Dealing with Depression or Bi-polar Illness

Dealing with Depression, or Manic Depression also known as Bi-Polar, is not something you should try to tackle on your own. These are both very serious illnesses, which people tend to try to ignore through working more, or avoid by busying themselves in outside activities. Usually these methods end up doing more harm than good. People with these illnesses who try to ignore them usually end up in Mental Health Units because of suicide attempts, leaving people to wonder what happened. Sometimes they don’t even make it to receive help. People suffering from Manic Depression go through the depression and then have to deal with the mania, which can convince them to try to fly off a building or walk through traffic believing they will not be harmed.

Depression or what some people refer to as “down in the dumps”, is for most people a situational condition that gets them down, when the situation is gone so is the depression. Occasionally medication might be needed, but most people muddle through. When it is an illness however, that feeling or condition comes out of nowhere, remains for a while, and then leaves just as mysteriously. Once this depression has reached maturity, it is like having your mind and body wrapped in a wet blanket. You feel like the act of thinking, much less getting out of bed, is beyond your strength. Every action, every thought, is mired in concrete. This goes on for days or weeks. Sometimes it can go on for a month or more.

The opening stages of mania are a feeling of being on top of the world. Nothing can stop you. Allowed to progress, just like depression, it gets worse. People believe they can fly, that they are God, or that nothing can harm them. Most people like the feeling of mania, it is really a lot better than the monster of depression. That is, until it reaches the point of being scary. “Waking up” in an unknown area or in a completely different state sometimes, not knowing what it was you were doing. Many deaths happen each year from untreated mania, and even more from depression.

When these episodes happen, you are dragged down physically, mentally, and emotionally. It takes time to return to a feeling of “normal”. What usually happens however is that although you feel “normal”, you really just feel better than what you did. Worse, that feeling of normal degrades into a feeling of just “not that depressed”. Why this happens is that when you return from an episode, you never return to the mental/emotional state from which you left. You return to a plateau beneath that which, for a period of time, is functional. Eventually, if you don’t have another episode, you might return to your former level and continue with your life. What happens after a period of time however is the episodes get more frequent; and the plateau will get lower and lower. You are now sinking into what is called “The Death Spiral”. Without medication, your level of functioning may degrade to where getting out of bed and getting to the couch will be the accomplishment of the day. Leaving home even to go to the grocery store, seems impossible. Since you aren’t eating anyway, there is little point. Serious thoughts of suicide will become more and more common until an attempt is made.

Both of these conditions are very treatable with medication. These conditions are known as “Organic”, meaning it is a physical condition. There are chemicals missing, or overproduced in your brain. Medication can replace, replicate, or control these chemicals allowing you to go on with your life. However, staying on medication is also a challenge. The mind tricks you into believing it was all a dream, or that the seriousness of that episode was a one-time thing you more or less talked yourself into in a weak moment. “After all” people say, “I dealt with it this long without a problem” and “Maybe I just need to cut back on the overtime”. So the cycle continues, and the episodes get worse. Some people end up putting treatment off until they are unable to support themselves, and are forced onto Social Security Disability. Fighting the depression and/or mania, along with being forced to deal with the pressures of doing your job well enough to convince yourself there is nothing wrong; results in the brain being overwhelmed for too long. It just fizzles out. Medication can give it enough of a break that, over time you may be restored to a point of functional living again. Although the days of working a lot of overtime, or working a stressful job may be far behind you, this is better than where you just came from by far.

Early treatment, and remaining on that treatment, is the key to keeping your standard of living. If you feel down in the dumps every so often for no recognizable reason, talk to your family doctor; also if you feel down in the dumps and then a short while later like you are superman, talk to your family doctor. These are a couple of the warning signs that something might be going on with you, and it might need attention before it gets worse. Medication slows or stops the progression, and allows you to successfully deal with your illness. Obviously if you fit into any of the conditions mentioned above; unable to get out of bed, not eating – or overeating, suicidal, or on the opposite extreme of these examples; seek help immediately. Do not put it off. There is no shame in these illnesses any more than there is shame in cancer, or diabetes. There is nothing you can do to prevent getting it – but there is a lot you can do to control it. The choice is yours.