{"id":71194,"date":"2021-07-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/newsroom\/2021\/07\/02\/wellness-living-with-bipolar-disorder\/"},"modified":"2022-09-02T17:42:50","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T22:42:50","slug":"wellness-living-with-bipolar-disorder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/newsroom\/2021\/07\/02\/wellness-living-with-bipolar-disorder\/","title":{"rendered":"Wellness: Living with bipolar disorder"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you would like to share your mental health story with others as part of this series and Mental Health Awareness Month in May, email Steve Wengel, MD<\/a>, assistant vice chancellor for Wellness, UNMC and UNO, and\/or Sarah Richards, MD<\/a>, senior medical director, Care Experience, Nebraska Medicine.<\/i>
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Diagnosis and challenges<\/b>
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I have been dealing with bipolar illness most of my adult life, since my mid-20s. During that time, I also had undiagnosed postpartum depression. I didn’t seek treatment until my 30s when the depression became debilitating. My diagnosis of bipolar II depression didn’t come until about age 35.
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My depression got progressively worse when my kids were toddlers. As my life became more stressful and I tried to deal with adult responsibilities, the symptoms of depression began to spiral out of control. I remember the day I finally sought treatment. I was upstairs lying on the floor crying while the kids played downstairs. My body felt like it was cast in cement. Life was such a heavy burden that I could no longer carry. For some reason, that day, I came to realize I just couldn’t go on like that. I went through the phone book and started calling psychiatrists. When the first three could not see me, I became discouraged. I made one more call and was able to get help. By the way I was crying on the phone, I was shocked that not one of them asked if I was having any suicidal thoughts. I consider myself blessed that I have never been suicidal. Even in my deepest, darkest depression, I have never thought of ending my life. It is a topic that people don’t like to talk about, but it is real and needs to be addressed.
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Depression has impacted my life in many ways. My self-worth was nonexistent. I felt like a bad mom most of the time. My marriage suffered and finally ended in divorce. Making friends was very difficult because I mostly stayed home. One symptom of my depression was sleeping all of the time, which was easy to blame on my night shift hours at work. Eventually, I had to go part-time because I struggled to keep my own life together, let alone take care of other people.
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Today, at this stage of my life, I have a successful career, happy marriage, and I spend a lot of time with my family and friends.
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Treatments and coping with day-to-day life<\/b>
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My treatment for bipolar initially consisted of weekly counseling sessions with the psychiatrist. My first diagnosis was major depressive disorder<\/a>. I started on different medications for depression. After many medications failed to help, he diagnosed me with treatment-resistant depression. We kept trying different combinations.
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There were so many pills. <\/p>\n