Tag: bipolar treatment

What Trauma-Informed Care Gets Wrong About Bipolar Disorder

“Trauma-informed care” is a semi-new buzzword that is heard all over right now but trauma-informed care gets a lot wrong when it comes to bipolar disorder (and other serious mental illnesses). I don’t say this because I don’t think trauma-informed care works — I think it probably does. But like anything, it only works for a certain population; and, like with anything fashionable, right now (look, it has its own conference) they are trying to shoehorn it onto every population. And when it comes to bipolar disorder, trauma-informed care gets a lot wrong.

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Bipolar Treatment Fatigue

In the world of chronic illness there is a concept of “caregiver fatigue.” This is where caregivers of people with chronic illness get burned out because they just spend so much time and effort caring for another person. This is a real thing and a real problem.

I would suggest there is also such as thing as “bipolar treatment fatigue.” Bipolar treatment fatigue is when a patient with bipolar disorder becomes burned out because of all the time and effort it takes to fight the bipolar disorder. I think this is a real thing and a real problem.

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What Keeps a Person Sick with Bipolar Going When Treatment Doesn’t Work?

Some people with bipolar disorder are lucky in that when they get treatment, they find something that works for them within some reasonable period of time (and this might be in a year or two, maybe not altogether reasonable, but on the whole, good). However, not all people sick with bipolar are so lucky. Some people with acute bipolar symptoms don’t find anything that works for them for prolonged periods of time. In fact, for many people sick with bipolar, it seems like they will never find any treatment that will work.

So if you’re in this latter group (and I am) what keeps you going? If you still suffer from acute bipolar symptoms and the treatment isn’t working, how do you keep trying to get better, day after day?

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We Must Aim for Zero Bipolar Symptoms During Treatment

Raise the Bar on Bipolar Treatment – Hold Your Doctor to Task

Let me be honest. Even when my treatment is at its best, I never get to the place of zero bipolar symptoms. I’m well, I can handle the remaining symptoms with coping skills, I can be happy but there are always lingering symptoms of bipolar disorder.

And this may be an indicator of being difficult to treat because what we know is that the more you can successfully treat all the symptoms of bipolar disorder, the more likely you are to have fewer relapses. In other words, if you continue to experience bipolar symptoms during treatment, you’re more likely to experience future episodes and we really want to avoid that as each future episode tends to make your bipolar harder to treat.

For this reason, it’s critical to aim for zero bipolar symptoms during treatment, whenever possible.

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Unmet Needs in the Treatment of Bipolar – I Need Your Thoughts

If you know my story of bipolar disorder treatment, you know that it hasn’t been a pleasant one. Doctors have fired me and given up on me. I have tried a host of treatments that didn’t work. I have experienced almost every side effect under the sun. I have bumped into holes in the healthcare system that have denied me access to a psychiatrist. I’ve spent years wanting to die. I have seen, and lived through, it all. And I would say there are many unmet needs in the treatment of bipolar disorder. I would say these unmet needs are part of bipolar treatment and part of the system in which treatment is delivered. I don’t blame psychiatrists or psychiatry, specifically. I would say there is plenty of blame to go around.

So when I think about unmet needs in bipolar disorder treatment, there seems to me to be many.

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Trying Bipolar Therapy You Don’t Believe In – Mindfulness Meditation

When people ask me about bipolar treatments or bipolar therapy here, I tell them about the research on the therapy or treatment and I tell them this, “different bipolar treatments and bipolar therapies work for different people so try it and see if it helps.”

And I consider this good advice. It’s absolutely true. Different bipolar treatments and bipolar therapies do work for different people – but that doesn’t mean that I, personally, believe in them.

And, to be clear, it’s not so much that I don’t believe in them entirely, it’s more that I don’t believe in them for me.

Enter mindfulness-cognitive therapy or mindfulness meditation.

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Polypharmacy Treatment Requires As Much Faith As Science

As I’ve said, mental illness treatments often don’t work. And you have to keep trying treatment anyway. Because without doing anything new, you are condemned to being stuck in the same mental illness mire you are currently in.

But in all honesty, mental illness treatment requires faith. Trying psych med after failed psych med requires a belief that something will work in spite of the evidence to the contrary. It requires a belief that is not based on proof.

I hate that.

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I write a three-time Web Health Award winning column for HealthyPlace called Breaking Bipolar.

Also, find my writings on The Huffington Post and my work for BPHope (BP Magazine).

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