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Old Dec 02, 2020, 09:42 PM
Soupe du jour Soupe du jour is offline
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Member Since: Jun 2015
Location: Czechia
Posts: 5,172
I do agree that there surely has to be some genetic predisposition to develop bipolar disorder, but there does also usually seem to be a trigger for its development. I don't think it is always as major of a trigger for some, as it is for others, though.

My paternal grandmother developed her bipolar disorder seemingly at the age of 33 or 34, when my youngest uncle was born. He had Down's Syndrome. A severe case. At that time, she also had three older sons ranging from a couple years old to 15 years old (my dad was the oldest). She started with a severe depression that left her hardly able to care for my youngest uncle. Then she developed psychosis and manic symptoms.

Soon after my paternal grandmother's start of her illness, my father became ill and was hospitalized for "a nervous breakdown" at 16. He attributes that breakdown to my grandmother's, as well as MY mother's (his future wife's) fall that began her remaining lifetime struggle with tonic clonic seizures. My parents were sweethearts as young as 7 and 8 years old, and very much in love at 15 and 16. My father has had bipolar symptoms off and on throughout his life. Symptoms eventually led him to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars and become so addicted to alcohol that he almost lost his life. Since then he's been in assisted living, with his quality of life deteriorating since. Really, the worst of the end part of his life was triggered by the sudden death of my mother, and then the suicide of my nephew, who lived with him for a period.

A first cousin of mine (the daughter of my father's second brother), has bipolar disorder.
Possible trigger:
She went on to be a problem child, surely as a result. She eventually became a heroin addict and alcoholic, went to prison several times, abandoned her three children, and is now...I don't even know where. She changed her name. She's hard to recognize because her face is full of tatooes.

Me? Well, I've written a bit about the start of my illness at 15/16 in my blog. I barely even want to bring it up. All I'll say is that the end of a major dream, social isolation/ostracization, and other slightly traumatic events, played a major part. I ended up having to be sent to a therapist and then private school. At university, I had episodes, as well, though not as severe, but did go to my first psychiatrist then who gave me only Prozac. That set off a mania where I stole my best friend's boyfriend and became quite hypersexual. Then about six years later, I had another major group of bipolar episodes in Taiwan. The rejection by my first love, with whom I moved to California, didn't help. Then issues relating to my job in Taiwan. I was actually taken to a hospital there, but released soon after with bags of mystery pills. They obviously contained some antidepressant, because I then switched to manic, quit the job (losing lots of money), and set off to travel (alone) in Hong Kong and Thailand. After some extremely wild weeks there, and being pickpocketed, I crashed. Some of it is even difficult for me to remember, as I must have had "manic blackouts".

I had mild episodes, off and on, for another five years. Soon after marrying, I became obsessed with my job. The job was extremely stressful for me, so I drank to self-medicate. My mood was rising and rising because of conflicts at work. Then, my mother suddenly and unexpectedly died of cancer. That started a period that I call "My 1st through 10th painful psychiatric incarcerations", during which I was mostly on private disability. Those years were followed by the start of my SSDI, the early years of which were also quite horrible. I call them part of a "Psychiatric Avalanche Effect". Some really rough stuff!

Last edited by Soupe du jour; Dec 02, 2020 at 10:14 PM.
Hugs from:
*Beth*, lightly toasted, NaoSky, wolftrap
Thanks for this!
*Beth*, lightly toasted, wolftrap