Julie Fast Video: Feeling intimidated by your bipolar disorder doctor?

I recently did a series of interviews for a large mental health website called healthyplace.com. Here is one of the first videos I recorded. I’d like to set this up a bit before you watch it. I went through a terrible experience in 1994 when my partner Ivan got very sick and was in the hospital for three months in a manic/psychotic episode. I was scared, overwhelmed and very confused about what was going on. I never met his doctor when he was in the hospital! The nurses were wonderful, but no one actually explained the illness or why he was so sick. I literally had to do everything on my own. Things have changed a lot of course! I wrote books on this experience myself- so the information is more out there now. The video below is a response to the question of what we can do to work successfully without health care professionals when we or someone we care about are in crisis.  I want to say that I sound pretty forceful in this video- and I do believe what I say- but I want to also make it clear that the health care professionals in my life are 100% a part of my team. I care about them and respect them deeply!

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A thank you from Julie

I got very, very sick today. I would say the depression was a 9 out of 10. Hospital style depression. It’s now 9PM and I have it down to a 4. I worked hard for that 4! I did a lot today to take care of myself and will write more about that later.

Before I go to sleep and sleep off the rest of this terrible mood swing- I want to say thank you for the amazing comments of support I get from all of you. You know how it is when you get really sick- you just get so worn out. I cried off and on all day and I’m now physically tired….. bla! My mom and friends helped a lot- I am glad I was able to get on with my day as best I could. The odd thing is that there was no obvious trigger. It was what my coauthor John calls a rogue wave downswing.

I got home and saw the comments on the blog- and just felt so much better. This is not an illness that does well in isolation or with silence. We deifnitely need to talk with each other and those who care about it!

It just hit me out of nowhere today! I am glad the day is almost done and I can have a wonderful day tomorrow. I did manage to do fun things today and that helped a lot.

So, once again. Thank you so very much for your kind comments! Julie [... Read More ...]