AN ACCOUNT OF
MY BIPOLAR DISORDER
A 65 YEAR CONTEXT:
October 1943 To June 2008
BY
RON PRICE
George Town Tasmania Australia
1. Preamble and Introduction:
1.1 This is a longitudinal, retrospective
account going back to my conception in
October 1943. I make reference to my
genetic predisposition to this disorder
due to my family history of affective
disorders in first-degree relatives who
possess a clinical significance in the
diagnosis of my bipolar disorder(BPD).
There is an unquestionable justification
for the inclusion of the family in the
diagnostic process and any understanding
of the disorder in my particular case as
well as the cases of others. This account
also provides a statement of my most
recent experiences in the last year,
2007-2008, with manic-depression or BPD as
it has come to be called in recent years.
Some prospective analysis of my illness
is also included with the view to
assessing potential long-term strategies,
appropriate lifestyle choices and
activities in which to engage in the years
ahead.
1.2Some of the personal context for this
illness over the lifespan in my private
and public life, in my relationships to my
family of birth and my two families of
marriage, in my employment life and now in
my retirement are discussed in this
document. I include some of what seems to
me my major and relevant: (a) personal
circumstances as they relate to my values,
beliefs and attitudes on the one
hand--what some might call my religion as
defined in a broad sense; (b) family
circumstances; for example, my parents’
life and my wife’s illness; (c)
employment circumstances involving as they
did (i) stress, (ii) movement from place
to place and (iii) my sense of identity
and meaning; as well as (d) a range of
other aspects of my day-to-day life and
its wider socio-historical setting. This
lengthy account will hopefully provide:
(I) mental health sufferers, clients or
consumers, as they are now variously
called these days, with a more adequate
information base to make some comparisons
and contrasts with their own situation,
their own predicament whatever it may be,
and hopefully gain some helpful knowledge
and understandings; and (II) those
assessing my suitability for work or for
public or private office with a useful
document for making their decision about
my capacity to take on the
task/responsibility an informed one.
1.3 Many do not feel comfortable going to
doctors, to psychologists and, more
especially, to psychiatrists. Perhaps
this is part of a general distrust of
certain professional fields in our world
today. Perhaps it is part of a general
public being more critical. Still others
do seek help; others try to work things
out themselves and there are, of course,
various combinations of those who try,
those who have given up and those who go
back and forth between the two poles of
trying and not trying to sort out their
disorder. Many often find the journey
through the corridors of mental health
problems so complex, such a labyrinth,
that they give up in despair. Suicide is
common among the group I refer to
here—the sufferers from BPD and I could
include depression(D) and a range of other
illnesses and life battles of a traumatic
nature. This account may help such people
obtain appropriate treatment and, as a
result, dramatically improve their quality
of life. I think, too, that this essay of
more than 23,000 words and fifty-eight A-4
pages(font 14) is part of: (a) my own
small part in reducing the damaging stigma
associated with BPD and (b) what might be
termed “my coming out.”
1.4 The wider framework of my experience
which I outline here is intended to place
my BPD in context and should provide
others with what I hope is a helpful
perspective, as I say above, in relation
to their own condition, their own problems
and situations. Perhaps my statement may
help some BPD sufferers describing and
understand their personal histories. This
essay, as I say, of fifty-eight A-4
pages(font-14) is written: (a) for doctors
and various medical professionals who have
dealt with or will come to deal with my
disorder and especially for those who are
now, at this present time, involved with
my treatment should they find such a
statement useful; (b) for internet sites
and those registered/inquirers on the www
at a range of health and mental health
sites, especially the sections of sites
dealing with D and MD/BPD; (c) for some of
my relatives, friends and associations
over the years with whom I still have
contact in these early years(60-65) of my
late adulthood(60-80) and to whom it
seemed relevant to give such a statement;
(d) for government departments, voluntary
organizations, interest groups and
Baha’i institutions who require such
statements for reasons associated with our
relationships and interactions; and (e)
for myself as a reflection, for my own
satisfaction, to put into words the story,
the results, of an illness, a sickness, a
disorder that has influenced my life for
over more than six decades.
1.5This document, this statement,
originally written in 2003 for the
Australian government’s now department
of Human Services, its Centrelink section
which with Disability Support Pensions,
has been revised many times after further
reflection. Now in its fifth edition
after feedback from various doctors,
friends and internet respondents as well
as after an increase in my own knowledge
of the illness as a result of further
study, this document is an ongoing and
changing entity as my experience of the
disorder continues into the middle
years(65-75) of my late adulthood(60-80).
In fourteen months I will go on the Old
Age Pension in Australia with this BPD
still a part of my life.
1.6 I do not claim to possess a
specialized and/or professional expertise
in the field of the study and treatment of
BPD. I do not work with people who have
such problems, nor do I have a desire to
do so, except as a participant at a number
of internet sites concerned with relevant
mental health topics and with people who
cross my path serendipitously with various
related problems. This long piece of
writing, too long for some perhaps for
most, not as sharply focussed on my actual
day to day experience as some respondents
on the internet have already indicated and
not particularly relevant to the
experience of others in an illness that
has a very wide range of behavioural
typicalities---this long piece of writing
is but one of the many pieces of my
writing these days. The vast majority of
my writing and my interests both in and
off the internet has nothing to do with
this disorder.
--------------ENOUGH FOR NOW---PART TWO
LATERon--------------------
