<p>Cheers,
It’s good to hear that your brother has been stable for so long. Do you have any ideas which medications have worked for him? It’s a trial and error process, but it’s good to know what works for people.
I plan to speak to my son’s psychologist about cognitive therapy.</p>
<p>A note on medications: what works for one will have little effect on another. Finding the right dosage is a non-trivial process. And, most maddeningly, the most effective dosage can change over time.</p>
<p>I’ve mentioned in another thread that one of D’s best friends is bi-polar and is at U/Chicago and doing splendidly. Studying neuroscience(!!).</p>
<p>Good luck to your son, RunningMan.</p>
<p>Runningman, what a difficult and courageous decision! You are truly being a parent by supporting your son this way.</p>
<p>When I first read your post, I thought about my brother, also bi-polar, who tends toward a common trait: using alcohol to self-medicate. If we had known years ago about the high coincidence of alcohol abuse and bi-polar disease, he might have listened and avoided it, but we didn’t know. I hope you’ll take the time to discuss this with the therapist and find a way to convince your son of the dangers.</p>
<p>There is nothing quite like observing a loved one in the throes of psychosis. It is as if their body had suddenly become inhabited by someone else - a stranger.</p>
<p>But it is also very important to realize that a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, while very serious and requiring very serious attention, is anything but a sentence to a life of gloom and doom.</p>
<p>Here is something that I recently posted on another thread, which, if anything, is even more relevant here:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And speaking of Kay Jamison, the new edition of her and Frederick Goodwin’s text on bipolar disorder, * Manic-Depressive Illness: Bipolar Disorders and Recurrent Depression*, has just been published. It’s the preeminent work in the field and is readily available from Amazon, among other places.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Your statement is only partially true, epistrophy. It depends on the severity of the illness. </p>
<p>I know a half dozen other people who are at least as ill as my brother. I don’t know if I would characterize their lives as ‘doom and gloom’ but their lives are greatly diminished–sometimes tragically so given the promise and potential shown during childhood. We know that. That know that. Not a few posters have experience with the worst aspects of this illness. They do not post their tragic stories out of respect and tenderness for families coping with a new diagnosis.</p>
<p>Runningman’s son has had a psychotic break at age 17. His brilliant college career has been derailed–hopefully temporarily.</p>
<p>Fingers crossed-- he instantly finds and accept a medical regime which will stabilize him and allow him to rise to meet the challenges of a place like JHU, but if he doesn’t, or if it takes years to find and accept that regime, let’s provide a space of understanding for the anguish he and his family must endure. </p>
<p>For myself and my family, one of the most frustrating aspects of the last 22 years has been the societal insistence on hope and optimism. Knock, knock. My brother will not get ‘better’. He is as good as he will get. He’s light years away from JHU med school or anything like JHU–and so are the other severe bi-polar patients that I know. They are simply happy to steer clear of the psychiatric wards. </p>
<p>As their loving families, we are (finally) blessed to be equally happy with that ambition.</p>
<p>Three points:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You are right, cheers, to question my words “is anything but.” That does not fully capture the variety of outcomes that can accompany this disorder. In hindsight, I should have used the words “need not be.” </p></li>
<li><p>The single most important thing for this young man and his family at this point, I think (especially the young man), is that they accept this diagnosis and, with it, the fact that this is a chronic disorder that will likely require management through medication for the rest of his life. (One of many reasons why such early acceptance is important relates to the concept of “kindling”; the more manic episodes that one has had, the more likely it is thought to be that there will be more such episodes, which is part of why early, aggressive, and continuing treatment is so important.) And part of the process of acceptance involves, I think, recognition that this disorder, though undeniably serious, need not “derail” him permanently. Colleges throughout this country, including the very best ones, have many, many students - and professors - who have bipolar disorder. Many high achieving individuals in many fields (the arts, entertainment, law, business, what have you) have this disorder. Of course, such “success” stories are only part of the picture (which is why I should have used “need not be” rather than “is anything but”), but they are a very big part of the picture indeed.</p></li>
<li><p>Having family members who have this disorder myself (and who in one instance, like this young man, experienced their first psychotic break at the age of 17), I am only too familiar with it and have nothing but empathy and sympathy for what this young man and his family are currently going through.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks for that, e. You don’t know how many people, including the psychiatrist who lived across the street, told my brother he would probably “grow out of” the severe aspects of the illness. He didn’t.</p>
<p>On the one hand, that crazy notion allowed him to squeeze a fairly ‘normal’ decade (cute house, stunning wife, journalism and programming jobs, college degree) in between hospitalizations. On the other hand, it made the reality of the illness much harder to accept, led to repeated disappointments and year-long periods of depression that would take the hair off of his back–and ours. The psychic breaks are scary until you see those depths of depression.</p>
<p>Other youngsters that I know do accept the diagnosis easily–but they usually haven’t suffered psychic breaks. </p>
<p>It’s the accepting part that is the deal breaker for young men who don’t have the cognitive ability to understand ‘consequence’. Many do turn to self-medication with drugs and alcohol. My brother never did, by some miracle, but he didn’t truly accept his health status until he met this particular psychiatrist–some 16 years after his first break.</p>
<p>When Kay Jamison talks about manic faculty at JHU, I often wonder if she is, in fact, referring to people who have hypomania.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Obviously, I don’t know the answer to this. But I do know, from Jamison’s memoir (An Unquiet Mind), that she had full-blown manic episodes herself, which included psychosis. And she (as you probably know) then went on to become not only one of the foremost authorities in the world on this disorder, but also the author of many books on mood disorders aimed at the general public, as well as the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant.</p>
<p>With disorders of this sort, labels can be useful but they can also be very misleading. With bipolar disorder, for example, there sometimes seem to be as many varieties of the disorder as there are individuals who have it. Each person has his - or her - own distinctive story.</p>
<p>Following up on the point that a diagnosis of bipolar disorder need not result in any sort of long-term “derailing,” I just came across this listing of a weekly support group for students with this disorder at Harvard:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://huhs.harvard.edu/ClinicalServices/ClinicalServicesMentalHealthInfoSchedule.htm[/url]”>http://huhs.harvard.edu/ClinicalServices/ClinicalServicesMentalHealthInfoSchedule.htm</a></p>
<p>I was just diagnosed bi-polar. It’s a confusing time dealing with but I dont have my paren’ts support, my mom just thinks I’m crazy or “■■■■■■■■” I’m not sure with the method of treatment “transquillers”, it just makes me want to sleep all day long. I usually get through the day by sleeping in late and taking naps through the day since I have to take the medication twice a day.</p>
<p><a href=“http://studentdoctor.net/blog/2007/10/09/highs-and-lows-bipolar-in-medical-school/#more-379[/url]”>http://studentdoctor.net/blog/2007/10/09/highs-and-lows-bipolar-in-medical-school/#more-379</a></p>
<p>I found this article about a bipolar med. student on another site I visit and thought of this thread…</p>
<p>bbecker , it often takes alot of adjusting of the medication, so be sure and talk to your doctors about the sleepiness, I am sure they will adjsut the medications</p>
<p>good luck, and you are not alone, and I am sorry your mom is saying those things, she is probably scared and blames herself and feels bad you are having to work through this…look to your doctors for support</p>
<p>take care</p>
<p>Op and others reading this thread, please check out this national association for support and guidance:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nami.org/[/url]”>http://www.nami.org/</a></p>
<p>“Now, he still wants to go”</p>
<p>I wouldn’t necessarily change that. I would scout ahead for the services he will need there. Get the ducks in a row so to speak. Talk to the school and investigate the area’s healthcare situation. Maybe a trip out before school to see and introduce. </p>
<p>I don’t know if I would immediately cancel his “plans”. Sick or not, it’s a quick way to build resentment. You have to have a candid talk about his condition and the steps he must follow for this to work out.</p>
<p>Did you have a deadline from the college that accepted him early? On RD, they don’t think you have to file for a gap year until May1. </p>
<p>WHnever the real deadline approaches, I would think that his doctor could look at the kind of progress he’d made in the previous (let’s say) 3 months, then project forward another 4 months if the doctor thinks it’s advisable. By progress, all I mean there is: progress managing the illness and finding the dosage of medicines that works well. You might even ask the dr. right now,
“how long does it usually take to find the right meds and dosages?” If he says “six months usually” well, maybe you don’t have to skip a year from his college plans.</p>
<p>My brother was bipolar but went to college on time. He had a problem during the first year and the folks brought him home for a small amount of time. He did graduate on time. But he’d been diagnosed at 16 so they were getting a handle on the meds to use. Over time, he got better and better at self-management.</p>
<p>By contrast, a different child I know with less serious illness was given some brand new medicines in late August just weeks before departing for college. That turned out to be too little time. It takes some kids a while to learn to take medicine dutifully, every day; how to recognize signs if they’re slipping back (bro says that’s the MOST important understanding) to go ask for help quickly from the medical team). It’s only October now; and you’re thinking about next September. So I’d just work on the illness management with the medical team for now, and make no decisions until deadline what you’ll do about a gap year or not.</p>
<p>The most important decisions must be made IN CONSULTATION with S and doctor together. You sound like caring parents, and that’s important along with the medicine, IMHO. </p>
<p>My bro (who works for NAMI) says the biggest problem in bipolar is people not taking their meds as soon as they feel better. Brilliant people try to bully the disease this way. It’s important to acquire the humility and acceptance of physical/chemical
illness, despite the brilliant mind.</p>
<p>My bro’s only fault with my parents was he says they pushed him back into work and jobs too quickly after each recovery. If he’s feeling better, he oughta work – asap. He thinks he could have used a bit more couch time, and there’d have been fewer backslides because the work itself was such a stressor. I don’t have any idea if he’s right or not, but it’s the “only” mistake he feels they made. Other than that he’s sure they saved his life by being SO compassionate.</p>
<p>EDIT: What a blessing that he’s already accepted into college! So much less senior year stress. This also can help him address the illness more fully in the coming year, working on finding the right meds and doses. It does take some experimenting around by the doctors, as there are several kinds of meds and they want to give each one some weeks of trial for feedback; up the dosage; more weeks, more feedback, etc. Usually all meds start with low dosages and they work up until it’s effective, so again: be patient especially these first months. Ask also how long it takes each med to build up in his system. Some of these aren’t like an aspirin with immediate result. It’s always an important question. I have to take a med for thyroid balance that originally took 6 weeks to “kick in” but if I forget to take it, the negative impact shows up within days. So these are things to learn about for each med. Best wishes; he WILL make it.</p>