Tag: bipolar disorder

Jane Pauley Talks Bipolar Diagnosis, Ending Stigma

“Words have power. The word ‘stigma’ is its own stigma. So every time you say ‘stigma,’ it is a reminder for people like me that I’m fighting two wars.”

Veteran broadcast journalist, Jane Pauley, is something of a household name, since debuting on the Today show as Barbara Walters’ replacement at the age of 25. Now 68, the CBS Sunday Morning host has continued her advocacy for mental health awareness, since being diagnosed with bipolar disorder nearly 20 years ago.

Pauley appeared on CBS This Morning to speak on the issue for the show’s “Stop the Stigma” segment.

“When I was 49, I was not bipolar. When I was 50, I was,” she said. “I was switched, flipped…”

“I Was In Pretty Deep Trouble”

Pauley described how a bout of hives led to her diagnosis. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2001—a mood disorder that is characterized by dramatic mood swings.

She had no family history of the mood disorder “that I know of,” so her diagnosis came as a surprise, especially in middle age. “It unmasked what doctors described as a genetic vulnerability to a mood disorder, and by that time I was in pretty deep trouble,” she said.

A Cover Story From Her Doctor

Pauley’s doctor was so reluctant about sharing Pauley’s diagnosis with others that he offered her a cover story to hide her bipolar disorder.

“The only time in my life… that I experienced stigma was that day, day one, when I recognized that my doctor was giving me a cover story to tell my employers that I was being treated for a thyroid disorder, which was true, but I knew it was not the whole truth.”

Instead of hiding her truth, Pauley wrote down her experience in her book published soon after her diagnosis, Skywriting: A Life Out of the Blue. (An excerpt can be read on NBC News.) Pauley said that her doctor “went pale” at her decision to write about it, but she went ahead and did it anyway.

Ending Stigma

“Words have power. The word ‘stigma’ is its own stigma,” she said on CBS This Morning. “So every time you say ‘stigma,’ it is a reminder for people like me that I’m fighting two wars. It’s not enough that I have a disorder that’s pretty serious, but I’m also fighting this front.”

She added, “My goal is that we fight stigma, which is real, but we fight it with sophistication. It’s a medical disorder.”

View the original article at thefix.com

25 October 2019
The Perils of Dating While Sober
I am acutely aware of how careful I am to minimize my recovery journey when I first start dating someone.

A few months ago, a male friend and I were talking about the frustrations and disappointments of dating. I mentioned how lonely it can be navigating this world on my own, without a traveling companion, a long-term lover, or a hiking partner, without someone with whom to Netflix and chill on a rainy Sunday.

He said, “Dating is complicated for everyone, but for you, with your history? I can only imagine. Maybe guys are afraid of you, afraid of your intelligence and strength.” He hesitated and then continued, “Or maybe they’re just afraid to get close because of your bipolar diagnosis and…well, you’re an alcoholic. So a drink in a bar is out. Your history makes them wary. It’s going to take someone special, someone who’s willing to accept that risk and all your baggage.”

All Your Baggage

All your baggage. My old shame rose up, and his words fell on me like a one-hundred story building collapsing, cinder block by cinder block, The only words I could say in clipped retort?

“It’s called alcohol-use disorder now,” I said. “Update your vocabulary.”

For days I replayed his assessment in a loop, an auto-play rumination and in self-defense, even wrote out a bulleted response:
- Men afraid of me? Seriously? Maybe he’s afraid of my brain, but I’m afraid of his brawn. I’ve been sexually assaulted twice by two different men. Statistics show that women are more likely to be harassed and assaulted and raped—their lives endangered—by men than vice versa.
- I’m on a low dose of lithium now, and eight years stable and on an even keel since my divorce. My psychiatrist thinks I may not really be bipolar, or that maybe my bipolar instability was triggered by the conditions of my marriage.
- And on dating apps, so many men post pictures swigging beer, wine, and booze and list beer, wine, and booze as hobbies. Almost always the first message they send is, “Do you want to get a drink?” And when I suggest a walk, a museum, non-boozy meetup? They disappear.
- No drama, no crazies, no baggage: an oft-repeated list of No’s on dating profiles, but then these men (perhaps women do this, too?) indicate that they are married and looking for discretion, no strings attached; they also like to post photos of bloodsport: bare chested with AK-15’s and dead animals. But no drama!
- And finally, too risky to love me? I’m a safe bet now! Look at the evidence: Sober, stable, all my s*** sorted!
Doth the lady protest too much? Might my bulleted explanation be my armor against latent shame? Because what I am admitting to in my list is that I am lovable only now that I am well, and that when I was unwell? I was unlovable.

Love Is an Inherently Risky Proposition

“I stopped loving you when you got sick,” my ex-husband told me when we decided to divorce, and it’s what I have secretly believed for so long. Hence, my adamant insistence that I am well, well, well and have been now for years, years, years.

But this narrative—I am such a scary person to love that it will take someone with extra-special love powers to love me—is one that no one with any diagnosis or at any stage of recovery should ever buy into. Love is an inherently risky proposition. We are at our most vulnerable when we love, trusting our hopes and fears to each other. And there is always the risk of love’s end, but, too, always the possibility of love’s beginnings, its growing and expanding.

And yet, finding our way to a beginning of love with someone can be daunting and terrifying as we have to negotiate our commitment to honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. We must reconcile that old shame that rises up, sometimes in ripples, sometimes in waves, when we summarize our histories or share how we still struggle with one day at a time with a new partner. I am acutely aware of how careful I am to minimize my recovery journey when I first start dating someone.

“Oh,” I might say, “I stopped drinking because I wanted to live a healthier life, and for a few years I struggled with depression, but it’s all good now. Really, all good now.” Again that adamant insistence, again that background noise in my head: If he can fall in love with me now in all my lovableness, then none of my previous unlovableness will matter. Of course, even for those who have not struggled with mental illness or alcohol or substance use disorders, it is impossible for “all” to be forever good.

“Really Crazy”

I recently ended a relationship with someone after two months of mostly happy, breezy fun but I realized I’d been dodging my shame. When we first met, he mentioned early on that his ex-wife was bipolar. “Really crazy,” he said, and gave me a look that put me on notice.

So I casually mentioned to him that I had bipolar as well, but “Stabilized!” I said, with a giant calm smile plastered across my face, and I even fluttered my eyelashes in flirty dismissal.

He said he could see I was in a “good place” and not at all like his ex. And because I want the world to believe that I am in a good place (and most days I am), I nodded in enthusiastic agreement.

But then, a few weeks later, he mentioned that my town was known for the State Psychiatric Hospital, opened in the 1840’s and now shuttered.

“Have you ever been there?” I asked, because it is now a tourist stop—The Walking Dead once filmed a scene at the mostly abandoned grounds and there are historical markers describing the troubling treatment of the mentally ill across its almost 150 year history.

“No,” he said, immediately and with a laugh. “I’m not one of the crazies.”

Of course, during a period of my own instability, I was once one of those “crazies,” in and out of a psychiatric hospital. He knew this by now, though maybe because I “presented” as so very very well, he couldn’t believe that was part of my history.

To be fair, he made these comments casually, without malice, the kind of talk that generally surrounds those of us who suffer from mental illnesses or who are on a recovery journey. They were the kind of comments I often hear because most people assume, by looking at me and my “got it all together life,” that I am one of them, i.e., “not crazy.”

But even if his comment was thoughtless, I felt that old shame rise up and stayed silent because I didn’t want him to suddenly see me as sick, and hence unlovable, and consequently maybe leave this beginning of us. So I made a silly remark about ghosts who must surely haunt those grounds.

No bulleted list at the ready but here’s what I should have said:

“It’s hurtful to hear you call someone with my diagnosis ‘really crazy,’ and to call those in treatment ‘crazies.’ We all have our baggage, don’t we? We live and stumble and get up and try to live better, always. All of us.”

But his remarks and my silence unsettled me. How easy it is for me to talk the talk, but how hard it can be to walk the walk. A few weeks later, I ended this beginning because, yes, I have baggage, and it is not just a free carry-on roller bag, but one of those $20K vintage Louis Vuitton trunks that have drawers and a hanger rod, room enough for my pain and my joy, my mistakes and my amends, my shame and my wisdom.

That is, a trunk big enough to carry all my necessities for this continuing journey.

View the original article at thefix.com
14 October 2019
Bam Margera Sent To Hospital Because Of Bipolar Meds

Margera took to Instagram to clarify the reasons behind his hospital visits.

Former Jackass star Bam Margera was reportedly hospitalized twice in one week after a fall that he says was caused by side effects from a new medication for his bipolar disorder.

According to the reality star, he was sleepwalking when he fell and hit his head, resulting in a laceration that required six staples.

According to unCrazed, he suffered a kick to the wound while playing in the pool with his son, sending him back to the hospital. “I got karate kicked in a pool in the neck surgery playing with Phoenix with community kids by accident,” he said.

Margera was unable to remember the name of the medication he was given, saying that it “starts with a Z” in an Instagram video he made to dispel rumors that his trips to the hospital meant that he was once again using drugs.

“I am in treatment in Huntington Beach,” he explained. “I’ve been in treatment for a long, long time, and I’m gonna be here for a longer, longer time. And I’m gonna miss all of autumn in Pennsylvania.”

In & Out Of Treatment

Margera has been in and out of rehab for most of 2019, most recently agreeing to enter treatment after an intervention staged by his wife and talk show host Dr. Phil. He appeared to have left the rehab facility and may have been intoxicated in a video taken in August that showed the troubled celebrity refusing to leave a hotel lobby after allegedly harassing bar patrons, claiming someone had paid him to catch one of them cheating.

After the police were called, Margera was arrested and taken back to the rehab facility, where he was allowed to return after agreeing to commit to the program.

He appears to have stayed out of trouble since then. He was in the news in September, but only for an appearance on Dr. Phil in which he opened up about his mental health and credited his son, Phoenix, for keeping him from ending his life.

Baring All To Dr. Phil

“I had such a mental breakdown that I really thought like I… could just go to the lake and be free,” he said. “I was like the pain was gone and I had to beg for pain back. I was like, ‘Please just give me back my pain so I could stay because I want to be with him.’”

Phoenix turns two in December, and Bam has only good things to say about him.

“He is the raddest kid ever,” he told Dr. Phil. “He’s so interested in skateboarding. I have all these toys everywhere and he just goes right to the skateboard. He’s like my best friend and I’ve known him for not even two years.”

View the original article at thefix.com

3 October 2019
The Million Dollar Smile: My Life with Bipolar Disorder

As many as 60 million people worldwide have bipolar disorder. Many of those people, like me, lead productive, happy lives.

He said my smile was worth a million bucks, or was it that I had a million-dollar smile?

I remember when smiling was foreign to me. I’d wake in the morning feeling great for a few minutes, and then the dark clouds came, weighing in on my body, pressing down on me. Depression overwhelmed me, so much so that my entire body ached. I felt empty, hopeless, sad beyond belief, and exhausted.

An Emotional Black Hole

It was another day filled with mental and physical pain…another day spent looking for ways to make the pain stop. I sought help from the big one – God. I was in the early stages of finding Him. I also saw a psychologist for therapy, joined a support group, and listened to Melanie Beattie healing tapes. I read books like Happiness Is a Choice and joined a running club. Nothing worked. I sank deeper and deeper into an emotional black hole.

I wondered how I could enjoy my new relationship with God, love Him, and still feel this intense pain. It was like nothing I ever experienced. I began to understand why people kill themselves, they want to stop the pain. So did I, and I entertained thoughts of committing suicide. Once when running, I visualized doing the deed. It felt real. I sobbed and limped home.

Even in my desperate search for help, my suicidal thoughts were a closely-kept secret. I was afraid that if I revealed them to anyone I would be admitted to a hospital – maybe locked up forever.

My life was spiraling down fast. Scared, I called my therapist. He referred me to a psychiatrist who focuses on chemical imbalances.

The psychiatrist listened to me and asked me a series of questions. He seemed to know the symptoms I experienced without me telling him. Our session ended when he diagnosed me as bipolar 2. He said after six weeks of taking the medication he prescribed, a lot of those symptoms would disappear. I left his office feeling optimistic. Maybe this was the help I needed.

A Real Smile

Six weeks later, something wonderful happened. I was in my car and heard something funny on the radio. I smiled – something I hadn’t done in a long time. It felt so good that I pulled the car over and looked at my smile in the mirror.

It was as if the sun burst out from behind the dark clouds, gobbling each one up. The cobwebs in my brain cleared, and I was smiling – even laughing. The medication wasn’t a miracle worker, but it squelched my black depression and left me with the ability to deal with my problems.

That was nearly 20 years ago. I don’t remember what it felt like to live with intense mental and physical pain for no apparent reason, and I don’t want to go there again. So, I take my medication and see my psychiatrist regularly. The dark clouds came back to haunt me once in the last 20 years, and I immediately saw my psychiatrist for help and got back on track.

The Big Secret

For the most part, I prefer to keep my bipolar status under wraps. I guess it’s out of the bag now with this story. There’s stigma and prejudice against people who are bipolar. Most people don’t know much about people with mental illness and expect us behave in negative, sometimes scary ways. Some of the most common beliefs are that we have wide mood swings, engage in manic behavior, and that we’re promiscuous, wild spenders, and we can’t sustain relationships or jobs. Even worse, some people, including the media, promote characteristics that bipolar people have tendencies to be violent.

Sometimes the media reports a story about a criminal or murderer, adding that the person is bipolar. This makes me cringe. They don’t comment if a person has asthma, hypertension, allergies, or was overlooked for a promotion. Labeling these people as bipolar compounds the negative stereotype of violence. People with bipolar disorders don’t come in one category, and most of us, like the general population, do not have violent tendencies.

Should I Tell Him?

Because of the negative stigma and prejudice, I’m careful about who I share my diagnosis with and when. I decided 10 months into a relationship would be a good time for this revelation. By that time, the person I’m in a relationship with would know what I’m typically like. I’m an okay, normal person who gets sad when the situation merits it – like when my boyfriend died from cancer or my job was eliminated.

Things moved fast when I met my husband. We started falling in love on our first date, so I felt he should know that I’m bipolar 2 sooner rather than 10 months later. Three months into the relationship, I told Larry about my diagnosis. I remember that nerve-wracking evening. When I tried to speak, the words stuck in my throat. It seemed to take hours before I had the courage to tell him. During this time, Larry grew nervous and wondered if I was going to break up with him. After I told him about my diagnosis, Larry acted like I told him about the weather – not anything serious like being bipolar 2.

At my suggestion, Larry came with me to the psychiatrist so that my doctor could tell him about my case and answer his questions. Again, I was nervous. I believe I’m okay, but what will my psychiatrist say? What if I’m a nutcase in denial? My psychiatrist of 17 years told Larry that I have a mild case and will be okay as long as I continue taking my meds regularly and get enough sleep.

Larry and I have been married for three years. As I expected, there haven’t been any crazy episodes or depressions.

I feel very lucky that I’m getting the treatment I need. I started seeing my psychiatrist four times a year; now I see him twice a year. When I asked him if I could get off the meds, he said it’s not a good idea. I’m fine because I take the medicine.

There Are a Lot of Us

As many as 60 million people worldwide have bipolar disorder. Many of those people, like me, lead productive, happy lives. Some articles state that our 16th U.S. President, Abraham Lincoln, had bipolar disorder. Other people with this diagnosis include Catherine Zeta-Jones, Oscar-winning actress; Mariah Carey, singer; Jean-Claude Van Damme, an actor; Ted Turner, media businessman and founder of CNN; Patricia Cornwell, crime writer; Patrick J. Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Jr., and Lynn Rivers, former members of the U.S. House of Representatives; Jane Pauley, a television journalist; maybe your colleague, sibling or neighbor…and me, a corporate communications and freelance writer.

Bipolar disorder is a chronic illness with no cure, but it can be managed with psychiatric medication and psychotherapy. I’ve been doing it for nearly 20 years and plan to do that for the rest of my life. Being free of bipolar symptoms enables me to smile…and mean it.

View the original article at thefix.com

20 September 2019
In Italy, Doctors Recommend Sleep Deprivation For Depression Patients

The treatment, which requires patients to stay awake for 36 hours, three times per week, is covered by Italy’s national health service.

A good night’s sleep is considered critical for mental, physical and emotional well-being, but a group of doctors in Italy is turning that knowledge on its head, by recommending sleep deprivation as a therapy for bipolar patients who are severely depressed.

“It’s absolutely counterintuitive,” Dr. Francesco Benedetti, head of psychiatry at San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, told the BBC.

In Benedetti’s unit, patients who have treatment-resistant depression turn to sleep deprivation in hopes of improving their mental health.

“They very often come to us and say ‘I’m helpless, nothing can be done.’ And that’s the perfect patient to try this most effective, rapid, shocking treatment to push up their mood,” Benedetti said.

The Treatment

The treatment, which requires patients to stay awake for 36 hours three times per week, is covered by Italy’s national health service.

Benedetti says that while sleep deprivation can contribute to depression for most people, it can alleviate symptoms for people with bipolar disorder. During the course of the treatment, patients are exposed to bright white light for about 30 minutes in the early-morning hours. That’s when most patients report a change in their mood, Benedetti said. After the treatment, patients are given Lithium, a common treatment for bipolar disorder, to keep their mood elevated.

Benedetti claims that the treatment works for 70% of patients.

“We see our patients being well after the treatment. They’re staying well. They return to their jobs,” he said. “They came in thinking of suicide, to be clear, and they go home ready to start their job again.”

The BBC followed four patients, who reported a change after the treatment.

“These nights, I was a little better. But this morning just awake, I felt that sensation of desperation,” said one patient, Georgio, a man in his sixties who has been battling depression for 20 years.

Georgio didn’t think the treatment had worked initially. In fact, he booked electroconvulsive therapy after the fact. But before he could try that, he found his depression was alleviated about a month after the treatment, and he believed that sleep deprivation may be why.

Another patient, Norma, said that she first went through sleep deprivation therapy four years ago and experienced an instant change to her bipolar symptoms.

“When I left here I felt fantastic,” she said. “I could tell straight away that I was better.”

Since then, Norma has had two depression flareups, and both times sleep deprivation therapy has helped, she says.

However, other mental health experts including John Geddes, head of psychiatry at Oxford University, are skeptical of the treatment and say a controlled study must be done.

“When people are developing treatments and are enthusiastic about it all sorts of biases come in,” Geddes said. “We just see this all the time, particularly in the area of mental health. There’s so much to gain from a study of a new treatment.”

View the original article at thefix.com

28 August 2019
Mother’s Day: Recovery, Love, and Light

At night, tucking my kids into bed, I would make a deal with myself: hold on just a little longer until they needed me a little less and then I could go through with my suicide plan.

Mother’s Day is Mothering Day, isn’t it? A day that honors all of us who mother our children—loving, caretaking, nurturing, offering our time and energy, setting aside more selfish pursuits and pleasures to help support our children’s journeys. Of course, we love receiving the homemade, crayoned cards, the store-bought roses or dandelion bouquets, and the pancakes delivered in bed (even with kitchen disasters). These gifts remind us of our essential role in our children’s lives. But for me? Mother’s Day is my chance to offer my gratitude that I am now a sober and stable force of love, hope, and healing for my children.

Almost 10 years ago, I started writing my blog, Momma May Be Mad, during a complete bipolar collapse: I was anorexic, alcoholic, in and out of psychiatric hospitals and rehabs, and determined to die. But what anchored me to this world were words; more specifically, my blog, a public journal that allowed me to wrestle openly with the lies and the truths of illness and wellness, of despair and hope, of isolation and community.

At the time, recovery seemed an impossible and cruel promise: light and hope and love would always be just out of reach and I believed it would be better for my children if I died. In the morning, I woke up too early and at night went to bed too late because of a ruminative argument that forced this point: How could I ever be a safe and loving harbor for my children when I was the storm threatening to smash us all against the rocks? I did not believe that I could get sober and stable and well enough to mother my children into their own growing, complex, miraculous lives.Rather than feeling like a mother, a source of creative nurturing power, I felt like one of the furies, a toxic destructive cyclone.

Do you know that “mother” also refers to the thick scummy substance in liquor, the filthy dregs? This truly was how I thought of myself. At night, tucking my kids into bed, I would make a deal with myself: hold on just a little longer until they needed me a little less and then I could go through with my suicide plan.

My first post was a manifesto to truth. For years I’d been lying about how much I drank, how often I cut myself, how little I’d eaten, and how I was planning to die. It was a way to hold myself accountable to a deliberate, intentional, and public directive: to recover my health, my balance, and most importantly my integrity. My aim was nothing less than radical transparency:

March 1, 2010: Truth: Here I am, Self and the Blank Page, fingers nervously typing. Time to write this down, to deal with the shame and the self-loathing, and turn it around. This is the story of IT: ‘IT’ is my abstract pronoun, the catch-all for my variety of afflictions. IT inhabits capital letters, an impassive, unfeeling monolith. In contrast, ‘I,’ (or for your sake, ‘me,’) who lives in love, in forgiveness, and in the shrieks of pleasure I hear coming from my kids right now in their playroom. I am thirty-seven years old, the Momma of two, the wife of one, and I have bipolar disorder, and eating disorder. Oh yes, and the nasty habit of cutting myself. And drinking, too much. I am in therapy, on mood stabilizers, anti-psychotics, and sleep meds. But what I must accept: Life on Life’s Terms. No mere 12 Step cliché, but practical truth. I’m ragged and frayed and scattered, fractured and splintered by shame. I want to be whole for my children.

My essential sacred directive was to stay alive. Short-term goals at first. Stay alive for my son’s cookie crumb, sloppy kisses, his warm hand on my cheek, his tiny body finding mine at night, spooning up against me. He needed me in the primal way four-year-olds need their Mommas, close and tight. He is my son, and, at the time, I was his sun—the one he revolved around. When I picked him up from preschool, he would tackle me and say, “I love you Momma. Will you marry me?” A sincere proposal—live together forever.

And to stay alive for my daughter who needed me more and differently as she navigated the intricacies of being a seven-year-old who preferred dragons, bugs, and furry creatures over Hannah Montana, the Jonas Brothers, and boyfriend-girlfriend role playing. And then there were the rapid-fire, shifting friendships that often relegated her to third-in-line best friend. My heart broke over and over as she tearfully told me that she had “a funny feeling in her belly all day long,” and wanted to move far away. “Vermont,” she said, “or Greece.”In her Mother’s Day Card from that year, she wrote that I made yummy muffins, was, contrary to fact, good at mathematics, loved when I tickled, hugged, and kissed her, and that she “relly relly relly relly relly relly relly relly relly relly relly relly” loved me.

Twelve relly’s.

Stay here and love us, forever: this was the sacred directive given to me by my children.

In the years since that public declaration, I’ve done the hard work in therapy, I take my meds, respect my body (no cutting, no starving), got sober, and continue to write my way out of hell and into health. Sobriety and stability are clarifying and being a Mother in recovery means showing our children that they don’t have to stay stuck in a bad situation. By our own example one day at a time, we show them how to persevere, to stay hopeful, to recover and thrive after what seems insurmountable failure.

I am mostly happy these days and can hardly remember those years foundering at the bottom of the dark well, the years I believed I would never find joy again, never be the mother I wanted to be for my children again, never write another word that mattered again, never look forward to the next day and the day after that again. Now? I know that I am not (and never was) the scummy, filthy dreg at the bottom of a bottle of booze, and that while I might have been a mad Momma for a time, I have always been loved. Now? I am the safe harbor, my steady beacon blinking: Here-Here-Here-Always Here-Always Here-Always Here.

Bipolar disorder is not curable, but it is manageable; sobriety is hard even on the easy days; and I fought to regain my life and my life with my children.

Know this to be true: if you are where I was, please do not despair because you are worth fighting for, skinned knuckles and scraped knees, bruises and blood. Fight for your life, your joy, your own self-love. The world wants you back, the light is waiting, and your children are here.

View the original article at thefix.com

13 May 2019
Orchestra Aims To Help Musicians With Mental Health Struggles

“I cannot count the ways the orchestra helps me. It has allowed me to overcome the shame I felt about living with mental illness,” said one member.

When he is conducting an orchestra, there’s nothing that alludes to Ronald Braunstein’s struggle with bipolar disorder.

That’s because, according to The New York Times, Braunstein finds that music helps him cope with and manage his diagnosis. In fact, he believes this so much that he has founded the Me2/Orchestra for performers who are dealing with mental health struggles.

Braunstein graduated from the Juilliard School in his early 20s before traveling to Austria for a summer program at the Salzburg Mozarteum. In 1979, he won the Karajan International Conducting Competition and was the first American to do so. From there his career blossomed.

At the time, he did not know he had bipolar disorder. He was not diagnosed until age 35. But he says in looking back, he sees how it affected his career.

“The unbelievable mania I experienced helped me win the Karajan,” he told the Times. “I learned repertoire fast. I studied through the night and wouldn’t sleep. I didn’t eat because if I did, it would take away my edge.”

“My bipolar disorder was just under the line of being under control,” he said. “It wasn’t easily detected. Most people thought I was weird.”

In Vermont, after being dropped by his manager and terminated from a job, he met a woman named Caroline Whiddon, who he later married. Whiddon had been the chairwoman for the Youth Orchestra Division of the League of American Orchestras and had struggled with depression and anxiety.

Braunstein contacted her in hopes of founding an orchestra for those who struggled with mental health issues.

In 2011, the Me2/Orchestra was born. Then in 2014, Me2/Boston was created. Both orchestras have about 50 members, ages 13 to 80, and perform six to eight times per year.

The orchestras are nonprofits and all musicians volunteer their times. Each year, Whiddon takes part in a letter-writing campaign to raise the money for expenses.

“When we perform at a hospital, center for the homeless or correctional facility,” Whiddon said, “the cost of that performance is covered by corporate sponsorships, grants or donations from individuals, so the performance is free to those who attend.”

Each time they perform, according to the Times, members of the orchestra discuss their mental health struggles and answer questions from the audience.

Jessica Stuart, 34, tells the Times that she had stopped playing violin in her 20s after her diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Now, as an orchestra member, she is back to playing.

“Joining the Me2/Orchestra in Boston in 2014 was the first time I had played in years,” she told the Times. “I cannot count the ways the orchestra helps me. It has allowed me to overcome the shame I felt about living with mental illness. I no longer feel I have to hide an important part of my life from the rest of the world.”

View the original article at thefix.com

1 February 2019
Doctor Loses License After Prescribing Pot Cookies To 4-Year-Old

The case was brought to light when the boy’s father asked a school nurse to give his son a marijuana edible.

A California doctor lost his medical license after recommending cannabis cookies for a four-year-old boy who the doctor diagnosed with ADHD and bipolar disorder after a half-hour meeting.

However, the doctor continues to practice while awaiting an appeal.

William Eidelman, a natural medicine physician, met with the boy and his father in 2012, according to The Los Angeles Times. Eidelman, who estimates he had recommended more than 10,000 people for the medical marijuana program, had previously recommended that the father use cannabis to treat his son’s bipolar and ADHD.

The father brought his son in when the child was having trouble behaving at school. After a brief meeting, Eidelman made a similar diagnosis and recommendation for the preschooler.

In the decision to repeal Eidelman’s medical license, the California Medical Board said that his actions were “grossly negligent.”

“Tantrums alone… do not support either diagnosis,” the board members wrote in a decision. “‘Being agitated’ and ‘having trouble sitting still’ hint at ADHD, but could simply hint at a preschooler not happy to have driven many miles to a doctor’s appointment.”

The case came to light when the boy’s father asked a school nurse to give his son a marijuana edible. The nurse alerted child protective services, which ultimately led to an investigation into the doctor. The board found that he had acted irresponsibly.

“Although he did not outright suggest a diagnosis… he all but made one up out of whole cloth,” the board wrote. “Labeling a child with a significant mental condition can be harmful… if those labels are incorrect, pernicious results may follow.”

If the diagnoses were properly made, the recommendation of cannabis would have been acceptable, the board wrote, but because Eidelman did not consult with a psychiatrist the diagnosis was improper.

“It has not been established, by clear and convincing evidence, that the recommendation of medical marijuana to [the boy], with his father’s consent, violated the standard of care,” the board wrote.

The board suspended Eidelman’s license in early January, but he is appealing that ruling, and says that he is practicing medicine currently while he waits for the March court date for the appeal.

“The judge ruled that the revocation is stayed, so yes, I’m still practicing,” he said.

However, the board insists that Eidelman should not be practicing, according to spokeswoman Susan Wolbarst.

“The Medical Board of California has not received a court order, signed by a judge, indicating that the revocation was stayed. Accordingly, Eidelman’s license is currently revoked,” she said.

View the original article at thefix.com

1 February 2019
Kanye West Says He Was Misdiagnosed With Bipolar Disorder

The rapper discussed the misdiagnosis during his highly publicized sit-down with President Donald Trump.

In a recent conversation with President Trump, rapper Kanye West expressed that he believes his diagnosis of bipolar disorder was a mistake and he was actually suffering from sleep deprivation.

According to The News-Herald, West met with President Trump on Thursday, October 11 and discussed the importance of communication when it comes to mental health.

“What I think is we don’t need sentences, we need pardons,” he told the president, according to The News-Herald. “We need to talk to people. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I was connected with a neuropsychologist that works with the athletes in the NBA and NFL. He looked at my brain. I wasn’t actually bipolar, I had sleep deprivation which can cause dementia 10 to 20 years from now when I wouldn’t even remember my son’s name.”

In a previous interview, West discussed his diagnosis and said he was happy to know he had bipolar disorder.

“I think it’s important for us to have open conversations about mental health – especially with me being black,” West said. “Because we never had therapists in the black community. We never approached taking a medication. I think it’s good that when I had my first complete blackout at age five, my mom didn’t fully medicate me. Because I might have never been ‘Ye. And there’s times where at least I’m happy that I know [I’m bipolar.] Like, even like for this interview, I knew I wanted to stay in a calm state.”

West has also worked his mental health diagnosis into his songs. In a song called “Yikes” on his album Ye, West sings, “ain’t no disability, I’m a superhero.”

According to Time, West also told radio personality Big Boy that he is grateful to have the resources he does.

“I’m so blessed and so privileged because think about people that have issues that are not Kanye West, that can’t go and make that [music] and make you feel like it’s all good,” he stated. “I’d never been diagnosed and I was like 39 years old… That’s why I said on the album, ‘It’s not a disability, it’s a super power.’”

In addition to his bipolar disorder, the rapper has also struggled with substance use disorder. On an episode of TMZ Live, West discussed his battle with pain pills after having liposuction.

“I was drugged the f— out,” he stated. “I was drugged out. I was on opioids. Two days after I got off opioids, I’m in the hospital. Two days before going to the hospital, I was on opioids. I was addicted to opioids. I had plastic surgery because I was trying to look good for y’all.”

In another interview, this one with radio personality Charlamagne tha God, West explained that he uses anyone he speaks to as his therapist.

“I use the world as my therapist. Anyone I talk to is my therapist,” he said. “I will pull them into the conversation of what I’m feeling at that point and get their perspective… I like just talking to acquaintances, friends, family, and I keep them on the phone for 45 minutes at a time, talking through things. It’s kind of narcissistic.”

View the original article at thefix.com

16 October 2018
How Processed Meats May Affect Mental Health

A new study examined whether the nitrates used to cure meat played a role in manic episodes.

Nitrates, a chemical relied on to cure meat, is believed to be linked to mania, a symptom of mental illness, Newsweek reports.

According to Psych Central, manic episodes are “a mood state characterized by period of at least one week where an elevated, expansive, or unusually irritable mood exists.”

Those having manic episodes are often energized beyond their normal and may describe it as being “on top of the world.”

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine studied data on 1,101 people with and without mental illnesses between 2007 and 2017. The information in the data included health, dietary and demographic information about those who participated. Of those who participated, about 55% were female, 55% were Caucasian and 36% were African American.

Researchers initially intended to determine whether being exposed to certain infections made individuals more likely to have a mental illness.

However, the researchers discovered that individuals who had been hospitalized for mania were 3.5 times more likely to have consumed processed meat before their hospitalization in comparison to a group without mental illnesses.

To test their theory, the researchers fed rats nitrates. In doing so, they discovered that those rats were more likely to exhibit hyperactivity and irregular sleep patterns when compared to rats on a normal diet.

They also found that the rats that consumed nitrates had a different bacteria makeup in their digestive systems and exhibited differences in their brain’s molecular pathways linked to bipolar disorder.

Dr. Robert Yolken, lead author of the study and professor of neurovirology in pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, released a statement acknowledging the prominence of processed meat in the diets of those with manic episodes.

“We looked at a number of different dietary exposures and cured meat really stood out,” he stated, according to Newsweek. “It wasn’t just that people with mania have an abnormal diet.”

Previously, Yolken and his team conducted another study that implied that probiotics could decrease the likelihood that someone with mania would be re-hospitalized in the six months following hospitalization.

“There’s growing evidence that germs in the intestines can influence the brain,” he said. “And this work on nitrates opens the door for future studies on how that may be happening.”

Seva Khambadkone is an M.D. and Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins who participated in the study. According to Newsweek, he says genetic and environmental factors play a role in mental illness.

“It’s clear that mania is a complex neuropsychiatric state, and that both genetic vulnerabilities and environmental factors are likely involved in the emergence and severity of bipolar disorder and associated manic episodes,” he stated. “Our results suggest that nitrated cured meat could be one environmental player in mediating mania.”

View the original article at thefix.com

26 July 2018