Bipolar Advantage

Hi

I have only seen the video here on this page, so do not know what your differentiated opinion is.

But I have a nudge that it is based on managing your life instead of running from and avoiding it and shutting it down, that it is based on learning what you want in life and how to do it, not what you don't want and how not to get it.
If that is not your opinion, bear with me.

I agree if that is your case. There are many people who think the solution for a broken leg is to never move your leg again. For now, it is just mostly rampant in mental health. The body is natural organism that is alive and built to try to adapt to its environment.
If you shut down the attempt at the challenge of adaptation to your life, how it is and how you want it, then you will literally cripple yourself into maladaptation.
F.ex. look at the amount of people diagnosed with depression and then given psychotropic medication without any further investigation into whether that is actually part of the problem (And I mean the problem here, not the symptom) or useful in a good solution. I think depression f.ex. is both some tenditiel on your biology from genes and environment and who you are, but it is also to a large degree a reflection of how things are going for you in life by your viewpoint. Depression is one of the body's ways of telling you, something is wrong here. And what is wrong is rarely the chemicals in the brain in that way.

People who are dissatisfied with their life, unsuccessful in getting what they want, feel they do not now have the capabilities to get that, f.ex. because they have divorced their partners, are working in a job that feels meaningless and feel stuck in life, then become depressed, are diagnosed and by medical advice given some pills that in some way changes some brain chemicals.
Then they can be less depressed about their depressing situation, or so the mental health science hopes. It is really the wrong way around.
The human body is a natural organism that tries to adapt in life and has done so for through our species' lifetime. It is made to tell itself, something is working good here or something is working bad here among many other things. When being depressed is treated as an, in reality, abnormal human reaction (or symptom. Would you ever call being happy a symptom?) then it is excluded and treated as something to be ridden off in itself by sanitization.

It is really almost an abuse of people born of the ignorance of the age.

It is like if you are learning to drive. The first time you drive out, you miss a sign. If you then say, oh well, I'm just not gonna drive where any of those signs are, then you are crippling yourself. Now you just don't miss signs sometimes, now you restricted your driving to where those signs aren't. If you then do not signal when turning another time, then say, oh well, I'm just not gonna turn anymore, then you can't drive the car around in traffic. If you don't fail to start the car a time, and then say, well, then I'm just not gonna start the car, then you can sit in your car and enjoy the seating and not much more. Not a particular fun, interesting or meaningful activity. Talking about depression, that's one way to get that! ;). It is really the wrong way around.

Life is about managing it, not running from it, avoiding it or trying to shut the parts down where you currently fail.

Instead we give psychotropic medication and say, try to live a meaningless, boring life and hopefully your depression will lift. And we give medication that we don't know much about and have wide ranging side effects causing damage to the body sometimes. I think psychotropic medication is good in some cases where there is a need for a temporary effect of the medication to avoid serious danger to the person with depression f.ex.

But trying to plaster symptoms and trying to avoid the problem causing the symptoms is a bad train gone runaway.

The body is a natural organism and therein lies the best solutions to our problems with our body (which also includes our mind).

Hopefully, and probably, more natural and active treatments for patients seeking help will be more dominant in 5-10-15 years.

i would like to see the rest of the presentation!! thanks for the info.

I agree with mel on the whole depression thing. I see people in bad marriages/jobs/familes ect and have a right to be depressed yet instead of doing something about it, they take anti depressents instead.

Is there someplace to read the info that is presented in the video's? I'm deaf and they are not captioned.

A few months ago, I attended a support group with a friend that has been diagnosed with bipolar 1 schizoaffective disorder. We were directed to the newcomers corner to get a sense of what the group(s) have to offer each week. The newbie's consisted of people with bipolar and depression and their loved ones.

One woman asked, "Why do people with bipolar stop taking their medications?"

A young man in his late twenties spoke up and said that while he never stopped taking his medication, he fully understood why people did. He is a writer and before his medicated days was highly creative, had lots of energy, and could easily write chapter after chapter in one night. He said the meds changed his personality and that people around him like it this way because it makes him less of a pain in their butt! Another woman said the meds made her feel flat, empty, she didn't know who she was anymore.

Their accounts brought tears to my eyes. While medication may be necessary, I don't believe in over-medicating which is what seems to happen alot of the time. Like my friend.

I purchased your Advantage package back in 2007 for my friend when he was in crisis but first read the Bipolar and Depression Disorder books for myself. I thought they were both excellent!! However, shortly after, my friend was wisked away and put in rehab for 10 months, then sent to another residential home for people who need continuous care. The people responsible for this had well-intentions, but it hasn't gotten him anywhere. Now he is back home, middle-aged, and having to create an entirely new life for himself without the same support. It's a scary position to be in.

I remain hopeful, though, and intend on purchasing these books again, and directing my friend to your website which I have often done. I think your approach makes the most sense and appreciate all you have to offer. Wish the medical profession in my area had the same mindset.

Keep up the good work, Tom!

Oops,I meant to write Bipolar and Depression ADVANTAGE!!

That's the whole point :)

Tom some of your findings are very significant and bravo for all the good work you are doing for so many many others. I bought your package sitting faraway here in India, but before I had time to go through it, I was so neck deep in work, as a recovered person myself that I thought it was important to share it with others and get on to doing the numerous other things I want to. And no this is not a sudden manic shift- this is a state which has happened after a long period of very consistent effort by me (you have read my writing so you know what I am referring to)

I see mental illness as not something necessarily limited to the person who is showing the malady but as a sign of society malfunctioning, and that getting reflected in certain individuals who are sensitive and who cannot cope with the pace of life around. This is called Social construction. So my current work is in this direction itself.

Mental illness is a label that suits those who can label others. But not those who suffer, or their families or loved ones. So we have to take responsibility for ourselves by not leaving it entirely upto wo/men of medical/pharmaceutical training to decide how we are going to live our lives.

You are doing remarkably well in empowering scores of people. My best wishes to you. May it reach further shores.