Working with Bipolar
by Tyler Richter

In my adolescent years, my doctor had diagnosed me with mental retardation. This had a lot to do with partial blindness in one eye and the other eye being crossed. Many things were difficult to do because I had no sense of 20/20 vision. I had been punished and abused because no one knew that I had this problem.

Finally, someone pointed out to my parents that I might have an eye problem which was making it difficult to learn or do normal activities. I finally was taken to an eye specialist and found out that I needed some eye surgery to correct the muscle [there are muscles for the eye but not the brain]. This did not involve the brain. I was very young when all of this was going on and it scared me. They said it would be dangerous and I could lose all of my sight.

So, from the ages of seven to fourteen years, I had been through six eye operations. The healing process from one these operations took over six months. I could see just a little bit until I finally started recuperating.

Regarding mental and physical impairment, I'd like to tell a little more about the process, as when I went through entering my teen-age years. Well, I didn't end up at one of those disability schools for people who are blind! Although normal by sight after the operations, I accrued some mental blockage from society's pressure with growing up. I found this to be fear of crowds and drug situations. I went out and sought help on my own; there were too many people not supportive of me getting help or bettering myself.

Coming to the Mental Health Complex was a new and good thing I did for myself. This experience of being frustrated really left me feeling that I was the only one this way. When I first heard of this health facility, it was through an Isaacs Coggs clinic where I had been seeing doctors for my frustrations and hallucinations. They had prescribed for me some psychotropic drug to try and calm my nerve attacks. They also suggested that I schedule an appointment at the Mental Health Facility to get daily therapy and attend groups.

At my first appointment, I was diagnosed with a Bipolar disorder due to chemical dependency to Marijuana. I started seeing a doctor every three months, and also attended a day program. This program I attended daily. It was a program called Day One (Bell Therapy), which really helps monitor people with no outlet for help. This was to keep track of their symptoms in order to help them. I attended this program for at least a year and a half, and established a routine for helping myself. They were also able to help me get transportation and lunches daily, if I kept my commitments. This was more voluntary rather than someone pushing you into something that you didn't want to do.

My next diagnosis came from drinking and led me to a different rehabilitation center called De Paul. This was a six step dual diagnosis program for involuntary people with drinking addiction from alcohol abuse. Learning that medications and alcohol did not go together, I found out on my own. No one told us about the effect of mixing these two chemicals, and that it is not good for your recovery. Attending this dual diagnoses program, I found out almost everything I needed to know about the right and wrong ways of using medications. I became more moderate with what I was doing. This dual diagnoses challenge had given me advice about why my medications were not as effective, and why they led to chemical imbalances and lots of personal problems for me. Gradually, within one year, I accumulated enough status in their system to go on to another step through the training of the Dual Diagnoses Step principles.

I left this program, and came across another new program called Consumer Task Force Team. This was an invitation, which I received in the mail, to come and join a consumer run group for consumers. So I was thinking to myself, "where am I and where do I fit in this business?" The confusion of the illness affects your ability to work and see things as they are. These changes and mood patterns can confuse and disrupt anything in, or continuing in, work or a relationship. I didn't know that for professionals, to recognize depression for some, cannot or do not know when to diagnose it before it gets too out of hand or too complicated. It would be much easier and better, if at an early stage, to recognize denial and diagnose it. You may imagine the worst, but it's important to remember that depressive disorders may vary much in severity or duration, and include many frequent migraine headaches. Migraine headaches were happening once a month to more frequently everyday and interrupted sleeping patterns. Most who recognize it and see this from an early stage can adapt their daily activities to keep track of their weekly going bouts. Scheduling and regulating diet, sleep, exercise, and prescribed usage of daily medications keep things more stabilized and aware of yourself.

People who have had mania but have not had a depression are called Bipolar I. Bipolar II is considered a much less severe and mild mania, but is associated to more depression and many stages of symptoms. There is also a Schizoaffective disorder that is more connected with delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and disorganized behavior from not planning, and the negative personality to any thing you won't agree or see to. In relationship to the three terms that I have described above, the Schizoaffective disorder can be most applied to me. Learning of some of my diagnoses from my doctor, who I see every six weeks to check my medications and find if they're doing well, I am staying stable. But the point is, if you find the side effect too troublesome, you may give up the medication altogether; and if you don't receive the understanding or support you expected from your doctor, you're less likely to stay with a treatment. Some people with Bipolar disorder have another explanation as to why we give up on our medications prescribed by doctors. We miss the highs; even with the knowledge that we are afraid of the worst feeling and reject it completely, but later find out that medications do need monitoring and adjustment.

So, I finally decided that the Consumer Task Force Team might be something of interest. When I first started attending,  I didn't like the meeting because I thought it was threatening or some voluntary commitment; but it was voluntary and not personal and also there was a little pay involved. Once I understood that, it became easier to accept it as help, and I was persuaded to accept it and see others with this Bipolar depression or mania we all shared. We discussed our medication and learned more about how different use of pills and effects could damage or level out some of these Bipolar dilemmas. We were also trained on how to work within the Mental Health Complex (where these meetings took place four times a month) and join other committees offered through an office called Office Of Consumer Affairs. This office involved us to help others that might not have as much information as we had and could be passed on from us to others within the Behavioral Health Division. We sometimes dealt with patients who lived at this facility and established goals on when they could live independently on their own when back in society. We weren't psychiatrists treating patients under direct supervision, we were there to help others like ourselves who have problems in mental life. On the other hand, we weren't psychologists who dealt with relationships of normal and abnormal brain structures. We served as clinical advocates that advised people of their rights and do's and don'ts, so they would not have this threat of no outlets and no communication with someone like themselves. Other consumers had a chance of expressing any doubts about treatment, or if they might have been violated of their rights, and this could be done confidentially. I am not being close-minded about what the doctor will prescribe or treatment plan agreed upon; I want to reinforce a person that there is a person of support here for them, to be there as an advocate, as we have learned from our Office Of Consumer Affairs.

In the community, there are supportive programs outlets located everywhere in Milwaukee. I found my neighborhood site to be in the downtown area. This place of community support, where I became a member, was a place called the Grand Avenue Club. My involvement with the Grand Avenue Club was a great step in my community involvement. People with mental illness are faced with job discrimination, mistreatment and disrespect in relationship to, and static from, society's norms; or what's accepted in society as normal. As a member, I have worked in the Clerical Unit, Education and Employment Unit, Building Services Unit, and have had three transitional employment jobs held for the six month period that is agreed upon. It had been like having a second chance at opportunity and the challenges of being and feeling normal for once, without all that clinical monitoring that prepared myself, instead of withdrawing or giving up from isolation and no way out of the fears. The clubhouse offers writer groups, chess club, men's group and dual diagnoses group, which have benefited me and brought me back to a sense of I haven't really gone completely senile. The Education and Employment Unit is like the human resources center of the club. They actually process the paper work for Transitional Employment and do a lot of work helping people with job seeking when they are ready. Many people come to Grand Avenue Club to be part of our Transitional Employment program or to get a job. There are also other units in a very large building with lots of space for everyone in the needs for club members participation from Kitchen Unit, Clerical Unit, Education and Employment, Building Services Unit and a Library. The clubhouse offers on-site training and support. Transitional Employment is situated as well as suited for employers, members, and productive support of citizens from community and is locally supported by funding through government grants out there on our behalf.

Now I am participating and allowed myself to take a bigger step and decided to go back and pursue finishing my education to get a better paying job. Living on Social Security Benefits can not help ends meet and also there was nothing else to do but waste time, usually just sitting around day-dreaming. I am in a two year paralegal bachelors degree program, but I'll probably finish in three years due to a learning disability diagnosed by my psychiatrist. It's very rewarding and self-satisfying that I can still think and learn, plus function as well!

Story edited by John Veierstahler and published by HopeToHealing.com
with permission of Tyler Richter.
© 2004 Tyler Richter