What is a bi-polar?

What do people mean when they say “bi-polar”? Is that the same as being manic-depressive? I receive texts like this and my eyes roll up. Am I getting to be one of the authorities on these disorders? My mother has Alzheimer’s disease. I married into a family with bi-polar afflictions. One of my children once was depressed for two years. One of my in-laws had horrifying manic fits. Sometimes it feels like I live in the middle of this. So am I qualified to reply?

Being bi-polar, a synonym for being manic-depressive, means you have a mood disorder. A capital T looks like this. Imagine it upside down with a pendulum over the centerline. The pendulum swings to the left, let’s call that the depression side, and to the right, let’s call that the manic side. If it swings much farther than normal, then you are either manic or depressive.

If you are a normal person you will also have depressions but you can get over them in three days max. I get heavily depressed sometimes. I don’t want to get out of bed. I don’t want to take a bath. I don’t want to do anything. I am sulking and watching TV and sleeping all day. But the next morning I wake up feeling like a pig. I can’t stand how dirty I am. I get out of bed, go into the shower, take a long bath, get dressed and go out. My depression lifts in 24 hours. I am normal.

You are probably bi-polar or manic-depressive if first you have anxiety that leads you to lack sleep. You cannot sleep for a few nights then you plunge into depression or go manic. When you are depressed you think the only solution to your problem is suicide. Only clinically depressed people commit suicide, I read somewhere. Many depressives contemplate suicide but they pull themselves out of it. Or they are given drugs that pull them out of it onto a normal level again. Or you could be manic —  when you think you can conquer anything, set up a string of coffee shops to compete with Starbucks and be very successful, or jump off a building because you believe you can fly.

Either way it is terrifying for your family and others who love you. You are muddling through confusion but your parents don’t know where or how to get help, whom to call. In addition there’s the problem of our culture. We don’t want to tell anyone that our child is depressed or manic or behaving strangely. We are full of fear or denial so we don’t get any help at all. I think the first step — and it is a bold one — is to admit that your child is bi-polar. It is not your fault. This is genetic. Nobody’s fault.

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Ricky Soler is an old friend. He has sent me an invitation to the Spiegel Lectures, which will be held at Santuario de San Antonio Parish Center in Forbes Park on Thursday, Sept. 25, at 8:30 to 11 a.m. This will feature Dr. David Spiegel, M.S., professor and associate chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, director of the Center on Stress and Health at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He will speak on “Mind and Body Medicine - Concepts and Practice.”

Ricky’s RSVP adds: The lecture is open to the public. Since the selected venue has seating limitations, requests for confirmed seats will be responded to only on a first-request, first-served basis. E-mail your request to ngfoundation@gmail.com. We will respond based on seat availability at the time of your request. If we can accommodate your request, we will e-mail an encrypted pass that must be printed and presented at the gate.

Sounds like this might be a strict lecture but I am sure it will help those of you who live with these problems daily. Me? I have no more problems with bi-polars so I shall surrender my seat to someone who has. May you find out more and may you find peace of mind. Believe me, I know the sorrow brought by a bi-polar child.

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