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Bipolar Disorder: The Shared Mental Illness of a Mother and Daughter

  • Posted on January 3, 2010 at 12:21 am

“Annette’s” struggles began at age 14, when she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It was at this time, that her mother, also suffering from this illness, committed suicide. When she needed friends the most, she was ostracized by her schoolmates once they learned of her illness. Throughout her life she had the loving support of her father and sisters.

Annette’s 26 year struggle to take control of her illness was sidelined numerous times due to repeated hospitalizations. For this reason, it took her 10 years to earn her Bachelor’s Degree. Her efforts to be independent were also impacted by her illness costing her to lose employment several times.

In 2001, Annette sought help at a community mental health organization. As she started to manage her symptoms, her work hours and responsibilities were increased. She was doing well until 2003 when she relapsed and was hospitalized four times in an eight month period. It was during this period that she learned self-help techniques to gain control of her illness–and she’s never looked back.

Once back at work, she worked part time in the mental health center’s outpatient and day treatment program. Now that she has her life on track, she shares her personal experience with clients and works hard with them to help them understand that they too can gain control of their illness.

In just five years, she went from consumer to a full time mental health worker (case manager) at the community mental health organization. She has been struggling with bipolar disorder for 26 years yet she never gave up hope. Her compassionate and heartfelt message to others with mental illness is, “If I can do it, you can do it too.”

Bipolar disorder is a disorder of the brain that can result in drastic changes in mood and personality. Nearly 6 million adults, roughly 2 and 1/2 percent of the population, suffer from bipolar disorder. Although there is currently no cure for bipolar disorder, it can be treated and individuals suffering from bipolar disorder can lead relatively normal adult lives under the proper care.

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What is the best way to find out if your daughter, 8 yrs. old is bipolar? My mother is bipolar?

  • Posted on January 1, 2010 at 7:13 pm

My daughter is at her wits ends with her oldest daughter. There is certainly something amiss with her., Since I am bipolar, and on her fathers side, there was a suicide and alcoholism. Her husb. won’t support her in her search for help with her daughter. So she is going to have her hands full.
She is hoping the school will help her get help for her daughter. I really don’t want to go into detail, but there are many symptoms of bipolar, a lot of bizzare behavior; the extreme mood changes; inability to focus; the concrete thinking; anger problems; extremem jealousy of her little sister; (which by the way is perfectly normal). It seems like she is being defiant with her Mom, but she can’t switch from one thought into another one, thus the frustration and the response of anger with her Mom. She doesn’t seem to have ADHD,however, it may be a secondary problem. Any suggestions would be most helpful for the mother. She hates and loves her all at the same time. There isn’t a lack of love.

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Understanding How Stress affects you and your health.

  • Posted on July 1, 2009 at 10:20 pm

Understanding Stress

What is stress? Signs, Symptoms, Causes, and Effects

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Modern life is full of hassles, deadlines, frustrations, and demands. For many people, stress is so commonplace that it has become a way of life. Stress isn’t always bad. In small doses, it can help you perform under pressure and motivate you to do your best. But when you’re constantly running in emergency mode, your mind and body pay the price.

If you frequently find yourself feeling frazzled and overwhelmed, it’s time to take action to bring your nervous system back into balance. You can protect yourself by learning how to recognize the signs and symptoms of stress and taking steps to reduce its harmful effects.

The Emotional Roller Coaster:

  • Posted on July 1, 2009 at 7:56 pm

Gary really knows how to punish himself. I sit in amazement day after day as I watch him wage war on himself. Sure, sometimes he is yelling at his girlfriend, or the guy at work who he feels isn’t giving him the respect he deserves, but mostly he isn’t fighting them so much as he is simply just driven to continuously stir headache in his own life. Why does he do this? Why is it that Gary seems to crave drama in his life?

A few days prior to me writing this, Gary and Melinda had a fight. I know because I was there as it happened. I live next door to Gary. It’s the exact same thing as you hear it on daytime TV talk shows. Melinda is on prescription medication for being bipolar. She skips out on taking her meds, goes crazy, and bingo bango they are fighting. She physically attacks him. He pushes her away a little too forcefully and she trips. One of her girlfriends calls the cops, and next thing you know, Gary is in handcuffs. The high point of this stupidity is when she later says, “but I love him.” This reoccurs every few months or so. Now, you would think that Gary would wise up, get a restraining order, and find a “normal” girl, but no, he doesn’t. Not more than 24 hours after the police have left, he tells me that his apartment is just so quiet without her. He misses her. He is just as crazy as her to say something like this! He would rather have a clinically crazy girl occasionally attacking him than a quiet apartment.

I’m sure you know people who behave like this. Maybe they habitually use drugs to get as high as the moon and then suffer though the hangover after. Maybe they are in a bad relationship like Gary and Melinda. Maybe even you have something repetitive that you do that takes you through emotional highs and lows for no logical reason. It’s time for you to finally understand what’s built into every human that compels us to behave in this way.

All that I teach is rooted in the science of evolution. If you want to understand why people behave the way they do, evolutionary psychology will give you the answer. Your brain and how it functions is the product of evolution. Evolution is not a fast process. The “software” that is running in your head is about 40,000 years out of date. So you are living in today’s world, but your head is wired for the world of 40,000 years ago. This mismatch is the number one cause of all the bad decisions that people make today.

40,000 years ago, life was much more difficult. If you were alive back then all you thought about was hunting/gathering food, trying to not become dinner for some other animal, and if you were lucky, reproduce before dying at a very young age. Life was very, very stressful. It was programmed into you that survival and huge emotional swings went hand in hand. The reason we developed this over 40,000 years ago was because it was an advantage to us. Your ancestors craved situations like this because it was to their benefit. There were two options back then:

OPTION ONE: Cower in the back of a cave too scared to leave to gather food and hunt. They sit there until they get so weak that they either just die or the first fierce animal that finds them has no problem making dinner out of them. – This group dies out quickly.

OPTION TWO: Be a prehistoric adrenaline junkie. They leave the safety of their cave and risk death as they hunt and fight off animals that are hunting them. We are all decedents of prehistoric adrenaline junkies because they were the ones who survived at least long enough to have children. Our brains are wired for desiring huge emotional swings because 40,000 years ago it increased our chances of survival and replication.

As life changed for us over the years and got easier, we came up with new ways to satisfy that evolutionary need for highly charged emotional swings. We replaced hunting tribes with sports teams. We replaced quests for conquest with movies. We replaced inter-tribal rivalry with day time TV soap operas. Our brains are wired for drama and that is why we create it in today’s world.

Are we doomed to create senseless drama in our lives to satisfy some outdated evolutionary need? Thankfully, no. We can use the logical part of our brains to actually use this to our advantage.

So how do we do this? Step one is to understand why this exists in you, as you do now. The second step is to choose the emotional roller coaster you are going to ride and do it wisely.

Stop watching TV habitually. Stop drinking and doing drugs habitually. And if Gary happens to read this, stop getting into relationships with women who are clinically insane.

Like our ancestors, get your fix of emotional highs and lows from things that make your life better via participation.

One hour of strenuous exercise a day will do the trick. GO TO THE GYM! When those endorphins start to kick in (once you make habit of working out every day) you will feel great after your workout. As a side note, you’ll hurt like hell when you push it and that will provide the emotional low. If this isn’t enough for you, start kickboxing. Beating the hell out of people and having the crap kicked out of you a few days a week will definitely do the trick.

If you want to learn more, click on the below link to get a free copy of my eBook.

Get the free eBook! Click here.

Drawk Kwast is a life coach. His methods are unconventional, and he makes no apologies as he tells you how to dominate the competition at work, attract the most desirable women on the planet, and ultimately achieve a fulfilling life.

Article Source: The Emotional Roller Coaster:

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