Yesterday my father had his official book launch in London...........and to say i was so proud could not sum it up.

for someone to go through 4 nervous breakdowns, a failed marriage, made redundant, death of his father and be diagnosed with Bi-Polar Disordor to come through all that and with 4 years of hard work to finally pay off i can only have admiration for him.
He is one of the first people in the country to do it aswell is a huge achievement.

The book is called Bi-Polar Expedition and if anyone has had the unfortunate experience of depression or been around people with it i strongly encourage you to read it as it will really open your eyes and hopefully change some peoples views of mental depression.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bi-Polar-Exp...5442922&sr=8-1

Well Done Dad. Proud of ya m8

and for those who think this is a for sale ad forget it

 

well done to him my brother is bi-polar so ive added it to my wishlist and will get it next time im buying a load

 

well done to that man

 

Thats excellent Dan, so nice to hear some good news for once


Weldone Dans Dad

 

Sounds like a glimmer of hope for people with what is normally considered to be an incurable and degenerative disease.


Congrats on the book launch

 

Dont know anything about bi polar but well done to your Dad hun

 

nice one

 

Excellent news mate

 

Well done Dans dad!

 

Cheers for all the comments guys.i will send him the link to this later

 

 

Bipolar disorder is a psychiatric condition defined as recurrent episodes of significant disturbance in mood. These disturbances can occur on a spectrum that ranges from debilitating depression to unbridled mania. Individuals suffering from bipolar disorder typically experience fluid states of mania, hypomania or what is referred to as a mixed states in conjunction with depressive episodes. These clinical states typically alternate with a normal range of mood. The disorder has been subdivided into Bipolar I, Bipolar II and cyclothymia, with both Bipolar I and Bipolar II potentially presenting with rapid cycling.

Also called Bipolar Affective Disorder until recently, the current name is of fairly recent origin and refers to the cycling between high and low episodes; it has replaced the older term Manic-depressive Illness coined by Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) in the late 19th century.[3]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder

 

Cheers Gareth...........luckily enough his highs and lows are controlled now and he hasnt had one for 3 years......but will be on drugs for the rest of his life.......plus he has no sleep pattern at all....but hey its better than him not bein here at all

 

Well done I also did not know what Bi Polar was until i read the link Gareth put up. Hopefully book will inligten some and help others

 

well done daddy dan, i'll buy a copy ...maybe b4 i shoot off to cyprus

 

Congrats to your dad

 

 

Ah, I misunderstood you totally then!

I thought he had been daignosed as cured now, which would have been massively unusual!

Glad to hear he is coping well though.


I take it the drugs he is on are a mix of antipsychotics and antidepressants?
Potentially very bad for your health (can cause diabetes for example) so that in itself is very hard to cope with knowing you HAVE to take for many patients.

 

Well done Dan's dad I hope it's extremely successful.

Dan.. you have every right to be so proud.. I have been in that situation (along time ago.. but it never leaves you).. and the best sources of inspiration and hope are from those who have lived through it themselves.. not those with a few letters after their name thinkin they know whats what!

I shall be ordering a copy as I'm sure it's going to be a fascinating read.

Well done again Mr Dan Senior.. and best of luck for the future.

 

cheers chip.........with Bi-Polar you will never be actually cured........it is just controlled.and to be honest i dont know the exact drugs he is on but they work very well.

 

well done to ur dad dan, just goes to show how strong some can be

 

my brothers condition was brought forward as he was smoking so much weed aswell! his life hi's was VERY high and his lows VERY low, and he was like it for maybe 10 years! then after 16 times of getting his flat raided in a year he decided to stop the weed! and now all he does his chat girls up in the internet and clean his flat (OCD)

very sad disorder

chip you are right about the drugs aswell! if they get the drugs wrong they do turn you into a living vombie aswell and it seems a very black art

 

We dont actually know how antipyschotic drugs work, even the manufacturers only have theories as to what they might actually do internally to the brain.
We just know that they show results, not how.

Thats dangerous in itself of course, as it makes presription of them guesswork based on how other reacted, rather than a science where you know what they will actually do.

The modern way of thinking is to try and keep the drug use to a minimum as much as possible, as if you take much of these drugs then like you say it turns you into a completely monged out zombie, as they dont just dumb down the symptoms they are trying to treat, they actually do it to your WHOLE brain.


Typically these types of illness have what are termed positive and negative symptoms.

The positive term doesnt mean its a good thing, it just mean thats it adds something.
This could be halucinations, or delusions or just your mind racing with different thoughts.

Dulling down the brain tends to do a fairly good job of stopping these symptoms.



However there are also negative symptoms, which include apathy, memory problems, and a lack of concentration

Most of the antipsychotic drugs will actually make these things even worse, although modern ones are better.


Years ago the only treatment was to basically drug you up till you barely moved and then chuck you in a padded room, so things have certainly moved on, but the reality is that we still know next to nothing about mental illness in the grand scheme of things



Drug abuse is VERY common among mental health patients and its a very viscous circle, even weed can have an absolutely disastrous effect on the patient, and alcohol is also an absolutely awful thing to be partaking in.

 

well done dan's dad

 

One of his poems from his book.


THIS YEAR’S BLACKNESS

I sit here like many condemned to this illness,
What I hadn’t banked on was all the stillness.

After thirty-two years of row and noise,
I no longer feel like one of the boys.

Sitting in darkness the mind drifts away,
Suffering from years of mental decay.

Knowing tomorrow I’ll feel just the same,
I’m slipping, but slowly, I’m going insane.

Neil Walton
13/9/99

 

just wondering chip,, how do you know about mental illnesses?

 

well done dans dad

 

and another one

BEAST OF BURDEN


When I think of what it was to how it is now,
I no longer feel like a sacred cow.

Gone are the days when I’d cower and cry,
Gone are the feelings of wanting to die.

Clear-headed almost and out of my pain,
The light of my tunnel has ignited again.

Gone are the sensations of walking on water,
At least I’m not next as a lamb to the slaughter.


But for how long this time?



Neil Walton
23/10/99

 

Dan,

Tell them well f**kin done from me & my ladie ! Thats jus wicked !

I'm gonna buy a copy @ weekend cos I didn't know what it was either !

Big pat on the back for both ya !

Jb

 

chip so anti phycotic drugs are ganerous

 

I studied psychology as part of my degree

I have an ex partner who suffered from a serious mental illness so I had a lot of first hand experience of the his and lows and misery that it causes to both them and those close to them, and I spoke at length to the team working with her and learnt a lot from them

My sister was a mental health nursing sister who worked with kids with mental illnesses

And lastly, its just always been something that interested me, so like you with tuning engines, its amazing how much you can pick up just from reading and talking to people who know



Its a shame that more isnt known about these illnesses by the public in general as they may be a little less reactionary, but TBH on the other hand perhaps its a good thing they dont know, as the odds of a "happy ending" are pretty much zero, the best you can really expect is "managing to cope" like Dan's dad evidently has, and that is a MUCH bigger achievement than most people reading this thread probably realise.

 

Dangerous I assume you mean?



Christ yes!
They are some of the strongest drugs mankind has access to and have some of the most significant and long lasting side effects.

Sadly though, they are a LOT better than not taking them if you are in a position where you need them.

bi-polar, schiozphrenia, manic depression (essentially different types of similar illnesses) are all potentially terminal illnesses and NEED to be treated no matter what the cost, as failure to do so can result in death to either the sufferer by suicide or to other members of society, as (mainly in the case of SZ but still to a certain extent the others too) the sufferer can be a genuine risk to those around them.

 

chip have you ever noticed that engineers alot of the time has an intrest in psychology?

 

Well Done Dan's Dad

 

Well, I guess its all about trying to understand how things work.

In my case the branch of engeering im involved with is that im a computer programmer, so trying to view the brain as a massively complex computer which is programmed both from the factory with built in routines (your genetics) and by instructions given to it (everything that ever happens to you) was always something that interested me, but its not something its posisble to understand IMHO

The human brain doesnt actually have enough processing power to understand its own complexities I reckon!
Well mine certainly doesnt, lol


PS

Dont mistake me for someone with a genuinely good understanding, im most certainly not, im sure to a trained psychologist my knowledge is the equivalent of if you were talking about tuning in front of stu by saying "im going to whack the boost up with a bleed valve"

 

mine hasnt got enough processing power to understand what you just wrote

 

looks like a for sale ad to me

ban him!

 

well done to your dad dan!

 

Ban me mate.........