November 23, 2009 • 6:22 am
This is how I feel.
It’s like I’ve dropped a priceless vase and every piece that I attempt to glue back together falls again into another dozen pieces and I’m back right where I started, only it’s gotten worse.
I wish I were talking about a vase though, but I’m not. I’m talking about my mother. I called her today to just talk. We aren’t close. She doesn’t live nearby. She’s manic depressive bipolar. For every six months of downer moods, there are maybe 8 days collective of upper ones.
I don’t call, she’s sad.
I call she’s sad and mad.
So I don’t call.
Time, time, time goes by. I want to call. I don’t. More time, time, time goes by. I call. I cross my fingers; I take a deep breath, hello?
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Filed under: Eliza Barnett, bi-polar , bipolar, bipolar mother, daughter of bipolar mother
October 7, 2009 • 6:13 am
Dr. Cassandra L. Joubert has a new book out entitled, Losing Control: Loving a Black Child with Bipolar Disorder. What first caught my attention in this book is part of Dr. Ira Glovinsky’s foreword:
“Pediatric bipolar disorder manifests itself similarly in the African-American population to the way it does in the Caucasian population. The disease has no cultural boundaries. However… if an African-American child manifested the same symptoms as a Caucasian child, he or she would receive a different diagnosis and a different treatment. This is the clear danger of ignoring cross-cultural commonalities.
keep reading–click on!!
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Filed under: Eliza Barnett, bi-polar
Think about that. Everyone talks to themselves in their head, so it’s logical to assume a deaf person would do and same and essentially hear themselves. (Did you think maybe they did sign language in their thoughts as well!?)
So picture that you are deaf and you go to your doctor to try to communicate that you are hearing voices in your head–not yours, not Jesus, but some crazy nut job I don’t know who—and is wrecking havoc on your brain waves. That would be scary enough when you’re used to hearing outside voices. That’s gotta be a thousand times crazier to hear when you’ve never heard anything! A prelingually deaf individual, according to Wikipedia’s defination is someone who was born with insufficient hearing to acquire speech normally, or who lost their hearing prior to the age at which speech is acquired, would be such a person who’s pretty much never heard anything.
The other bad news is that if you’re hearing voices in your head you may be coming down with a mental illness. And by coming down with, I don’t mean—like the flu, because that certainly isn’t as easily curable.
That made me wonder what it might be like to have a mental illness—like bipolar for example!—and be deaf.
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Filed under: Eliza Barnett, bi-polar
Today folks we’re going to be talking about hypersexuality.
Can you say “hyper-sexuality”
Lets talk about sex baby.
Lets talk about all the good things,
and the bad things that may be.
Lets talk about sex.
The Webster definition of hypersexuality is defined as “unusually or excessively interested in or concerned with sexual activity.” Hypersexuality is a common symptom of hypomania or mania in a person who is having stages of bipolar disorder. It can be present in adults and children.
In the bipolar child newsletter doctors have discussed this particularly unsettling youth behavior. This behavior is typically under discussed because bipolar or not, you don’t talk about sexuality regarding children in public. (admit it, you’re kind of uncomfortable having just read that…)
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Filed under: Eliza Barnett, bi-polar
Recently I came across this list online of things (un-informed) people sometimes say, intending to be helpful, yet completely are not, when interacting with bipolar people. I was immediately reminded of an earlier posting here on Bifactor, when I was writing about My mom is bipolar. One of the things we talked about were the different ways her and her sister chose to go about interacting with their mother. The sibling I did not speak with appears to view her mother’s disorder more along the lines of the following…
What was said: It’s all in your head. You are a hypochondriac.
What may have been perceived: You are either completely deluded or making an excuse for poor behavior in order to get my sympathy. I don’t believe in that psychiatric mumbo jumbo. I don’t believe that you actually have a real illness.
The Fallacy: Mental health problems are the result of a character flaw or weak personality. Mental illnesses are not real diseases.
The Facts: Bipolar Disorder is a medical illness with a physical cause probably rooted in structural or biochemical abnormalities in the brain. In short, it is very real, just like diabetes or heart disease.
What was said: Just shake it off.
What was perceived: You’ve created this problem for yourself, so just get over it and move on. I am out of patience with you. Don’t bother me with this again.
The Fallacy: Everyone can and should control their emotions.
The Facts: Bipolar disorder is a medical condition. Those with this disorder can no more snap out of it or shake it off then those with a broken leg.
What was said: He must be demon possessed.
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Filed under: Eliza Barnett, bi-polar , bipolar, bipolar treatment, catholic, christian, faith, jewish, muslim, wiccan
