Bipolar Screening - People with Bipolar Know It When We See It

Psychiatrists and people with bipolar both have told me that my book captures what the manic experience is like.

Reviewers tend to say either, She must have written it when she was manic. Too bad her editor didn't fix it. One star. Or: She must have written it when she was manic. So glad her editor didn't fix it. Five stars.

Which gets me thinking: Doctors say bipolar is really hard to diagnose. But if people who have it know it when we see it, what if we wrote a screening tool? Bear with me here. I'm thinking something like this:

They say: A distinct period of abnormally and persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable mood.

What we hear is: Are you abnormal?

To which we answer: No. I mean, duh.

So what if they said: Has there ever been a time when everybody around you just didn't understand why the world was so great or why you felt so good? Or has there ever been a time when everybody around you was massively irritating?

Suicide is Not a Mystery - Get Beyond the Romance to Get to the Work

Suicidal people have not been quiet this year during Suicide Prevention Month. Most years we are the topic of conversation, not the source of the content of all these campaigns. But Twitter, at least, has been filled with our own voices this year. I have always shot my mouth off, and seldom taken the party line. Which means my voice is never included in the campaigns of the typical mental health organizations.

The following is an example, a post from a previous Suicide Prevention Month, edited with my more current thoughts on the matter.

This is Suicide Prevention Week - from September 8, 2011

When I started Prozac Monologues, I didn't know there was a Suicide Prevention Week. I spent a month writing about suicide in June, 2009. I chose June because it is the month when the highest number of suicides take place. So I wonder why the officially designated week is in September. Maybe because when everybody else is so happy about the sunshine in June, they wouldn't give any thought to the darkness? Maybe because they didn't ask those who are suicidal?

If you want to know my take on suicide prevention, here is the link for those original posts. Among the Labels in the right-side column, you will find links to other posts tagged suicide, suicide prevention, and the like.

Looking back at these posts, I wish I had less to say about suicide. But having this much to say, and frankly, a lot more, I think it's best I go ahead and say it. That was my POV for The Suicide Monologue. And I'm sticking to it. I urge you to take the same approach. If you have something to say about suicide, go ahead and say it.

You know, all those years we never talked out loud about cancer, our silence never saved a single life.

Understanding Bipolar Disorder - A Review

On the one hand, bipolar disorder can sweep like a tornado through a family, disrupting every aspect of daily living and relationships.

On the other hand, family members can be one of the most significant resources for a person's recovery and stability.

In my own case, my wife is the one who described the symptoms that helped my psychiatrist recognize that I have bipolar, not major depression. But once that happened, what did she, as a family member, as the member of the team with day to day, hour to hour access, receive by way of help and guidance?

Nothing. Not a word. Butkus. Like, not even a pamphlet.

Really Nothing GIF from Really GIFs

Nope, nothing. She worried. She worked from home to protect me at my sickest. She shouldered every responsibility. She thought through and recommitted to and excelled at "for better for worse, for richer for poorer.

Eventually she got to Family to Family, NAMI's program for education and support of people whose family members have a mental illness. And that helped. It gave her a skill set. It let her know she was not alone. It was more than a brochure.

What she needed was Aimee Daramus's new book Understanding Bipolar Disorder: The Essential Family Guide. Daramus, a clinical psychologist with over twenty years of experience in mental health, from psych units to private practice, has written the definitive guide for family members of people with bipolar. She takes you by the hand and leads you from a chaotic landscape to a steady path.

World Suicide Prevention Day from a Different Perspective

Many people who are suicidal hate suicide prevention campaigns. We notice that they are not directed at us, but at would be heroes. They publish lists of risk factors, things to watch out for in those of us who would thwart their efforts. But we fail to see listed what drives us to suicide: poverty, bills, homelessness, rape, child abuse, bullying. Nor do we hear anything about addressing these issues that might actually reduce suicide rates.

What about helping parents understand their children's sexuality so that LBGTQ children don't end up on the streets? What about bully intervention programs in schools (designed to prevent bullying, not treat the victim)? What about universal health care and food security? What about a health care reimbursement structure that encourages doctors to go into psychiatry? What about treatment that isn't demeaning? What about...

Instead, we get posters of "head clutchers." Get a grip.

Diagnosing Bipolar - Doing Better to Prevent Suicide

How can I be a better psychiatrist for you?

Frankly, I was gobsmacked by that question. It came in response to reading my book, Prozac Monologues: A View from the Edge. The book is a comedic memoir of misdiagnosis and a self-help book for bipolar. It is both uproariously funny and brutally frank about my suicidal episodes, usually at the same time.

There are two directions to go with that question. This particular psychiatrist cares about both.

What kind of behaviors and qualities could he display that would make the relationship more helpful? Honestly, not all psychiatrists are interested in this question. I don't do relationships; I use psychopharmacology to treat psychiatric disorders, a psychiatrist once told me. Well, that had the benefit of clarifying things.

How can I improve my diagnostic skills? Nevertheless just about any psychiatrist wants to get the answer to the puzzle right, even the ones who treat patients as no more than a puzzle.

Gratitude - The Prozac Monologues Publication Edition

Fifteen years! From the hypomanic first draft of Prozac Monologues on a yellow legal notepad to a published book, and the nail file that inspired it all.

The book was officially released into the wild this week and will be celebrated in two launches, one sponsored by Paulina Springs Books in Sisters, OR, and the other sponsored by Prairie Lights in Iowa City, IA.

It's a good time to talk about gratitude. Forgive my self-indulgence. It is a day to reflect.

First, people have asked whether it was hard to write about such dark times in my life, if it retriggered some of those emotions. Occasionally, it did. Occasionally I would have a sleepless night remembering, in particular, difficult encounters in treatment. One can forgive sincerely. One can forgive over and over. Still, the brain remembers. I don't harbor resentments, but I can't always hop off the time travel machine that is my brain, how it repeats the tracks laid down by past traumas.

A Better Suicide Prevention Month

CW: Cynical Warning.

Anybody else cringe all through Suicide Prevention Day/Week/Month? Anybody else roll their eyes at the "Ask for Help" messages? Or search the lists of "Warning Signs" to make sure you're covering your tracks?

Are you a potential helper and confused by that paragraph? Did you design this poster? Let me explain it to you. The psychiatrist doesn't accept your insurance. The psychiatrist who does accept your insurance doesn't treat your issue. There isn't a psychiatrist. The therapist is available six weeks from now. Or later. What's the point of therapy anyway, the therapist isn't going to pay your rent, if you could make rent you could manage your mental illness just fine, thank you very much.

If you call a help line, what if the cops arrive to handcuff you in front of your neighbors to help you enjoy your free trip to the ER? That's the only thing that will be free. If you go to the ER, you may or may not be admitted. Either way, the bill will leave you homeless.