A baby of Truehope believers died of meningitis likely because they chose to use alternative remedies instead of actual medicine to treat their son. No one can say, of course, whether the baby would have lived with proper care, but what we can say is that without it, he died.
The parents of the baby are David and Collet Stephan – David being the son of Tony Stephan, one of the founders of Truehope.
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I am not a religious person nor a prayer person and I believe that prayer does not cure mental illness and those that tell you to “pray more” because “it works” are invalidating the experience that is having a mental illness. Generally, I’m not in the business of telling people what doesn’t work because everyone is different, but this is one area that drives me nutty. Prayer doesn’t cure mental illness.
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I have been through lots of therapy and lots of therapists in my life and my contention is that therapy can’t be used to actually treat uncontrolled, serious mental illnesses. Now, don’t get me wrong, therapy can be supportive to a person with an uncontrolled, serious mental illness and therapy can be useful to a person with an uncontrolled, serious mental illness (such as in the case where the therapist tracks your bipolar symptoms and report changes to your doctor) but therapy cannot be used to actually treat a serious and uncontrolled mental illness.
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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?
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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.
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I have a fear of bipolar medication treatment changes. I do. You’d think after 100 changes to my bipolar medication treatment plan I would be used to it, and while I supposed I’m used to it, it doesn’t destroy the fear. I’m so scared that a bipolar medication treatment change will make me worse. I also fear the hope that a bipolar medication treatment change offers.
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General practitioners (GPs) should not be treating bipolar disorder. It’s as simple as that and I have no idea why GPs don’t get this. If it’s obvious to me, a little ol’ mental health writer then it should be more than obvious to a medical professional that GPs are simply not equipped to treat bipolar.
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We all know (or all should know) that psychiatric medications can’t fix a broken life. Psychiatric medications are designed to treat the symptoms of a specific disorder, such as bipolar disorder. That means that psych meds can treat things like depression. This is a huge win for anyone suffering from depression and is miracle enough, trust me. And although some symptoms of the disorder, like bipolar or depression, may remain, (ideally they won’t, but most of us don’t live in an ideal situation) there are still many positive things that psych meds can do for you and one thing that psychiatric medications can do for your is increase your resilience to things like life stressors.
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Recently, I was asked about planning for the future with bipolar disorder considering the threat of immanent relapse. This individual was in the last year of medical school and wanted to know how to plan the rest of his life, knowing that, at any moment, he might have a bipolar relapse. He was on meds, and they kept him functional, most of the time, but the bipolar medication didn’t prevent two major relapses in the past.
So the questions in this scenario are: How likely is a bipolar relapse? How can I avoid a bipolar relapse? How can I plan a life with such uncertainty?
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