It’s important to know that you can, and should, call or text a hotline (formally known in the U.S. as Lifeline) even if you’re not suicidal but are experiencing emotional distress. I’m serious about this. You don’t have to wait until you’re on death’s door to talk to a professional crisis worker. Yes, I know their title is “crisis” worker but really what they are is educated people that are there to help you when you need help – whether you’re formally in a “crisis” or not. In fact, calling or texting a hotline, Lifeline, when you’re not suicidal might be the best thing you can do to save your own life.
Last week, Kanye West released his new album Ye, and with it, the information (confirmation, really) that he has bipolar disorder. And Kanye West doesn’t just say he has bipolar disorder, he screams in his album all about it including:
“Ain’t no disability! I’m a superhero. I’m a SUPERHERO!”
Bipolar disorder also features prominently on Kanye West’s album cover which reads:
One of the things that drives me crazy is that there is no “right way” to deal with bipolar disorder. There is no “right” treatment, there is no “right” therapy, there no “right” anything when it comes to bipolar disorder. When I look at the roadmap of my past treatment, it is so winding that this is clear. And the thing that really gets me is when I look at my future treatment roadmap, I see that uncertainty too. It makes it so hard to make a decision when there is no right way to deal with bipolar disorder.
In my experience, there are often times when bipolar depression makes it so that I can’t do anything. I’m a lump. A rock. A blob. I literally can’t do anything because of bipolar depression. And because this happens to me, quite frankly, on a not infrequent basis, I’ve learned what to do when bipolar depression makes it so that I can’t do anything.
Desperation is one of the effects of bipolar disorder. In fact, desperation is even one of the effects of bipolar disorder treatment (Bipolar Treatment Fatigue). So many of us with bipolar disorder have felt desperate at one or more points in time; bipolar disorder is even making some of us feel desperate right now.
I cry all the time. Like, all the time. Crying is, in fact, my reaction to virtually everything (Depression and Crying in Public). Music makes me cry, TV shows make me cry, thoughts make me cry and even silence, makes me cry. If I sit here and just honestly think about how I feel in this very moment, I cry. I just always feel like crying. Crying is my reaction to everything. It’s wet, it’s salty and it sucks.
There are different types of suicidal depressions and one type is the passive suicidal depression. It’s the kind of suicidal depression where you want to die, you just don’t want to kill yourself. (As I’ve written about before, here: The Difference Between Being Suicidal and Wanting to Die.) Passive suicidal depression tends to take forms such as the very common one of not wanting to wake up in the morning.
Fear of pain is normal and natural but I think an acute fear of depression’s pain actually makes depression worse; and of course, this is something that none of us want. But how does fear make pain worse? Can you get over fearing depression’s pain?
Bipolar and anger may or may not be linked. It appears they are and many people would assert they are, but as anger is not, technically, a symptom of bipolar disorder as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, it’s hard to say anything definitive about it. Nevertheless, anger and bipolar disorder have been on my mind lately because I do feel very angry. So why are so many people with bipolar disorder so angry?
This Friday, March 30th, 2018 is World Bipolar Day. People like me and Julie A. Fast along with the International Bipolar Foundation are spending this World Bipolar Day educating others about the realities of living with bipolar disorder.
I’m going to be doing a Facebook Live question and answer session from 9:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m. PT (noon-1:00 p.m. ET) on my page. I’ll be talking about bipolar disorder and answering your questions live. I’ll do my best to answer anything you like.
There are people who claim to have been cured of bipolar disorder. This is a thing that happens, especially online. People have written to me claiming of a bipolar cure. Companies also claim to cure (or magically treat) bipolar disorder. (One, in fact, threatened to sue me for talking about my experience with their product.)
My opinion is the people who claim to have been cured of bipolar disorder are dangerous.
I am suffering from severe bipolar-related agitation. Or is it severe medication-related agitation? This is the question. Technically, it’s mostly a question for your doctor, but it’s one I struggle with, too. On one level, it doesn’t much matter what’s causing the agitation as it’s happening and that’s that; and on the other hand, I think it’s important to know what’s driving the agitation – a bipolar symptom or a medication side effect?
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