Posted December 21, 2008
I have bipolar. I was diagnosed only about 6 months ago. I like it at certain times and hate it other times. I can be really depressed for weeks at a time and happy for weeks at a time. Typically my mood changes every 30 minutes or so. Usually I’m never in a particular mood. I have meds, but they don’t help a whole lot. I’m 13 and I realize this is life long. I just have to live with it.
Hey Arthur –
I read your post today and wanted to let you know how brave you are for facing your difficulties and seeking out information and guidance here. It sounds like you are under the care of a doctor – and I want to encourage you to ask your doctor lots of questions and to be an active part of the treatment decisions. if you are not comfortable asking the doctor directly, you can talk to your parents and they can ask your questions for you.
You might try keeping a mood journal – or just a calendar – to show your doc how much your mood changes – that also helps with making medication decisions.
I hope you are working with a therapist – might be your doctor or someone else. Therapy is just as important as medications so make sure to work hard there as well.
Best of luck to you Arthur – you are still quite young so it is hard to know if this will be life long, but handling it now will reduce the chances of a long term problem.
best of luck,
Dr. Fink
Most people with your dinaogsis can’t hold down a full time job, so try not to beat yourself up about it. I have bipolar NOS, and have been on disability for 14 years. I hate it, but what can I do about it? I am really sick, most of the time, and the meds don’t help me.What is important is not so much having a job that you earn money at. What is important is that you have goals to work towards, and feel like you are a productive member of society. You want to have short term goals (clean the house) medium goals (get the house organized, finish a class on computers, save up for a fishing boat, etc) and long terms goals (learn to fix cars, learn spanish, etc). As far as being a productive member of society, you could volunteer for something. I haven’t been able to do that because I am too sick to be reliable & it is too much pressure, so what I do is come on yahoo answers and answer people’s mental health questions. that is helping others. Other things you can do is help your elderly neighbor shovel their driveway, babysit for someone, bring a bag of chips over to an even more depressed friend’s house and watch movies with them, etc.I still haven’t gotten over the loss of my career after all these years, but it does help to be useful to others, & it does help to have a lot of goals. Right now, I am learning oil painting. A lot of us bipolar types are really creative, and art does help calm me down when I am agitated. Think about art if you are a creative type. Writing is another area where you can be creative & work at your own pace. I give my paintings away to people and they really like them. Like, I paint scenes from their own farm, or their own vacation photos. Was this answer helpful?