h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Good article, I used to be a manic depressive, but I'm a lot better now!

I would advise people to really push for help, I only ever got counselling. Where the personal view of the counsellor was pushed onto me. I wish I had had something more real, such as psychoanalysis or something more then just a chat.

I thought your section on the origins of the illness were interesting. When I got into spirituality and paganism, some of my experiences were treated as symptoms of my illness rather than valid in their own right. I thought this was an extremely closed minded view, and it certainly didn't leave room for anybody who had thoughts different to the norm.

My counsellor seemed to believe, that to be in the minority was to have problems. Being in the majority was safe and would mean that your illness would be cured! How useless is that!

Thanks for the positive feedback

I think I should explain where my views are coming from to give them some weight. As well as having been a sufferer of severe depression and having been suicidal, I have also been the main carer of someone with manic depression and had some academic study of mental illness and some experience of caring professionally for the mentally ill. I guess that's what you call a well rounded view

My personal view (not from any authority just observation) is that counselling is no good in the treatment of manic depression. Manic depression is caused by chemical imbalances and the only effective treatment is the right drugs. Counselling does have a benefit once the drugs have the manic depression under control because as with schizophrenia, it can be difficult for sufferers to come to terms with their illness: this leads them to stop taking their medication and become ill again. It can also cause depression as sufferers feel abnormal and alienated from society. Counselling can help sufferers develop self-confidence and effective coping mechanisms. Sadly many sufferers of mental illness find it very difficult to adjust to 'normal' life. Plenty do though. I know of a consultant and a nurse who have manic depression. I read a very interesting account recently of a high achieving business woman with schizophrenia.

I suffered from severe depression for 6 years and was given various types of counselling, none of them helped at all. I've been well for 3 years now and this year I made the decision to see a counsellor with a definite goal in my mind. I didn't see the counsellor to make me well, I saw the counsellor to learn the life skills to prevent me getting depressed again. Over 3 months I gained insight into my feelings and gained confidence and assertiveness. This was something I could never have done while I was muddled with an irrational mental illness.

I'm glad to hear your symptoms are under control and I've followed the link from your personal space to your pagan page and I'll post there at some point too.

You know I'm begining to think that I never had manic depression, I was manic and I was depressed, but I'm not convinced I had that chemical imbalance.?!

That was my very unscientific way of trying to describe the causes of mental illness that aren't properly known by experts anyway. The idea is that if you are depressed but there are no apparant reasons in your life then it is endogenous and due to various neurotransmitters in the brain. Much the same way as hormonal imbalances can cause physical problems. As mentioned in the entry, 'manic' is a word that is often used incorrectly. Mania is a psychosis, has very distincive characteristics and is again thought to be due to neurotransmitters. Please don't read what I'm writing as scientific, textbook evidence, because it isn't. It is just a simple understanding of how things may be.

Don't worry, I appreciate the angle you are writing from.
I just think that maybe I wasn't the official description of what a manic depressive was, especially as I was 'diagnosed' by a counsellor.