Being Bipolar

In early 2007, I was officially diagnosed as being Bipolar 2 after hitting a pretty strong depression/burnout at work. Since then I have been working on my self-awareness of the disorder and been going to medical and therapy treatments to help find the proper medecine combination and help me (and my wife) cope with the disorder.

Currently, I am taking Depakote as my main medication to treat my bipolar disorder and it has been working well so far. The medication, with a better self-awareness of my state of mind has been helping me cope better with the highs and lows that come with being Bipolar.

Why am I Publicly Talking About My Mental Health?

The main reason I have decided to be public about my bipolar disorder stems from the lack of proper public awareness of this disorder. What most people know of Bipolar (or Manic-Depressive) is what is refered to as Bipolar 1. The extreme manic (bouncing off walls) episodes followed by extreme depressive episodes (even suicidal). The current medical diagnosis textbook, the DSM-IV, is what is used by doctors and insurances to diagnose and classify mental disorders.

Unfortunately, the definition of bipolar disorders within the DSM-IV are really "black and white" and does not give alot of freedom in terms of diagnosis. More recent research is considering Bipolar disorders as more of a "spectrum" disorder meaning that it's not a matter of fitting in a specific bucket but that symptoms can vary in frequency and intensity over time depending on a variety of factors.

What Does it Feel Like to be Bipolar?

Probably the best way for me to describe it is using an extract from an article which comes with a graph.

You see, according to the current official rules of diagnosis (the DSM), "mixed states" include only phases of full manic and full depressive symptoms..  (If the idea that these can occur together is news to you, better jump back to the main page on diagnosis and return here after that; for best navigation of the entire bipolar portion of this website, use this introduction).  Similarly, those same rules only allow cycles as short as 4 days. Any shorter doesn't fit on the DSM map. But patients do have other combinations of depression and hypomania, or mania -- not just the two worst phases together.  And they do have cycles shorter than 4 days.  The DSM can't really handle these variations, but the model shown here handles them very well. When I show these pictures to my patients, I often see the "light bulb" go on in their head. What I probably found most interesting is the fact that the article breaks down the components of Bipolar into three categories: Mood, Energy and Intellect and how their level can cycle at different rates, leading to various states or "feelings". Which is what is refered to as Mixed State.

As you can see from the graph, there are three main components (Mood, Energy and Intellect) which can all vary (or cycle) at different rates. This in general applies to everyone. What I like with this model is that fact that it clearly explains mixed states that are not purely manic or depressive. This explains, for example, why sometimes you may feel energetic but do not actually feel like doing anything and therefore a sensation of restlessness.

This being said, from my point of view, this applies to everyone. What seperates someone that is clinically Bipolar is the amplitude of the cycles. Someone being bipolar when the amplitude and frequency of the cycles is outside of the average for the general population and obviously when it starts interfering with someone's quality of life.