Oh wow when I first read TC's comments I was about to get stuck into him luckily I reread it and realised he said "in my world" BiPolar, Depression doesn't exist- you are so very lucky. My mum has BiPolar and it came on quite abruptly in the blink of an eye she changed from a happy go lucky person to someone who goes through incredibly high cycles where she can do anything, goes on spending frenzies, stared to drink a lot (until I stopped it) calls up in the middle of the night etc... to incredibly low cycles where she stays in bed and does not want to talk or move for days which can be so frustrating and hard to understand when you are watching on (and yes she is now on medication that tries to stabilise the swings). We have to remember that a lot of what we are hearing about Foran is media speculation and of course sensationalising stories sell. We hardly ever hear from him in person so I am going to give him the benefit of doubt in case he really is suffering. I wish him and his family well.
Yep. Tried not to bite with TC this time around but your post should be supported. My partner is bipolar, the symptoms are as you describe. The first sign, strangely enough is that her speech begins to quicken. She doesn't notice it but it's a major sign for me to ask that she remembered her medication. She is one of life's brilliant people and went for too many years undiagnosed and struggling. The drugs mean everyone just sees her as one of life's bright and caring people that you just want to be around. She's fortunate to have the less evil of the two types of bipolar.
I can vaguely understand TC's half baked ideas in depression. I have a friend who just cannot get out of bed for weeks at a time. I understand she's depressed but I still wonder if she'd be better off out in the sunshine. But that's the complexity of it for the layperson - because we think that's what we'd do, that's what they should do. And that's rubbish.
But to question something like bipolar where a person really has no control over what's going on with them, well, TC really has never met anyone in his world who has suffered from the condition.
And, while I'm at it, here's a sobering example of how fragile the brain is for everyone. My mother is 86. She's had growing dementia for a while, but just the forgetful stuff. Six weeks ago, she started to tell me about a woman who was calling out "Joan ******* is a prostitute". This quickly escalated to her knocking on a neighbour's door to find the culprit and then hearing the accusation through the radio. She was tormented every moment of the day and night.
She's in hospital now and the doctors have ruled out a urinary tract infection, which apparently can cause this, and are trying another test for a rare type of dementia. Meanwhile, she's on antipsychotics which have her totally in la la land but not tortured - as she completely was. I reiterate, she was forgetful but completely sane before this came out of nowhere.
I just tell this story to show how completely fragile our brains are.