Hey xRavenx,

Yes, it is a hard line to draw and stick to.. and you are right, we didn't ask for bipolar disorder.

I mean it is almost preposterous to ask a person who by definition has a highly fluctuating view of the world and of themselves, and of everybody else in it... to ask that person to take a calibrated, constant and reasoned view of an illness which makes their world view inherently unstable to begin with.

Plus the experience of being ill is disorienting too. Just being ill is disorienting even if one does not do further harm by acting out in certain ways but

that is our lot.

I think this more general point is often missed in psychiatric literature because world view is such a general concept (a) and (b) psychiatry by definition focusses on symptoms of disease as listed in the DSM and not much more.

As far as I know there is no targeted therapy for bipolar disorder either, so there is nothing that deals explicitly with the large changes in world view between manic, depressed and other states. Then there is the possibility of psychosis on top of the erratic mood states. I don't think it takes much tendency for psychosis once a person becomes manic for reality to flip over and people start to see 'hidden truths'...

At least I can get a break from my psychotic thoughts. Today I am not in prison or jail nor in a hospital and the police are not banging at my door several times a day to take me away under a mental health act. I can say to some extent my paranoia and psychosis this time was driven to an absurd extent by the fact that I was harassed by police, but I will be the only person that gets any blame for this abject failure in mental health care...

society will be protected and I will be pushed closer and closer to the point where I'd have to go into assisted living. Right now I am living at home and hope to keep it that way for awhile. On the other hand the powers that be might have mercy on me and

not take away my license for not stopping for police on the highway... because by then i was petrified of the police and also in the midst of a psychosis, but it's a real possibility that I will lose my driver's license for an extended period of time for that.

I don't want your pity. I just want to share that hard part of coping with bipolar disorder (well it could be schizoaffective disorder) on christmas after a bad episode earlier in the year.

One thing I would really appreciate is if people think I am starting to lose it or go manic then they let me know what they think. One thing I have learned is that I've got to be open to this suggestion from other people.

I've also lost a lot of trust in other people, and am trying to find my way back so writing here helps.

Thanks for creating space to breath xRavenx