The Mood Spectrum
Multipolar Depression
Hard Depression or Soft Bipolar
The True Meaning of Manic Depression
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
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About Me
- John McManamy
- I am an award-winning author and mental health journalist. I have been writing about mood disorders since being diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1999, ranging from a website, an email newsletter, a book, articles for HealthCentral, and this blog. More recently, I have been producing videos. Writing about my illness has played a very strong role in my healing and recovery. Writing allows me to come to terms with my past, gives meaning to my present, and gives me the courage to face the future with hope.
I am beginning to wonder if I just might have bipolar rather than just unipolar but after reading this article I'm not sure what to think. I do notice that I am far more irritable and grumpy and easily able to escalate to anger and yelling at home than I used to be. I don't remember myself as an angry person. I certainly don't have the highs of traditional mania. Any advice welcome on going in to see about a review of my potential diagnosis.
ReplyDeleteGreat article! Covers almost all that is important that is in the book.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, the book sucks. Dr. Phelps tries to be funny but is not. He tries to dumb it down and does it too much. Reading it made me feel like mood spectrum disorders come with stupidity, or he wouldn't have written that way. Perhaps doctors should remember that, just because their patients have disorders, most of them are not idiots and they don't respond well to pseudo humor.
"Why am I still depressed" should be about 20 pages long. Dr. Phelps is very helpful but most of his book is self-indulgent blathering. You really have to wade through a lot of crap to gain the insight summarized in this article.
Hi MamaZuzi,
ReplyDeleteI've been treated for unipolar depression for 12 years before being place on lamotrigine. Anti-depressants always made me worse but my psychiatrist dismissed my complaints as my imagination.
You may have any number of disorders, for example, you might have an attachment disorder like Borderline Personality.
I would suggest reading as much as possible - find info on the internet and in books. I think it is best to do this in conjunction with the help of an experienced psychiatrist. By yourself, you can read many things into the symptoms you describe and they might be caused by nutritional deficiencies, thyroid disfunction, hormones, etc. Irritability is hardly a definitive symptom of bipolar or unipolar disorders.
I really think that you should not try to diagnose yourself. That is playing with fire. Also, I suggest not being resistant to medications- don't listen to all the hype of how terrible they are; instead, be grateful that we have them. Drugs can be extremely helpful once your brain is badly damaged by psychiatric illness. The longer you wait, the worse it will get. There is a good chance that you should start with lithium, it is virtually a wonder drug. Lithium has proven to be helpful for most people with both unipolar and bipolar disorders, and neuro science shows that it helps to heal the brain. Please research everything about it, everything that I've said, and everything that a psychiatrist (and especially a psychologist) suggests. Good luck!
Hello John !.
ReplyDeleteA modern day MIRACLE has just happened to me.
I felt that I just had to contact you with regards to this
discovery.
I had had intermittent concentration and focus problems for all of my life. some 40 years later and after a bipolar 2 diagnosis I read the book "you mean I am not lazy,stupid
or crazy I decided That I definitely had had Attention deficit
disorder for my entire life. My Bipolar diagnosis came as a
lovely Xmas present on 23/12/04 as I had been suffering from psychosis where I was seeing and hearing things.
After a twenty minute assessment with a psychiatrist It was officially declared that I had Bipolar 2.
It was recommended that I take Lithium.
But in my confused state at the time I decided that I could not be relied on to keep to regular blood tests.
I was all over the place. This was the only point on the DSM that I was diagnosed by.
After trawling the internet for hours.days,weeks and running up a huge bill through dial up. I was convinced that the so called experts had missed something about my Bipoolar 2. I must have printed out over two hundred
articles, I was in a mess. Eventually I was put on 5mg Olanzapine and have been held in a moderate depression for the last eleven years. Spring 2014 I suddenly went into
hypomania.(I loved it while being rather exhausting).
On coming out of hypo I was aware that my depression had lifted a couple of points. I was extremely seasonal
with depression taking over my life during the winter months. I was sick of this constant yo yoing. to avoid the coming winter slump as soon as I felt my sudden usual
dip in mood in autumn. I left for Spain. In the past I had always felt great whilst on holiday in the sun. after two months I returned to the UK. and I was dreading the usual gloomy dark weather. But by luck England was experiencing the best winter in 75 years it was relatively bright. I had started taking vitamin D supplements which seemed to be helping. Summer came and went and I was still in a semi depressed state probably due to the holding effects of Olanzapine. I asked my doctor to put me on an anti depressant but she was hesitant. Because of the potential of mania. So out of frustration I took matters into my own hands. I decided to try SAM-e 400mg and within two days I was hypomanic (I loved it) aftern seven days I decided to stop the supplement. and I quickly came back down to earth with the help of DARK THERAPY.
I had noticed an unbelievable change in my mood and
actions. It was like a faulty switch had been thrown in my brain. all of my symptoms had been miraculously reset.
It was hard to tell if I was suffering with very mild hypomania, I was Happy !.
With my new found zest for life I decided that at 19stone 6 pounds that I had had enough.
MIRACLE NUMBER TWO !.
I totally changed my diet overnight. My body didn't like it and I had several withdrawl symptoms for about a week.
I took all wheat and grain products out of my diet.
I could not believe what was happening to me !.
to cut a very long story short .
It would appear that food intolerance wheat/gluten has
been with me for 58 years.
I can now concentrate and focus, my symptoms of
chronic fatigue and aches and pains are gone.
Its as if someone has taken a sack of my head and I can now see the world and enjoy it as it is.
I feel that I should be angry but I am so elated with my new found life.
Its a fact food intolerance can masquerade as mental illness.
I decided to do an experiment and took 400mg of SAM-e
again to see what happened and quess what ?
No hypomania.
I believe that I have proved that I would only go hypomanic whilst I was eating wheat.
I would be gratefull if you could pass on my story to James Phelps as I believe that it may be of some interest to him.
I wish you good luck and good health.
Kindest regards Howard Kelly