Do you see bipolar as part of your personality or a disorder

Interesting thread with some great responses-we are such unique individuals aren't we? The way I see it (from a nursing perspective) I've always taught & treated my patients that whether what they are going through is physical or mental that I still see them as a whole person-being a person with depression, bipolar, OCD, etc. is no different than being a person with Type I diabetes, asthma, or mitral valve prolapse, etc. There are many things you can do to make yourself healthy whether by diet, exercise, meds, therapy (both physical & emotional), acupuncture whatever. There are also many things we do that make our symptoms worse-over spending, binge eating unhealthy food, not taking meds & isolating. It's my little way to work at changing the paradigm-I hate the way mental illness is still stigmatized. Whether you see it as part of your personality or a disorder you can still integrate it into your life. Is it going to suck? Some days yes. Are you going to do things you wish you hadn't done? Yes. But the same is true of physical illness as well. Having said that I will say I do try to "walk my talk" but some days I can't-it's too hard. That's when I reach out now rather than withdrawing which is what I used to do so I could look like this perfect together person. I'm working on being kinder & more understanding to myself as I treat others. When things are going crappy I wish I didn't have these issues-but it has made me a kind & empathetic person that I might not be without them. I also can crank out some amazing art & writings when the racing ideas & thoughts come together & I love that about myself as well. I've really enjoyed reading everyone's take on this-great stuff.

Christina,

Though Kay Redfield Jamison isn't a medical doctor, she is a clinical psychologist specializing in mood disorders; professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, someone living with bipolar illness, who started the Mood Disorders Clinic at UCLA in the 1970s. She's a suicide survivor.

I've watched some of her interviews on YouTube and I believe she said bipolar illness is very treatable. She never met me and my treatment resistant ultradian cycling. I respect her, simply because she is one of us and she's still surviving and even if any of us can take issue with some of her views, she is a bipolar veteran and like combat veterans, she speaks our language.

Mark

Like your perspective on it, TurtleSoup!

Good thoughts by all.

I was also diagnosed late in life. after learning the symptoms I can say I've been BP all my life so I'd say it's just a part of me. On the other hand, since being diagnosed and playing with my meds the last year or so, my daughter says I'm a completely different person. Who knows?

I feel it's my personality and I've locked in a box so no one can see it. Ever since I started seeing *those* doctors and taking medication... I'm me, but I'm not me. Recently been feeling I'm not sure which *me* I want to be anymore

I had never heard of Kay redfield Jameson before my T told me about her book. i can't really relate to her, though I feel she writes from a more clinical perspective and has maybe left somethings out. The person who i relate to most is Stephen Fry and his description of his behaviour as a child and adolecsent.

never knew any difference, I am as I always have been, never knew I had a problem,,,but I am doing (acourding to wife) "better" on my meds,,, so I vote for both,,personality and illness...personality because it's really me..illness because meds HELP it..imo

What about neither? What if it was actually an evolutionary adaptation? Perhaps the downs are necessary to replace the calories and sleep lost during the ups? Perhaps it's no longer adaptive in industrialized nations but then again my own pdoc said CEOs and entrepreneurs are bipolar and successful. If the ups reach to psychosis, then that would be maladaptive. If the downs reach suicidal ideation then that would have been eliminated from an evolutionary perspective unless that mostly manifests past reproductive age. That's just my guess of why it's still prevalent and the drugs are needed.

I'm just trying to figure everything out before I turn to meds that might my affect my organs negatively and undo thousands of years of evolution.

This has turned out to be such a hot topic for discussion.

Good on you and thanks for asking the question.

I like that idea. I will have to think on it a bit more a post a more detailed reply. Thanks Holisticgal.

I can seperate my real self from the illness. Whether you have a physical or mental condition, there are certain symptoms and effects which aren't related to the person but need to be managed. I've had Bipolar for 10 years, since late teens. Anxiety and depression are core parts of it, which don't define me as a person, but affect how i think, feel and behave. My way of life has been greatly shaped by Bipolar over the years. It remains untreated, untackled because i didn't manage to get professional help and support for my issues. It affects me physically and mentally daily and nightly. I find it hard to be/live with it. Its important to seperate self from illness. Not to see that I'm the illness, the illness is me. Its not part of who i am, my true self, its part of my life which i wish it wasn't.

The same with me as in not knowing any different. My ex says I have chanhged since being medicated and an old friend, who used to look forward to long rambling emails about my different theories on just about everything says the same. I know I less "dangerous" now. I haven't rolled any cars thinking I was Ayreton Senna.
I do feel I have lived a more interesting life than other people because hypomania gives you the bravado to change jobs and try new things. But very occasionally I also I feel I have wasted a great deal of my life by not being stable. Though my friend who has been in the same job for years disagrees.

I find it interesting thaat people can be med free. Under the mental health act here if I stop taking my meds I can forced to. So a pdoc told me, but I don't know if that was just scare tactics I haven't been bothered to find out.

Honestly, that is why I am out of the system completely.

It is horrible that shrinks think human rights don't matter for crazies. Nobody is forced into a treatment for physical illness (don't all the med proponents just LOVE to compare these two?). Forced treatment is breach of basic human rights, it's traumatizing, it can completelly shatter chances of recovery and it is focused more on the others than the actual patient.

You should find out what your options are, especially if the current treatment is not doing it for you. One should take meds cause they help, not cause their shrink says: "take your meds or...."

Too much of the experts focus on meds way too much. So this "how you view yourself effects if you take meds or not..." So you view yourself ill and gladly take pills... and? Are you better? Or do you view yourself as broken being and spend a lot on pills? Same with the four stages of "recovery" thing that was posted in success stories. Fretting about taking pills and reading books on bipolar and seeing yourself as ill... how is that a recovery?

I don't identify with the diagnosis at all. I just look for treatment of the symptoms, just like I wouldn't think of myself as the flu or a broken leg. Labels and ideas about what's going on in the brain keep changing. I won't be locked into a dx that may not even exist in a few decades when more will have been discovered.

Well, i was forced away from help and support when i needed it. I was assessed and referred for therapy at mental health service but didn't get it. Was just suggested medication and self help stuff. I was forced out of A&E when i was really ill and suicidal. I know i have bipolar and it is an illness yet even if for me it is really challenging to live with, i still have strong resistance to the idea of taking medication -just taking medication wouldn't help me in addressing the underlying issues and to make changes i want and need in my life and i don't want to poison by body with a load of drugs for long time. I have had CBT and attended courses in the past on NHS but that didnt help me rly cos it wasn't orientated towards helping me manage things with my illness. It was just for personal stress related issues basically. I have battled with my condition for 10 years without meds and no professional help and support, which hasn't been easy. I'm still here somehow. But don't know for how much longer.

BP is my evil twin. My fantastic twin also.

In answering the question, we are identifying our attitude towards an aspect of ourselves -- is bipolar important to my identity or not? I would say, however, that just as with dwarfism, diabetes, or any other disease that requires redefining our behavior (actions) and personality (style of expressions), we are marked and change radically by our bipolar whether we identify with it or simply fight it as if it were some external thing.

I know my style, my personlality, my intensity, my volatility, the sprawl of my thoughts and the philosophical approaches I use to control the sprawl, have become such a muscular part of my personality that I can't even imagine who or what I would be if I didn't have the bipolar. I am my bipolar and I am more than it.

So are you the illness then? Is that what you are?an illness. Nice to feel you are an external label. Is it your fault of character thats led to it? Do you think people are themselves when they are in severe depression or severe mania? Peoples thoughts and behaviours are affected by bipolar. So those who have cancer, are they suffering and battling with a serious health condition or is it linked to their personality? Bipolar has mental and physical characteristics which different kinds of people experience who have it, regardless of their personality.

Its so bad to think that you are the mental health condition, that its to do with your personality. Its an illness theres no doubt about that cos people suffer with it and there are factors behind it. It should be taken seriously as it can bring people close to or actual harm and death. Nothing fun about battling, struggling with a severe illness thats greatly impacting your life.

Unless you are under court order to take medications ... "no one" can force you to do so.

Who forced you away from treatment? I dont know what A&E is

Ok, so you don't want meds, yeah tons of people are med free and doing just fine.

Whats keeping you from helping yourself???? to become more stable and healthy?? I know so many people that do not have ways to receive "professional help" Yet they are doing well.

So they join forums like this and learn what has helped others and apply the ideas to there own life. Is it simple ? well , no ... Life is not simple, But If you don't take control of yourself and actively work to help yourself become better., then your left in the same spot having same problems and feeling the same way day in and day out.

Maybe since you have been able to just vent it all out here on this thread and hey that's a great thing to do. You can "see that there is hope" and it just takes steady forward actions on your part to make a life you want whether you have professional help or not.

Last I checked there is a list of about 75 (at least) coping skills to use while managing your own personal unique Bipolar.

Well, i was forced away from help and support by both staff at mental health service and in A&E (Accident &Emergency department) at hospital when suicidal. I would like to think i can manage this condition by myself without professional help, but the reality is its severe and it has been very difficult living with it. It has greatly affected my life. I seeked professional help cos i admitted to myself that i wasn't coping, that i couldn't just help myself, i needed professional help and support. But i have been unable to get that because staff haven't been caring, understanding and willing to help me. I dont want to just be prescribed medication as the only form of help and i have my reasons for being resistant to taking it. I don't doubt that a lot of people wouldn't be able to manage Bipolar just by themselves without good professional help. I really wish i didn't have this illness but i do. I have to face it each day and night and i don't like it. Its brought me at diff times close to suicide. I dont know how strong you have to be to beat it but i sure am strong and courageous person to have tried various things to help self and to keep going but each day is like im not really alive and is a struggle to get through. If it wasnt affecting me so much id be able to have more freedom and control to do things in my life effectively and to live a more fulfilling healthier prosperous life but its like a huge weight on me holding me back restricting me and dragging me down instead of upwards and forwards.

Do we all not need professional help to deal with serious health conditions ? Is it ok to tell someone suffering with a challenging physical condition to just help themselves ?that they have to take responsibility for sorting themselves out , think positively and they can do well without health professional input. Or is it just applicable to those with mental health issues cos its easy to blame the person for their suffering as its not as obvious or understandable to others how they are affected each day.

Not everyone can see professionals for an illness mental or physical , so that leaves the ball in their court to help themselves, common sense I think.

If you can get help? Then by all means use every bit of it you can.

In an ideal world everyone could have all the help needed for everything.

It's not an ideal world ,so people have to do whatever they can to help themselves.

Personally having the Internet at our finger tips is a miracle, So much information and free advice to be found.