by Patsy Page

Created on: April 21, 2008

I am Bipolar. There I said it. I am not ashamed of it like I was when I was first diagnosed. It is something that I have had to learn to live with and try to teach my friends and acquaintances about. It is something I believe I had most of my life starting with some early childhood abuse. The odd thing about bipolar disorder is that it does not many times come out in the open until later in life and is triggered by some problem you cannot handle.

My trigger was extreme back pain that could not be appeased by exercise, physical therapy, massage or chiropractic treatment. I was sent to a Pain Management Doctor and he diagnosed that I was depressed and sent me to a Psychiatrist for treatment. I was put on an anti depressant to help me get over the deep depression that I was in. This was way before the diagnosis of bipolar was made. I took the antidepressant for along time and this did not work, so I was sent to a therapist for treatment. Through that experience I was able to bring out all my buried emotions from early childhood abuse. I was told that taking the antidepressant and therapy would be all that I needed to get well. My mistake is believing that. I had what was the first of my three total breakdowns with hospitalization.

In the hospital I still was not told that I was bipolar, and I resent that. I don't understand why it was kept from me, after all it was my diagnose. My depression was so deep that at that time they wanted to do ECT treatments. These are electrodes that are attached to your temple and forehead and small doses of electric current are sent through your brain. I immediately yelled no and ran from the room.

By the time of the second breakdown and the depression had gotten so deep I had decided to do the ECT treatments. The treatments are done about three times a week and take as a whole about an hour and a half. You are completely put under anesthesia and have no memory of the treatments. You wake up and are in a confused state, with loss of short term and long term memory. I had in-patient treatments and also out-patient treatments. I have to say that I don't think I would have been able to come back to some sort of sanity without the ECT treatments. I know that they are radical and questionable. But they saved me. Now I am maintained by taking a mood stabilizer and antidepressants. The most dangerous misconceptions of bipolar patients is that when their mood swings are stabilized, they think they are healed. They then think they can stop medications. Wrong, this is not true. They will sink right back into the abyss of depression and the roller coaster ride of mania.

I have bipolar I, the one with manic and depressive episodes. Bi polar II does not have manic episodes and the third kind a Cyclic bi Polar is a rapid cycling between mania and depression. Each have their own good and bad problems going along with them. Will I ever get rid of it? No, thats why I need to understand it, and not be afraid of it. I try to teach every person that wants to know about it or are frightened of it. Yes it is a Mental Health disease, but I can live and have held down a job in the past before it was time for me to retire.

There are treatments now that are more humane and if you continue to take your medications as your are suppose to each day, you will live a normal life.

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