Managing Bipolar Disorder - Psych Central

Managing Bipolar Disorder - Psych Central

This is a pretty good article that nailed my condition - mania being a mix of irritability, anger, and depression. It says euphoric mania is the exception, not the rule. I still get hypomanias, feel-good moods, but I've never considered these mania. Mania is something to be dreaded and feared.

It also says that 90 percent of marriages involving a partner with bipolar disorder end in divorce. That's a scary statistic. I take a lot of pride in staying married for 27 years, but I want to say - it hasn't always been easy. My wife is incredibly understanding of my condition.

The article also says that more than 40 percent of persons with bipolar disorder abuse alcohol or drugs. This is no surprise, in fact I personally think this figure is too low. It then gives a stat I've heard many times before, that 15 to 25 percent die by suicide, accident, or are killed in altercations triggered in a manic phase. I'm glad it includes people killed in altercations triggered by mania, but I'll take that a step further. I think the figure is even higher if you include mania-related accidents or other forms of death when in a manic phase. Mania is the real deal, and is SO DANGEROUS.

It also goes on to talk about supplements. If you want a great piece on supplements, read Giannakali's piece Supplements, Supplements, Supplements at Bipolar Blast.

Saturday Shorts

I wonder at times why I keep this blog, I haven't had the time to do it justice. I hope when my mind cycle changes, I'll be back posting more. I only have so many words in my head, and all of my bipolar disorder posting has been on the BipolarConnect site.

My mixed episode is mostly gone. My mania is fading, but my depression is hanging in there, although not as bad as before.

I had a scary episode the other night, an accidental almost-overdose of ambien. I was so manic I couldn't slow down my racing mind and sleep, so I took an ambien. One didn't work, so I took another. That didn't work, so... Before long I was WAY past impaired into comatose hallucinations. Very scary. The funny part, I KNOW better, but after that second ambien it didn't matter - my judgement was gone and all that mattered was sleep. I actually blogged while I was in that condition, I unpublished it and saved it as a draft the next morning. I may re-publish that one of these days, it's a disturbing testament to that mistake (and actually kind of humorous looking at it now).

The reason I was blogging the other night when I had the ambien issue was to say I have changed my blogroll service. I was using blogrolling, I am now using bloglines. Blogrolling was experiencing a lot of downtime and slow response. For those who are still maintaining their own link list, bloglines or blogrolling is SO much better. You can put a button on your browser toolbar and add a blog to your link list with a single click. One thing, though, Bloglines only supports blogs that have feeds. Blogger has feeds, but not everyone has them enabled. So if I can't access a feed, I can't link to your blog. My apologies to those impacted, it certainly wasn't by choice.

Since I've been using Bloglines, I realize that the http://livingbipolar.com blog feeds site I built and maintain isn't necessary at all. Bloglines does the same thing and so much more. For example, here are my feeds:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/livingbipolar
And those feeds pull into a simple link list (or lists) that I pull into my blog using a single line of code, which they provide. I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do with the LivingBipolar.com site. I'm open to suggestions...

Kyle is hanging in there, but I think the blog world may be too intimidating. We'll see if he wants to continue.

I was watching Bassmasters, a fishing show on TV earlier today. I love watching fishing shows, I could have made it as a professional fisherman had life been different. No complaints, life's pretty darn good right now. But anyway... These fishermen are bringing in fish, and they're shouting...
"Oh yeah! A good one!" "Bring it home!" "Come to daddy!" "I like 'em big!" "Oh baby, you're a fighter!" "I love it!" "Ooh, she bit that worm so soft." "They want it fast today." "Stay down, don't jump!"
My wife stops, listens for a second, and says "Are you watching porn?"

Thanks to those who continue to check in regularly, and for those who read and comment on the BipolarConnect site.