Quote:
Originally Posted by Ascension
Bi-Polar Disorder does not have to get worse. The longer and less aggressively one treats the illness the more ingrained certain behaviors and even brain chemistry can be hindered. If you are proactive in treating your illness as early and as faithfully as possible you will diminish the severity and regularity of the illness. Of course this is not a hard and fast assertion, as some people struggle even with early and proactive treatment. The other thing that may be of note is that being on medication has changed the way I feel the world and in that my writing and other artistic endeavors are not as vivid as they used to be. The medication stabilizes the mood and many BP artists depends on the intensity and swing for their muse. I know this to be the case for me. The good news is I have learned to reconnect with that side of myself without the need to be on an uncontrolled roller coaster. I hope this helps some.
In short, mania does not cause brain damage but the longer you leave it untreated the more your brain chemistry can change and the harder it is to change your perspective and views on life from the unhealthy mind of a person with BP to seeing the world in balance.
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I think that the reason why untreated bipolar seems to get worse is partly because of bad thinking patterns that the person developed... I don't think that BP is 100% biological. Cummulation of actions and their consequences play a big part here too. And as for the chemistry... brain chemistry determines how you feel, but you can induce the feelings to change the brain chemistry (I am not quite clear here... but I don't think unconditional happiness for example really exists. You can hardly be happy for long term when in bad life situation... so your brain is influenced by outside factors... and while you cannot buy happiness, it's easier to feel happy when feeling accomplished). And the longer we live with bad patterns the harder they become embedded, and that's what makes the treatment worse... if one has gotten (through their deeds) into really bad place, they have much more work to do to get to the normal than someone who realizes in the beginning "there is something wrong with me".
Roosevelt was probably "untreated" and was he damaged?
We also get to hear only the horror stories. If person is untreated, undiagnosed and doing quite well with ocassional slip-ups and craziness, they never make it into statistics.