Bipolar disorder with minimal medication… from an 'expert' by experience……………. Useful search option >>>
February 23, 2013 1 Comment
His writing is great for understanding the mental illness industry (diagnosis and treatment).
Just before I add any more reviews I want to remind readers of Robert Whitaker’s book Anatomy of an Epidemic.
If you are involved in any way at all with heath care then this is essential reading.
February 22, 2013 Leave a comment
February 19, 2013 1 Comment
There have been lots of stories about the long-awaited or long dreaded DSM5.
This is the new version of the American Diagnostics Manual that is likely to be used all over the world to match human emotions to psychiatric labels that allow drugs to be dispensed and so keep psychiatry going a bit longer.
Here is just one of those stories being retold here by Kit Johnson…
In a word – YES!
It would seem the American Psychiatric Associations latest move with DSM-5 is to classify bereavement as depression, or rather, more vaguely, in typical obfuscation, grief will no longer disqualify you from being diagnosed with depression.
Has it really come to this? Normal events – which sadly for most of us includes bereavement – are no longer safe from more ‘scary’ diagnoses.
You may feel I’m overreacting, but if you find yourself seriously knocked senseless with grief and one weeps a bit too much, for a bit too long, ergo you can be classed as depressed and indeed, mentally ill.
And if you are diagnosed as mentally ill by your physician it can carry all sorts of long-term implications, effectively barring you from many aspect of civil life – like say Jury Service.
So as well as coping with losing a loved one, you may just discover, months or years later, when you’ve recovered, that a new Doctor says ‘I see that you were diagnosed with depression in 2013’
Does it matter? Well yes it might if you are refused life insurance or medical insurance because of that diagnosis. A casual chat with your Doctor might have significant and negative implications for years after.
Remember that in many Western countries Doctors are paid for delivering medical solutions, so don’t be surprised to learn that the ‘medicalisation’ of social matters like bereavement is tempting in the extreme. It’s certainly in the interests of the Pharmaceutical industry to have things presented as medical problems.
Bereavement is part of life, as is feeling anxious, hopeless and feeble sometimes. Most work their way through it. There is a marked difference to full-blown depression.
No bloody wonder the DSM-5 manual threatens to become thicker than the Hong Kong phone directory.
Apologies to those ‘ good Psychiatrists’ out there, and I know there are many, but what I do know too, from my followers and all my social media, is that the profession does not enjoy universal support. In fact a straw poll tells me at least 60 to 70% of those I know, have very little time for the profession.
When you look at DSM-5 it’s no wonder.
The above was originally blogged here: Kit Johnson
January 30, 2013 7 Comments
Everyday I wake up thinking I will add to this blog. Almost every day I feel too anxious, weak, confused and a lot of other unpleasant stuff such that I write nothing. Day after day disappears and… well, my life is disappearing, while more and more people are being labelled as bipolar.
I am not a great advert for what happens when in recovery, but at least I am still here, which I am sure I would not be, had I taken all the drugs prescribed.
People who are new to bipolar are still being given lithium as a treatment without the potential consequences being explained.
It is a subject I have thought about for ages. I have had lots of blood tests… I hope one day to have more energy, get to the bottom of this and explain more about how much lithium treatment has affected me. Today, I have just enough energy to post the following which is from:
http://dbt.consultantlive.com/display/article/1145628/1544855?pageNumber=2
Note: Dr Pomeranz is not associated with this site… we just feel strongly that what he says needs to be seen, especially by doctors who come into contact with those being treated with lithium.
Dr Pomerantz practices psychiatry in Longmeadow, Mass, and is assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Until recently, I never paid much attention to the possibility that abnormalities of the parathyroid glands could be relevant to patients in my practice. But I decided to learn more about this issue when one of my patients with bipolar disorder who had been treated with lithium(Drug information on lithium) told me that she had been given a diagnosis of a parathyroid adenoma after her primary care physician noted hypercalcemia on routine testing. Since undergoing successful surgery to remove the adenoma, she is feeling much sharper mentally and more energetic.
Lithium continues to be the gold standard for the treatment of bipolar disorder. It is also helpful for related diagnoses, such as schizoaffective disorder and cyclic major depression. In addition to watching out for the well-known complications of lithium treatment—hypothyroidism and decreased renal function—health care providers should be aware of hyperparathyroidism.
Development of Hyperparathyroidism
The parathyroid glands are 4 small structures located on the posterior surface of the thyroid gland, which monitor calcium levels in the blood and release parathyroid hormone (PTH).
PTH is a peptide that acts to increase the concentration of calcium in the blood by enhancing the release of calcium from bones. In addition, PTH acts on the kidneys to increase active reabsorption of calcium from distal tubules as well as to increase the excretion of phosphate, also leading to more free calcium in circulation. Finally, PTH raises calcium levels by increasing the production of activated vitamin D, which enhances absorption of calcium by the intestine.
Primary hyperparathyroidism usually results from an adenoma in a single gland, although other causes may be double adenoma or hyperplasia in multiple glands. Previous exposure to radiation in the facial or neck area and certain medications, including thiazide diuretics, may cause primary hyperparathyroidism. In some families, the disease may be inherited. Parathyroid cancer is an extremely rare cause of primary hyperparathyroidism.
Secondary hyperparathyroidism results from any medical condition that causes low calcium levels. This is most often due to kidney failure and the consequent rise in phosphate levels. Vitamin D deficiency is another possible cause.
The lithium connection. It turns out that lithium, a mainstay in the treatment of bipolar disorder, is associated with an increased incidence of hyperparathyroidism. Approximately 15% to 20% of patients receiving long-term lithium treatment show elevated calcium levels, although only a few of these patients also have significant elevations of PTH levels and clinical symptoms of hyperparathyroidism. Interestingly, lithium-associated clinical hyperparathyroidism is almost always caused by a single parathyroid adenoma rather than 4-gland hyperplasia.1
The first case of lithium-associated hyperparathyroidism (LAH) was reported in 1973,2 and many additional reports followed. It appears that longer duration of treatment is associated with an increased incidence of LAH.3Curiously, about 75% of patients receiving lithium in whom LAH develops are women, which is consistent with the overall higher prevalence of hyperparathyroidism in women and unlike the gender-neutral ratio typical of bipolar disorder and lithium use.4
Rather than considering the cessation of lithium treatment when LAH is discovered, which may or may not reverse the calcium and other abnormalities, the usual procedure is to surgically intervene and remove the offending parathyroid glands.
Effects of Hyperparathyroidism
When a parathyroid gland enlarges and produces too much PTH, the blood calcium level becomes high, bones may lose calcium, and kidneys may excrete too much calcium. These changes may give rise to symptoms and signs such as polyuria, thirst, fractures, and kidney stones.
Neuropsychiatric symptoms associated with primary hyperparathyroidism include anxiety as well as cognitive and psychotic presentations. However, the most common presentation is depression with associated apathy.5 In a prospective study of 34 patients with hyperparathyroidism, Velasco and colleagues6 found that approximately one-third of participants had no psychiatric symptoms, one-third had affective symptoms (with or without paranoia), and one-third had cognitive impairment. Affective symptoms were most common in patients with modest elevations in electrolyte levels, while cognitive deficits were more often related to higher calcium concentrations.
Hypercalcemia. The severity of psychiatric symptoms in patients with hyperparathyroidism often correlates with the increase in serum calcium levels. Calcium performs a crucial role in nerve conduction. Consequently, it is no surprise to find out that some common symptoms of parathyroid hyperactivity and high calcium levels are related to the nervous system.
Other symptoms have to do with the muscular system, which uses changes in intracellular calcium concentration to initiate and transmit the command to contract muscle fibers. Improper regulation of calcium levels may result in muscle cramps and weakness. The heart is a muscle, and therefore its conduction system is also vulnerable, with possible shortening of the QT interval, rhythm disturbances, and even cardiac death.
The skeletal system not only functions as the reservoir of calcium for the body, but calcium phosphate(Drug information on calcium phosphate) is an essential ingredient of bone tissue. Consequently, a hyperactive parathyroid system contributes to osteoporosis and vulnerability to bone fractures.
When hypercalcemia is present, it is important not only to screen for hyperparathyroidism but also to rule out other possible underlying conditions, such as malignancy and drug-induced elevations in calcium levels.
Case Note
Already, early in the process of screening for elevated calcium levels in my many patients who are receivinglithium(Drug information on lithium), I have identified a patient with hypercalcemia and a markedly elevated PTH level, which may indicate hyperparathyroidism. She is a 50-year-old woman with schizoaffective disorder who has been receiving long-standing lithium therapy and is undergoing further evaluation by an endocrinologist. All of us are hopeful that her recent cognitive decline and mental apathy will prove to be reversible.
– – – –
January 3, 2013 1 Comment
Gluten and dairy intolerance make mood difficulties worse
I have just read an article published by Mary Lochner in the Anchorage Press News
This article matches up with the sort of thing I find working with people diagnosed with mood problems.
Very often it is food related, but so often doctors fail to consider this possibility and simply label people as bipolar rather than investigating possible dietary solutions.
Increasingly one of the culprit foods is gluten. It is difficult to be sure as tests do not always find the problem. Also it often seems that after taking psychiatric drugs people become more dairy (cow) and gluten (usually from wheat and barley) intolerant.
These often go together in the general population, just it seems they go together even more for people who have been through a lot of stress.
December 16, 2012 2 Comments
Glands and Moods
I am continuing to research the links between glands and mood. We have a lot of glands in our bodies and each one has a role to play in helping us to have the right mood for each situation and life event. Any gland failing to work as it needs to may manifest as a mood disorder and these days this is likely to be labelled as bipolar disorder.
At this time I have a special interest in the parathyroid glands. We have four of these tiny glands in the back of our necks. It only needs one of the four to be producing too much parathyroid hormone to impact on our energy levels and impact on our moods. The parathyroid glands are just part of our endocrine system. It is unlikely to be the main factor in mood control for most people, but if you have one or more faulty parathyroid glands, will your doctor know about this? It is more likely at this time that you will labelled with a mood disorder, meaning that the physical causes are unknown. For most parts of the NHS this results in focus on mental health with almost no further consideration of any diagnosis or treatment for physical health.
Some people have more than one faulty parathyroid gland. The cure is simple: remove the faulty glands which for a surgeon are easily recognized as these are the enlarged ones. Size is pretty well everything when it comes to the parathyroid glands.
At www.parathyroid.com there are many photographs of faulty parathyroid glands that have been removed. In this example all four glands have been removed from one patient. The smaller/least-faulty gland was returned to allow the patient to recover from many of their physical and emotional troubles.
From www.parathyroid.com
55-year-old female
Parathyroid Hyperplasia
Pre-op Calcium 11.3
Pre op PTH 116
Having three out of four parathyroids affected is rare, although the chances of more than one parathyroid gland being faulty increases if you have ever taken lithium tablets.
We need to know about the causes, else the mood disorder returns.
If you have been labelled as bipolar, please do not do what I did and spend 14 years working on understanding and eliminating triggers, while ignoring the causes.
In this article I only mention one physical health issue that can lead to mood problems. There are hundreds of other possibilities and it is important to at least rule them out. If you quickly want to find out more about parathyroidism then I can say the site I found most useful in 2011 and in 2012 has been: http://www.parathyroid.com/diagnosis.htm
December 14, 2012 4 Comments
A change of emphasis
Finding a person’s causes and triggers for mood disorder is something we have talked about for years and yet it seems it could be time to change the way we say this.
Recovery is most successful when we first tackle the triggers – essentially, what is causing the ‘episodes’/’relapses’ (as the medical people describe the blips we have). We have to tackle the triggers to gain the stability we need to move on.
Traditionally, moving on is about getting back to work, repairing damaged relationships (if it is not too late to do so) and learning to live with the bipolar disorder label for the rest of your life. However, the label stays no matter how well you become, even when you may feel fully recovered. The change we are suggesting here is that; after you have identified and dealt with some of your triggers, to regain that essential stability, it is not time to move on! It now seems this may need to be the time to look for the root causes and in particular identifying if there may be a physical cause of your troubles that has been overlooked.
If your mood disorder has been primarily caused by a physical health problem, then sorting this out is essential to stop your difficulties from returning.
December 8, 2012 Leave a comment
Yesterday’s funeral was especially difficult. It always is when our friends are dying are so young. Fortunately, the burial plot was well sheltered from the wind and the sun came out for the service. We were offered some herbs we could drop down into the grave on the coffin if we wanted to. As I did this I promised my friend (it seemed rational at the time to be making a promise to a dead person) that I would make a big difference in the world to help others avoid the bipolar label that took his life. – I say ‘that took his life’ because I know only too well how we are taught in hospital and reminded constantly of the suicide option. I am not saying the nurses do this on purpose, but the question is always there. Even my excellent GP is obliged to ask in various ways if I am going to be alright… essentially her job requires her to ask me about suicide… I struggle with this aspect of the mental illness system. My feeling is that thinking about it again and again is not good, because when things go very wrong it is an option that pops into the heads of all us people who have been trained at some time to believe we are the ones most likely to take our own lives. It becomes for many a self-fulfilling prophecy.
December 6, 2012 2 Comments
Bipolar trainer – could this be the world’s most dangerous profession?
Tomorrow I am going to another friend’s funeral. The weather forecast is not great 4’C with light rain. I have shed a few tears today and no doubt will shed a few more tomorrow.
Various reports suggest that being labelled with a mental illness will shorten our lives by 15 to 20 years. In Andrew’s case it would seem to have been a lot more than 20 years. Is speaking out against the mental illness system also a factor in shortening our lives?
November 21, 2012 Leave a comment
I started this site with the idea in mind that I could persuade everyone that there is no need for a medical diagnosis called, ‘Bipolar Disorder’. I was hoping that I could have the label removed from the front of my medical records such that I could have support and treatment for the troubles I really face, day after day. Unfortunately the bipolar label is very sticky and no matter how many experts I meet with who agree that I do not have bipolar disorder, I cannot be unlabelled at this time.
Why do I dislike the label so much?
Right at this moment I most dislike being called bipolar because it is such a misleading term. Unless people know what the poles are then bipolar is a rubbish idea.
With so many celebrities now accepting the bipolar label we might all hope that things will start to become clearer. Unfortunately this has is not happening. Celebrity experiences of bipolar have little in common with the majority of sufferers. This is not the fault of the celebrities, as I know they struggle too. It is just that when you have plenty of money and support from friends and family it is a lot easier to cope and recover. Most of us with the label struggle to find support or to afford private treatments.
Today you can read this in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
“A third of people with bipolar have attempted suicide, and the suicide rate is nearly 20 times higher than normal. It is classed as a severe, enduring mental illness, and for many of my patients, it dogs their lives. They take medication every day, they battle with the side effects of the drugs, and with the impact of their condition on their careers and personal lives. Can you imagine how a boss might react when told that someone needs weeks or even months to recover from a relapse, when it appeared to take Ms Zeta-Jones not much more than a long weekend?”
It is a short article. I highly recommend reading it all here… Celebrity Bipolar in 2012
November 15, 2012 Leave a comment
There is so much similarity between Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder that I feel publication of The Schizophrenia Commission Report yesterday may be an important factor in helping with the understanding of the true costs and need for change regarding bipolar disorder. Link to the report and executive summary… Schizophrenia Commission
This is what Paul Jenkins, Rethink chief executive of Rethink Mental illness has written about this important report…
Imagine being diagnosed with an illness for which there is no cure. The best drugs available were developed in the 1960s and haven’t vastly improved since then. Your medication makes you rapidly gain weight and doubles your chances of getting heart disease. You have about a 10% chance of getting all the treatments NICE believes you should have access to. If you have to go into hospital, you may be unlucky enough to be treated in units where you don’t feel safe and where staff are burnt out and demoralized. On top of all this, you are shunned by society and treated with suspicion and fear by many.
If the illness we were talking about here was cancer or Alzheimer’s, there would be a national outcry. Because the illness is schizophrenia, there simply isn’t People with schizophrenia and their families have quietly had to endure substandard care and treatment for too long. None of us should accept this.
It doesn’t have to be this way. For the last year, I have been part of The Schizophrenia Commission , an inquiry into the state of care for people with schizophrenia and what needs to change. Our report, ‘The abandoned illness’ published today, sets out what could be done to transform the lives of everyone affected.
The cost of schizophrenia to society is £11.8 billion a year and there is no doubt that would be significantly less if did more to support more people to recover. What we currently spend on services is not always spent in the right place. For instance, nearly 20% of the whole NHS mental health budget is spent on secure care, driven by an obsession with risk, when some of those resources could be better spent on improving community support.
While it may take years for better medication to be developed, the drugs we do have could be used more effectively if they were prescribed properly. If health professionals knew more about how mental illness puts your physical health at risk and carried out extra basic monitoring, such as blood pressure checks, they could cut the number of people with schizophrenia dying from preventable physical illness. There are services across the country showing the way on what can be done, but they need to become the norm in every part of the country.
Part of the problem is that it’s easy to think; this doesn’t affect me. Mental illness and schizophrenia in particular is something we often think happens to other people. To different people, not people like us. That’s how one of the members of my charity, Rethink Mental Illness , told me recently she had always felt about schizophrenia. With no history of mental illness in the family and a bright, popular son at university, she had no reason to think schizophrenia would ever play a part in her life or that the poor standards of care would ever impact on her family. That was until Christmas 1996, when her son woke up one morning, convinced she was dead. He was suffering from an acute psychotic episode and has needed support and care ever since.
Schizophrenia and psychosis can affect anyone, from any background at any age. Over 220,000 people in England have a diagnosis of schizophrenia and many more thousands care for someone who does. Schizophrenia is everybody’s business and we all have a duty to stand up and say – this isn’t good enough.
Link to the report and executive summary… Schizophrenia Commission
November 2, 2012 6 Comments
October 19, 2012 Leave a comment
I am increasingly being contacted by young people saying, “I think I am bipolar” and those who have persuaded their doctor to give them bipolar medications based on very common anxiety warning signs.
Several psychiatrists I have met through my work have told me of the increasing demands for bipolar medication from patients who do not seem unwell enough to need them. They also admit to being influenced to prescribe powerful drugs for children when their parents argue strongly that warning signs such as not sleeping enough or sleeping too much are signs of bipolar disorder. Something is going terribly wrong, when so many people are almost enthusiastic about gaining a diagnosis of a severe mental illness, especially one associated with shortened life expectancy.
How did this boom in bipolar diagnosis get going?
Manic depression was a very rare illness prior to the widespread use of psychiatric drugs. As drug use increased in the 1950’s and 1960’s more people who were suffering occasional periods of anxiety or depression started to be considered to be manic-depressive.
Creation of a new category of mental illness called Bipolar Affective Disorder (BAD) in 1980 expanded the market for psychiatric drugs beyond the still small numbers admitting to being manic depressive.
Very few people understood the meaning of the new label as the word ‘Affective’ was not explained. The meaning being, ‘The mood that is displayed as opposed to anything measurable’, which made it clear for those prescribing that this was not a specific disorder that could be tested for or diagnosed by examining causes. The bipolar label and medication was only to be related to symptoms of anxiety or anxiety avoidance and rather than anything else, such as blood tests or trauma. This allowed patients to be labelled as bipolar and given medication without any need to ask what had happened/what had caused them to become troubled and be in front of the doctor.
Right from the start (1980), the media chose not to abbreviate Bipolar Affective Disorder to B.A.D. instead preferring to simply describe almost anyone with erratic moods as bipolar. Popularity of the new label grew and drug companies thrived without any complaint that the label was being misinterpreted.
Bipolar caught the public’s imagination as those labelled with it seemed to so often have extraordinary talents. This for many fixed the idea that people could be ‘born bipolar’. The idea of an illness that can be both a gift and a curse was popularized. However, in all the autobiographies of famous ‘bipolar people’ I have read the authors write about life events leading to their variable mood and influencing what they achieved rather than any in-built special abilities.
In the 1990’s bipolar was increasingly ‘promoted’ (wittingly or unwittingly) by celebrities who either claimed to have, or were said to have, a mood disorder. The idea of, ‘the disorder is part of who I am’, helped promote the belief that it was something they were born with. These stories from or about celebrities often gave the impression that bipolar was something ‘special’ that could give musicians, actors and authors ‘an edge’ or even an advantage over non-bipolar artists and performers.
For the bipolar handbook I co-authored I needed to check the origins of many of the stories about ‘bipolar celebrities’. It was amazing to find how flimsy the evidence was, such as Sting (the song writing and lead singer with the group The Police) had been labelled as bipolar simply because he wrote a song that mentioned a chemical associated with bipolar that was being used by a friend of his. [It would be interesting to hear from Sting at this point with his version of how people started to talk about him being bipolar.]
Proliferation of psychiatric drugs that cause the symptoms of bipolar, allowed drug companies and psychiatry to create more definitions of bipolar mood disorders. The range of options for people being labelled bipolar grew with options such as ‘bipolar lite’ and ‘cyclothymia’ for those not experiencing traditional manic-depressive symptoms. This variety has allowed me to facilitate regular workshops since 2006 instructing nurses about the many possible diagnosis.
I have worked in one of the fastest growing industries on the planet… The bipolar industry! Yes, bipolar has been booming. It has been lucrative for many. There is a lot of money to be made from bipolar.
It is time for change
As mentioned above, bipolar is classed as a severe mental illness associated with shortened life expectancy. It is very serious and detrimental to health to even be labelled as bipolar as the drugs that go with the label tend to be prescribed indefinitely with serious consequences. If such a label is to exist at all it needs to be reserved for people who are very unwell and who can benefit from being singled out for specialist treatments.
Is it not more ethical to help people avoid the diagnosis even if we in the bipolar industry earn less money by doing so?
– – –
October 16, 2012 1 Comment
More than a year ago I wrote about ‘acting as if’. It is a way of staying well, feeling well and achieving more. When we act as if we are well we will most likely appear well and most likely feel well. The opposite would be to act unwell, to appear unwell and feel unwell. There are reasons to act unwell but it is not a great way to live in the long-term.
Acting well, does not require any great effort. For most of us it is a habit. It is the habit that causes us to say, “ I’m fine” when someone casually asks how we are, and a moment later we think, ‘well, really I’m feeling a bit rough this morning’.
I act as if well almost all the time. The main exceptions are when I am at home. At home I tend to share my aches, pains, anxieties…
By putting all my unwellness into my time at home – largely into the hours of darkness, allows me to carry on acting well all day when out and about. Recently I have met several people I have not seen for years, who have exclaimed, “Wow, you’re looking well”. People are easily fooled by a bit of weight loss, tidy hair, neat clothes and a smile. They are not aware unless I say anything of how little I have been sleeping or that the weight loss seems to be related to serious health issues.
However, there are ‘downsides’ to always acting as if well when you know you are not well. It is reasonable to do this for a while, but if you know things are getting worse…. If you feel you are becoming more ill then at some point the acting has to stop. This is not about having a breakdown in front of the boss (Done this! It is rarely a good idea!). It is more about finding someone you trust and sharing your concerns. Ideally this person you trust will also understand that feeling bad and feeling anxious about feeling bad are natural and not a sign of weakness.
For me, I have reached a point where I cannot carry on doing everything I have been doing. I am fortunate that my only kind of regular employment is with a mental health charity, who understand anxiety is normal and anxiety can from time to time be disabling. I have not forgotten though what it is like to be unsure how your employer will react to admissions of emotional weakness. It could be that you will never feel able to act anything other than well when at work… even so, everyone needs sooner or later to find someone they can share their anxieties with… we all need a time when we can behave just according to our feelings, and for a while forget about the clever idea that our feelings usually follow the way we act.
I would love to hear your views on this article.
– – –
October 15, 2012 1 Comment
I turn over a new leaf every day but the blots keep showing through is an idea from “Billy Liar by Laurie Lee?
I often feel my life is like this. Each day I try to live without bipolar disorder but it is always there. I do not believe I have a definable illness or disorder called bipolar, but what I have is a label… In the UK anyone labelled with bipolar disorder by the NHS is considered labelled for life. There is no system for removing the label no matter what we do. Yes, you can have a big argument with a psychiatrist and be relabeled with a personality disorder, but once labelled by a psychiatrist you can never get rid of the label. It stays on your health records for ever.
Why does this matter to me?
Why mention this now?
Sometime soon I am going to be meeting with health professionals to discuss the severe anxiety I have been suffering in recent months. I am struggling as much as I was back in 1998, although without the mood swings induced by psychiatric drugs. These struggles with anxiety do not have to be labelled as bipolar disorder. Although I have learned a lot about coping I now have the health problems caused by having taking prescribed drugs, as well as the effects of having this label round my neck to contend with on top of the distress I am facing every day. I am not looking for medication. Some sort of therapy would be nice, but I am not good at explaining just how bad things have been so I am not expecting miracles.
I still have a vague hope that I can be ‘undiagnosed’. That somehow the psychiatrists can look back at my medical notes and say, “You know what, all those symptoms we saw are things that happen to people when they get very anxious and drugs are involved. I tell you what we are going to re-diagnose you as suffering from extreme anxiety.” Maybe they will decide that the stress I suffered was enough to cause PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as this has similar symptoms to bipolar.
It is a crazy idea. Just suggesting to a psychiatrist that you do not have the disorder they say you have is a dangerous thing to do.
Yes, I have met with critical doctors and critical psychiatrists who looking at my history can confirm to me that I do not naturally have extremes of mania and depression. However, these people are powerless to change my medical record. Only one man can do this. He is all powerful and it seems to me, he controls everything about how I will be living the rest of my life. I have never met him face to face and dread the prospect.
If he reads this, he will most likely pick up on my gloomy outlook… and a gloomy outlook will look to him like depression, to which he will be able to say, “That proves we were right all along, he is a typical manic depressive/bipolar person”.
I do keep trying. I do keep turning over a new leaf. Unfortunately the blot created in 1998 after taking one tranquilizer tablet that made me less tranquil, an ‘antipsychotic’ that made me psychotic, an ‘antidepressant’ that made me depressed and then high… is a blot that keeps on showing through.
Sorry to be so gloomy but it is true… at this time bipolar is for life… my advice to readers is try not to get the diagnosis in the first place.
– – – – – –
– – –
Roger Smith (in the UK)
Rethinking Bipolar 