Surviving Heat Waves with Bipolar Disorder

Did you know that more people are murdered at 92 degrees Fahrenheit than any other temperature? I read an article once. Lower temperatures, people are easy-going, over 92 and it's too hot to move, but just 92, people get irritable.

That's what the sheriff said in an opening scene of It Came from Outer Space. Set in Arizona -- even in black and white, you could feel the heat rolling off the sand. And throughout the movie, they attributed people's reports of strange sightings to heat-induced lunacy.

As I read that quote from 1953, I think -- 92, if only!

Everybody is irritable right now in -- how shall we put this? -- the coolest summer we will experience for the rest of our lives. Everybody is exhausted. But some of us more than others.

via GIPHY

One Exciting Thing and One Ironic Thing About Prozac Monologues and Psychology Today

Last week Psychology Today posted Bipolar Disorder: How to Get Correctly Diagnosed, my interview with Monica Starkman, M.D. about Prozac Monologues: A Voice from the Edge. Its tag says, The average of seven years to receive accurate diagnosis is unacceptably high.

Damn straight it is! The article is about how to improve that rate, or at least to improve the odds for the people who follow its suggestions.

This popular journal chose to place the article in its Essential Reads section on its bipolar resource page. The article's key points include:

  • Bipolar disorder, particularly Type II, is often misdiagnosed.
  • People tend to spend much more time in a depressive state and often do not recognize mild or hypomanic symptoms.
  • The chance of getting properly diagnosed is increased by using online screening tools and bringing family/friends to doctor visits.

I spent a mere (!) five years misdiagnosed with major depression, two of them taking the antidepressants that threw me into mixed episodes and made me suicidal. A random conversation on an airplane led me to the Mood Disorder Questionnaire referenced in the Psychology Today article. Taking the MDQ was the first step to discovering my bipolar and, more importantly, getting on the road to recovery.

So the exciting thing is that this information will be accessible to a larger audience than those of us who go poking around medical journals. That is my mission. Contact me on my website if I can speak to your book club, church group, or fraternal organization about mental illness and recovery.

The ironic thing? -- The photo the magazine chose to accompany the article.

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