But going with “alright, I’m bipolar” is just a label. I’ve gone through enough of those already.
As far as I know, there’s no good bipolar treatment. Lithium might be useful for more major cases, but my general mood is fairly stable as is.
It’s a possibility to keep an eye on in any case. How old are you? Anecdotally there’s a tendency for the cycling in untreated bipolar people increase in amplitude and frequency with time. If symptoms worsen, consider the following:
If I remember correctly, historically Lithium cuts suicide rates in diagnosed bipolar people by a factor of ten or so (can dig up a reference if you’d like).
There are of course other mood stabilizers that one can experiment with.
CBT, self-monitoring & being monitored by others can be used to recognize the onset of (hypo)manic episodes. This can be useful because one can then take tranquilizers and/or atypical anti-psychotics to reduce the severity of (hypo)manic episodes. This in turn tends to reduce the severity of subsequent depressive crashes.
Maintaining a regular sleep schedule with enough hours a night is thought to be important to maintaining (relative) emotional stability. Also, sleep deprivation can trigger (hypo)mania.
I’m 25. I noticed the cycling at about 17, though it started at 14, I guess. The worst period was at 20-21.
If symptoms worsen, consider the following: [...]
I will. Should I enter full-blown mania or depression, I’ll give lithium a try. I’ll see if I can get access to some other mood stabilizers until then.
Maintaining a regular sleep schedule with enough hours a night is thought to be important to maintaining (relative) emotional stability. Also, sleep deprivation can trigger (hypo)mania.
I have rather the opposite problem (even when manic). I sleep 8-9 hours on good days and often 11 or more. This seems unrelated to how depressed I am, nor does my sleep seem disrupted. I’ve slept lots and really deep for all my life. Sleep deprivation (and polyphasic sleep in general) absolutely triggers hypomania. I rarely use this intentionally to get stuff done before a deadline, but it’s really destabilizing for at least 1-2 weeks afterwards.
Interesting study since one of the hallmark symptoms of bipolar is a lack of sleep, and BDNF is lacking in bipolar individuals who are depressed. I think more research should be done to see if this therapy can throw someone into bipolar disorder.
A bothering trend in the psychiatric community, which is now being recognized by mental health professionals, is the overuse of labels without looking at the patient’s individual symptoms and tackling them accordingly. The lack of objective tests also gives rise to misdiagnosis, even for severe disorders such as bipolar, and is dangerously more common than people realize:
“According to Zimmerman’s study, the underdiagnosis of bipolar disorder is not the case. Rather, only 43 percent of those surveyed who were diagnosed with bipolar disorder actually match the criteria for the disorder.”
In addition, some important institutions in mental health realize the current mental health institution is broken and want to incorporate genetics, cognitive science, neuroimaging etc. to develop a new one. While far from perfect, this is a step towards the right direction and will bring us closer to an objective test of mental health.
At the moment, people are being diagnosed on an illness built on shaky grounds, and there is a good chance that professionals won’t even bother to consult those shaky grounds when diagnosing.
Nice! I picked up the same idea some years ago from a therapist who used short-term sleep deprivation to get someone too depressed to do anything at all enough into a manic state to begin real therapy. (Sorry, no citation.) I wonder how sustainable this is, though.
I’m 25. I noticed the cycling at about 17, though it started at 14, I guess. The worst period was at 20-21.
From the info that I’ve seen on bipolar… it really “gets into the swing” when you get to your late 20s and early 30s. Earlier than this and it can easily be mistaken for normal moods affected by outside forces.
It’s a possibility to keep an eye on in any case. How old are you? Anecdotally there’s a tendency for the cycling in untreated bipolar people increase in amplitude and frequency with time. If symptoms worsen, consider the following:
If I remember correctly, historically Lithium cuts suicide rates in diagnosed bipolar people by a factor of ten or so (can dig up a reference if you’d like).
There are of course other mood stabilizers that one can experiment with.
CBT, self-monitoring & being monitored by others can be used to recognize the onset of (hypo)manic episodes. This can be useful because one can then take tranquilizers and/or atypical anti-psychotics to reduce the severity of (hypo)manic episodes. This in turn tends to reduce the severity of subsequent depressive crashes.
Maintaining a regular sleep schedule with enough hours a night is thought to be important to maintaining (relative) emotional stability. Also, sleep deprivation can trigger (hypo)mania.
I’m 25. I noticed the cycling at about 17, though it started at 14, I guess. The worst period was at 20-21.
I will. Should I enter full-blown mania or depression, I’ll give lithium a try. I’ll see if I can get access to some other mood stabilizers until then.
I have rather the opposite problem (even when manic). I sleep 8-9 hours on good days and often 11 or more. This seems unrelated to how depressed I am, nor does my sleep seem disrupted. I’ve slept lots and really deep for all my life. Sleep deprivation (and polyphasic sleep in general) absolutely triggers hypomania. I rarely use this intentionally to get stuff done before a deadline, but it’s really destabilizing for at least 1-2 weeks afterwards.
One of the weirder citations I’ve picked up over the years is “Rapid antidepressant effects of sleep deprivation therapy correlates with serum BDNF changes in major depression”. Apparently sleep deprivation is a known treatment for depression?
Interesting study since one of the hallmark symptoms of bipolar is a lack of sleep, and BDNF is lacking in bipolar individuals who are depressed. I think more research should be done to see if this therapy can throw someone into bipolar disorder.
A bothering trend in the psychiatric community, which is now being recognized by mental health professionals, is the overuse of labels without looking at the patient’s individual symptoms and tackling them accordingly. The lack of objective tests also gives rise to misdiagnosis, even for severe disorders such as bipolar, and is dangerously more common than people realize:
“According to Zimmerman’s study, the underdiagnosis of bipolar disorder is not the case. Rather, only 43 percent of those surveyed who were diagnosed with bipolar disorder actually match the criteria for the disorder.”
In addition, some important institutions in mental health realize the current mental health institution is broken and want to incorporate genetics, cognitive science, neuroimaging etc. to develop a new one. While far from perfect, this is a step towards the right direction and will bring us closer to an objective test of mental health.
At the moment, people are being diagnosed on an illness built on shaky grounds, and there is a good chance that professionals won’t even bother to consult those shaky grounds when diagnosing.
Sources: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-diagnosis.shtml http://hub.jhu.edu/2013/04/30/depression-diagnoses-study
Nice! I picked up the same idea some years ago from a therapist who used short-term sleep deprivation to get someone too depressed to do anything at all enough into a manic state to begin real therapy. (Sorry, no citation.) I wonder how sustainable this is, though.
From the info that I’ve seen on bipolar… it really “gets into the swing” when you get to your late 20s and early 30s. Earlier than this and it can easily be mistaken for normal moods affected by outside forces.
Thia was certainly my own experience; i’m 25 and didn’t figure it out until the past year.