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Written by JR1
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01 May 2008 |
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Statistics are "all over the board", so to speak as to the extent of drug abuse among the spectrum of mental illnesses. Almost all clinicians, counsellors, and health professionals who are aware of the phenomenon seem to agree that the individual with, especially chronic, mental illness has a strong tendency to substance abuse, addiction, self-medication.
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Written by JR1
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27 June 2007 |
 Some folks argue that those of us who have bipolar disease or addiction are more sensitive than usual to pain--both mental and physical pain. Pain relief for those of us who have for years "self-medicated" is a troublesome issue. In the back of our minds is the instinctive caution: "The substances which made us sick will not make us well again." Yet many of us who were substance "abusers" are faced with the choice to take prescriptions for mind or mood altering substances.
Our new prescriptions may be different from the booze and street drugs we have taken, but the general effect and the dependence we feel when we take them under doctors' orders are not so different, though perhaps no so intense, from the stuff we have abused. We must be at all times wary of relapse.
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Written by JR1
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27 May 2007 |
 If you're addicted, you know that mood swings
place you in a tug of war between manic and depressed. Even when you haven't
been diagnosed with a mood or behavioral disorder, the mood swings leave you
raw and vulnerable to relapse. Friends and critics will say, "Why don't
you just quit acting like that and get on with your life!? Just make up your
mind and DO it! Why can't you help YOURSELF, for a change!?"
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Written by JR1
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06 May 2007 |
 Sometimes I wish I had never been born with ego and pride. Those two things have caused me a lot of pain.
We bipolar folk are often volatile and sensitive toward what others think and say about us. I have found for myself that the "volatile and sensitive" aspect of my nature may work against me.
At least twenty times in my life, people had suggested that I am an
alcoholic. At least a hundred times in my life, people had suggested
that I am a jerk. I don't know HOW many doctors suggested that I am
manic depressive (bipolar)..... Of course, I told all of them to go to
hell. After all, what do THEY, these strangers, know about ME!? How
DARE they besmirch me with their lies and accusations!
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