This document describes the author's experience with bi-polar disorder and depression. It discusses how depression is experienced mentally rather than physically, with no clear locus or understanding of how to describe the pain. The author resorts to dramatic projects or substance abuse to dull the pain of depression. Physical pain is contrasted with the amorphous nature of depression which has no clear locus or understanding of when it will end. The author was recently diagnosed with bi-polar II disorder after experiencing depression for 45 years, and is learning this diagnosis could have helped them lead a more productive life if identified earlier.

1. MY BI-POLAR EXPERIENCE
Too little too late

2. DE DONDE VENGA BIPOLAR
Nurture = You can
do anything
Genetics
Reinforced by experience
of overreaching Constant
strive &
Failure

3. CURRENT CONDITION
Ceiling = anhedonia & fatigue

4. PAIN OF DEPRESSION
Everyone understands physical pain
• It has a locus
• You can describe it
• “ I hurt my knee”
• It has a solution and an end

5. PAIN IS EXPERIENCED IN MIND

6. PAIN OF DEPRESSION
Is experienced in mind exactly as physical
pain
• But has no locus & no way to describe
• No understanding, no known end
• Extreme dread, fear?, uncertainty
• Discomfort?

7. NEED TO END PAIN
• To dull the pain many turn to drugs or alcohol
• I resort to dramatic frenetic projects – spend $, overconfident
• A % chose to dull the pain by committing suicide – No different than Sue
Rodrigas who facing a life of pain asked to be euthanized and was granted
that right

8. PHYSICAL VS. DEPRESSION PAIN
Physical Pain
• Has a locus
• Can envision end
• understandable
Depression
• No locus
• Cannot understand ending
• Amorphus

9. CURRENT CONDITION
Ceiling = anhedonia & fatigue
Descent into pain

10. LIKE SYSTEMATIC TORTURE
• As I descend into depression, because I have experienced it before, I react
with anxiety, dread

11. OTHER SYMPTOMS
• Social anxiety – because I was normally confident and outgoing it took a
long time to recognize the stress that even the most normal interaction
caused
• My reaction to this stress is to deny it, push it away, try to rise above it
• This in turn raised the stress level to the point where I explode in an rage of
anti

12. Depression stress

13. UPDATE AUGUST 2013
• I have just been diagnosed Bipolar II - after 45 years of depression - 20 years
diagnosed
• No doctor or psychiatrist tested me for bipolar or seemed to know there was
such a thing as bipolar 2.
• It is amazing to learn that there is a bipolar II B which seems to fit even more
closely.
• There is a doctor and a book that explains it all! Why did no one tell me?
• I could have lead a far more productive life!
• The book is Bipolar Breakthrough by Ronald Fieve MD

14. DO YOU HAVE BIPOLAR
DISORDER?
• Symptoms of depression and some of the following
• Hyperactive periods
• Needing few hours of sleep
• Risk taking
• Sexual hyperactivity
• Overconfidence Optimistic
• Excited, talkative
• Spending or gambling spree