What is the difference between #bipolar #depression and sadness and grief? This is an important distinction as it is one reason that therapy rarely works for bipolar disorder or #schizoaffective disorder unless the therapist is trained in symptom management. ( I love training therapists on bipolar as they can be such an important part of our treatment.)
Sadness and grief are natural human emotions that are attached to a noticeable event. My beloved kitty died last week. I felt and still feel deep sadness and grief. It comes and goes and is directly attached to the loss of my beautiful kitty Bibi. I can pinpoint when and where it started and why. It is not confusing. It is painful, but understandable.
My sadness and grief do not spill over into the rest of my life. For example, I don’t think, my kitty died and now my family members are going to die as well. Life is misery and pain.
That is NOT sadness and grief. That is the language of depression.
Depression takes over the whole person. It takes over all of our thinking. It takes over our behaviors. In can be triggered by an event or come into our lives without one trigger.
This is an enormous difference and a distinction that all health care professionals must make.
Depression is not sadness and grief. Sadness and grief have a timeline. They ease with time. They do not morph into another problem. Watch how stable people deal with sadness and grief. They are normal. I am not normal. I have bipolar depression and it is not about sadness and grief. It is an illness I must treat and manage daily or it will kill me.
When Bibi died, I felt the depression monster climbing up my back. It whispered in my ears that life would always be painful. It talked to me and told me to get in bed and put the covers over my head in order to mourn her. It lied and lied like it always does.
I recognized depression as I have it well listed on my Health Cards.
Before I learned to manage this monster, I was depressed for years and years and years. Every minute was a struggle. I thought of suicide daily. It was not the real me. It was illness.
I want to be ready for the triggers that cause depression. I want to be ready for what life hands me. This means I have to treat bipolar first.
I started my plan in 1998. That is 20 years ago. It took a long time to see results. But I can see them now. My companion died. The grief and sadness were overwhelming at first. I cried as much as I have cried in my life. I felt the pain of loss. And it is getting easier by the day to accept the loss and get on with my life. That is a normal response to loss.
Depression is insidious. It is a as dangerous as any flesh eating bacteria. When the depression tried to take over, I used my plan and said no.
I want the same for you.
We are strong.
