A Difficult Beginning

[JustSomeGuyParticipant 60]

LDream5,

Be careful about that Bipolar diagnosis.

I am now in my 50’s and spent the last three years on Bipolar medications after going to a psychiatrist for depression and being told I was really Bipolar. I have had depression problems since my early 20’s (on and off, but basically a continual low grade level of depression).

What I found was that all the medications ever did was to make me gain 30 pounds and dull my ability to think. They never actually helped for more than a week at a time (when starting a new medication). I ended up suicidal, checked myself into an ER and spent a week in the psych ward. After that I did a LOT of reading and decided to start eating better and I take a daily multi-vitamin (Centrum), Magnesium, Potassium and Zyrtec. I did this because I have read that the microbes in your gut have a huge effect on your brain and I took one of those super-antibiotics several years ago (2 pills to cure pneumonia) which ended up killing off all the good bacteria in my gut and leaving something called C-Diff to take over. It almost killed me. The Zyrtec is helpful in keeping my gut in check. I also took probiotics (a high quality one that you keep in the refrigerator, 50 billion microbes in each pill).

Taking all of that for a month (for the first two weeks I doubled up on the Centrum) and tapering off of the Bipolar medications has made me realize that I was never Bipolar at all. All of my depression issues were in reality nothing more than vitamin & mineral deficits (lack of folic acid can completely mimic the symptoms of Bipolar).

I have fired my psychiatrist and have had absolutely NO signs of depression or Bipolar since I have started on my regimen.

[AttonParticipant]

My first bit of advice stop pandering to women, second relations~~~s are s~~~. Third find something worth while and seek help.

A MGTOW is a man who is not a woman's bitch!

[LDream5Participant 27]

In response to Rat_Rod_Russell and JustSomeGuy.

There is something else I didn’t mention. About two years ago, I was in this same position. I went to a mental health program in a hospital. It was an every day thing, which is stressful for me. Glad at least this one is every two weeks. I ended up leaving that program after arguing with the psychologists there. A lot of my argument stemmed from my distrust of medication. Yeah, some days I wonder if I even have anything. Like maybe if I just took care of my body, my mind would follow. One of you mentioned the thing about how it affects your “gut”. I’ve always suggested that instead of “I wear my heart on my sleeve.”…I wear it on my stomach. If I get depressed, my appetite goes right out the window. This is why I feel with other alternatives, like educating myself, becoming more proactive, and taking care of my body…would really change my way of thinking. Men do and I’ve not been doing enough. I always noticed that I feel better when I’m outside like digging in the dirt. It takes my mind off my problems and instead puts me at ease. I feel really peaceful in that moment.

I’m giving this therapy another shot. At least this one they listened to my concerns of not wanting to take meds, but find healthy alternatives. I’m not sure how that will go…but the last program was trying to force me to take them to stay in the program. I really didn’t like that. The meds they gave me made me forget about some things…but made me feel completely off in another way. One of the days I went, on new medication, and had to convince them to let me go home. Because I felt like a zombie and every interaction I was having there was just uncomfortable. I just wanted my space, but I kept being approached by other patients who saw I wasn’t doing so well. They let me go home for the day. But yeah, I had to argue with them for my feelings on the therapy they were trying to provide. I’m a fairly rebellious person. If I feel cornered, I will kinda let all my thoughts come out…with no filter. And I did that day. They weren’t happy with me, but I didn’t want to cooperate with what they deemed “mandatory” for me to stay there…just to talk to people.

I’m just worried that if I start taking these meds, I may never get off of them. I want to find a way to do this naturally. Also I worry about other things like how it affected my libido. I feel like I have a perfectly natural sex drive and I really don’t want that to go away. I would feel like less of a man.

I’m definitely going to stop pandering to women who clearly take advantage of my kindness. I’m going to be a whole lot more careful. I feel it is okay for me to still be nice. I just need to realize when I’m being taken advantage of and let them know that I’m not okay with. And to move on from it. If I’m not be satisfied and I’m putting so much energy into them…why the f~~~ am I even trying? I am nice, but yeah time to stand up for myself when I need to and not be taken advantage of. I just feel like I need to learn how to properly address my concerns to those people. I feel like I’m going to be really mean about it because it is something that has been going on for a while. And I’ve just let it build up on me.

Edit: Also, yeah I realize that a lot of these psychologists only have so much knowledge. Experience is irreplaceable. I remember at lunch, the patients, would share the same sentiments. We’d talk about how we thought they don’t fully understand the problems. They were taught by a book, most of them. Whereas I’ve actually experienced it.

[LDream5Participant 27]

You will be fine. You can be a nice guy and be happy. What you will learn is that women target nice guys. What you will learn is to spot the red flags when one is trying to take advantage, and shut it down instantly with no stress.

My name is no
My sign is no
My number is no
You need to let it go.
https://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=cMTAUr3Nm6I

Great song. I love that. 🙂 And you’re right, I’m definitely realizing these things. Just gotta start putting it to use.

[JustSomeGuyParticipant 60]

LDream5,

I understand what you are saying about trying the therapy program, go ahead and give it a try.

What I think you should also try is to, every day, take a good multi-vitamin (Centrum is a good one) along with B-Complex, Magnesium, Potassium and possibly Calcium (I take that too but mainly to deal with a side effect from taking the antibiotic that gave me C-Diff).

Google bipolar and the gut (meaning your intestines and the microbial colony in them). You will be amazed, as I was, just how much how good or bad the microbes are in your intestines affects your brain (and the resulting depression).

If you eat a lot of sugar (think non-diet sodas) you really need to step back from that. Sugar will reek havoc on the microbes in your intestines and with your overall health. I know. I’ve been there. In my 20’s and 30’s I used to be a “Coke in the morning for breakfast” person followed by 2 or 3 more during the day. Worst thing I could ever have done.

I now eat a high fat, moderate protein, low carb diet and it has done wonders for how I feel. No more joint pain (and boy can I tell it if I slip up and eat something sugary). I am slowly losing weight gained from both the Bipolar medications and the slower weight gain from all of the sugar over the years.

Before I went to the psychiatrist I went to a therapist. She helped a lot on how to change my way of thinking (from black/white, only bad things will happen, I will never be happy as defaults) so if you have access to that I think it would be worthwhile for you.

But, by all means, get your diet in shape, s~~~-can all the junk foods, the “low fat” foods (they replace fat with sugar), etc. It will really help you. Also, learn that natural foods (not heavily processed garbage) are what you should be eating and fat from things like meat, eggs, cheese, whole milk, etc are actually GOOD for you and are exactly what your brain requires to run. Your brain runs on fat.

Do some google searches for alternate forms of sugar that are put into your food. I have a list of 64 possible food ingredients that are actually nothing but sugar in the body and I refuse to buy anything containing them. My fridge is nothing but frozen meats, frozen veggies, cheese, pickles, sauerkraut, iced tea and some fresh fruits (mostly bananas, avocados and pineapple) and eggs. I wish I could drink milk and eat citrus fruits but those are gone (all because of that damn antibiotic) … folks, never take Avelox. It is straight from the depths of hell.

Good luck and please let us know how you are doing. If you want to private mail me, go ahead (should be able to click my profile to do that .. I think).

-JustSomeGuy

[JustSomeGuyParticipant 60]

LDream5,

Forgot to talk about taking medications…

My psychiatrist tried almost every Bipolar med in the book and either they did not work or the side effects were horrible. Some of them can really mess you up and others can seem to be pretty minor, but just wait until when you try go wean yourself off of them only to find out just how hooked you are.

The med my doctor really wanted me to use was Zyprexa. I refused many times because that drug is basically guaranteed to permanently screw up your metabolism which then will cause massive weight gains (100+ pounds) which in turn will cause diabetes and heart disease.

Try to do things naturally first and see if getting your diet in shape and overall nutrition needs met solves things for you like it did for me. If you truly have Bipolar, it will still be there and you can deal with it then. Note that Bipolar has a genetic component so if you go back a few generations in your family (both sides) and no one has signs of mental health issues then Bipolar would not be high on the list of possibilities. Right now it is kind of the “celebrity disease” and doctors tend to (in my experience) want to diagnose it very, very quickly with little real evidence. Google bipolar and the DSM-IV or DSM-V and read exactly how it is diagnosed. What you read may shock you at just how generic the symptoms are.

[LDream5Participant 27]

I’ve got some serious work to do then. My diet is nothing like that. I do consume a lot of sugar via soft drinks. My diet is not a healthy means of gaining and maintaining a proper weight. I will definitely work on this. It’s one of my biggest goals for treatment. I want to put on weight and start exercising again like I did when I was younger. I used to be a pretty solid athlete. I should have never given it up and listened to my dad. I know he was only trying to toughen me up…I just wish I understood that back then. Having something to do and having all that exercise…I had no room for sadness. I was pretty healthy back then.

I will take your advice and read into this more. But more than anything right now, I need action. I need to prove it to myself.

[JustSomeGuyParticipant 60]

LDream5,

If you have the cash, go to a good grocery store or butcher, buy a really nicely marbled (i.e. lines of fat in it) ribeye steak, grill it or throw it in the oven using the broiler and throw some sauerkraut (raw if you can find it) and whatever veggie(s) you like on a plate and have a good meal.

Drink a nice glass of whole milk or even just plain filtered water, heck, have as many glasses as your body demands. It is demanding it for a reason.

The grocery store I go to (Meijers) has bags of real raw sauerkraut in their fresh meat counter. Absolutely fantastic stuff and an obvious difference from canned or in a jar or even pasteurized stuff in a plastic bag. This stuff actually has an opening in the plastic bag to allow the gases from the fermentation to be released.

Then wait an hour or so and see if your body/brain doesn’t start feeling just a wee bit better.

-J

[JustSomeGuyParticipant 60]

LDream5,

One last thought for the night…

If you want to understand what Bipolar is truly, truly like go pick up a copy (or see if your library has it) of the book called “Manic” by Terry Cheney. It is about as dead on as it possibly can get on what Bipolar really means and its impact on a persons life /if/ they truly have it. Even how she orders the chapters, not chronologically but in how she remembers her life give you true insight into what it means to have that disease.

The things she writes about happening in her life (and she is brutally honest about her life) mirrored my own to a large degree and it amazes me that a “mere vitamin / nutrient deficiency” caused the same things to happen to me. Believe me, I understand her wild spending sprees far more than I care to remember (along with many other things). My spending sprees tended towards things like buying 7 new cars in a year, trading in each time. The only thing that saved me in that regard is that I make enough money to be able to “afford” (cough, cough) to buy new cars, pay them off in a month or two then get bored (the psych doc would call it manic) and trade in for another one. All of those purchases were literally spur of the moment things.

-J

[Anonymous 54]

JustSomeGuy wrote:

LDream5,

If you have the cash, go to a good grocery store or butcher, buy a really nicely marbled (i.e. lines of fat in it) ribeye steak, grill it or throw it in the oven using the broiler and throw some sauerkraut (raw if you can find it) and whatever veggie(s) you like on a plate and have a good meal.

Drink a nice glass of whole milk or even just plain filtered water, heck, have as many glasses as your body demands. It is demanding it for a reason.

The grocery store I go to (Meijers) has bags of real raw sauerkraut in their fresh meat counter. Absolutely fantastic stuff and an obvious difference from canned or in a jar or even pasteurized stuff in a plastic bag. This stuff actually has an opening in the plastic bag to allow the gases from the fermentation to be released.

Then wait an hour or so and see if your body/brain doesn’t start feeling just a wee bit better.

-J

Im gonna follow this advive myself!!! Please eat lD5!!

[LDream5Participant 27]

@Old Sage I will! 🙂

@justsomeguy You’ve pretty much convinced me about the nutritional aspect of my health. I’ll continue to read into it though. Figure out how it affects my ability to think/rationalize.

Yeah, I may not have bipolar and maybe it’s just depression in general. Though I’ve certainly had some experiences that have made me think that there is something more than just depression. Like in the past physically abusing myself. Is that manic or just psychotic? It’s happened more than a few times. I usually take it out on myself and try not to on other people. I’ve never really been violent towards anyone. Only been in a couple of fights in my life and not ones that I instigated. Self-defense. And also like I mentioned before, I have a bit of social anxiety. Sometimes I get the shakes.

[Rat_Rod_RussellParticipant 93]

@ldream5, Good to hear. And Merry Christmas, Man 2.0, from my dropbox to you! Just listen to it. I like this book because its not a how to book but a why to book. They explain how it actually works, what happens to you and the science to back it up not just “it worked for me” bulls~~~. A little blue pill from time to time but not bad.

[LDream5Participant 27]

@rat_rod_russell Very cool of you. In fact, I’ll listen to it tonight when I’m starting to wind down and relax. Thank you.

[JustSomeGuyParticipant 60]

LDream5,

Thanks to a pack of coyotes obtaining an overnight meal I am now wide awake so I will respond to the following:

Though I’ve certainly had some experiences that have made me think that there is something more than just depression. Like in the past physically abusing myself. Is that manic or just psychotic? It’s happened more than a few times. I usually take it out on myself and try not to on other people. I’ve never really been violent towards anyone. Only been in a couple of fights in my life and not ones that I instigated. Self-defense. And also like I mentioned before, I have a bit of social anxiety. Sometimes I get the shakes.

I had the same things.

I have had the /almost/ uncontrollable desire to fight with best friends over absolutely nothing. No reason at all behind it, just a rage that came from nowhere.

I have had the compulsive desire to self-harm, thankfully it didn’t go as far as cutting and stuff like that. I think that would be considered more manic than psychotic. Psychotic behavior has pretty well defined characteristics (see the DSM-IV or DSM-V for better details). For me it meant doing things to harm myself that no one would ever be able to see. The only thing I will publicly mention that I did was to randomly shave hair off of my body .. and arm here, part of a leg there, etc with no reason behind it that I could ever think of, just the belief that I “had” to do it. Enough said on that subject, don’t want to remember that stuff.

I have had severe anxiety issues, to the point that I would never go to social situations or even to services at church when I knew there would be large crowds (I missed Christmas and Easter services for many years). I was always the one who went to the lightly attended 7:00 AM Masses because I would get incredibly anxious if people sat close to me.

I’ll tell ya guy, nowadays I finish work, eat a good meal, take a short walk and find myself utterly at peace. No stressors causing me to grind my teeth, no worrying about ambiguous “things” that are going to go wrong, none of that at all. I relax in my leather chair with my feet up on the ottoman, a glass of cold water next to me and read a good book then suddenly I find myself listening to the neighborhood kids through the window and looking at my comfy living room and realizing that I am actually happy. Truly happy.

-J

[LDream5Participant 27]

LDream5 wrote:

So, I went to therapy today. I found that the sessions are only 45 minutes to an hour. Which isn’t bad at all. Have to keep in mind that this is our first official meeting, so I’m mainly helping her discover what is bothering me and what my goals are.

I have been taking initiative. I wrote down my goals for therapy and I made some rules to follow. I shared both of these things with her. She said that she was impressed how self-aware of my problems I am and that she’s happy that I’m already taking some initiative about it…even before I was asked to do it.

The one thing that I left feeling good about the most…was to acknowledge the things that I AM good at. Realize they are positive traits and to be happy for them. I spent most of my life letting my sense of accomplishment…my sense of self come from other people’s feedback. And that way of attaining a sense of self-worth will probably never make me happy. I need to realize what I’m good at, not what others think I’m good at.

So yeah, today was short and sweet…but profound for my sense of well-being and sense of worth.

I’m actually no so much worried about her being a woman now either. She seems to be supportive of what I want. I asked her if she was going to start suggesting that I take meds and she said that wasn’t her intention. That I made it clear that I wanted to try to heal naturally. That she is more of case-worker and therapist. So that’s great. I also did bring up some concerns about being a man and she didn’t try to confuse me or anything. I started listening to audio book last about engineering the alpha male. I brought that up to. That the definition of an alpha male is not correct in society. (I haven’t finished the book yet, but I will.) But to realize that an “alpha male” is really an “alpha me”. It’s more so about being the best version of yourself that you can be.

[CPT ObviousParticipant 2730]

Good for you! Take control of your life and start going your own way.

"You don't know a woman till you have met her in divorce court."

[Rat_Rod_RussellParticipant 93]

@ldream5, I’m glad you liked that part, #alphastatus.

And I’m glad you don’t have a pill pusher shrink, shows she’s not lazy about her job. Your on the right track, you’ve got this, your a man after all.

When you’re done with Man 2.0 look up “The Rational Male” It’ll outline the biological differences between males and females that have been blurred your entire life in favor of “equality”. It’ll help you sort the female BS that might come up from chicks you have to deal with or things the shrink says that are pure bulls~~~. Like the myth about women having the same sex drive as guys…. They don’t, they can’t. Or they would have the x12-x14 times increase of testosterone that men experience all the time. Its not possible for them to understand that but they perpetuate this misinformation because it makes them “equal”.

[LDream5Participant 27]

Yeah, I’m really enjoying the book. I actually kinda like audio version…lets me do things like take notes. (Which helps me memorize it better.) I am also a person who may listen to a section more than once just to fully digest the information I’m being given. The first night I was listening, I fell asleep when he started to talk about,”Hey, you need more sleep.”. To think about what you can cut out of your day so you can have better sleep.

I know it’s been just a short time but I already feel a difference in my mood and health. I’ve even felt less anxious about being social lately too.

Yeah, I’ll check that out next. I was also one to believe it was possible they can have just as high of a sex drive…but I accept that maybe I really don’t know. I’m amazed after looking into hormones, just how necessary they are. I like that the book is explaining natural ways of boosting my testosterone and other hormones. My sister said the other day that her husband was getting ‘T’ shots lately. That he’s noticed a lot more energy and better sleep. But then my mom said that those can actually be dangerous. So I’m all about the natural ways of healing and boosting stuff like that.

“…your a man after all.” says you. Was also listening to this Milo Yiannopoulos guy and it reminded me of,”Despite all of this, I’m not worried for you. Because you’re men. Your incalculable, intolerable, and impossible obstacles have been placed before you…precisely to overcome. And overcoming is what men do best. It’s in the nature of men to battle on under impossible odds. We do that in war, we do that in all sorts of things…and we will do it here.”

P.S. : I love music. I’ve been listening to a lot of stuff to get my mind right. This guy was one of my first concerts as a boy but this song is like my anthem right now. haha

Steve Earle – It’s All Up to You

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