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
- 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.
- Remain in the workforce if at all possible.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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."
- 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"
- 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!
- Educate yourself about the illness. Use the Internet, read books and ask questions to your family doctor, psychiatrist, therapist and fellow support group members.
- 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'.
- 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.")
- If there's no support groups near you, start your own.
- 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.
- Be aware that some psychiatrists are research doctors who will not see you after the research is completed. Ask them about aftercare.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Keep your psychiatrist's name and number on a small piece of paper in your wallet, or one of their business cards.
- 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.
- Your psychiatrist should be accessible to you in times of crisis. Establish this on your first visit. If s/he's not, switch psychiatrists.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Research centers work on treatment resistant cases such as the Depression Clinic at University of PA under Jay Amsterdam, MD.
- 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.
- 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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