The term bipolar disorder is increasingly entering today’s culture – I would fortunately add. This almost makes a further description in addition to those found everywhere.
Simplify everything by saying that it is the alternation of euphoric and depressive phases It is reductive. For example, there are episodes or situations in which the euphoria does not present itself at all and appears in its place the dysphoria. This term indicates an excess of discontent that leads to angry crisis even intense that can be aggravated by the attempt to medicate with alcohol or substances of abuse.
The bad news is that it is a cyclical disorder that can recur at any time of life. The good is that we have the care tools.
Among these there is support to those who are next to a person suffering from Bipolar disorder that can help him. “All happy families resemble each other, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” wrote Tolstoy. How to blame him?
Each situation is a story in itself and it is not possible to formulate something that is always good and for everyone. There is no miraculous recipe for help those suffering from a bipolar disorder. However, some suggestions and tested strategy must not be renounced to help those who live next to these situations.
Rely on expert specialists in the treatment of bipolar disorder
This consideration seems obvious but unfortunately the most appropriate path is often identified after many attempts.
The fear of the stigma leads to ensuring that the psychiatrist is contacted after many other alternative paths, subtracting precious time from suitable care. The bipolar disorder It is a disorder that must be treated pharmacologically in the first instance and as soon as possible. The professional indicated is it psychiatrist. Other paths shared with the specialist can be inserted later.
Only contacting the specialist is not enough. Must help the person affected by bipolar disorder To remember the appointments, to be constant in taking therapies, to promptly communicate the first changes of the clinical state to the specialist.
Facilitate adherence to therapy to help those with a bipolar disorder
If the disorder is in the critical phase, it may be necessary to accompany the patient to visits and stay next to him while taking on the therapies. If necessary also to prepare drugs to be taken (which in any case must never be administered secretly or unbeknownst to the patient).
Unfortunately Who is suffering from bipolar disorder tends not to follow the care. In the depressive phase he believes that nothing can help. In the obsessive phases he thinks he feels very well and not to need aid. In the inter-critical phases he thinks he has passed the crisis and that this will no longer re-emerge.
A further complication occurs when the patient is suffering from concomitant chronic organic diseases (e.g. diabetes, hypertension). The risk is that the therapies necessary to maintain a physical balance are also interrupted and therefore it will also be necessary that the patient is helped to manage these aspects.
Never underestimate that for optimize the care path and help those who have a bipolar disorder It is important from family members or relatives not to discredit or devalue the specialist in the presence of the patient. If you have doubts about the doctor’s work, you can express them directly to the treating person in person, by phone or by email.
Communicate to the treating all the changes of state
We must learn to recognize, together with the person concerned, the first signals of entrance in the new critical phase. Be it depressive (e.g. psychomotor slowdown, tendency to want to sleep a lot, alteration of nutrition, loss of interest or detachment from what surrounds) or maniacal (e.g. increase in the level of energy, great planning, physical hyperactivity, irritability or impatience to be contrary, reduced need for sleep, excessive expenses).
It is necessary to encourage the specialist to the specialist as soon as possible, even if they may appear trivial.
Know the disorder
It is essential to avoid inserting terms such as “willpower” or similar that deny the existence of a disorder with their own characteristics and their own care.
First the suitable tools are used and the better the evolution of the picture will be. There is a lot of material available on the web. The advice I feel I am given is to Select only the information that comes from qualified sources. Otherwise, the risk is to come across confounding and misleading notions that make the situation even more difficult to manage and, more seriously, they postpone the most suitable interventions.
There are many psychiatric structures, family members and volunteering associations that organize psycho-education courses on bipolar disorder. Specialized and experienced operators help patients and family members to understand the disorder, treatments and methods of managing acute phases. Having the clearest ideas on these topics helps to provide answers to the legitimate and usual question: “What should we do?”
Person and ailment are not synonyms
The difficulty that I most find in the treatment of these patients is that there are many expressions of the disease and many people in the same personal identity.
This is true during the first episodes but over time it is possible to identify a patient stability that can become a sufficiently reliable interlocutor.
Also who is next to the bipolar patient It can learn to identify a single interlocutor to relate to. You can build an image in which we understand that the person and the disorder are not the same thing.
We must actively work to identify the “person” so that it can be understood and accepted that there are no “guilty” responsible for mood changes. These derive from oneAnomaly of the function of the nervous system in its functional and structural elements. It will no longer appeal to phrases that refer to bad absers or to having a bad character.
This helps not to emphasize certainly unpleasant attitudes (opposition for example). He also leads the patient to avoid feelings of guilt when he realizes his discontrinted actions.
Talk to the person when he is fine
We must take advantage of the well -being phases to contract together with the person concerned some shared modalities with which those who are next to him can help him in the subsequent decompensation phase.
Unfortunately it is known that when the crises improve the positive moment we tend to live trying to put the crisis behind. This is an understandable way, perhaps also necessary to breathe, but not help in the long term.
We must ask the patient, when he is better: “What can we do during the crises to help you?”. Let’s start this way to relate to the “person” And we insert it in the work program that will have to be joint and which will last long. Unfortunately, the crises can present themselves even if the treatments are followed impeccablely. The important thing and understand that they are stages, with a beginning and an end.
Collaborate in the construction of a regular lifestyle
More and more data confirm that lifestyle is a very important factor in many diseases. Both as a trigger and maintenance factor and as an element of care and prevention. The Bipolar disorder It does not differ from this rule and has its peculiarities.
First of all, it is essential to maintain a regular sleep-wake rhythm: establish the times to go to sleep and wake up following the day/night cycle.
Do not respect these rhythms facilitates the risk of repercussions. For this reason, it is preferable to avoid professional activities that involve night shifts and frequent intercontinental travels that provide for important time zone variations.
A healthy lifestyle It consists in maintaining a certain regularity in everything. Regular physical activity (without excess), regular nutrition and hydration, avoid excess of exciting substances (and e.g. coffee) and absolutely avoid the use of alcohol and drugs.
It would be of great help to fill in an agenda with things to do. It will help to try to do those minimal things in the depressive phases and not to exceed in the number of activities in the excited phase. This also applies to regularize the activities in the phases between one crisis and another
Propose a psychotherapy to the patient
The treatment of bipolar disorder It is certainly an example of multi -professional work. A Cognitive behavioral psychotherapy It can be indicated in all phases of the disorder, always in association with pharmacological treatment.
The benefits are manifold, not least the possibility of helping the affected person cooperate in the long term to the management of the disorder.
Avoid isolation
The sharing of a problem with those with a direct experience similar to lightens the emotional load of Those who live with a person suffering from bipolar disorder.
For this reason they have been activated in numerous realities groups for bipolar and family patients. For family members it is important to avoid closing in their pain and trying instead of maintaining social contacts. It is used to feed your mental health and to show the patient a positive and realistic model.
See the family members inserted in one social network And committed to living their life indirectly helps the patient not to feel responsible for the malaise of those next to him. This can in fact lead to the extreme thought of having ruined his existence.
We know that it is not easy but in every way it is necessary to continue to cultivate one’s interests and hobbies, to attend people and places of interest. It is certainly one of the tools to keep our stress resistance in good health.
Think of a form of protection in the most serious cases
Bipolar disorder more than any other disease can lead to making extreme and potentially very harmful decisions.
It would be necessary help the person suffering from bipolar disorder Not to act drastic decisions that could create serious problems (even more so if there are minor children in the middle) and of which it could regret it in the future.
Unfortunately, those who have a crisis often attack everything on several fronts ranging from work to sentimental relationships. In this state a decompensated person could become the victim of circumvention of incapable. In these situations it may also be help to report the incident to the perhaps of the order (who have an interest in punishing offenders and those who take advantage of the patients, not the patients).
If the problem is the bad administration of the assets (spending too much, selling properties or goods without any planning, making debts with banks or financial and other of similar) there is the possibility that familiar and similar can ask the figure of the judge to protect the appointment of a support administrator.
THE’support administrator He is appointed by the judge, will have to account for the administration and deals with helping the person manage the assets in an uncomfortable way. If the patient is rewarded and maintaining a good balance over time, managing to administer, the appointment of the administrator can be revoked.
