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hey, thanks for letting me probe your brain.

my questions revolve around bipolar. my daughter got her disability today, it validated all my 30 yrs of dealing with her and people who said its my fault, she is just a brat, its my fault as a bad mother, all of that. no, she actually is mentally ill. its no ones fault.

i wonder how much in common you might have with her. meds..she is on like 1 full pill of lithium but i didnt check to see the mgs.

the non sleeping? weight loss? memory loss? suicidal depression? weird thinking?

she always loses weight. 20/30 lbs in weeks. she always quits sleeping. its signs she is manic again. it is signs when it stops she hits the crater with depression. in days. sometimes hours. very rapid cycler. bipolar 1.

i wasnt sure how much of this you want to share either in public or with me. or with anyone. anything you dont want to share, i understand.

maybe just what can you share about your experience with this illness and any tips about what to look for, things that help or hinder, etc.

tyia** jody

how you would want to be treated, what not to do with her,...

hard to ask when i dont know what i need to know.

There's very little about my mental issues I won't share at BPDR. I was dxed bipolar 2 about 7 years ago, give or take a year, I lost count. With bipolar 2 I had no full mania, just "hypomania," which for me was a period of increased energy/activity and increased irritability -- the energy/activity wasn't so bad for people around me, but the irritability sure was. My xw used to track my moods on a calendar and IIRC she said I had about 10 days of depression, one day of stability, and three days of hypomania, then I'd start all over again with depression. According to her I was quite regular in my two-week cycle. Inside me, I felt loooooong periods of terrible depression, months long of crushing sadness where I often thought about driving my car into a bridge abutment, and did not notice the hypomania very much. I was put on 1,500 mg lithium (five pills, two in the morning and three at night) and within weeks the crushing depression improved so I could function and my hypomania disappeared.

For each person with bipolar disorder, as far as I can tell, the symptoms show up differently. I do not have personal experience with bipolar 1, but my understanding is that people in full mania will do some crazy stuff, like buying three new cars in a weekend, having sex with five partners in a week, or driving down the wrong side of the road (because there was less traffic there). Not sleeping is apparently very common. When I had hypomania, I understand that I tended to sleep less.

If my adult stepson showed symptoms of bipolar disorder, there would be very little I could do for him beyond help get him into treatment, if he would take it. People with bipolar 1 tend to really like their mania. The lady who used to draw my blood for my semiannual lithium level test was bipolar 1 and she said it was very, very hard for her to keep taking her meds because she missed mania so much! All I could do for my stepson if he were in that position is tell him that I love him, but I will not in any way condone or enable his behavior while in mania, and that he will have to deal entirely on his own with any trouble he gets himself into while manic, and anything he did to himself while depressed. That would be extremely hard!!! I would not want to see anything bad come to him. But I would not want to do anything to make it possible for him to avoid treatment. But if he were to commit to treatment and faithfully takes his meds I'd do anything within my means to help him. This is almost like how you'd handle, and not enable, an alcoholic spouse or child. You drink, my back is turned to you; you work your recovery, and I'm with you all the way.

jim

good words jim. and i have been doing that so i feel i may be on the right path. all i would do is my best to prevent her trying to commit suicide again in the depression and listen to her when she wanted to talk. (3 am argh) the manic is a bit harder in a way, as she is intense. i mean no sleep for days, crazy thinking, voices, oh i could go on and on.

it is a horrible thing. the lithium has helped already, she hasnt had depression since she began it. she is hungry again. eating. some days she is worse than others, but i tell her to calm down. breathe. slow down. she seems to listen and do it as best she can.

im very grateful we found this dr. i think he will draw blood on her this time but she is on a low dose of lithium (i will look when i go over there in a min) and he is bringing it up slowly. he said lamictal is probably not a option now as it takes a very high dose to be therapeutic and she reacts very badly to meds at high doses. for once, a pdr who will take it slow! and listen! priceless. hers seems to be lowering her IQ tho. it may be a effect of the illness full blown..i hope so. she already had some brain damage from her meningitus.

she cycles very raidly, one can barely get used to one mood before the other hits. same day at times. 3 days at the most. and at times she seems to be in both at once. i believe this is called a "mixed episode". that is when she was most suicidal.

i am glad your stable now and will share. i dont feel so alone with this. i tend to withdraw into myself to cope. like it takes all i have to cope and i have nothing left for life.

very true, she has not wanted meds in the past. but without them, her episodes seem to get longer, worse, more intense. this is the first time she has opened up to me, and been afraid she wouldnt find her way back. it broke my heart to watch.

i understand the irritability. its very intense. she hit a place she didnt sleep at all. literally. and drive? lol. i ended up doing the driving finally. she would floor board her car to go 2 blocks. and slam on the brakes. yes, its a ugly illness.

now with this paranoid schizophrenia added in...ie...voices and paranoia...it adds a new twist. the dr is hoping the lithium also helps that. it seems we are on the right track. with a ways yet to go. she isnt, i dont believe, any longer a danger to herself or the kids, tho. not right now anyways. there were days i wondered if i would find them all dead, believe me. she told me yesterday she related to how andrea yates was...the lady who killed her kids? the voices can be so strong and so real. she used to search the house and yard for who was talking. i think that may be why she wouldnt have much contact with the kids at times.

i appreciate your sharing and letting me kinda lean on you a bit with this. it feels very alone sometimes trying to cope.

i wish you all the best with your journey. did you know your brain will show up diff on a MRI? is that not interesting? it truly is organic. maybe a defective gene in the DNA. they dont know.

take good care of you, jim. i may holler at ya again if i could?