actually used to feeling that way, so I never thought of it as unusual. It was only in the times whenit was really out of control that there seemed to be a problem.
Like on a scale of 1-10. The intensity of my emotions would be at 9.8 and I thought that’s how everyone was, but really the rest of the world would feel the same thing at 4.2.
While this statement is still true, a lot of new meds have been developed in the last 15 years. There are a LOT more meds for docs to try now than there were when you were last in treatment.
I’m sure you’re aware of that, AHunter3, but I say it for the benefit of Beltrane and anyone else out there who doubts there might be help for them.
I might be able to top that one. My sister is a THERAPIST and refuses to validate anything that I feel - as someone diagnosed with bipolar this is quite upsetting to me. I don’t use her for therapy, but jeez, wouldn’t you think there might be some level of sisterly support there? The rest of my family (which is very scarce, mostly some cousins and aunts) is in the “I’m sure it’s not as serious as you think, just get out and get busy” category.
Mixed episodes suck. I’m in one now. Mr. Beckwall has not bothered to educate himself about all this, so I’m on my own. Oh yeah, I’m pretty med-resistant but my pdoc just gave me some samples of Cymbalta to try. Supposed to work on both the depression and anxiety.
Best of luck to all who suffer from this disabling disorder.
That’s true, but WARNING WILL ROBINSON etc etc — the popularity of relatively recent psych drugs is perennial within the field. At any given time there are new drugs for which the old side effects do not seem to be in existence and which do not seem to have new and equivalently nasty side effects of their own.
And then time slides by and lo and behold, the new and shiny Brave New Drugs of yesterday turn out to either have the same icky side effects of the Old Ugly Drugs of yesteryear (once you give them enough time for the side effects to manifest) or else they turn out to have new and horrid side effects of their own. Go Google “SSRI” (the best and bravest of just barely two years ago, for depression, all wonderful and whatnot) and check out all the lawsuits, for instance.
It remains true that they don’t know what they’re treating (in terms of a genuine etiology and manifestion descrip below the gross behavioral-presenting level) and that their pharmacology is still geared towards symptom-alleviation. And because of the severity of the symptoms plus the often severe impact on others in the environment (including safety concerns etc), there’s quite a market for stuff that basically just shuts down huge boatloads of neural activity like a wet blanket, and they don’t sprain their arms or their budgets making sure it’s safe for long-term use and doesn’t impair other stuff that neurons were intended to do, in the brain or elsewhere.
Well, it’s been my experience that new doctors tend to be very arrogant. I don’t think she’s unique. She’ll learn.
Lucky you. My family is nowhere near as enlightened.
For example: my mother suffered from severe depression for years when I was a kid. When I was 12, she made a suicidal gesture in front of me with my dad’s gun.
But today, she denies that ever happened and that she was ever depressed. Why? Because she’s “a normal person,” and thus cannot ever possibly suffer from mental illness. Only people who are “crazy people,” marked from birth, can ever be mentally ill. The mentally ill are almost like another species to her. Because I have admitted that I’m one of those “crazy people,” I’m now not like her or her other, “good” daughters.
My dad started treating me better than everyone else in the family the day I got into Harvard Law. The day I became so incapacitated that I had no choice but to move home was the day I became a third-class citizen in our family. I am not allowed to express an opinion that disagrees with his or any other member of our family. If I have a disagreement with any of them, I am automatically the wrong one. Treating me badly is OK because I am not as worthy as any of them.
Basically, it’s like there’s a caste system in my family, and I became an Untouchable.
My dad’s a total dick, but my mom and sisters are well-meaning…they just don’t get it and don’t really want to try because it scares them.
I didn’t know any bipolar people before I was diagnosed, but I did read An Unquiet Mind before that, and yeah, it took me a long time to accept that I really was that sick. Her experience sounded so much worse that mine, at least on first impression. Then I’d think about it a little, and then…not so much.
Sorry, again I need to stress THAT DOESN’T MEAN THESE DRUGS ARE BAD.. It means your mileage may vary. It means you should assume they’ve been brought to market for a variety of reasons with no more than minimal concern for what they might do for you, but sometimes that just means the red tape doesn’t get inbetween you and what might work for you just wonderfully.
Ask the folks on this board who take psych drugs. (I don’t). They’ll mostly tell you of long months or years of trying this or that before finding something that did them significantly more good than harm. I am here to tell you of me and others like me who found all of them to do more harm than good, an attitude that is characterized as “unhealthy”, but while telling you that I want to stress that you may find a prescription psychiatric med that does you good, but take 100% of the responsibility for determining what you’ll put into your system. Window-shop. Research. Be cynical. Get educated. And if it makes you feel like shit, trust your instinct.
AHunter3, you and I agree on the facts and proper strategy, but have simply come to two different conclusions.
Family can also be quite blind to their own (I don’t mean that as harsh as it sounds.) For example, in the capacity of her job, my mom does a lot of couselling and has diagnosed people as bipolar (then referred them to doctors and psychiatrists for the “official” diagnosis). She had concerns about me, but nothing that really rang any alarm bells for her. Note: I was no longer living at home when my symptoms really started to present and I’d try to hide it so as not to worry her.
However, part and parcel of a diagnosis is family history, right?
Well, my father was a wreck. The family says his personality “changed” in his early 20s when he started grad school. He impulsively got married and divorced within six months. He had grandiose ideas, that would fall through when he got depressed. He had five, count 'em FIVE degrees, including a PhD and two Masters – he never had a full-time job. Couldn’t do it. Was too busy working on his own stuff (nothing was ever produced). He died alone as ann alcoholic.
One day I said “Mom, looking back, do you think maybe Daddy was bipolar?”
She thought about it and… :smack: ! My father had seen several psychologists and psychiatrists over the last 20 years of his life. They all treated his “alcoholism” or “depression due to alcoholism”. NO ONE looked into the possibility of an underlying cause. Now that he’s dead, and I’ve been diagnosed as biploar, there are people going “Oh… so… Hm…”
I never liked the guy much, but I feel sorry for the fact that he probably could have been spared a whole lot of misery if people had stopped thinking of him as a brilliant fuck up and started to really wonder if maybe there was more to his story.
Mom_Crayons agrees. In hindsight, now that she has distance from the situation, my father had a whole lot of the textbook behaviour. From the age of onset of his behavioral changes to cycle of depression, gradiosity and rage.
It’s such a shame, really. He was a brilliant man who could really have contributed to the world around him.
Not at all. I think almost everyone has a little innate doubt that “hey, that kind of stuff doesn’t happen to US!” It just doesn’t occur to them.
MAYBE?!?!? 
I said before that my dad is a dick. Well, he’s definitely got lifelong and chronic problems with depression. That’s been diagnosed. He also shows some signs of having (mild) manic-depressive symptoms (misuse of alcohol, spending sprees, irritability, grandiose ideas of self-worth). He’s probably bipolar NOS, but he refuses to consider treatment.
My family history is a total nightmare. Nobody ever sought treatment, but you start to get the idea when you see what they’re like. It’s textbook “people dealing with depression and anxiety by not dealing with it.”
My psychiatrist recently pointed out to me that he doesn’t really trust me to be able to say when I’m feeling “good” or “normal” because I really don’t know what “good” or “normal” looks or feels like, having been surrounded all my life by people who are anything but.
Well, unfortunately his alcoholism masked his true condition. And if he could stay stable for extended periods of time the way I can, then it would just appear to be an issue of “falling off the wagon.” He really did get a lot of treatment for alcoholism, but it wasn’t until he was successfully twelve-stepping (he was sober for the last few years of his life) that it became a bit more obvious that something was wrong when there was NO alcohol involved. So he was treated by healthcare, and mental healthcare professionals as a substance abuser.
Granted, my dad was a dick too (he was college buddies with the Unibomber. No, really!). It IS entirely possible that he was properly diagnosed at some point but never told anyone, and was jut a dick about it and refused to believe the diagnosis and/or get proper treatment. Actually that’s highly probable.
Looks carefully at Q.N.
… You’re not related to me are you?
If you mean, am I your half-sister, no. 
My mom & dad have been married 37 (miserable) years. He’s got an MBA and a job (but can’t get along with anyone and refuses to fulfill some of his responsibilities). He cleaned up his act re: alcohol when he was about 30.
Part of his problem definitely is what we’ve talked about–he’s able to pull it together often enough that he manages to avoid diagnosis/real treatment.
If you mean, are we cousins, I dunno. Where do you live?
Just checking.
My dad’s grandiosity was eyerollingly bad.
E.g./
I have used a screwdriver… Therefore, I am a mechanic! No wait, an engineer!
He never made such claims, but you know he felt that way.
Oo! We should have a “Living with the Mentally Ill” thread. There’d probably be interesting stories.
Can anyone give me kind of a basic idea of how bipolar disorder would manifest differently from depression with anxiety?
My husband has been diagnosed with depression and anxiety and social phobia. The medications that he’s tried have done virtually nothing. Currently, he’s only on Wellbutrin, which doesn’t seem to hurt (despite its ability to increase anxiety) but may not be helping very much.
He’s in therapy and has been on virtually every modern anti-depressant. He’s an obsessive personality, often hyper-focused. He can play a computer game for days straight, gets a bug in his ear about buying or doing or accomplishing something and he won’t let it go until it’s done. I’ll say something like, “Someday, I’d like to buy a new closet door.” The next day, I’ll come home from work and he’ll be bouncing around the room, assuming we’re going to go buy a new closet door and flabbergasted when I say I’m not in a hurry to do it or can’t afford it or don’t care to make a special trip.
He’s seen various psychiatrists and therapists. Currently, he’s under the care of a psychiatric nurse practitioner who actually listens instead of just prescribing meds and telling him to live with the side effects.
Does any of this ring any bells for anyone? Sorry for the hijack.
Without sleeping? If so, that’s a manic symptom.
If it’s just that he spends all his waking hours on it, that’s probably just obsessive.
Is this meant literally? Does he have trouble sitting still? Or is he just excited about something?
It sounds to me more like an obsessive-compulsive issue, rather than manic-depression. It’s quite common to have comorbid disorders (in his case, OCD or OCPD* and depression and anxiety).
*OCD = obsessive-compulsive disorder
OCPD = obsessive-compulsive personality disorder
My dad told us that, as far as his family was concerned, he was God, and we should treat him and revere him as such.
A particularly nice instance of his grandiosity and his propensity for emotional abuse dovetailing perfectly.
:rolleyes:
He can go for a couple of days without sleeping and rarely eating when he’s hooked on something new. Then he might crash for a few hours, get back up and start over. He says he “forgot to eat” and since he’s a diabetic it can be a problem.
The bouncing off the walls isn’t literal. Sorry for using that phrase. But he’ll push and push to get some sort of outcome. I usually end up having to provide a substitute goal or provide a specific date for X to happen. “I don’t want to go tonight. We can go on Thursday.”
An exchange from last week:
Me (midnight Monday): “I’ve been thinking about going back to school.”
Him (5:30 Tuesday): “So did you quit?”
Me: Whaa?
Him: You said you were goign to go back to school.
Me: Maybe. Someday.
Him: Why not now?
Me: Because we need the income from my job.
Him: shrug
Eating well or going to the therapist is sometimes “too much work.” But he’ll want to drive for three hours to go to a plant nursery that might have a tree like the tree he was researching for ten hours yesterday.
My biggest concern is that he has other issues that aren’t being recognized as, perhaps, interfering with the treatment of his depression. I know some depressed patients aren’t helped a huge amount by anti-depressants, but I’m just worried that there is a treatment that could be added or substituted that could help. His doctors always ALWAYS ignore the social phobia aspects of his diagnoses and tell him to do things that he is not going to be able to do. He doesn’t call and make appointments, for example. He refuses. He’s had doctors that wouldn’t accept an appointment made by anyone else, so we end up at an impasse.
You describe a couple of symptoms that could be manic, but not enough for me to say, “Yeah, that sounds like bipolar disorder.” Impulsivity and not sleeping or eating are common in manic people, but that’s not enough for a diagnosis.
Manic symptoms are:
As you can see, a lot of mania is experienced internally and isn’t necessarily obvious to others. You’d really have to show this list to your husband and have a serious talk with him.