diagnosis Archives - Natasha Tracy Bipolar Expert

Urine Test to Distinguish Between Bipolar and Depression – Does It Really Exist?

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Jul 31, 2016

Today, on the Bipolar Burble Facebook page, someone posted a link to an article on The Health Magazine (a website) that had the headline: A Urine Test Can Distinguish Between Bipolar Disorder And Depression. The poster bought into this headline and felt that “people should know about this.”

Well, I can tell you that when someone claims to have found a urine test to distinguish between bipolar and depression, you should be very skeptical. Believe me, if this were a real thing, it wouldn’t just show up in some clickbait website, written by someone named “admin.” (Normally, these types of sites even steal the content they do have.)

Let’s look at the facts of the matter. Does a urine test to differentiate between depression and bipolar disorder really exist?

Meet a Neuroscientist and Get a Second Healthcare Opinion

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Sep 27, 2012

The Bipolar Burble is honored to introduce to you Dr. Marie Rowland, a neuroscientist helping people with brain disorders like mental illness through a new service, EmpowermentAlly.

A Special Offer for Bipolar Burble Readers

Marie is offering subsidized services to people with a mental illness and she has a special offer for Bipolar Burble readers – a thorough review of your mental health concerns, history and a 30 minute coaching session all for $15. Read on to learn more about Marie and her offer.

Becoming an Empowered Loved One – An E-Patient’s Best Friend

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Jul 26, 2012

Recently I discussed a little about what it means to be an e-patient. An e-patient is someone who is empowered, engaged, equipped and enabled (and many other things depending on who you ask). In short, an e-patient is someone who is fully engaged in making mental health treatment decisions.

Now, I am the first person to say that being an e-patient isn’t always possible for a person with mental illness. Often, dealing with the day-to-day slog that is living with a mental illness is quite enough pressure, thank-you, without having to put an “e” in front of your title.

E-Partners, E-Parents, E-Friends

However, even if becoming an uber-patient isn’t on your shortlist of things to do, your loved ones can also become empowered. They can become e-partners or e-parents or e-friends, if you like. And adding an “e” in front of their title can help them to feel less helpless in the face of a daunting illness that they cannot control.

New Research in Bipolar and Depression – The Glutamate Train

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Jun 11, 2012

After looking at the future treatment approaches for treatment-resistant depression, I thought I’d share a bit more depression and bipolar research. New options offer hope for everyone who run the gamut of bipolar or depression treatments.

A new mood stabilizer
A new, novel antidepressant
Knowing when depression isn’t depression

The Desperation of Mental Illness and Depression

Posted by Natasha Tracy | May 16, 2012

I woke up one morning in 1994 crushed with depression. The first thing I thought of that morning was how much I wanted to kill myself, and if I couldn’t do that, then how much I wanted to hurt myself. I kept cutting implements and bandages near my bed just in case the feelings were too much to bear.

Of course, this was like every morning of my 16-year-old life. I was depressed, but I didn’t know it. I only knew that I wanted to die. I needed to die. I needed it like most people needed breath. And I knew that no one understood.

Home Life, Suicide and Depression

My home life was one of the things driving me to depression and granting me the leanings of suicide. Things there were a hellish nightmare of screaming and hate. And the people related to me and forced to love me gave me no consolation whatsoever as I was sure that they didn’t. These people hated me and wanted me gone every bit as much as I did.

This was, at least partially, my depression talking, but I didn’t know it then. I didn’t know what depression was and I didn’t know how loudly it spoke.

The Only Place That Would Have a Depressed Me

So I found myself in my car trying to drive anywhere away from there. Away from the nexus of crazy. So I drove to the only place that I knew would have me – to the house of my rapist.

As is most often the case my sexual abuse was complicated. And while I hated what this man in his 40s did to me the one thing I couldn’t live without was his love. He would tell me he loved me. This was undoubtedly a lie but convinced as I was that no one else did, that my life was worthless and that I should die, that one sliver of love offered by a minion of Satan made me keep breathing.

I arrived at his house to find him not home – away, undoubtedly grooming other little lovelies for his nest. So I did the only thing I could think to do, I curled up on a square of cement near his front steps and went to sleep weeping – an attempt to escape the world that was trying to kill me.

A Picture of Mental Illness in Crisis

This is a picture of a girl in crisis. A girl so tightly wound in the grasp of depression that she can see no way of dealing with it at all. A girl so desperate to feel anything but the pain of mental illness she was prepared to put her body and her soul in harm’s way just to not feel like death was upon her for one brief moment in time.

Do Objective Diagnostic Criteria Matter in Psychiatry?

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Mar 15, 2012

One of the criticisms antipsychiatry folks like to make of psychiatry is its lack of objective diagnostic criteria. In other words, there’s no blood test that says you have bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

And this is true. While today we do have blood tests for biological markers indicative of mental illness diagnosis, there is no hard and fast test that can diagnose a psychiatric disorder (except Huntington’s, for which we have discovered a gene).

The fact of the matter is no matter what is written in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or what blood we draw or which scans we do nothing diagnoses a person properly except a trained psychiatric professional.

But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing objective or meaningful about it.

Why Aren’t Lifestyle Changes Frontline Treatment for Depression?

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Nov 3, 2011

Many people complain about overmedication. They lament that the first thing doctors do is prescribe a medication for depression or another mental illness rather than suggest lifestyle changes like exercise and meditation.

This is often true. Doctors, including psychiatrists, often prescribe medication over suggesting lifestyle changes when a mental illness like depression is diagnosed.

And that’s a completely reasonable thing to do.

Mixed Bipolar Disorder – How to Treat Mixed Mood Episodes

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Aug 23, 2011

In the final installation of my mixed moods series, I talk about how to treat mixed moods in bipolar disorder. If you need a refresher on mixed moods in bipolar 1 or bipolar 2, see the first three articles in this series:

Alternative Medicine Resource, Fad Diagnoses, St. John’s Wort – 3 New Things

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Aug 19, 2011

In today’s 3 New Things series I talk about:

A great resource for alternative medicine information
A New St. John’s Wort and depression study
A new “fad” diagnosis up for consideration in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Version V (DSM-V)