Why is bipolar disorder invisible in contemporary society? She's a psychiatrist, and she's a bipolar disorder.

Wen | Hong Kong Mission Kayla

Thoughts touched by fire, raging thoughts like wild horses, gushing outward expression, charming mystical charm, followed by a gray trough, the feeling that life is incredibly painful hope to end the depression ... these are some of the sentences that describe bipolar disorder. Around the afternoon of August 2018, Hong Kong was shrouded in news: Lukai ended his life, and during her lifetime, she spent years wrestling with bipolar disorder while writing a rich level of guitar tracks.

In the 80, Kay R Jamison, a leading psychiatrist, confirmed bipolar disorder when she did not disclose her situation and immersed herself in the study of the mental problems of bipolar disorder, a person who was known as genius. She had been an authority in the psychiatric community, especially in the observation of bipolar disorder, before she had opened her condition out of the closet, and she was more nuanced than anyone else.

Bipolar disorder and depression are not the same, in addition to medication, the need for a longer period of time, patients will go through a lifetime in addition to the melancholy trough, but also experience the manic period-may be sleepless, infinite Soviets, full of self-confidence emotions, people around the opportunity to be difficult to detect the patient is actually a patient. The ups and downs of the life, but it is difficult to use words to describe, this pain, can only try to control, will not recover.

On Earth, how does a woman with bipolar disorder survive in this world, and how does it live in society? What effect does the combination of female and bipolar disorder have? Let's take a female perspective through Kay R Jamison's "Heart of Mania" (an Unquiet Mind), published in 1995, to see how mental problems like ice and fire work.

Who's Kay R Jamison?

Kay R. Jamison is an American psychiatrist and writer who focuses on the bipolar disorder she has been suffering from as a teenager. Her father, a former air force, described herself as an imaginative and full of vitality, and later changed her temperament because of changes in work and the environment, essentially a bipolar disorder.

In the study of Jamison bipolar disorder, the heredity of bipolar disorder was also pointed out. More importantly, she points out in "the Heart of mania" that although bipolar disorder and other emotional disorders affect the psychological level, patients feel psychological pain, but in essence physical illness, rather than because the patient is too pessimistic, want too much, self-trouble and get sick of themselves, this, Is definitely an important argument to break all the prejudices of modern people about mental illness, and it is not widely understood.

Around the age of 16 or 17, her father and sister were depressed, and she found her strong feelings, passions and thoughts beginning to be tiring, and believed that it was when she first had bipolar symptoms, such as a few weeks of sleep and a lot of mental energy, and soon there was a completely opposite state of depression, There was the idea of suicide. In college she has always been a jump of the excellent talent, but chaotic thinking, jumping thinking, sleepless she, but also began to find that their concentration decline, so by the pursuit of medical road, into psychology.

She loved the Psalm "Rebirth" of Miley (Edna St. Vincent Millay), bought a horse and countless items during a manic episode, had a financial crisis, and she married at the age of 25 and later became tired of relationships. After she became an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and was turned into a "doctor" by "Miss", bipolar disorder nearly killed her, and within months of taking office, she was severely irritable, restless, extremely sensitive to sound, and knew it was time to seek medical attention until she had an illusion.

After the publication of the heart of mania, she also studied historical figures who had the opportunity to suffer from bipolar disorder and explored the relationship between the disease and creativity. This book, which makes bold assumptions, is called "Touched by Fire" (touched with fire:manic depressive illness and the artistic temperament).

Kay R Jamison. Picture |youtube screenshot

The charismatic one, behind her, was the painful confusion of thoughts

One of the effects of white mania on women may be that it looks more seductive than usual, and the attitude is loose than usual. Jamison, after becoming an associate professor at a medical school, attended the school's Courtyard banquet, which was very different from the usual image, and the other inside she seemed to dominate her:

The eyes were wild and agitated in social situations. I myself thought it might have been a bit hyperactive, but the most profound memory was that I had spoken to many people, felt charismatic, and ate small cold dishes and drank all kinds of drinks.
--"The Heart of Mania" Chapter III Spiritual Tribulations

At that time, she and the headmaster also talked for a long time, and her idea at that time was like this:

Whatever his actual idea, I'm sure he thinks I'm very attractive.
--"The Heart of Mania" Chapter III Spiritual Tribulations

Later, the psychiatrist, who also attended the banquet and then treated the author, had another impression and was aware of the author's abnormalities:

I remember being so bright and enthusiastic at the party that I was so warm and exhilarating. But when my psychiatrist later talked to me about it, the picture he remembered was very different. He thought I was dressed in demon, not at all like the conservative dress he had been accustomed to before, and full of makeup, and seemed very excited and feverish, and his speech was even more chattering. He remembers thinking in his mind: Kay seems to have a manic fever. And I feel like I'm in the splendor.
--"The Heart of Mania" Chapter III Spiritual Tribulations

In the event of a manic attack, the patient becomes very confident and will let go of the usual social boundaries, such as inappropriate flirting, and a friend with bipolar disorder, C, tells me that psychiatrists ask questions about social life, especially emotional and sexual life, before they are diagnosed: "Have you known a lot of new friends for a while?" Are you more open about sex than you usually are? And so on

Women can certainly make any choice in their private lives without illness and loyalty to themselves, and dress up on their favorite clothes without having to be classified as unusual and disorderly. However, the author's "Banquet Fanaticism" is the beginning of her life began to be shattered by illness.

She could not slow down the speed of her head, and her thoughts began to derail. At work, for example, she copies a psychological article called "Why don't I attend a case seminar" and sent it to a colleague to explain some of the small blind spots she saw under the system, as far as possible to prove that she was right, and to attach a piece of Remy's poem.

Emotionally, she longed for excitement, was unable to settle down in the smooth, gentle and warm embrace her husband had always had, and decided to separate, ostensibly because two of people could not make a living for their children to get a consensus. The inability to control the flow of thoughts and the desire for the most ecstatic stimuli also leads to cognitive confusion. (Recommended reading:"Xiao Yu into the column" light depression, heavy depression, postpartum melancholy!) Six photos to bring you to know depression )

Picture | Korean drama "Never Mind is Love ah" stills

I'm violent and destructive now, but it's hard to do because I'm a woman.

Black mania is not as tempting and enthusiastic as white mania, like every coin has two sides, bipolar disorder has a high and low, and the peak is divided into two sides: one is full of creative enthusiasm, the other side is the uncontrollable destruction tendency, the speak out rage. Jamison once black mania and seizures, she hurt herself and hurt other people's hearts, because she showed her extremely terrible side, however, the other side felt threatened, dangerous, and could not see the helplessness and severe melancholy behind her:

In a rage, I ripped off the lights on the bathroom walls and felt violent through my body, but still stayed in my body.
The fifth chapter of "The Heart of Mania" burning self-immolation

The male companion rushed into the bathroom at the moment and saw the author covered in blood, busy looking after her:

Words cannot come out of the mouth, and thoughts turn too fast. I kept hitting the door with my head. God, please let this thing stop! I can't stand it anymore, I know I'm crazy again.
The fifth chapter of "The Heart of Mania" burning self-immolation

She was indifferent to the concern of the male companion, who soon got angry, and the two were very miserable, however:

But I said something very unbearable, and then it was no exaggeration to want to choke him in the throat. He really went away, and I provoked him unbearable, and he could not see the pain and despair within me.
The fifth chapter of "The Heart of Mania" burning self-immolation

I see a monster in the mirror, I don't know it, but it must exist, and with me to dominate my mind.
The fifth chapter of "The Heart of Mania" burning self-immolation

Lukai's Pillow Talk collection and confession, once described once uncontrollably want to use sharp tools to hurt themselves, also wrote:

Last night to go to the concert, I sat in the first row, the sound is incredibly loud, the lights glaring and strong, I found myself as in the battlefield, the hands are very strong, and can not walk, and finally take a taxi home on the road, even the body began to shake up, eyes anti-white, has been very uneasy, limbs seem to be uncontrollable Really afraid, after stepping into the house even the shoes have not been taken off, go to the kitchen ... to transfer the mood to the wound, and then sleep.
-"Pillow Talk" plan "2013.12.23

Jamison once bought a gun and planned to kill himself under severe depression, which was later discovered. In her book, she writes about the combination of violence and women, which is, to a certain extent, unexpected, that violence is not bent on destroying one's own violence, but rather looking for an outlet to resolve the hell's feelings of combining mania with depression:

Violence is not an easy thing to say, especially for a woman. The frenzied loss of control (with a tendency to attack, a scream, aimless rage, or an impulse to jump) is not only frightening, but also, to the individual, horribly indescribable. These are what I've done in Blind mania rage, and some of them keep repeating.

Whether it is the witness of violence or the audience, after learning this side of the patient, you need to adjust their impressions, in the cognition that this is a disease and she is crazy! It is not easy to strike a fair balance between them. And the patient itself is not comfortable, raging runaway behavior affects interpersonal relationships, destroyed furniture, objects, beloved a love and so on, resulting in irreparable cracks, to face the mirror this has not met the monster, another self, will certainly walk through the incomparable feeling of shame. And to say the violent side of the export, but also to face the traditional vision of violence and criticism.

Hong Kong singer Lukai. Picture | Women fan Data

In the male-dominated industry, she was feverish and shiny.

Jamison was an assistant professor of science at the University of California, Los Angeles, during his early teaching career, when the interview was in the same situation as a man:

It took me two weeks to desperately shove every branch of my paper into my head, and then walk into a room with five expressionless men sitting on the wall.
-The bloody war in the sixth chapter of "The Heart of Mania"

Through a few hours of examination, she became a doctor by Miss. And in 1974, she was given tenure, but she also needed to go through a lot of male checkpoints to get it. Basically, she is one of the few lifelong teaching women to be in a pure male club, and of the 18 members of the appointment Promotion Committee, she is the only woman:

The only few women in the department are concentrated in child psychiatry. They couldn't provide any protection to help me resist the nasty ghosts in the shadows, and there were enough nasty ghosts to deal with in their own place.
-The bloody war in the sixth chapter of "The Heart of Mania"

The nuisance she had in her mouth was that of Mr. Oyster, a pseudonym:

When he thought of women, he considered the chest, not the mind, and the fact that most women were both seemed to displease him. He agreed that women who strayed into the academic medical profession were largely flawed and made him more angry because I was particularly reluctant to accept differential treatment.
-The bloody war in the sixth chapter of "The Heart of Mania"

Sometimes, it has to be denied that irritability allows the author to be more fighting to gain recognition and upward, because during the white mania, she can efficiently write articles, one a day, and be able to conceive new research and process countless documents. Her thinking power can also be broader at this time, but also has more imagination and energy, so that her own talent can be more outstanding.

However, there are high and low, after the high efficiency of the white mania period, ushered in the maintenance of a few weeks of daze, unable to concentrate, suicidal tendencies and drowsiness. Those who suddenly appeared outside her door do not disturb the sign, the gloomy behind the door of her, although has been taking emotional stability of the drug, but still have to let themselves stop.

This tells us that, in fact, the key to bipolar disorder is stability, control, rather than the general public mouth often say wish you a speedy recovery, this such as Mustang disease, in fact, will not fully recover. (Recommended reading: Understanding Bipolar Disorder: The painful cycle of constant collapse and reconstruction )

Why is bipolar disorder hidden in society?

High efficiency, sleepless, refreshed and so on, are modern society as a good trait, or rather, is a good talent, and bipolar disorder patients sleepless to combine their complexity and creativity, often can create surprising and hierarchical works, such as Lukai's composition. Behind these traits are uncontrolled thoughts, sleepless nights, too many thoughts, and then a great amount of fatigue, like an over-consumed limit credit card.

We always mistakenly regard extroverts, good-arguing people as happy and healthy people, the unspoken is the problem, the state of the Brave is the positive, can not see the extroverted behind, but their own head can not control, exaggerated self-confidence, and exaggerated because the head is sick.

Society also mistakenly thinks that hysterical, irritable and haughty people are equal to uneducated, poorly bred and bad-tempered, and that the emergence of violence, whether words and limbs, the initiators must be isolated and segregated so as not to threaten the safety of others, but it has not been thought that violence is often inflicted on oneself by patients with bipolar disorder, Unable to control the element that expands outward.

Whether it's Jamison or Ellen, they're brave women, in a society that doesn't know anything about bipolar disorder, in a social system that doesn't have an education about emotional illness, and is willing to tell everyone: I'm sick. And, in the mood ups and downs of storms, they fight the usual thoughts of people with bipolar disorder--"I don't want to take medication! I can do it on my own! ", recognizing the stable effect of emotional stabilizers on their own lives, willing to choose the pleasure and flying sensation brought about by white mania, they are really, really brave."

It's not your fault to see a doctor, take medication, or be different from others

We have a cold, will go to see a doctor, take medicine on time, put down the work at hand to have a good rest, so that they are a little better. Emotional illness, the same reason, bipolar disorder patients need not a word to wish you a speedy recovery, but in the unstable mood waves, and their own good communication, and in the process of taking medication, accept their own imperfections, accept themselves and others are not the same, this is not the patient's fault, perhaps genetic factors, Maybe it's work and life stress induced.

This path from discovery, acceptance, and then medication (and personal conditioning of the drug) is not easy, especially for patients, but also for a long time to adapt to changes brought about by emotional stability drugs, such as reduced concentration, shorter hours of working efficiently in a day, becoming sleepy, becoming less enthusiastic and feeling less profound than before, Even the memory is getting worse. As a patient, it is not easy to face your own changes. And as a bipolar disorder of friends and people around, need to understand, in addition to the nature of the disease, but also the heart of the conflict and struggle, regular tell patients "you are still very good!" "is very important."

You have bipolar disorder, you must be someone else's mind dazzling a star, even if you need to take medicine, you can continue to become a dazzling star, and, you have more a stable calm, but also hope that you can enjoy the peace of the good, your warm and unique soul, will not disappear because of the drug.