I take psychiatric medications daily and what I want to know is, why do people refuse to try psychiatric medication for serious mental illnesses? Why do people think they don’t need it? Why do people think they should ignore their highly-trained doctor’s advice? Why do people feel that taking psychiatric medication makes them less of a person? Why is it okay to take heart medication but not psychiatric medication? Why do people think that psychiatric medication doesn’t work? Why do people think that I know of some secret alternative? Why do people refuse to even try psychiatric medication?
I have heard many times that people don’t want to get diagnosed because they don’t want the label “bipolar” put on them as if “bipolar,” in of itself, is pejorative, as if, somehow, some doctor writing a medical diagnosis on a chart is going to change their whole futures. Well, I have bipolar disorder; I have the “label” and everyone in my life knows it. I see no need to avoid the label of bipolar if, indeed, that is an accurate diagnosis for you.
This piece carries a heavy trigger warning. Please be careful.
My suicide attempt story is like many other suicide attempt stories, I’d imagine. It beings with an unrelenting mental illness (bipolar disorder), goes on to include painful events outside of my control and ends in an attempt on my life. But I like to think of my suicide attempt story as a story of survival – even when my own brain was trying to kill me.
Have you ever attempted suicide because of a mental illness? Have you ever gone to the emergency room (ER) because of a suicide attempt related to a mental illness? If you have, then you probably know, the mentally ill who attempt suicide are second-class patients in the ER. Doctors seem to, distinctly, not like people who attempt suicide. The same goes with people who self-harm. These people are second-class patients as well. But why are the mentally ill who attempt suicide second-class patients?
Do you have bipolar depression and feel like you need a vacation? Well, I have sad news for you, vacations can make bipolar worse, not better. Don’t get me wrong, they don’t have to, and if you’re in a good place in your bipolar right now, you might just have a great time, but if you are really sick with bipolar, that vacation you want might make your bipolar depression worse.
Yup, Truehope is threatening to sue me, Natasha Tracy, mental health writer with regards to slander and defamation of their company and product, EMPowerplus. All this because of six articles written over a year-and-a-half ago (when I tried their product).
If you search the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, you will see that anger is not a symptom of bipolar disorder. If you search the International Classification of Diseases manual (maintained by the World Health Organization) you will see that anger is not a symptom of bipolar disorder. It doesn’t appear to be recognized, or even proposed, that a symptom of bipolar disorder is anger.
The trouble with this seems to be that many people do experience anger, irritation and aggression as symptoms of their bipolar disorder. I am one of those people.
As I wrote about on HealthyPlace this week, right now, I’m recovering from a depression after a hypomania. It’s been 11 days and I haven’t returned to my (admittedly, rather sucky) baseline. My point in that piece was that the depression after a hypomania is so much worse than an average depression. My point here, though, is that the time it takes to recover from a depression after a hypomania never passes quickly enough and I tend to beat myself up about it.
The Bipolar Burble is extremely pleased to welcome back today’s guest author: Ross Szabo. Ross is an amazing mental illness educator and advocate. You can read more about him at the bottom.
I’ve often pondered whether bipolar is caused by nature or nurture and even researchers constantly examine the age-old question. The data largely shows that it’s often a mixture of both. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was 16. My psychiatrist added anger control problems and psychotic features to my diagnosis at age 17. I love to ponder what part of my bipolar is nature, what’s nurture and what’s me?
One of the least helpful things you can say to someone who self-harms is, “well, just stop cutting.” Believe me, for most people who cut, if it were that easy, they would have done it already. People struggle with ending self-harm not because they don’t want to but because they use self-harm as a coping skill and you can’t just take away someone’s only or best coping skill. They won’t know what else to do without it. So saying, “just stop cutting” to a self-harmer is like saying, “just stop crying” or “just stop talking to your friends” or “just stop drinking” – if that’s the coping skill the person uses to deal with pain, telling them to “just stop it” doesn’t work.
The pros and cons of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) are actually quite numerous but in this post I will try to, unbiasedly, lay out the basic pros and cons for anyone considering ECT as a treatment. I am likely uniquely qualified to do this as I am very educated about ECT (Yes, I still have that book in the works. Did I mention I’m really busy?) and I’ve also had ECT. This does not mean it’s right for everyone, however. Do consider the pros and cons of electroconvulsive therapy carefully before you make your own mind up with the help of a doctor.
First-generation antipsychotics (typical antipsychotics, neuroleptics) have been around since the 1950s, but how safe are first-generation antipsychotics like haloperidol? One doctor, Henry A. Nasrallah, MD, suggests that haloperidol and its likenesses should be retired as first generation antipsychotics are not safe for the brain (he and the literature contend). Are first-generation antipsychotics like haloperidol safe or possibly neurotoxic?
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