Bipolar Symptoms

Helping a Loved One with Bipolar Disorder

Dealing with the ups and downs of Bipolar Disorder can be difficult—and not just for the person with the illness. The moods and behaviors of a person with bipolar disorder affect everyone around—especially family members and close friends. During a manic episode, they must cope with reckless antics, outrageous demands, explosive outbursts, and irresponsible decisions. And once the whirlwind of mania has passed, it often falls on them to deal with the consequences. During episodes of depression, they may have to pick up the slack for a loved one who doesn’t have the energy to meet responsibilities at home or work.

People with bipolar disorder do better when they have support from family members and friends. Those whose loved ones are involved and supportive tend to recover more quickly, experience fewer manic and depressive episodes, and have milder symptoms.

If someone close to you has bipolar disorder, your love and support can make a difference in treatment and recovery. You can help by learning about the illness, offering hope and encouragement, keeping track of symptoms, and being a partner in treatment. But caring for a person with bipolar disorder will take a toll if you neglect your own needs, so it’s important to find a balance between supporting your loved one and taking care of yourself.

In addition to traditional medical treatment by qualified medical professionals (which has no substitutes), we also tried some other "natural" ways of managing ups and downs of Bipolar Disorder Symptoms. Book Conquer Stress, Depression & Anxiety was really helpful in maintaining "normal" mood levels.

Probably the best solution to stop anxiety, panic attacks and phobias is Linden Method. We strongly recommend you to try it. It’s a comprehensive and natural method to deal with many symptoms that accompany Bipolar Disorder.

The good news is that most people with bipolar disorder can stabilize their moods with proper treatment, medication, and support—so if your friend or family member has bipolar disorder, take hope. Furthermore, you can play a significant
role in his or her recovery.

Here are some ways you can help a person with bipolar disorder:

• Learn about bipolar disorder. Educate yourself about bipolar disorder. Learn everything you can about the symptoms and treatment options. The more you know about bipolar disorder, the better equipped you’ll be to help your loved one and keep things in perspective.
• Encourage the person to get help. The sooner bipolar disorder is treated, the better the prognosis, so urge your friend or family member to seek professional help right away. Don’t wait to see if the person will get better without treatment.
• Be understanding. Let your friend or family member know that you’re there if he or she needs a sympathetic ear, encouragement, or assistance with treatment. Remind the person that you care and that you’ll do
  whatever you can to help.
• Be patient. Getting better takes time, even when a person is committed to treatment. Don’t expect a quick recovery or a permanent cure. Be patient with the pace of recovery and prepare for setbacks and challenges.
  Managing bipolar disorder is a lifelong process.

I wish you and loved ones health, happiness and success in overcoming Bipolar Symptoms. Please scroll down to next posts to read more….

Natalie K.

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Most people with bipolar disorder and their loved ones have usually been told that bipolar is a chemical imbalance of the brain or a mood disorder that can be characterized by extreme mood swings. What bipolar disorder is, though, is really so much more than that.

First of all, bipolar disorder is historical. Its roots go back as far as the second century A.D., when a man named Aretaeus first recognized manic and depressive symptoms and believed that they were linked.

The disorder is physiological, since it has to do with your body, but mental as well, since it has to do with your mind.

Sometimes Bipolar Disorder is considered a neurological problem since it is associated with your brain, but it can also be termed a chemical imbalance of the brain, and be considered a physical disorder.

Scientists who research the disorder can tell you that it has biological roots, as they are even now studying genes that may cause bipolar disorder. If they discover the specific gene or genes involved in the disorder, they believe it may lead to a cure. Of course, there is great debate in the scientific community, and research still to be done before a cure can be found.

You may find that your doctor will tell you that your bipolar disorder has a medical element, as well. There is a greater risk of physical symptoms (body aches, headaches, backaches, stomach aches, etc.) when you are in a bipolar depressive episode than when you are not.

Psychiatrists, of course, confirm that bipolar disorder is a psychiatric illness. The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) was probably what your psychiatrist used to diagnose you with the disorder in the first place.

Bipolar disorder is also hereditary, as many studies have shown. It is passed down through the family.

For certain, bipolar disorder is definitely an emotional disorder. As anyone who has bipolar disorder can tell you, your moods may swing from depression to mania and back again, and there is little you can do to control it. There are also emotional side effects that can include anxiety, stress, and insomnia.

There is also a personal element to bipolar disorder, and to other mental illnesses, as well. There is such a stigma in our society toward disorders and the people who suffer with them, that many people will keep the truth of their disorder to themselves. They will not tell others they have it, and will keep their disorder a very personal thing.

Bipolar disorder is truly more than a chemical imbalance of the brain or a mere mood disorder. It is both of these things – and more.

David Oliver has the #1 website for bipolar information, symptoms, causes, medications and treatments.

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Want to beat the winter blues? Want to eliminate stress? See & experience life yourself with a new & beautiful dimension to it.

Clinical depression goes by many names -depression, “the blues,” biological depression, major depression. But it all refers to the same thing: feeling sad and depressed for weeks or months at a time, accompanied by feelings of hopelessness, lack of energy, and taking little or no pleasure in things that gave you joy in the past.

Clinical depression is an awful disease. Depression turns its victims into shells of their former selves; depression patients are stripped of all the hope and joy and emotional vitality that make life worth living in the first place. The good news, though, is that depression treatment really does work, and that the right depression treatment center really can help you rediscover the world as you used to know it.

Yes, depression treatment centers are places of hope, and of healingbut they’re also places of effort and of struggle, places where depression treatment patients get better only by virtue of the commitment they bring to the depression treatment process. There’s no gentle way out of the depression wilderness. If you want to get better, you’re going to have to work for it.

Depression matters, simply put, because depression victims matter. More to the point, depression treatment matters because depression treatment programs give depression treatment patients cause for hope, and for faith; depression treatment matters because it works, and because it saves lives. In the fight against depression, you’ll never have a greater ally than a depression treatment center you can trust.

If you’ve made it this far, you don’t have to be told how debilitating depression can be. What matters, now, is that you’re ready to take the first step: that you’re ready to enroll in a depression treatment program, and let depression treatment professionals help you get better. Please, for your own sake, make today the day you decide to start fixing tomorrow.

The right depression treatment center makes a world of difference in the depression treatment process. If you’re going to get healed, you need depression treatment that meets your individual needs, and serves your individual interests; you need depression treatment that addresses you as you actually are, without resorting to generalities or supposedly “universal” treatment solutions. If you’re going to win the fight against clinical depression, you might say, you’re going to have to win it on your own terms, get started today.

The right place to find dual diagnosis treatment programs. Realize the importance of private luxury rehab .

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http://encognitive.com/node/925
Successful Treatment of Bipolar Disorder With a Nutritional Supplement: Ten Cases

Recent research on various nutrients has suggested that some mental illness might be ameliorated by supplementation. Much work has focused on essential fatty acids (1), although various minerals are also being studied (especially zinc). We are evaluating a broad-based nutritional supplement that contains primarily trace minerals, plus vitamins and amino acids.

Recent work has suggested that crops grown with western farming methods contain fewer of these essential nutrients than they did in years past (2) . Although we have been examining the effects of the supplement on a variety of psychiatric symptoms in both children and adults, it appears to be particularly promising for bipolar disorder in adults.

We will present an open case series of 10 male patients aged 20-46 years who thus far have taken the supplement for 1.5 – 6 months. Four were diagnosed with Bipolar I, four with Bipolar II, one with Bipolar Mixed, and one with Bipolar-NOS. In most cases, the supplement has entirely replaced psychoactive medications and the patients have remained well. Side effects (e.g., nausea) have been rare, minor, and transitory. In all cases, the patients have been evaluated periodically with the Hamilton-Depression Scale, the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, and the Young Mania Rating Scale.

The change in mean scores for each scale from study entry to the time of the last visit are as follows: Ham-D (20.4 to 8.2), BPRS (37.3 to 9.9), YMRS (16.8 to 6.1), and OQ (75.2 to 48.2).
A randomized, placebo-controlled trial of the supplement for Bipolar I has been funded and began in July 2000.
Authors: Bonnie J. Kaplan1, PhD; J. Steve A. Simpson1, PhD, MD; Richard C. Ferre2, MD; Chris P. Gorman1, MD; David McMullen1, MD; – 1Calgary, Alberta, Canada; 2Salt Lake City, Utah
AbstractPresented at the Canadian Psychiatric Association annual meeting October 4, 2000, Victoria, British Columbia.
References:
1. Stoll AL, Severus E, Freeman MP, Rueter S, Zboyan HA, Diamond E, Cress KK, Marangell LB: Omega 3 fatty acids in Bipolar Disorder: A preliminary double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Archives of General Psychiatry 1999; 56:407-412.
2. Mayer AB: Historical changes in the mineral content of fruits and vegetables. British Food Journal 1997; 99:207-211

http://www.truehealth.org/break02.html

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An insight on Bipolar Disorder explained with an example of a famous artist.

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Family dynamic forces are all the time very complex. Add to the equivalence a mentally ill soul and children often collapse under the importance and pressure of treatment the patient. There are numerous cerebral bedlam which can involve populace. Of these, mood condition like Bipolar unrest not only adopt the distinct but have sincere consequences for the entire domestic.

A person with bipolar disorder typically swings between mania and depression. These mood changes come about suddenly and can each episode can last for up to months, adversely affecting the person’s behaviour and actions. In severe cases of mania the person experiences hallucinations and delusions and in severe depression there is suicidal ideation. In either of these situations, the patient becomes very difficult to manage and there is a breakdown in communication and relationships.

If someone has bipolar disorder, it affects families to a very large degree because the person’s behaviour is abnormal and not what is accepted in society. This takes a toll on the families. For example a depressive episode will make the person lethargic, uncommunicative, and withdrawn, lose confidence and self worth, and become irritable and even suicidal. Since these people avoid meeting anyone, or if they do, seem disinterested and very sad, they make other people uncomfortable. In a manic episode the person becomes socially inappropriate by becoming overly aggressive, talking loudly and very fast, becoming reckless with the spending of money and risk taking behaviours, becoming argumentative, engaging in inappropriate sexual behaviour etc.

Bipolar mayhem gravely shape group because there is an other responsive, psychological and physical strain that comes along with taking care of an ill personality. It is very taxing to see a valued one go through the hell of a rational syndrome. This becomes exclusively obscure when the nearest and dearest don’t completely fathom the disorder and are latch unawares.

If there is a family member with Bipolar Disorder, families are affected negatively also because of the entire stigma attached to mental disorders. Families live with fear and guilt about how others will look at them. A by-product of what society thinks about mental illness is also apparent in the facilities and infrastructure provided for those affected by them and their families. This adds to the stress of taking care of someone with bipolar disorder because there is no real institutional help apart from hospitalisation which is a last resort and expensive at that.

Families are also unnatural badly if an earning delegate has bipolar illness. This form may end up manufacture bad evaluation as a grade of the condition, like rashly walk out a well paying job, or conclusive to sell the house, and thus assume the whole household.

Looking to find the best deal on Bipolar Disorder, then visit www.articlesroot.com to find the best advice on Bipolar Disorder for you.

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Like mania or hypomania episode
lack of need of sleep, really high energy level, increase sex drive, (which I really do not know if 4 – 5 times every day is excessive), binge eating, extremely high mood
But when he is down, he is REALLY down. Like suicidal.
is it possible for cluster b personality disorder like borderline personality disorder also have bipolar type of symptoms.

how long did his moods last?

lack of need of sleep with high energy and increased sex drive are symptomatic of bipolar. Particularly the lack of needing sleep and especially if it lasts for more than a day or two without being insighted by some environmental or internal trigger.

Many of the symptoms can be mistaken for eachother. It usually takes a long time differentiate which is which. And it is possible to have both. I do.

I am 27 yo suffering of Bipolar Disorder since I was a teenager. I think the pills I take (seroquel and serlift) are still not good enough.

The best results for treating Bipolar come from a combination of medications and therapy. It can take a long time to get a combination of medications that work, and it can also take a long time to connect with the right therapist. I’ve finally found both, and I am doing better than I have in 20 years of treatment.

My best wishes to you!

Not sure if I should be posting this in "mental health" or "relationships" but either way my relationship just went down the tubes and my mental health is about to… lol.
My fiance and I have just split. He is bipolar however he refuses to believe it and thinks he just gets depressed sometimes, he had antideppressants for a while which actually made the mania worse (it’s bad), then he stopped taking them because of the side effects and he refuses to even consider different meds. After supporting him unconditionally and putting myself second, I have decided I can’t do that anymore. If he won’t help himself there’s nothing I can do for him, I need to put myself first again. His life is currently very unstable and he’s in the midst of a high mania.
Question is- How do I move on with my own life, and let go of this constant worry I have for his safety and well being? I feel responsible for protecting him as he has no one else, and he isn’t capable of thinking realistically for himself.
I do understand that I can’t take this on as my responsibility, but the guilt of walking away is hard to deal with. The emotional ties are hard to cut with any break-up but this one in particular is difficult for me because he literally has no one. He is living in a hostel, can’t keep a job, and talking about going travelling to Portugal… completely unrealistic things for someone with his means and conditions. I worry he will hurt himself or put himself into a comprimising situation where he could get hurt. This poor guy has no one to pick him up when he falls.

What can I do specifically to help myself keep it out of my mind and get on with my own life? I can’t let this drown me.
By the way this is a solid break- I’ve definately done all I can do (and then some) and he pushes away anyone who tries to tell him he needs help. He’s at the point where he blames everyone else for his problems, thinks he’s fine, and wants no one in his life anymore.
"April": Please see the part where I said that he refused to admit there was a problem, refused to help himself, and that I had already tried everything I can do and then some. If someone won’t help themselves, is there not some point where I should draw the line? Should I spend my entire life with someone who brings me down into my own depression, put me into debt, and has taken every ounce of my energy, yet refuses to help themself? Should I allow for two lives to be ruined because one can’t see reason? I have been unconditionally supportive and have gotten treated like crap because he doesn’t want to believe he’s ill. If you read my other questions/posts you’ll see that I’m the last person to walk away from someone in this situation.

This is such a difficult predicament. I understand that your spouse is out of control in too many emotional ways and because he isn’t able or willing to seek proper help and treatment, your life has become a mess, too.

I think you should ask yourself if you have done everything to help him out, everything that you are capable of doing. Because if you have, then I think you should feel okay walking away. While we don’t want to be selfish, it’s true that people need to put themselves first sometimes.

For instance- your spouse may not realize it, but he needs to put himself first, too. Maybe he already does. Maybe he thinks he does. And maybe he is so self-absorbed with mania, anger and depression that he just isn’t able to see what to do to make a positive change.

If you think you’ve been holding back for some reason, that maybe you could do something more to help him out, you might want to try that first. Exhaust all your options- he is your husband and I’m sure you love him.

But certainly leave if you are in any danger from him, even if not physical danger. Rather you might be pulled under and unwillingly become depressed yourself, just by being around his negativity too much.

This is really a tough situation. You might want to see if such a thing as a psychiatrist/marriage councilor exists, someone you can both talk with about how things are going and that you are thinking of leaving.

Bottom line, if you need to leave for your own health, then you should just go make your life better. You can keep tabs on him, but he may make more progress if he sees he’s losing you than if you talk all the time and try to help him through.

Is this normal? Could it be because I only drink coffee once in a blue moon and when I make it I make it too strong?

i don’t know why it happens but the same thing happens to my mom when she drinks coffee or caffiene in general.
she gets so crabby and edgy and crazy.
so i try to take caffiene away from her lol