Bipolar Disorder (Manic Depression) - Part I

A person visits his doctor or psychiatrist in a state of near-suicide. After probing for other possible causes of the patient's condition, the psychiatrist concludes the culprit is clinical depression, and prescribes a standard antidepressant.

The pill works uncommonly fast. Within two or three days the patient's energy has returned, his dark mood lifts, and for one brief shining moment he knows what it's like to feel normal, and even better than normal.

His mind is racing now. He starts making grand plans. Meanwhile, his mind keeps racing. He thinks this is just a side effect that will go away, so he takes another pill. After all, the very last thing he wants to happen is to crash back into that horrible depression of his, knowing full well that next time there may be no return.

But his racing mind refuses to stop. Instead, it cranks into an even higher gear. He cannot sleep, his heart is pounding, he is talking a mile a minute, and soon he is vividly hallucinating. Roller-coaster is totally inadequate to describe the experience. One is not driving the brain. Rather, the brain is driving the person. In extreme cases, the victim will rage completely out of control, and in one extraordinary situation, a person actually robbed a bank and was acquitted.

That, my friends, is the closest modern medicine has come to a laboratory test for a psychiatric condition. The illness is bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression. Toss an antidepressant at a person with bipolar - with no moodstabilizing medication to hold the antidepressant action at bay - and watch him flip out.

Ping! Flip City.

The reason I happen to know so much about this is that it happened to me. Thankfully, I did not rob a bank, but I know from my experience how it could happen. For the crisis intervention psychiatrist who later saw me, it was a no-brainer. "Bipolar mixed," she wrote on the scrip with no comment. With those two words, my life changed. I was branded.

By the same token, I was also relieved. After a lifetime of denial, I knew what I was up against. Having identified my adversary, I could begin to fight it, where I stood an excellent chance of winning.

So how come my first psychiatrist did not pick it up? I consider myself lucky. Most people with bipolar do not receive a correct diagnosis until their third or fourth try. And unless we happen to land in the hospital in the midst of a wildly manic episode, there is not much for the doctor to go on.