How to Recover from Bipolar Disorder & Depression

If you have had Bipolar Disorder or Depression, you have undoubtedly been through a very tough time in your life. The aim of this article is to help you recover from this time.

Steps

1. You are capable of living a meaningful, productive and happy life, although you may have to change your goals in order to accommodate your illness.
2. Remain in the workforce if at all possible.
3. If you can't work, become a volunteer. All of us have artistic, creative or intellectual abilities that must be utilized or we'll feel frustrated and depressed. Aim for eventual re-entry into the workforce.
4. Accept your diagnosis. It's an illness, a chemical imbalance of the brain. It's not WHO you are. You are much more than your illness.
5. Your illness is a part of you but does not define you. You are a whole person with interests and talents. Don't say, "I'm bipolar." Say, "I have bipolar disorder."
6. Have faith in your ability to recover. We don't know why, but some people as they age, such as Ruth Deming, co-author of this piece, reach a full recovery from bipolar disorder and are on no meds. This is documented in the book "A Mood Apart"
7. Constantly create new brain circuitry by doing new things. You could browse a new store, try a different restaurant, visit art museums and watch great movies. Try to find something that fits your energy levels and interests. Our minds are capable of constant expansion. Feed your mind only the best ingredients!
8. Educate yourself about the illness. Use the Internet, read books and ask questions to your family doctor, psychiatrist, therapist and fellow support group members.
9. Attend a support group in your area with like-minded people. It's great to talk to people and learn how they cope with their illness. DBSAlliance.org lists many support groups for mood disorders in the US, and Mooddisorders.on.ca lists groups in Ontario, Canada. If you have the website for other locations, please add it by clicking 'edit'.
10. Set a small goal at your support group to accomplish by the next meeting (such as, "I'm going to set my kitchen timer for an hour and make phone calls looking for a job.")
11. If there's no support groups near you, start your own.
12. Choose an excellent psychiatrist. Have someone you trust recommend one if possible. Support groups can be a starting point. Also, if you like a particular university hospital, call that hospital and ask for a referral, or ask for a referral to that hospital from your family doctor.
13. Be aware that some psychiatrists are research doctors who will not see you after the research is completed. Ask them about aftercare.
14. While seeing a psychiatrist, see a therapist (social worker, psychologist) as well to maximize your personal growth. Therapists teach us how to Express Our Feelings, paramount for everyone but especially for those of us with mood disorders. Mood disorders are "an emotional processing disorder." The goal is to process our feelings with the right person, someone who truly understands us.
15. To choose a good psychiatrist, speak with them on the phone. Tell them your philosophy and see if they're open to it. Your philosophy should be: the least medication possible.
16. Establish a Crisis Plan the first time you visit the doctor. Your psychiatrist must be readily accessible to you. If he isn't, switch doctors immediately.
17. First impressions are very important. The psychiatrist should make you feel comfortable and should not be judgmental. Get a good vibe from your psychiatrist as you will constantly be disclosing confidential information to this person and must feel comfortable while doing so.
18. After you and your psychiatrist are comfortable with one another, ask if it's OK to slightly adjust your meds if necessary. For example, if you're not sleeping well, ask, How much extra sleeping med can I safely take? This avoids costly trips to the doctor.
19. If you don't like your psychiatrist, switch immediately. Your mental health is the most important thing you own. If your psychiatrist hasn't found the right medication, get a consultation with someone else.
20. Keep your psychiatrist's name and number on a small piece of paper in your wallet, or one of their business cards.
21. During sessions, be prepared. Visits are short. Come with a list of questions. Also bring your version of a "mood chart," which tells how you've been feeling between visits. These are available FREE online by entering the words Mood Chart.
22. Your psychiatrist should be accessible to you in times of crisis. Establish this on your first visit. If s/he's not, switch psychiatrists.
23. Tell the psychiatrist everything you think is important for her/him to know about you. This includes: extreme behaviors you've engaged in, mood patterns, triggers, average length of time of mood stabilization. Have this info typed up beforehand so you won't waste time and keep repeating yourself repeating yourself.
24. Keep a folder at home with the above info. Don't depend on your psychiatrist to keep all the notes. In this folder, keep records of your lab tests, per below.
25. Crisis Plan. Call your psychiatrist immediately if you feel your depression is worsening or you're getting manic. Ideally, you'll learn, with your psychiatrist's help, how to medicate yourself should you or a loved one perceive the arrival of mania.
26. If you're feeling suicidal, take your cellphone with you and leave the house. Get away from anything lethal. Tell yourself, "I'm having a bad moodswing but it will pass. I won't always feel this way." Call people in your support group to hear the sound of another person's voice, the most soothing sound in the world. Spend time with positive people when feeling suicidal.
27. You must get regular lab tests if you're on certain drugs such as lithium, Depakote and Tegretol. Keep track of when you need the tests done.
28. Hot weather may be hazardous to people on lithium, Lamictal and antipsychotics. Drink plenty of water, wear sunscreen with an SPF rating of 15 or more, as your skin is especially sensitive to the sun. Watch for lithium toxicity (dizziness, confusion, altered gait) and if you have symptoms go to the ER immediately.
29. Medicines help approximately 80 percent of all patients. If you are treatment resistant you have options such as the newer more precise electroshock treatments (ECT) as described by Kitty Dukakis in her book: "Shock: The Healing Power of ECT." Vagus nerve stimulation is also helpful.
30. Research centers work on treatment resistant cases such as the Depression Clinic at University of PA under Jay Amsterdam, MD.
31. A radical new approach is described in "Healing Depression and Bipolar Disorder Without Drugs," by former bipolar sufferer Gracelyn Guyol. This approach is becoming more popular.
32. If you really must, use binaural beats, acupunture, herbal medicine, reiki, books, meditation, and or do something not fun, but intriguing, like a Rubix cube or a puzzle.

Tips

• Identify your own mood triggers. People with mood disorders often have difficulty processing their emotions because of the way our brains are wired. We feel things passionately, intensely and often take things too personally. We have exquisite sensitivity. It's been described as "going through life without shock absorbers."
• If anything bothers you, get on the phone immediately to express your feelings. Don't keep your feelings bottled up.
• Identify the situations and people that stress you out. Examples include long supermarket lines, heavy traffic, rejection letters, not getting a job.
• Strategies to deal with the above are to call a friend, keep a journal, exercise vigorously, punch a pillow or punching bag, write a letter and then decide whether to mail it, take the phone off the hook to avoid intrusive phone calls.
• Even positive events can cause stress and act as triggers because they change our known routine and habits. This includes getting a new job, going back to school, getting married. We are very sensitive to change.
• Mania can be stopped in its tracks, but only if you recognize the symptoms. Many people do. If you can't, alert your friends and loved ones, your doctor and therapist, so you can do a reality check with them. Once you become manic, you cannot stop it. By recognizing the early warning symptoms you can increase your medicine and avoid the devastation that occurs with mania.
• Always put yourself first. Only YOU know what makes you feel good.
• Have a daily schedule and write it on your calendar. Stay busy. Calendar entries may include doing the laundry, working, going to concerts, cleaning the house.
• Stay around people who make you feel good about yourself. Limit the time you spend with negative judgmental people, even if this includes family members.
• Work at a place you enjoy and where you like most of the people. It's depressing if you don't like your job or the people there.
• Acquaint yourself with your mood ebb and flow and embrace it. If you have more energy in the morning, utilize mornings.
• Maintain a regular schedule - awake at the same time each morning, take your meds at the same time, go to sleep at the same time.
• Have fun and laugh often. Rent funny movies. Laugh and smile often. It's contagious.
• Vigorously engage in an aerobic exercise program. Fast walking is easy and cheap.
• Reduce "visual stress" around the house or your office. At home, stuff things in the closet until you're ready to work on them. Buy organizational tools such as shelves or file boxes. Save cartons and shoe boxes.
• When cleaning out your house, throw away things that make you feel unhappy such as rejection letters, old love letters. Live in a positive energy field. Also, your home should be "feng shui" - uncluttered - so energy can flow through.
• Don't smoke cigarettes. True, smoking raises endorphin levels but you can quit if you put your mind to it. Learn to get natural highs from exercise, music, nature.
• Stop use of alcohol and recreational drugs. They interfere with your meds. Cocaine, often the choice of people with bipolar, increases the risk of heart attack seven times.
• Give up all caffeine. You'll be surprised that you still have energy. Think of yourself when you were a kid. No caffeine necessary. Also stay away from artificial sweeteners as they're bad for the brain.
• Don't disclose your illness on the job unless you're sure you can trust the other person. The exception is if you're hospitalized for depression. Better to say you were hospitalized for the latter than to say for bipolar disorder as people equate that with being crazy. Never say you were suicidal. A "bad depression" will suffice.
• Your support group is a great first step in making friends. People rally around each other. Get a phone list of people to call or get together with.
• Channel your feelings into art. You don't have to be good at it. Write poetry, short stories, do artwork. Buy self-hardening clay and sculpt. Art is healing and keeps you in the present moment. Again, the more connections you create in your brain the better.
• Medicine tips. YOU are the only one who knows how your mind and body feel. If you're getting medication side effects and your doctor says, "I've never heard of that before, he's right." He hasn't. But YOU are feeling these side effects and your doctor should open-mindedly listen to you.
• Meds other than psych meds affect your moods. Check with your doctor about this when adding meds for other conditions. Steroids can cause mania. Anesthesia for surgery has a slight chance of causing depression. Antibiotics taken for several weeks may interfere with your meds. Prescription or over-the-counter allergy meds may cause devastating mania. Many doctors do not realize this. He or she must be our partner in recovery.
• Suicide is a real threat for many of us. If you have the urge to kill yourself, call someone immediately. Get the words out of your head and out into the open.
• Remove yourself from the suicidal situation. If you're feeling suicidal at home, leave the house immediately. Go anywhere. Be around people. Go to a friend or family member's house. Go to Barnes & Noble. Do not be alone, as the feelings intensify when there's no one around. Also remove yourself from people who aggravate you.
• Pick up the phone and call someone who understands. Get a list of names of people from your support group. An excellent suicide hotline is 1-800-SUICIDE or 1-800-784-2433.
• Also call your psychiatrist or therapist. Talk to your doctor and see if you need a med change. If necessary check yourself into the ER.
• Consider these alternatives to suicide: Fast walking which get the endorphins flowing, journaling and writing about your feelings, playing rousing music, read favorite passages from the Bible. If nothing works, check yourself into the hospital. In the Philly area, Horsham Clinic has an excellent reputation.

• Your suicidal feelings always pass. It's a question of enduring them. Strong people ask for help. We can't let our illness defeat us.
• Do things that have made you feel happy in the past. Keep a list of these items. Keep a picture of your loved ones or children on hand and look at at them often. Through the distorted lens of depression, you may feel it would be a blessing to kill yourself so your family won't bear your sufferings anymore. Nothing could be further from the truth.
• Pray to God to protect you to keep you safe. Establish a personal relationship with God. Think of God as all the infinite spirit of Love in the universe.

Suggested Reading

• Castle, Lana R. Bipolar Disorder Demystified: Mastering the Tightrope of Manic Depression. New York: Marlowe & Company, 2003.
• Burns, David, MD. Feeling Good. New York: Plume, 1999.
• Dukakis, Kitty. Shock: The Healing Power of Electroconvulsive Therapy. Penguin, 2006.
• Duke, Patty and Gloria Hockman. Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic Depressive Illness. New York: Bantam, 1992.
• Fink, Candida, MD and Joseph Kraynak. Bipolar Disorder for Dummies. New Jersey: Wiley Publishing Inc., 2005.
• Gartner, John D. The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between a Little Craziness and Success in America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
• Guyol, Gracelyn. Healing Depression and Bipolar Disorder Without Drugs. New York: Walker Publishing, 2006.
• Jamison, Kay R. An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness. New York: Vintage, 1996.
• Milkowitz, David J., Phd. The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide. New York: Guilford Press, 2002.
• Pauly, Jane. Skywriting: A Life Out of the Blue. New York: Random House, 2004.
• Styron, William. Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness. Random House. 1990.
• Thich Nhat Hanh, Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames. Penguin, 2001.
• Whybrow, Peter C. MD. A Mood Apart: The Thinker's Guide to Emotions and Its Disorders. New York: Harper Collins, 1998.

Related wikiHows

• How to Seek Help for Bipolar Disorder (Manic Depression)
• How to Get Help in Living With Bipolar Disorder (Manic Depression)
• How to Manage Your Bipolar Disorder
• How to Cope with Bipolar Disorder and Depression

Sources and Citations

• NewDirectionsSupport.org
• DBSAlliance.org
• Insanity: A Love Story http://amzn.com/1449521703
• mooddisorders.on.ca/
• NIMH.nih.gov/healthinformation – top information
• Psycheducation.org/ (Dr. Jim Phelps)
• Psycom.net/depression.central.html (Dr. Ivan Goldberg)
• PeterWhybrow.com

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Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Recover from Bipolar Disorder & Depression. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

How to Deal with Severe Clinical Depression

Clinical depression is a serious medical condition. It is not a case of "the blues", it is not just being sad sometimes. Clinical depression is the invisible burden of sadness that never goes away for those who carry it. Sometimes it is responsive to treatment, and sometimes it is just something that will never be solved, and must be accepted.
This article is a starting point for how to find tools, helpers, medications, and anything else that may help.

Steps

1. Know Thine Enemy. A good place to start in any quest to fix a problem is the internet. There are an unbelievable amount of resources floating around the internet, and the more you can learn about depression will, in some way, help you. Knowledge is power, and knowing what is making your life hell is half the battle.
2. But now, there is the war. As anyone affected by clinical depression knows, it can be a lifelong ordeal. Accept that your struggle with depression might be a lifelong task; doing this sooner, rather than later, may spare you some extra frustration if you find out that your depression is resistant to treatment.
3. Look around your biological family. Are there other depressed people? Watch them and see what they do that seems to work. This is especially important if anyone in your family also suffers from addiction or alcoholism, because Depressed people are statistically more prone to these problems. If you can find no clues from your family, it may be time to seek therapy.
4. Interview therapists. If you choose to enlist the help of a therapist, be sure to select one that is qualified to work with depressed people, and whom you get along with. The right therapist can't solve all your problems instantly, but they can help you learn to help yourself, prescribe medications, and provide support through tough times. A good therapist is worth their weight in peace-of-mind and gold.
5. Once you know your therapist, discuss medication. Find out if the therapist thinks medication would help you. Ask for the names of psychiatrists that the therapist knows have been helpful to people with your kind of history. If the therapist says that all you need is vitamins, ask them why. If they have no reason to believe that you are severely deficient in aid vitamins, or can't provide you with a reasonable explanation, find a new therapist. If you find a therapist that suits you, keep going as long as it works for you. Find out if you can call between visits if something unexpected happens. "Yes" is the right answer to this question.
6. Interview the suggested psychiatrists. Accept that all psychiatrists are not created equal. Ask your psychiatrist about what sort of treatments he often suggests to people in your situation. Ask whether the psychiatrist uses the same medications on everybody. If the answer is yes, find a different shrink. Be inquisitive about which medications they use, whether they will prescribe more than one medication, and how they decide upon dosage adjustments. If anything cannot be adequately explained to you, find a different psychiatrist.
7. Find or ask for referrals to therapy groups. If therapy groups are something you are not ready for, or just not your thing, at least find (or make if you have to) a good friend to help you.
8. Better yet, make a few friends. If you have to tear yourself a new one to reach out and be social, do so. It will be worth it in the long run. If you are truly depressed, sometimes friends are the only people who can save you.
9. If you lose the will to live for yourself live for others, especially your friends. Friends are especially important if your family is not supportive. If you feel even worse than usual, having a friend to listen and support you, even by just being there, can save your life.
10. If you EVER feel genuinely suicidal and don't trust your impulse control, feel free to call a hotline, call 9-1-1, or just present yourself to the nearest emergency room with an explanation of how you feel.
11. Sometimes, clinical depression is resistant to whatever treatment you throw at it. If truly nothing works, then sometimes the only logical choice is to accept that you will have to contend with this disorder for the rest of your life and to make the most of it.
12. If nothing cures your depression, the best you can do is to try to find out what eases it a little bit, and go with that. If you need to be selfish every once in a while to keep from sinking any lower, be selfish. Do whatever eases the pain for a bit (exercise, unplug all your electronics, write scathing letters to the world, light a fluffy dandelion on fire, eat chocolate, play darts with a picture of your boss), so long as it doesn't end up making your depression worse as a consequence.

Tips

• Don't be afraid to ask a friend or family member for help with any of the steps. Sometimes it is hard to get started when you are depressed and there is no shame in having a friend get the ball rolling.
• Even if you are taking prescription drugs already - do not think that pills will do all the job for you. There are many other methods to fight depression that are worth trying.
• In some women, depression may be caused (or worsened) by low hormone levels, most commonly progesterone. Progesterone helps keep serotonin levels from dropping too low, and low serotonin can cause depression. Doctors can test for low progesterone and prescribe it (though many doctors are unaware of the link with depression); it is even available without prescription, which gives you an idea how safe it is when used according to directions. Indications that a depression may be progesterone related are: symptoms get worse in the two weeks before menses, during perimenopause/menopause, or after giving birth. Anxiety-depression is most commonly seen, sometimes accompanied by severe mood swings and insomnia; some women may get more headaches/migraines. NOTE: synthetic progestins such as Provera, medroxyprogesterone, DepoProvera, and birth control pills can make these symptoms worse instead of better; we're talking about progesterone specifically, not its "substitutes". Progesterone is available as Progest cream (a good brand) without prescription, and as Prometrium capsules with prescription; compounding pharmacies also make various dose forms (such as Progesterone 50 mg/ml Lotion, compounded).

Warnings

• If you decide to use medication as a way to help your depression, different medicines will affect you differently. Some may worsen depression, if this happens contact your doctor or therapist immediately.
• NEVER stop a medication cold turkey. This will produce withdrawal symptoms (shaking, hot and cold flashes, etc) and will worsen depression.
• Depression caused by a chemical imbalance can be hereditary. If you have children, be sure to keep an eye on them and watch for signs of early depression. If they continue to worsen over time, confront them and tell them your story. My mother saved my life by doing this.

Related wikiHows

• How to Cope with Depression
• How to Help a Friend With a Serious Depression Problem
• How to Seek Help for Bipolar Disorder (Manic Depression)
• How to Cope During a Panic Attack

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How to Deal With Teenage Depression and Nostalgia

You've now reached the awesome teen years, and your parents are even nicknaming you 'obnoxious'. But suddenly life seems to suck, and you keep wishing you were back in your fun, carefree kiddie past. Here's how to deal with this depressing nostalgia, so you can have great fun being a teen.

Steps

1. Think about why you are miserable now, and what's making you long to be back in the past. There could be many typical ( or random ) reasons why you may feel this way. Did someone bully you? It may be the whole new workload that high school is giving you, or the fact that you are you missing your old friends. Or it may simply be the major change you're experiencing as a teenager. You must discover the reasons for your sadness. Write the reason(s) down on a list.
2. If you really don't know what is getting you down then, fill a diary with your current thoughts and feelings every week or so. When looking back upon diary entries, people are usually surprised by what they thought during the time!
3. Accept your present situation. There's no point wishing that you could be in playgroup or kinder again, when you know it's impossible. Life will always involve some work from now on, because you are on your way to being an adult.
4. Look through the list you created. Decide upon which complaints are realistic, and which ones are unachievable. For example, if you wrote "I'm sad because I want to be 3 again so I don't have school and can watch 'The Wiggles' all day," -get over it! A whim like that is totally unachievable and will never happen again. However if you wrote "I'm sad because I wish to be 7 again, because then I had friends but now I don't.", that's actually reasonable, because something can be done about it.
5. Ditch all those impossible whims from the list, it's a total waste of time mourning over it. Attempt to make the possible ones real. So try to make more friends, try to have more fun, play chasey once in while, laugh a lot, watch funny movies, etc.
6. Get moving! Try to make your teen years the happiest, they can be, because you only get 7 years. Have fun!
7. If you are sad because you are away from home(for kids studying abroad), it can be really difficult. But read, or study, or socialize, and somehow try to make yourself forget about the situation.
8. Find out if there is anything you can do. Why are you feeling nostalgic? If you are missing old friends, then contact them by telephone or e-mail and arrange to meet up. If you miss an old school/childhood, it may help to wander around the school once more and maybe say hello to familiar faces if it helps.
9. Stick with people who are friendly and can help you. If you are still with some people who were with you during the times you now long for, talk it over with them. They might be feeling the same way. Talking it over certainly helps.

Tips

• To be honest, most cases of nostalgia result from fallen friendships or relationships. Broken romantic relationships are understandably the most difficult to overcome. If this is your case, then obviously you're wishing it was the past, when you were having fun with your BF/GF. Sorry, the only solution here is to move on .
• If you want to retain your past, then make sure you don't lose contact with your old friends or class buddies. Call them to catch up, or arrange friendship 'reunions' every 4 weeks or so.
• Just relax. You may be relieved to know that most teens feel depressed whenever they are doing homework. However that is no excuse to let it impede upon your grades. The teacher probably won't be satisfied with your explanation "I get depressed when I do homework, so I couldn't do it last night."
• A lot of teenagers experience nostalgia deep down. A lot. Just ask some of your friends (if you're close enough)
• Do remember that the choices you make in your teen years WILL affect you the rest of your life. Eat too much junk food now, and you'll be fat by the age of 21. Learn to spend your money unwisely, and you'll spend the rest of your life on government handouts (the sluggard craves and gets nothing!). Buy into every new psychology fad or social theory, and you'll only wind up lost and direction-less.
• Take life seriously. The teen years are more a time to prepare for manhood/womanhood than they are to goof off and watch television. Learn this early on, and maybe you won't be so depressed later in life by your foolishness.

Related wikiHows

• How to Cope With Suicidal Thoughts
• How to Express Your Emotional Pain the Healthy Way
• How to Get Help in Living With Bipolar Disorder (Manic Depression)
• How to Improve Your Diet for Teens
• How to Make Sure Your Party Guests Have a Good Time

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 Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Deal With Teenage Depression and Nostalgia. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.