I haven't posted anything about this in a long while. I thought, however, with the holidays, it might be good to come back and point to some of it. In the past, the holidays were hypomania or mild mania personified for me. The last few years, however, circumstances have somewhat switched around, and I've had a lot of problems with the depressive side of the bipolar coin.
I wasn't diagnosed correctly until about five years ago, but in retrospect, I understand now that I've had this disorder all my life. After speaking with another mother who suffered from this disorder, I went to the internet for more information on her reccomendation. The screening tests below the article link led me to seek my diagnosis.
I'm a big fan of awareness now, because there is speculation that this goes untreated or misdiagnosed more often than not. It's a chemical imbalance and very treatable in most cases, but hard to catch because no one goes to the doctor for feeling "great" or "energetic".
What is Bipolar Disorder ?
DBSA Bipolar Disorder Screening
Goldberg Bipolar Screening Scale
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3 comments:
Mike and my mom helped a lot. They took the time to educate themselves and do a lot of listening. After reading a lot in my support group, I learned that family can really make the difference. They (and Steve) are the strong ones. I'm just phenomenally lucky.
Yeah, when I was diagnosed with depression after my wife left, I realized it had been a lifelong problem. Suddenly I understood why people thought it was strange that I was sad all the time, and couldn't simply "not think about" painful things.
I don't have family or a support group, although the Alliance players in CoH have sort of served as such since I "outed" myself as a depressive on the forums. Sometimes just having people know can be reassuring in itself.
I'm glad you've chosen to talk about it.
There are a lot of good online support groups out there that might be worth looking into, Avo. The one I was in was basically a group mailing list and full of very sweet, supportive people.
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