Are you bipolar or an addict looking for insight from a like-minded soul? Have a loved one suffering from bipolar or addiction and want some inside advice? While I’m not a doctor or medical expert, I can tell you about my experiences with this dual diagnosis and look to support others with replies. Note that your submission may be used in an upcoming blog post, although names will be changed.
This week Lisa A. writes:
Are you born bipolar, or is it something that happens to you?
Sometimes I think “What if I never took a psychotropic med in my life? Would I still be bipolar?” My mania was triggered by the antidepressant Prozac.
The depression I felt when I first entered a psychiatrist’s office wasn’t nearly as bad as the depression I would experience one year later when I crashed after a manic episode. When I first sought treatment, I had hit a ceiling at my job, with no prospects of moving up. It had become mundane. And I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with my life. So part of the depression was fueled by outside circumstances. It was uncomfortable but manageable compared to future depressions. It was anxiety that brought me in the door of my first psychiatrist.
As I’ve written about here before, I was working for MTV News, producing on-air talent Gideon Yago for a live, Q&A town hall event in New Hampshire with college students and then-presidential-candidate John McCain. My palms sweated profusely the entire weekend and I immediately went in to see my first psychiatrist upon returning home. She diagnosed me with depression and prescribed Prozac. Within weeks I was happy again. And the happiness just kept escalating and escalating to the point of mania.
But what if I’d never taken that Prozac? Would the sky-high manias and cavernous depressions have ever happened?
Doctors don’t entirely understand the causes of bipolar disorder. However, genetics do play a role. And if you have a family member who has it, you might have it, too. Scientists have even found that the chances of an identical twin of someone with bipolar twin ending up with the disorder is 40-70 percent, according to WebMD.
Norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine are brain chemicals that — when levels are out of whack — can cause depression or bipolar disorder, also according to WebMD. Particularly norepinephrine and serotonin have been tied to bipolar and depression. Dopamine affects schizophrenia.
Bipolar tends to develop in the late teens or early 20s. But for many, it doesn’t just come out of nowhere; there is a trigger. Stress can be a major factor in triggering bipolar disorder. A death in the family, a move, the birth of a child, etc., can contribute.
Doctors have developed a hypothesis called the Diathesis-Stress Hypothesis, which suggests that brain chemistry can make certain people more susceptible to mood disorders.
Dr. Rashmi Nemade, Ph.D. and Dr. Mark Dombeck, Ph.D. break down some of the causes in this article.
“Merely possessing a vulnerability for an illness alone is not enough to trigger that illness into action,” they write. “Instead, people’s vulnerabilities must interact with life stresses to prompt the onset of the illness.
“The current thinking regarding the causes of bipolar disorder is essentially that bipolar disorder results when bipolar diatheses (hidden and unexpressed vulnerabilities) meet a source of sufficient stress necessary to activate them and cause the disease to start.”
So we’re dealing with a very complicated dynamic. Upon doing the research for this blog post, I’ve come to a realization. When I think about my anxiety attacks in New Hampshire, I think “Wow, that really was the stressful event that triggered my bipolar.” I don’t think taking the Prozac caused my mania. Sure enough, it helped. But I would’ve had a manic episode at some point anyway.
What was the stressful event that triggered your bipolar disorder? Leave a comment below.
