Soon after Missy had her daughter, she stopped sleeping, going
from eight hours a night down to only two or three. Her thoughts
were racing, and she was going a million miles an hour. After a
few nights, Missy’s husband Bill finally took her to the
hospital. He couldn’t believe that one minute his wonderful wife
seemed just fine and now she had become a patient in a psych
unit.
From the time Ally was nine months old, her parents Bill and Nancy
knew that something was wrong. Ally couldn't sleep, had temper
tantrums up to 20 times a day, and increasingly became more
aggressive. Medical professionals told Bill and Nancy not to worry,
that she’ll grown out of it, but they continued to seek help from
doctor after doctor.
Nell’s sister, Maud, stopped taking her medication for bipolar
disorder and fell into a depressive episode. Nell threw all her
energies into visiting her sister at the hospital, comforting and
supporting her while the doctors tried drug after drug before
finding the right ones; explaining to Maud’s boss why she would be
out of the office for weeks or more; and wondering how to cope with
the new financial and emotional burdens in her life.
Missy, Ally, and Maud all have bipolar disorder
(also known as manic depression), in which moods gyrate between the
highs of mania and the lows of depression. They have been
hospitalized, have struggled to come to terms with their diagnosis,
and have suffered deeply. All three have family caregivers -- a
spouse, parents, a sibling – who are dedicated to helping them
recover, but who feel uninformed, isolated, overwhelmed, sad, and at
times, angry and hopeless.
Caring for someone with any illness is
difficult. Caring for someone with a psychiatric illness is
especially hard for many reasons. Health care coverage is far more
limited than for other illnesses. Just getting someone who is in a
state of mania -- even when psychotic -- hospitalized and accurately
diagnosed is a major accomplishment. Bipolar sufferers, particularly
when they are in an up (manic) rather than down (depressed) phase,
often refuse to see a clinician and stop taking their medication.
The medications are powerful and have unpleasant side effects.
There is no cure for bipolar disorder and so the drugs must be taken
for life, a daunting prospect, especially for younger sufferers.
Finding the right meds may take as long as several years, and over
time they may stop working. For family caregivers, coping with
someone who is manic or depressed takes a heavy emotional toll and
strains the relationship, often to the breaking point. An added
burden is the stigma of mental illness, which leaves families
feeling frightened and isolated, unaware that many other families
share their experience.
Given
all these challenges, caring for someone with bipolar disorder can
be overwhelming and at times an impossible responsibility to
maintain. But there are ways to cope effectively. Families for
Depression Awareness, the nonprofit organization I founded (after
losing my brother and helping my father get diagnosed with
depression), has interviewed many families that are doing
well. True, it took a while to learn how best to help and support
their bipolar family member, and time, too, to learn that caregivers
also have needs that must be met. Sometimes the stresses and
strains were intense, and these families have had their ups and
downs. But by educating themselves about bipolar disorder, improving
treatment by finding the best possible medication and therapy
solutions possible, and communicating as a tightly knit unit, these
families have met the challenges, survived intact, and are
emotionally healthy.
