More on Bipolar

Hi. I came across your website. Your ideas are really interesting and I'll definitely check out your books. I've been on the bipolar merry-go-round for too long. All my manias have been caused by standard treatments for depression so I think I've been misdiagnosed. If I can avoid getting depressed again, I think I can walk away from that whole mess. A few pointers for myself coming from my own experience:

Don't feed the beast, meaning don't help the depression by letting things go, staying indoors, getting isolated, being self-indulgent.

Stay away from alcohol. You're predisposed to a mood disorder and you need to keep your wits about you at all times.

Most professional help can be safely ignored. Psychiatrists have a vested interest in promoting the biomedical myth. Bipolar disorder has been described as a "chronic, lifelong disease." Not one of those three words is accurate. F____________

Dear F___________

Thanks for your letter. Yes, it's truly sad that people don't realize that they don't have to think depression. Bipolar is almost like some kind of mass hysteria. People absolutely dedicate their whole lives to it.

The problem is that it is so devastatingly painful that people simply can't believe they are doing it to themselves. I understand that seduction because I get hit with it all the time. But I have built another neural pattern in my brain that pops up the same time depression does that tells me to "do an exercise right now." And I do. And the depression goes away.

It's like migraine headaches. People don't believe that they are causing them and they can stop them without drugs. I understand that also as I was rushed to the hospital twice, my husband thinking I was having a heart attack. The diagnosis--migraine. I had migraine headaches for 20 years. So bad I would be throwing up from the pain. I used to say that migraine headaches were the most pain you could give yourself without passing out. I don't have them any more. They come on, I get the signal behind the eye, I immediately STOP whatever I am doing and totally RELAX. RELAX. RELAX. If there is no tension, migraines can't happen.

A. B. Curtiss