Bipolar Blog

Jill Ravitz recently posted her bipolar story, which caused me to think about my own situation with my wife and our family. Back in 1999 my wife was diagnosed as having bipolar disorder. Within about two years, we were discussing divorce.

Bipolar disorder was tearing us and our family apart. We argued all the time, even in front of our children, which all parents know is a big no-no. Our two teenage children were a wreck and were probably hoping we would get divorced so they could get a break from us. Well, maybe they weren’t so secret about it… I can’t recall.

We stayed together. I don’t know whether we were just too lazy to take on the burden of a divorce, too cheap to hire an attorney, too stubborn to let our 20 years + marriage go down the tubes, too afraid to break the news to our families, or too afraid of what divorce would do to our children. I have no idea why we stayed together, but I’m happy we did.

I always admired my wife. She enjoys life more than I do. She lights up a room and engages people. She is sincerely interested in other people. She is intelligent, sensitive, and funny. Her joy is contagious. I married her because of all that and more. Perhaps her energy and joy for life flows from that manic side of bipolar disorder. She is rarely depressed. It’s the mania that causes the most problems for us.

Jill’s story made me think about why Cecie and I got married in the first place. It made me realize what attracted me to her. It made me happy that we decided to stay together and try to keep the bipolar disorder from driving us and our family apart.

I don’t fault anyone for leaving someone who has bipolar disorder. I was very near that point myself. Who knows, maybe someday the disorder could drive my wife to do something I could not tolerate. I don’t know, but I wonder how many people split up prematurely, before they even have a chance to understand what is going on and help their loved one through it. And I wonder how much they lose out by leaving.

People with bipolar disorder are still people. They are still just as wonderful as they were before contracting the illness. What’s so tragic is that the illness can mislead us into thinking that our loved ones are no longer worth loving.

If you’re wondering what mania, hypomania, or a mixed state feels like to a person with bipolar disorder, you’ll get your chance to find out when Manic: A Memoir by Terri Cheney hits the bookstores on February 5, 2008. I have read a couple other personal accounts of what living with bipolar disorder is like, and I think Manic captures it best. Read the rest of this entry »

The standard approach to treating bipolar disorder calls for a combination of medication and psychotherapy—a mood stabilizer for the mania, an anti-depressant to treat the depressive side, and psychotherapy to deal with the stressors and triggers that often push the disorder through the protective barrier of medications.

There are, however, some alternative and complementary treatments available that may help when the standard treatments are ineffective or cause intolerable side effects. When used in place of standard medications and therapies, these are known as “alternative.” When used along with standard medications and therapies, they are called “complementary” or “adjunctive.” Read the rest of this entry »

More and more people seem to be keeping journals or diaries these days. In Bipolar Disorder For Dummies and in the post “Journaling Your Bipolar Journey,” we recommend keeping a journal to record medication changes, mood ratings, and so on. If you keep a journal, please share your insights about it with others by answering the following questions:

1. What do you typically log in your journal?
2. How often do you write in your journal?
3. How often do you look back at what you have written?
4. How has your journal helped you manage your bipolar disorder?

Please feel free to add any additional insights or comments about topics that these questions do not address.

When you begin seeing a psychiatrist (or any physician who manages your bipolar medication), you may begin to feel like a guinea pig. Your doctor tries one medication after another to see which one works and which one doesn’t, which one produces the least annoying side effects, and which medications seem to get along best with one another when you’re taking multiple medications. You may begin to wonder whether you are the first person on the planet who’s been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Shouldn’t the medical community know by now what works and what doesn’t?! Read the rest of this entry »

I was recently interviewed by Tina Benitez of FOX News for a story called “Bipolar Disorder: In the Genes?” The article covers the question of nature or nurture–how much does the genetic vulnerability to bipolar disorder contribute to the onset of the illness versus the contribution from environmental stressors? The article also covers early onset (in childhood) and differences between men and women in how they acquire bipolar disorder.

Dr. Francis McMahon, chief of the Genetics Unit of the Mood Anxiety Disorders Program at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Maryland, also shares his insights on the nature vs. nurture question.

On Sunday September 30, the CBS news program 60 Minutes aired a report entitled “Who Killed Rebecca Riley.” The piece explores the tragic death of four-year old Rebecca Riley due to an overdose of psychiatric medications. In the story, Katie Couric explains how Rebecca had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of three years and how she had been prescribed several medications to treat her behavioral symptoms. Rebecca’s mother is now in jail, accused of murdering Rebecca by regularly giving her too much of the medication Clonidine, which was one of the medications prescribed for Rebecca by the child psychiatrist. The prosecutors allege that Rebecca’s parents used this medication excessively to keep Rebecca quiet and subdued. Rebecca’s mother states that she gave Rebecca only the prescribed amount of Clonidine. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the things I regret most about how Cecie and I have managed her treatment is that neither of us has created a journal of it. I’m not talking about journaling our experience with bipolar disorder, although that would be valuable, as well. I’m talking about keeping a treatment journal that would track moods and other details, such as the following: Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes, you may begin to wonder what’s worse—the depression and mania or the side effects from the medications used to control the depression and mania. In fact, one of the main reasons that people with bipolar disorder stop taking their medications is because they simply can no longer tolerate the negative side effects. And who can blame them? Nobody likes to gain 30 pounds, feel groggy all day, become forgetful, walk around feeling dizzy, shake, twitch, feel nauseous, or have an anxiety attack. Yet, all of these side effects and more are possible with one medication or another used to treat bipolar symptoms. Read the rest of this entry »

The front page of the September 4th issue of The New York Times carried a story by Benedict Carey entitled “Bipolar Illness Soars as a Diagnosis for the Young.” Carey has done a number of important pieces about child mental health over the past few years. The subject of pediatric bipolar disorder stirs strong feelings in child psychiatrists and has become a lightning rod for controversy. The NY Times article describes the findings of a new study that adds important data to the debate. Carey reports that this new study, published in the September issues of The Archives of General Psychiatry, documents a 40-fold increase in the diagnoses of bipolar disorder in children between 1994 and 2003, climbing from 2,000 cases in 1994 to 800,000 cases in 2003. Read the rest of this entry »