Making Friends with Bi Polar Disorder

I have been challenged by bipolar disorder since my mid twenties. It is part of who I am. I would consider my life a beautiful symphony with discords along the way. I have been tormented by the massive ups. The ups were….awesome! I could do anything and in many cases I was able to pursue goals that I thought I would never be able to attain had I not had the disorder. I lead a political party, I ran for office, I completed my degree and licenses. I accomplished a lot.

But then there were the crashes. I hate the crashes. I hated seeing the entire world in the colors of gray and black. I hated not having the energy to leave my room, let alone my house for days at a time. Oh sure you go to work and you make meals, but beyond that…..nothing. Everything started to collapse eventually around me. Everything. I lost my wife, I lost my home. I lost everything literally everything.

I sat in my docs office and I was lost. I didn’t know what to do or really who I was at that point. My father had just died and everyone around him adored him. I am oldest surviving male in my family and I know I couldn’t live up to that hype at all. I was just…..lost. And the doctor, well, all he could do was what any doctor could do he gave me meds lots of meds! But they worked! I was stabilized but I was left broken.

I went to the library and the bookstores in my community. I scoured book after book looking for what was missing. I spent a lot of time with Wayne Dyer, and Tony Robbins, and Dr. A.R. Barnard and many others trying to figure out how to put myself together again. I sat in healing service after healing service. I sat in crusade after crusade. They helped but it seemed like I was missing something in my life.

Some said I needed Jesus, but…. Jesus wasn’t speaking to my situation. While I think that Jesus does heal as manifestation of who God is…..I wasn’t the candidate of the day, year or decade. God can be a comfort but sometimes; God can feel like a wild harpy scratching at my soul. I would feel massive guilt that I wasn’t going to church enough, not giving enough, not giving enough of myself enough. I found my self at the apex sitting in a fellowship room of the Church I was pastor of. The ceiling had literally fallen in. I had taken a call from the District Superintendent saying I wasn’t committed enough. I needed to leave my career and fully commit.

So I was deep in debt from seminary and God was demanding more and more and more and I had had enough. My marriage had failed and I was in a messy divorce. I was estranged from my kids, I hated my job. My father had passed I was denying the fact that I needed to grieve. But…..I knew something had to change. So I made a plan and still work these strategies. This is a little bit about I got back to…..normal? No here is how I got to me. Happier, remarried, and getting on with my life.

The first thing I focused on was getting in to see a doctor, not a psychiatrist but an actual doctor. Bipolar runs in families and manifests itself in early adulthood. So it’s important that you turn off the ego and go. I knew my family had this as a genetic issue so I made a list of who had it and how close they were to me. I also tried to find out what worked for them. Any mental illness is a tricky bugger. But Bipolar is a real bitch. I also came armed with a list of symptoms. The reason is bipolar sometimes isn’t bipolar. It could be simple depression or thyroid disorder. Any number of maladies look like bipolar. So it’s important that you make a clear list. The doctor put me through a battery of tests which…much to my chagrin came back with all sorts of other medical issues!! Yeah!! Sounds great! But he also came back with a recommendation to see the psychiatrist. Which I proceeded to do.

Now at this point I am supposed to tell you that it was quick and easy and now everything was fine. No. It took over 3 months to get in to see the doc. Three months! Why? Because there are not enough docs like this in the country. And my doctor came with a therapist. Please don’t blow off your therapist. It took over 5 to get to the one that mattered. His name was Art. Art was a godsend and I truly believe God put this man into my life at the time he did to help me.

Over the years I have learned that there are three types of therapists. The first kind is the therapist that just can’t wait to learn your story and then turns on you. That happened to me with one. She went so far as to call my ex wife and work with her on how she was going to leave me! If it appears that the therapist has an alternative motive….they do. Stop going to this person. It won’t hurt them and they will move onto the next number. The second kind of therapist is the enabler. This is the person who is the shoulder to cry on. That person who nods and agrees that that other person is no good and you deserve so much better. Run don’t walk away from an enabler. You’ll never do any work with this person and you’ll spend way too much time separating their life from your life. The best type of therapist; at least for me, is the therapist that keeps healthy distance. They don’t want to be a part of your life. They just want to help you. A good therapist sets clear goals for you and for the relationship. You should be very clear on what you are working on and the strategies that will be used to achieve these goals. Finally, a good therapy relationship has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Now this could be over many years but the goal of a good therapist is to help mitigate the problem. Talk therapy works regardless of the malady physical or psychological.

Now a psychiatrist is a different matter. I had two that worked with me before turning my med treatment back to my primary doctor….which unless its acute they should your primary is the quarterback of the team. The first doc started by determining based on lab results and my therapists notes that I had an issue. And what I loved about this doc was that he started treatment in small doses and gradually raised and changed them as needed. He eventually retired and did a hand off.

Let me be very clear here. A hand off when changing psych docs should have both doctors in the room with you to discuss your case. This enables you to determine if you want to work with him or her and for them to determine if they can handle your case. This dialogue for me changed my life. I remember the new doc after reviewing everything looking at me and saying “You have Bi Polar. I am going to recommend a major change in your meds.” Now you should always push back to ensure that what is being recommend is based in sound science. This new doc laid out the science but indicated that if I were his brother, he not only would have made the same diagnosis, he would insist on him following the recommendation. That had an impact on me. And he was right within a month I felt very different….in a good way.

It takes a minimum of 2 weeks for medicines to reach maximum efficacy. I received one complaint after this….from my ex wife. She said that the meds they had me on changed me. I didn’t see the point in considering her opinion given she was leaving, but other people in my life started noticing that my personality had changed. I made a note in my journal (more to come on this), and just went on with my life as the changes didn’t bother me. In the past I used humor and other attributes to mask my symptoms. People noticed I wasn’t as funny anymore and they noticed I was more serious and more driven than before. What they were really noticing was that I wasn’t bouncing from high to low anymore in extremes. That had changed. They didn’t go away but the extremeness of the behavior did go away and that can freak out people who have known you through the ups and downs of bipolar.

But sometimes the meds can impact your personality too far which is why keeping a journal within your calendar is so important. Keeping a calendar is critical because it not only records future events, it archives past events and this is critical when you have mental health issues. I use a calendar with a to do list, and place to record what I am grateful for that day. So when a doc asks how have things been over the last month I can skim through and see if I have had more extreme ups and downs and if I am engaged fully in life. It’s important to have a tool also allows journaling of feelings and events. I have tool that does all of this in one binder, you may have to use a couple of tools for this. Either way you should always carry them with you to keep track of what is going on. At a minimum keep the binder in your car so your are reminded. But I like the calendar form.

There are many more strategies I could go into but that would require more space and time of which alas I am out of. Just remember. Get a good therapist, and a doctor. Remember to keep a family history and what meds and therapies worked for them. And finally, keep a journal and calendar to track your progress. There is life after a bipolar diagnosis. There is joy and sorrow as well but the key thing to remember is that there is life and it will be more abundant.