|
Even with treatment, depression or mania recurs in most people with bipolar disorder.
I'm hearing some thoughts that Bipolar is relatively easy to treat because you just take some pills and you're okay. But as the above states, many people, if not most, will have relapses, some more often than others. Episodes can and do breakthrough meds, hopefully the meds will at least offer fewer and/or less severe episodes.
In contrary to what I've read here, I *do* think therapy is very important for bipolar disorder. For one thing, many people have other 'issues' which would be beneficial to work on, and to the extent that these issues can trigger or worsen episodes, it can be very helpful to improve them.
My therapist helps me to see when I'm going into an episode, when I do not have the insight to do so. If I increase my meds early on, the episode will very likely be less severe (i.e. stem psychosis) than if I don't, so this is very important.
I also tend to feel very demoralized after episodes --therapy helps with this too. As well as dealing with my feelings and deep ambivalence surrounding taking medications that have such terrible side effects.
I also have other issues, notably PTSD, which I need to work on. Surges in anxiety, in the past, have contributed to touching off manic episodes --I need to work on the anxiety for itself and also to help avoid bipolar episodes.
Additionally, I think that working on emotional regulation when well, when not sick, has the potential to help, even if only a little, while in an episode, unless full-blown manic.
As I said before, bipolar is not simply a matter of unbalanced chemicals in the brain, and research does not bear out any definitive conclusions that this is the case. I think, as with any mental health disorder, it's best to attack it from as many angles as possible.
I don't think either disorder is necessarily easier to treat than the other, only that the treatment is largely different, and for it to be successful, diagnosis needs to be more accurate.
|