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Re: BPII and stress; can meds help one cope? » Sue4

Posted by JohnX2 on November 12, 2001, at 8:52:18

In reply to BPII and stress; can meds help one cope?, posted by Sue4 on November 12, 2001, at 8:24:03


Hi Sue,

Sounds like there may be a little miscommunication
between yourself and your doctor. Hopefully this is
the case, otherwise he is giving you bad information.

It is true that anyone suffering from any form of mental
illness is going to have difficulty "coping" with life
especially when we are on mood swings. It is *extremely*
frustrating for me for example (I'm bpii) if I have a
string of good days, make commitments feeling that I
am well, and then have a string of bad days for what
ever reason and then can't make those commitments.
The unpredictability of the situation adds on to the
stress of the situation greatly.

It is possible and necessary to learn coping skills for
how to deal with these periods. For example, I try at
work to stay on projects that have longer term objectives
as opposed to short term ones. This gives me some bumper
room for mood swings which may interfere with my output.
When I'm feeling better I have to compensate by putting
in a little extra effort. Its kinda annoying because I
would prefer to be enjoying other things in life during
those episodes in feeling better.

Regarding the addition of a mood stabilizer, if you
are indeed rapid cycling, then a mood stabilizer that
smooths things out and adds "predictability" to your
life will by default give you better coping skills.
You are absolutely 100% correct in your thinking there.

I know it really sucks that we have to learn new coping
skills to maximize our life dispite our illness.

I wish you the best of luck with any additional
mood stabilizers. BTW, what treatment path are you
taking ? I found Lamictal to be the best mood
stablizer for me (I rapid cycle too). But everyone
is different. I also did well on neurontin. A lot
of people do well on depakote,tegetrol,trileptal,
and lithium also (not to mention others...).

Good luck,
John

> Hi,
>
> Does anyone know if the condition of BPII, and in particular rapid cycling, make it harder to cope with stressful situations, and if so, does medication, in theory, help?
>
> A doctor recently said to me that he thought my difficulty coping was "me" not the "illness"; if so, why should I bother taking a second mood stabilizer as he suggests...if it's not to treat an "illness" then it sounds like it serves no purpose at all. I have liked this pdoc in the past, but that statement made me feel rather hopeless. To some extent, he may have said it because he doesn't know how much more "fine tuning" we can do on the meds...I may be at the best that I can be, but still does that mean I'm in full remission when he says my difficultly coping is me and not the illness?


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poster:JohnX2 thread:83956
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20011104/msgs/83959.html