Bipolar Management

My beautiful wife was in Edmonton to attend an appointment for pain management.one of the worst parts about being a bi-polar sufferers is the pain symptoms commonly known as bi-polar pain and becoming more accepted in the psychological world as pseudo-fibromyalgia. This chronic pain is a big part of life as a bi-polar patient and is the one area where I have a tremendous respect for my beautiful wife. To endure this suffering would be an emotional drain on a person of normal psychological makeup let alone a person who suffers an emotional disorder.

As part of these sessions on pain management, she must also receive ongoing additional psychiatric care. This care has primarily been focused on stop smoking activities. It is also common amongst bi-polar patients who often feel out of control in their life to gravitate to something they can control. Sadly, the one thing they can control is what they do to their bodies. This will often be shown in eating disorders or in the worst scenarios in addiction issues. Many bipolar patients end up with staunch and often debilitating addictions. My lovely wife has been able to focus this on smoking cigarettes. Yes, they are still killing her but at least it is slow.

It was during the discussion of what are the common stressors for her smoking that a very interesting discussion about bipolar treatment developed. The discussion centered around the belief that someday there will come a magical breakthrough and my lovely wife will become a cured and normal functioning adult. While we all hope for a miracle, we are not so naive as to belief the truth. The best we can hope for is to minimize the number of down days.

This is most difficult thing to sell to members of the extended support group for any bipolar sufferer. Everyone just wants to have things return to normal. If it were only that easy. I have tried countless reference tools to demonstrate this fact with little or no success. People point to these support groups where there are patients who claim to be miraculously cured. Remember this fact, my wife will appear to be 100% normal for the bulk of the month as well and could attend one of these sessions and discuss in a learned and lucid manner her disorder and her controls. She would appear to be cured on to fall back days later into a state that only demonstrates that she is nothing more than a high functioning mental patient. This is not a criticism. During her up periods, she has a keen understanding of the disorder and because of what she has endured, perhaps a better understanding than even the most educated psychiatrist.

The discussion has yielded one of the best descriptions of bipolar management I have ever heard. The treatment of bipolar disorder is no different than the treatment of diabetes or liver disease. Bipolar management is designed to minimize the low periods which damage the patient through chronic pain and through the emotional scaring to their personality through lashing out and poor behaviour. Diabetes management is designed to minimize the highs or the lows (At its worst, a low blood sugar sufferer may not wake up the next morning.)

Believe me, there are many times when a bipolar patient is in an extreme low that there is the fear they too may not wake up the next morning. The goal remains the same. Minimize those damaging extreme lows. Diabetes is never cured it is controlled; often ver effectively. Bipolar is never cured. It is only managed.

This is one of the best descriptions of what we have been through over the past many years. The worst part is the support group sees it only from the outside. Yes, the support group can be hurt emotionally by the lashing out, rage and depression, but no one I the support group has to endure the bipolar pain, insomnia of the manic period or the depression that deeply hurts the soul from within.

We all love you dearly and are here as a support group...

Unconditionally.

Heaven Help Us...

Strength of character falls to those in the support group. The patient rages against those around them when they suffer from the down period.

It is up to those in the support group to forget. The patient will always forget. They barely understand the drama they create. We have been told by many in the psychiatric field that this is why the support group fails. They cannot forget.

They cannot understand how someone can take a miniscule complaint like being asked to do the dishes and turn it into being an oppressive partner who sees the actions as pigeon-holing them into the role of subservient spouse, to abusing them as the help.

In the down period, all emotions are amplified in a negative way. This is very painful for the support group. We all must take a step back and realize that it is not permanent

A wise friend of mine once said, just leave it in the past.

I used to be able to turn it off. I have to remind myself everytime now. She does not mean it. It is not who she is.

She is a wonderful lady, a better mother who would die for her son and not this monster who appears for 3 to 5 days every month