Summary: A novel approach combines an online psychiatric assessment with a blood test to diagnose bipolar disorder, a condition often misdiagnosed as major depressive disorder.

This blood test, alongside the digital assessment, can accurately diagnose up to 30% of bipolar disorder cases. It provides not just a faster diagnostic tool but also an objective insight into the biological basis of this mental illness.

Key Facts:

1. The blood test, coupled with an online assessment, can diagnose 30% of bipolar disorder cases, differentiating it from major depressive disorder.
2. The research incorporated more than 600 questions in its online mental health assessment and examined over 600 different metabolites in dried blood samples.
3. Nearly 40% of bipolar disorder cases are misdiagnosed as major depressive disorder, affecting up to 80 million people worldwide.

Source: University of Cambridge

Researchers have developed a new way of improving diagnosis of bipolar disorder that uses a simple blood test to identify biomarkers associated with the condition.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, used a combination of an online psychiatric assessment and a blood test to diagnose patients with bipolar disorder, many of whom had been misdiagnosed with major depressive disorder.

The researchers say the blood test on its own could diagnose up to 30% of patients with bipolar disorder, but that it is even more effective when combined with a digital mental health assessment.

https://neurosciencenews.com/bipolar-disorder-blood-test-24985/

Horrific, nightmarish, dreadful. Those are the words that describe my ketamine experience yesterday. Awful, horrible, ghastly also apply. I literally screamed at the top of my lungs. Mega panic attacks, feelings of doom and impending death, THAT! To treat anxiety? Where’s the sense in that? No more ketamine for me ever again. I don’t want to chop off my head to try to treat a headache. I’m thoroughly disappointed and upset that this treatment that I undertook with so much hope turned out to be so destructive and such an utter failure.

I do believe they gave me a much larger dose than I was to have. Hopefully by mistake.

I don’t know if after such a horrific experience if there can be improvement. I’ll keep everyone posted. unfortunately, hope springs eternal.

Right now, very dismayed and actually traumatized by this insane ketamine experience. Very disappointed.

The reason I stopped writing , the reason I stopped doing anything is this crippling anxiety that I’ve been dealing with. My world has shrunk, I don’t do anything I don’t go anywhere I don’t see anyone. Sometimes my heart feels like it’s going to explode in my chest. Sometimes my brain feels like it’s going to explode. Sometimes I just wanna sit and cry and never stop. And sometimes I’m so afraid about everything and anything that panic sets in. Tried everything, benzodiazepines, therapy, other meds, exercise, breathing, meditation, tried it all. Finally, I tried ketamine with such high hopes that this will bring me out of this anxiety disorder that I have developed. But it didn’t. Not only that I truly felt like I was going to die under the influence of ketamine. It was one of the most horrible experiences that I’ve ever had and I did it three times at a dose of 50 mg each time. Then of course I realized it was 2 1/2 times the dose that I should have been getting according to my weight so I spoke to my psychiatrist about it and he said yes it’s too much for me and if I or anyone gets too much then things actually get worse not better. Completely disillusioned I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t do anything for a whole year until yesterday I went back to the ketamine clinic and asked them to give me 20 mg instead of 50. I was met with some resistance but they did it. It was still awful going through it, the Ketamine experience is just awful for me, feels horrible, like I’m literally going to die. But today I feel like maybe the anxiety is going away!!! I’m walking around gingerly, hoping that this is true, hoping that monstrous thing called anxiety doesn’t take over my brain again. Hoping. If any of my readers are left haha, please Hope with me. This is funny, but I even joined a prayer group on Facebook and I’ve been asking them to pray for different reasons and of course I’ve been praying for other peoples request too and funny enough seems, that sounds crazy but it seems like that works. Anyway, if I am free to live my life without anxiety, I will be blogging a lot more, so see you all next time I.

A veritable portrait of someone with Bipolar disorder 😢 Obviously we don’t kill people, l just wanted to illustrate how having bipolar can destroy your life.

Sorry about the commercials, just go past the two commercials in the beginning and the show will start. It’s incredible how much this can be looked at as the story of a person with bipolar disorder.

lovely

Song by Billie Eilish and Khalid

Thought I found a way
Thought I found a way out (found)
But you never go away (never go away)
So I guess I gotta stay now

Oh, I hope some day I’ll make it out of here
Even if it takes all night or a hundred years
Need a place to hide, but I can’t find one near
Wanna feel alive, outside I can’t fight my fear

Isn’t it lovely, all alone
Heart made of glass, my mind of stone
Tear me to pieces, skin to bone
Hello, welcome home

Walkin’ out of town
Lookin’ for a better place (lookin’ for a better place)
Something’s on my mind (mind)
Always in my head space

But I know some day I’ll make it out of here
Even if it takes all night or a hundred years
Need a place to hide, but I can’t find one near
Wanna feel alive, outside I can’t fight my fear

Isn’t it lovely, all alone
Heart made of glass, my mind of stone
Tear me to pieces, skin to bone
Hello, welcome home

Whoa, yeah
Yeah, ah
Whoa, whoa
Hello, welcome home

I keep watching myself for signs that I have evolved. That I am more advanced now. That I am not making the same mistakes again and again. Unfortunately, the answer might be no to all of the above. I mean, it’s wonderful to look young, but to keep repeating the same mistakes, what do you think you’re going to live to be 299 years old? You don’t have that much time left! Learn, evolve, become a more mature person. Abandon your old patterns, learn to live with less drama and more peace in your life. Yes, I know I’m asking this of someone with bipolar disorder. Do it any way!

I thought I was done with all the abandonment stuff. But, tragically, my mind has decided to make a sequel to Abandonment the movie, this one’s called Abandonment 2. Very imaginative! Anyway, I don’t know why, but I’m there again, age 4, horrendously sbused (as in bloody, and pulverized) by my mother and totally abandoned by my father. it’s only as an adult that I guessed how I must have felt as a child, how my heart broke, in fact how it felt like someone was throwing knives into my heart, shredding it to pieces. The confusion and heartbreak I felt at my father simply disappearing one day, out of my life forever. No explanations, no goodbyes. Just poof gone. Child abuse is also abandonment possibly at its worst. And i was abused to make Attila the Hun proud! Anyway, having dealt with all this over the years, I thought I was done with all of it. It’s been put to rest I thought. Well gentle readers, was I wrong. Abandonment has made a stellar return of late. My posture: lying in bed all day. My outfit: my comfy LLBean pajamas. My makeup: streaks of black amid beige with a touch of silver. My heart, rended. My eyes swollen and my brain on fire. I am not worthy of love, I’m hateful. I’m ugly, I’m useless, I’m stupid, I’m too stupid for any one to love me, my heart aches and I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it. Possibly, this is happening because i saw someone who looked quite a lot like my father or more likely because my son is moving to Buffalo. I am so happy he’s moving for a great job. I wouldn’t stop him for the world. But my damaged brain is perceiving it as abandonment. God save us. When does this all end and when do I get some peace.

Sometimes with people’s childhood issues, I have heard that you can either heal each other or if one or the other person is not ready then you can actually harm one or both of the people. Let’s look at a person with abandonment issues and another person who is afraid from their childhood trauma and deals with this fear by running away, Well, that’s the perfect storm, isn’t it! I mean imagine a person’s whose heart has been broken because of abandonment. Now this person meets a person whose heart is full of fear, and this person can only alleviate their fear by running. Gosh! Abandoned and Afraid and running. Not a good combination at all. Heartbreaking on all sides 😢 Running out of fear in person A causes person B to feel totally heartbroken and abandoned again. And the ensuing clingy behavior of B causes fear and flight in A. Sadly, a perfect storm. And sadly an increase in bad feelings in both A and B. Somebody should open places where they find well matched people to work out their trauma issues. That’s a pretty great idea. Both people will come out healthier!!!

I hope they are found and most importantly, they find themselves.

You can always tell who has been brought up with love and patience and understanding and who has been brought up with anger, violence and abuse. The former are peaceful, have found their purpose and are fulfilling it. The latter are reliving the trauma of their childhood by creating the same devastating conditions in which they grew up.

If you grew up with fear, you not only live in fear, you actively create and seek out conditions that will perpetuate a fearful life. If you grew up with anger, your first response to stress will be anger.

I know some lost boys and at least one lost girl. It is tragic that they have no peace in their lives, only conflict and discord, which, at this point is self created. My heart aches for these children of calumny.

One of the lost boys who is a young man now, is so afraid that he thinks he will be homeless once his parents are gone. He is constantly living in fear, which is expressed as anger, and he is inadvertently pushing away people who love him. As a child, he hid in the shower and under his bed out of fear. His young and very sensitive nature was programmed to being fearful and expressing anger.

You see fear is devastating and terrifying, while anger gives these lost boys and girls a sense of power and control over their lives, when really it is a very destructive force that only leads to more fear about the loss of control over their own lives as well as their ability to make a loving and fulfilling life. Not only are they perpetually living in these abhorrent states, they also unconsciously try to pull out the anger and fear in other people and ultimately lose the love of people who genuinely care for them. And all along they are actually asking for love and understanding. That is the tragedy with living with anger and fear.

Another lost boys, who is also a young man, has chosen a terrifying profession so he can keep himself in the terror of his childhood. He doesn’t understand that this is happening. Although he is seeking help.

The lost girl, who is a woman of some years, also lives with the effects of the abuse and anger and fear that she knew as a child. Does understanding bring relief? She doesn’t know.

Lost boys and girls are often highly sensitive and intelligent creatures, who have tragically lost their childhood to the fear and anger of their parents, and so the cycle perpetuates itself.

Is help available? Can they, will they get help? Can they be healed? They don’t know it, but I think help is available to reclaim their lives and live in peace. Everyone has a journey, I hope all the beloved and loving lost boys and girls find the understanding and self love, desert the fear and anger and live a life full of love, peace and understanding that they so desperately deserve.

All my love to all of you and us.

In many cases, that’s what mental illness is, a silent scourge. Anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD, among others appear silent to others, while people who suffer from these live in sometimes constant and unremitting hell. When you look at someone who is suffering from, for example, anxiety, you can’t tell that they are suffering. Their face may look placid and fine. They can even smile and carry on a conversation with you. However inside, their heart may be pounding, their thoughts may all be fearful and negative. Their outlook on life may be bleak. Worry and fear swirl through their body 24/7.

Well I am one of those people. Worrying, panicking, fearful, unsure of anything. And yet I put on a brave face so no one knows the extent of my suffering. It won’t stop, it won’t let me be. I’m in there, somewhere, under the tons of anxiety, gasping for breath. Sometimes it feels like my heart will explode, the constant weight on my chest, the suffocating fear, the fear and dread of what the future will bring. Will things ever be ok? Just ok would be fine, I’m not even asking for good, great, phenomenal. Just ok.

Is the worry caused by legitimate external events or do I worry so excessively due to the present biochemistry of my brain? Or a little of both? I believe mine is situational, that is it is caused by some situations in my life. Possibly, having bipolar disorder makes it worse. All I know is that it is pretty intolerable. From the time I wake up to the time I go to bed, I live in anxiety hell. A special layer of hell reserved for those with mental illness.

Don’t know what else to say. Will keep you posted. I am hoping and praying for a positive change, positive developments.

Trying really hard, living silently.

The human condition

Felled by a little ball of steel

Injured by a rectangle of painted red cement

Blood flows, life ebbs 

Bones break, sinews tear

Why oh humans do you not take care?

We all will die one day, why hasten it with cruelty, violence and hate?

Why not take the path of love, gentleness and grace?

Why not take care of your brothers, of your sisters, of your parents, of your children, of complete strangers?

We ARE as precious as gold, even more so, once gone, no one returns 

Here is my plea to humanity, before you shoot, hurl, break, destroy, kill, think, think about the violence you’re wreaking, think about it cannot be undone. 

Any “race” any gender,  any religion, we truly are as one.