Bipolar Disorder; The Cost of Being Cured
In my previous post,Cost for a Cure , taymachelle made a comment about her desires for better treatment but not necessarily a cure. She writes, "Maybe its one of those things that I consider part of me- that I would never really want to go away."
This is certainly something to consider. Many people with Bipolar Disorder or other mental illness' may know what taymachelle is referring too. Sometimes medication can leave a person left feeling less than they were before they started the prescription. Perhaps these are physical side effects, or to some the much worse, a loss of creativity and/or mental capacity.
This is part of the ongoing medication challenge we all face. The risk versus benefit factor, finding the right combination for our own needs and chemistry.
If the Australian research team were to someday find a cure, or anyone else for that matter, we may be facing an even more serious risk versus benefit factor.
Disrupting, adjusting chemistry to fix or repair a brain that is destructive to one's life.
Would you pay a possible permanent price (similar to what you may experience with medication) for a forever fix promising peace?
Tags
[Bipolar Disorder]
This is certainly something to consider. Many people with Bipolar Disorder or other mental illness' may know what taymachelle is referring too. Sometimes medication can leave a person left feeling less than they were before they started the prescription. Perhaps these are physical side effects, or to some the much worse, a loss of creativity and/or mental capacity.
This is part of the ongoing medication challenge we all face. The risk versus benefit factor, finding the right combination for our own needs and chemistry.
If the Australian research team were to someday find a cure, or anyone else for that matter, we may be facing an even more serious risk versus benefit factor.
Disrupting, adjusting chemistry to fix or repair a brain that is destructive to one's life.
Would you pay a possible permanent price (similar to what you may experience with medication) for a forever fix promising peace?
Tags
[Bipolar Disorder]
posted by Mom, Interrupted at 12:04 PM
11 Comments:
Why thank you for mentioning me- and the comment on my blog. Things have been difficult in dealing with the school- however they really can't do anything (like kick me out)- my grades and clinical performance are really good. The students said that they felt that I was aggressive- and they are probably right. I am a huge patient advocate- and if I think that someone is not being treated fairly because of discrimination- then I will probably raise hell. (but I would do that anyway- even if I wasn't bipolar)
It all started when in a class discussion about homosexuals in the school system, someone said, "I don't want no gay teacher teaching my child- thats wrong- and the kids are very impressionable- they shouldn't even be allowed to be around kids."
Unfortunately: I'm a liberal who doesn't know when to shut up. I don't know what being gay has to do with teaching the 5th grade- in fact, my favorite teacher in high school was a lesbian. It in no way affected her ability to be an excellent teacher- and most people didn't even know. It didn't interfere at all- being gay has nothing to do with being able to teach children the curriculum, and to be a good solid role model. The close minded idiot then replied, "well you don't even know what you're talking about because you don't even have kids".
Perhaps I got emotional because that struck a cord with me (i can't have kids)- but I do want to someday adopt after I finish nursing school.
So yeah- I tend to speak my mind quite forcefully- but I'm pretty sure that I would do that even if I wasn't bipolar.
PS- I am also one of those liberals who thinks that gay couples should be allowed to adopt- because children just need a family- and no family is perfect anyway. So what if you have two dads...its better than not having one at all. If someone told me that I couldn't adopt because I was bipolar- I would feel like my maternal rights were being violated.
PSS- I'm doing better- I saw my pdoc today and she rearranged my medications so hopefully that will help with finals coming up next week.
Thanks- and hope you are doing well too.
Although I've been very sick in the past, and still have frequent problems, I don't regret anything. I like who I am, and can't imagine myself any different. Bipolar disorder has helped make me into the person I am: creative and passionate.
I wouldn't mind medication that kept me from the strong mood shifts though. (Though would that make me into a bore?)
It WOULD be interesting if scientist could find out where our creativity comes from. That's a topic I don't tire of exploring.
I agree with Marja - I love the creativity and the passionate person that I am! I don't like the rollercoaster moods or the future down falls that bipolar brings on as we get older, but a cure per se - that would be changing a person's identity!
I would rather them work on the proper medication and education in our society. To minimize the stigma and educate our world about mental illness.
That to me is the ultimate cure!
No, I wouldn't. Despite suffering with depression, I think there are aspects that have given me great awareness. Meds help tremedously in my case though.
i agree with the others.after living with this bipolar brain for my whole life (and the past 18 years with the "diagnosis") it seems hard to imagine separating the bipolar from the rest of me. a cure sounds like a kind of labotomy. what else would it take from who i am. my boyfriend even goes so far as to not look on it as a "disorder" and thinks it is a gift that i am learning to better appreciate and harness to use in good ways. it's nice to live with someone who recognizes that being bipolar gives me a unique perspective and believes that i have experienced expanded states of mind that have contributed to my wisdom about existence rather than thinking of it as something that needs to be cured or erased like a cancer... the very fact that all of us have commented in similar ways on this point so far seems to demonstrate that it is very different from something like cancer. i dont think you'd find anyone saying they don't want a total cure for whatever cancer they might have...
in fact the idea of curing bipolar disorder brings up questions for me. it brings to mind the movie "a clockwork orange" what might happen to the person's mind? what else would get lost? what would be the "side effects" of the cure. they don't seem to even be sure what goes on in the bipolar brain anyway and a cure for bipolar vs. schizophrenia those two things are very different...
just a few thoughts.
i just found this blog and it's my first insight into the minds of people like me, aside from the authors and musicians that inspire me. I am just starting on medication again, first time i gave it up. However, the functional world caught up with me yet again and I sense a depression coming on. I ask myself whether I did what I should have done, did I work hard enough? was I putting my full effort into it and I don't know if I can say that I was. I have felt that what I have is just an insight most people don't possess and that illness is the wrong word. Are these feelings not the true feelings of existance? I guess I am looking for guidance among the people who have been there and back again.
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