In this episode of Through a Therapist’s Eyes, we dive deep into understanding Bipolar Disorder and its impact on family life. We’ll break down the different types of Bipolar Disorder, the DSM criteria, and the nuances that set it apart from other mental health disorders. Through a compelling case story, we’ll uncover the challenges in diagnosing Bipolar Disorder. We’ll also discuss the emotional strain, unpredictability, and communication challenges families face, and offer practical strategies for coping and supporting a loved one with Bipolar Disorder.
Tune in to see Bipolar in a Family Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- Do you know what Bipolar really is?
- Can you differentiate this from Borderline Personality Disorder?
- What do families experience with this?
Links referenced during the show:
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/individualdiagnosis
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
Audio Podcast Version Only
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Episode #276 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello, this is Through a Therapist’s Eyes, and I am Chris Gazdik, your host on June the 20th, 2024. We are going to be talking about bipolar disorder from a family perspective. So the questions that we’re going to be thinking about is do you know what bipolar really is? Do you have the ability to differentiate that from borderline personality disorder?
And what do families really experience with this is what we want to take a dive into from a family’s perspective Can be a disruptive force for sure. We have Mr. John Pope hanging out with us this evening
John-Nelson Pope: Good to be with y’all.
Chris Gazdik: And Miss Victoria Pendergrass.
Victoria Pendergrass: Hi.
Chris Gazdik: What did I? Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: you just really, well, you just really dragged my name out there.
Well, it was dramatic. I mean,
Chris Gazdik: it’s a nice.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay, Chris is still fine. John sings my name every time he comes into the office. [00:01:00] And I told Chris he can’t take that because that’s John’s thing. And so now Chris, Chris is trying to find his own way.
Chris Gazdik: Serenade. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: See, now I want to sing Victoria.
Chris Gazdik: That’s what she hears when it comes.
Yeah, I love it. Alright, Through a Therapist’s Eyes, where you get insights directly from a panel of therapists with personal time in your home or in your car, but knowing it’s not delivery therapy services in any way. Got the marriage book that’s out there. Out in my hands. Yay. Thank you. Publication date’s not till December 11th, but need to talk about it.
Get some pre orders made on Amazon,
Victoria Pendergrass: but if you come in the office, you can go ahead and buy it.
Chris Gazdik: That’s true right now. Might even give a discount on the first book when you do. Anyway five stars. John,
John-Nelson Pope: yes. Always five stars. Anything less. We don’t want it. We don’t want it. We don’t want it. We don’t want it.
We want to go right to the top.
Chris Gazdik: It does help. That is your job. If [00:02:00] you enjoy our programming, it helps us to get found with the algorithms. Please follow us on Spotify. Hit the thumbs up. I mean, we get it. A lot of listeners per show and very little thumbs up or those types of things. So they really are important.
Help us out. That’s your job. Contact it through therapistize. com. Listen, this is the human emotional experience which we endeavor to figure out together. We have a couple of honorable mentions. I need to do this more. I’m going to start trying to do this when we get new YouTube members. So welcome, Julian.
I don’t know if you saw that, Neil. Did you notice that? Yep. Pretty cool. So welcome aboard my friend. And you will too endeavor to figure this out together with us. A new YouTube member. Do you get,
Victoria Pendergrass: side note, do you see when you have Apple podcast subscribers?
Chris Gazdik: No, we don’t get notifications on when people subscribe or that.
No,
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, but do you have like access to data that shows like how many people?
Chris Gazdik: We kind of look at the demographics and yeah, that’s, that’s Neil’s [00:03:00] job. You love doing that, right? He yeah, he only did that because eyebrows went up if you noticed. Yeah. Yeah Let me get through this victoria. Sorry, so I want to get Never stop it christopher.
All right. I also want to mention something cool that we came across today that came across this week it’s a it’s a it’s a pretty cool thing neil, did you look at it a whole lot? You don’t have a mic. Did you take a deeper dive on it? Same as I did. We looked at it briefly, but alcoholfree. com as it sounds, spell it that way, alcoholfree.
com is a pretty cool resource and it’s a. Basic design is to be like a podcast directory. And we are listed in their podcast directory being that we have the topic of working with alcohol and drug issues, but alcoholfree. com look like it had the resources, some cool things to check out. We may mention it a few times because it’s a nice free resource.
For anybody struggling with addictions, I [00:04:00] presume sobriety and recovery, or if you’re just thinking about it. So alcoholfree. com podcast directory and other such things that are on there. Cool resource. So John, you found out about this topic. What did you think when you sat down and. See, I purposely don’t give these guys a lot of notice.
A, it’s show prep when genuine reaction. This
John-Nelson Pope: is, I just love, well, I don’t love that people have bipolar or borderline, but I just love the topic in a sense because it is to me, one of the areas that I think probably needs a lot more research, good research, empirical research, research, research, research.
Well, you know, there, there’s aspects of the organic, in other words, the there’s, there’s a sense of heritability, but there’s also an idea of, of the environmental head injuries, [00:05:00] that sort of thing. So I just think there needs to be more of that. I was
Chris Gazdik: just surprised to hear you say that. Cause I’ve kind of felt like we have a pretty good understanding of bipolar.
Huh. Yeah. Disorders and such, but well, I would like, well,
John-Nelson Pope: I’d like to have more efficacy on medication, for example. Yeah. And, and certainly, you know, in terms of techniques and, and counseling strategies, I think that would be Be good. Yeah. So,
Chris Gazdik: and also just the, you know, head injuries and concussions.
We’ve had to learn a lot in the last really 10, 15, 20 years most. And this goes, this goes into that. You’re right. Yeah. So that that, that’s an interesting comment.
John-Nelson Pope: But I, yeah, I’m, I’m, I’m all for this. Yeah. I think patient education or client education is very important about this and self acceptance and,
Chris Gazdik: what about public education? Well, I Because we’re not educating patients or clients today.
John-Nelson Pope: Pardon? Just kidding. [00:06:00] You’re giving me a hard time today.
Victoria Pendergrass: I love it, because then that means he’s not giving me a hard time. Oh.
John-Nelson Pope: I’m yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Well, I could be random too, like for instance, Neil, I just found the clip, it was on the bottom.
And now it’s on the floor. Yeah, he just flicked it off of the floor. Yeah, it’s on the floor. It’s on the floor now. All right. People are like, what the heck? Get to the point. Victoria, what is bipolar disorder in your descriptive abilities?
Victoria Pendergrass: In my descriptive abilities? Do you mind me asking the wrong person?
No,
Chris Gazdik: we are not. You’re fresh out of school. Yeah. Well, I mean,
Victoria Pendergrass: to sum it up, at least in my point of view, it’s basically where An individual has goes through periods of depressive episodes, which is typically like super sad lack of motivation, not doing things that they’re typically interested in.
Those types of things very much related to like major depressive disorder type. And then they have periods of time where what we call, they have a manic or hypomanic, right? That’s a hypomanic. [00:07:00] Hypomanic. Yeah. Episode where they’re, it’s kind of like the opposite. Like a 180, there’s like, Typically, they, you know, they might talk a lot or they can’t seem to sit still.
They have all this energy running on very little sleep things like that.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. I, and I would,
Victoria Pendergrass: and then there’s, it’s usually like over a specific length, like it’s been happening over a specific length of time. The length of time is
John-Nelson Pope: important.
Victoria Pendergrass: I
John-Nelson Pope: think also to differentiate between bipolar 1 and bipolar 2.
And bipolar 2 is the depression typically, or generally speaking, is more profound for a longer time. And the hypomania is not as much as, let’s say, bipolar 1.
Victoria Pendergrass: Mania and hypomania.
Chris Gazdik: Basically, it’s just mania. Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: lesser, lesser. So hypomania is literally
Chris Gazdik: has the same
John-Nelson Pope: symptoms, right? Right. [00:08:00] Yeah. It’s just the intensity.
For example, a bipolar one client that I had went from being a very stolid stage man, midlife and very responsible. And then he just started spending money and he started gambling and impulsive and, and not getting sleep.
Victoria Pendergrass: So would you say that bipolar one, it’s pretty. Equal as far as the depressive and the manic.
Chris Gazdik: No, it’s more manic. It’s more basically. I’ve always thought of it real simply Bipolar one is more manic than depressed bipolar two is more depressed than man. Exactly. That’s the way exactly Simplified it in my brain And then before we turn the mics on with the YouTube live before we turned the Spotify mics on we were talking about cyclothymic, which is, which is interesting.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Cause it can, it’s kind of hard to diagnose. You have to have to be a little bit of a Sherlock Holmes with that to be able to, to do that because in terms of there is the cycling that [00:09:00] happens and according to the DSM five TR. It, or the DSM 5, it, it happens frequently, but the lows are not as low and the highs are not as high.
Yeah, basically,
Chris Gazdik: I’ve thought of this in that way. You know, on the YouTube, you can see my hands. We have a range, you know, of my forefinger and thumbs, all of our mood, everyone does, and you kind of go up and you go down and you go up. Your mood’s never really staying the same. And it has this sort of range box about, you know, three inches.
You can imagine my fingers going in the air. What happens is. In manic episodes, your mood goes way above that range. Mm-Hmm. in an elevated state with the things Victoria was saying that are symptom sets. And then, or it goes way down out of that range. And the, the sign with the depression thing and the significant piece is that, that is at least weeks at a time.
Mm-Hmm. in those episodes, it’s not like you get Mm-Hmm. , [00:10:00] hypomanic or manic for a day or two, and then you, you come out of it. It’s three weeks, three months at a time for each of these different polls. Why is that significant?
Victoria Pendergrass: I think that’s significant because people assume like the public opinion of what bipolar is,
Chris Gazdik: which gets used with,
Victoria Pendergrass: with a borderline, right?
And so borderline is more. of the frequency between up and down.
Chris Gazdik: Borderline personality disorder, right?
Victoria Pendergrass: Whereas, like, bipolar 1 and 2 is
Chris Gazdik: a long time. is,
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah, and so, and I think I always, and I don’t know if y’all find it funny as to your business, but I always kind of chuckle when I’m out in public or, or, When I have clients who are like,
Chris Gazdik: Oh,
Victoria Pendergrass: everyone thinks I’m bipolar because one minute I’m this and the next minute I’m that and I’m like, Oh, okay.
So
Chris Gazdik: not bipolar.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, then, yeah, but then it opens up a conversation of like, okay, well, let’s talk about it. Like, why is that [00:11:00] not bipolar? And could it be that you. have borderline or is it just we have trouble regulating our emotions and we can get that and then we’ll simply put
Chris Gazdik: trouble regulating is usually the case if you’re really going up and down day to day or even hour to hour with rages and then depressions That’s by our borderline and then if you have extended periods
John-Nelson Pope: and you can be the best person in the world One moment and the next moment you are if you’re under living in a family Yeah, you’re you could be the best or you’re in a serious relationship or something You feel like the perfect boyfriend and the next thing is you’re the worst thing that ever happened, right?
Yeah, that’s with Bob borderline borderline
Victoria Pendergrass: It also doesn’t help that they both, all three of them have the same initials. They’re all BPD. They’re all BPD.
Chris Gazdik: Bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder. You know what? In all my years, that has never occurred to me. Never has occurred to me. BPD refers to, yeah, that’s funny.
Yeah. I mean, now, naturally, okay, [00:12:00]
Victoria Pendergrass: naturally, yes, most of the time when people say BPD, we mean borderline personality disorder. And then when we say bipolar, we just say bipolar. I
John-Nelson Pope: think there’s a lot more borderline than, than bipolar. Do you think or not?
Victoria Pendergrass: Like, just in the general
John-Nelson Pope: population? That is an
Chris Gazdik: interesting
John-Nelson Pope: question.
I do not know. And the other thing is, borderline, borderline is also a personality issue.
Chris Gazdik: John, I’d have to look up the statistics for that. I am skeptical about that. think that. That that needs to be looked at, honestly, unless you are sure, I mean, you know, I don’t know solid with that. Yeah, no, but, but I think,
John-Nelson Pope: I think in other words, a bipolar is, is there’s a, there is also a heritable aspect with that inheritance and as
Victoria Pendergrass: in borderline,
John-Nelson Pope: there isn’t an
Victoria Pendergrass: in borderlines.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: but there’s a genetic capacity and I think there’s a [00:13:00] lot that we don’t know about the personality disorders and we, so we’ve talked about bipolar before on the episodes. We’ve also talked about borderline at what let’s cut out of here and moved in the next segment. Yeah. Didn’t Madonna
John-Nelson Pope: do a song called on the borderline?
Victoria Pendergrass: I have no earthly idea. I don’t
Chris Gazdik: think so, John. I think that one, you’re gonna, is that really, oh, he’s Googling, he wants to check that out.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay, come back to us in a minute, John. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: So, I guess I will spend a little bit of time more so on understanding this because I think to your point, John, particularly therapists that are listening, this can be tricky to diagnose.
And so. That’s my point. Yeah, that was your point. And, and, and the, the reason for that, I think, particularly. As it’s emerging. And so I have a an experience of Madonna did sing a
Victoria Pendergrass: song called borderline.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, wow. Well, I wonder why. No, I won’t say that. I’ll get hate mail about Madonna. We [00:14:00] do
Victoria Pendergrass: not hate Madonna.
No, we
Chris Gazdik: don’t hate Madonna. I love Madonna in the eighties. She was awesome. But now I’m, now I’m in the 1980s with the video of Madonna. That’s like awesome. But I, I’m trying to. I’m sorry. That’s okay. You know what I’m talking about? Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay. This podcast is kind of like how my brain works.
Chris Gazdik: Oh no. We are off line.
Okay. So diagnosing this can be tricky and I had a, I had a situation that I did want to share that really I think demonstrated. You know, the difficulty in differentiating this when you’re not knowing that bipolar is present. So this is very early on as this is emerging, because this emerges in people’s lives somewhere where, you know, you could have children that have bipolar, but usually 18, late teens, twenties, that this begins to kind of come out.
And in that area of time, it is really difficult to see that this is happening. So I [00:15:00] had a, a school professional. I want to be careful and just say it was a professional in a school, and they were working with the kids, and She was, she was in her early to mid twenties, you know, young new teacher lady, and We were just doing normal therapy stuff anxiety, how to manage stress, you know, that type of stuff.
Bipolar was nowhere on our radar. I, when I’m working with somebody, I work with a big picture and I’m looking at all the things in life. And this was a
extended as my, usually my therapy experiences are, wasn’t just a few sessions. You know, we were well into working with each other by several months or so.
But something felt off. Something felt wrong. I didn’t, I felt like I was missing something. I didn’t get what was going on. It was like, What is, what is this? And some of what was the tip was, was her irritability was just way more than I was comfortable with. And for no real reason related to stress or the [00:16:00] kids, or, you know, we talked about dating and stuff, but something felt off.
And I started to really hone in on. that irritability. And secondly, and most importantly, we really started honing in on sleep level. So a little bit of a tip that I’d like to offer therapists in diagnosing this and thinking about it is really look at sleep because she was minimizing her sleep report.
When I first started, but we really started to dial in and I really wanted her to track it. And over a period of months, she really tracked her sleep levels. And one day she came in and she’s like, Chris, I, I, I’ve been irritated and I’ve noticed that I’m up at night and I was cleaning. And I, I, I feel like this happens for a few days.
That was the margin. It wasn’t a manic episode or hypomanic episode. It was just like. I’m thinking differently, I’m feeling differently, [00:17:00] I’m sleeping differently and there’s no reason for any of this. And I followed her and we tracked that a little bit further to find that yeah, there are these periods of time.
And that was the emergence, like it was literally emerging at the time that I was working with her. It was really cool. Yeah. I feel like it was a good find on my part. It was a good moment. That would be a good study. It would be absolutely a good study case, yeah. You know, to see how that tracks and how that progresses, because I think I caught it, like, right when it was really happening.
But it’s really different than Borderline. Huh. It’s really different than, you know, the depression that you might experience or anxiety. It has a very different flavor. When would you
John-Nelson Pope: say then that borderline starts to manifest itself? Oh God, well that’s a rabbit hole. That is a rabbit hole. Yeah, because I’m wondering, because you said that you felt that the bipolar would, was more in terms of late adolescence.
[00:18:00] Yeah. And young adulthood.
Chris
Victoria Pendergrass: Pretty sure. Isn’t it very similar for Borderline? There used
Chris Gazdik: to be this thing that you
Victoria Pendergrass: can’t
Chris Gazdik: diagnose personality disorder in teenagers. I disagree. Oh, I agree
John-Nelson Pope: with
Chris Gazdik: you. Yeah. I disagree with that sentiment. It’s like old school thinking I, so I, I think suddenly you’re bipolar.
John-Nelson Pope: I
Chris Gazdik: feel like John, let me answer your question. There’s because borderline personality disorder is so misunderstood. And you remember, I happen to think it’s a hormone issue. I believe the endocrine system is jacked. Oh, we did we did a whole show. Yeah. We did a whole show on it. And so if that’s the case, why it would be the same with kids.
Yeah. I don’t know when that’s, Jacked upness starts in the endocrine system for somebody but clearly it gets wacky during teenage years So, you know people are confused as this borderline or that but that’s a whole nother rabbit hole I think we got to get out of that hole.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay
Chris Gazdik: So diagnosing and what it is what it isn’t [00:19:00] any any other thoughts about this?
Like, did I, did we have a good, good overview, good quick overview?
Victoria Pendergrass: I think the main thing is just to clarify, like, to dismantle the public opinion that bipolar is up and down frequently. Between the
Chris Gazdik: Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: And I know people use it now. I know I’m acting so bipolar. I’m doing, you know, and I’m just like I’m also ADD.
We’re not also using that in the correct context. So you’re,
John-Nelson Pope: again, what did you say? It was beautiful. It was emotional, emotional regulation.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: And that, that’s part of a skill.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, it’s part of emotional intelligence, part of a, Executive functioning, like all that stuff, all that stuff. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: So please, if you don’t feel like you have Neil, give me a show number on what we did on a bipolar do a deeper dive so that you can really understand this before we go [00:20:00] on, because we’re going to assume that you do from this point on and talk about the family dynamics and what happens with, with how people really relate with this.
Neil’s going to get a show note, show number when we took a deep dive on that. Uh, so
might families really experience when they have a member of the family that Is acting in this irrational pattern, impulsively buying stuff, or maybe having if affairs and their parents are upset. It’s the hypersexuality. The hypersexuality. There’s, there’s irritability that’s raging, you know, mommy or daddy is up at night and they’re crawling the hallways.
They’re not, you know, they seem to be very talkative and very active. Highly emotional and it’s like the
Victoria Pendergrass: opposite. They won’t get out of bed [00:21:00] And
Chris Gazdik: then they go to the depression side and you know next in six months I know that they’ll act that way where no energy no interest and they
Victoria Pendergrass: won’t want to play with me, right?
It’s it’s a it’s
Chris Gazdik: a hell of a picture to to really live with Anything Neil? Oh, dang it. Bipolar
John-Nelson Pope: disorder show description. Well, I, I have experienced clients with bipolar and in fact, it, it was in Florida that we had one of my clients who basically stripped off all her clothes. Yeah. Yeah. And she was screaming at the neighbors to get off her lawn.
She was in her lawn.
Chris Gazdik: Oh man.
John-Nelson Pope: And the police were called the, the, the children. The children were teenagers and they were mortified. Just
Chris Gazdik: embarrassing. The, these are the cases where you see on like, you know, [00:22:00] cops or funny police videos or these types of things. And a lot of times it is the naked guy running down the street.
Or they’re victimized
John-Nelson Pope: though. I mean, there’s, you know, we exploit them because we got it. We show them on cops. Right. Things. I mean, yeah. And, and, and
Chris Gazdik: they’re dangerous. Yeah. When you get manic. You can get pretty loopy. You can get believe stuff. You can get delusional. You get pretty loopy. You might
Victoria Pendergrass: not be aware of your surroundings or where you’re at.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, now that’s pretty severe, more severe mania, but it’s still like, you know, what is going on with that dude? Well,
John-Nelson Pope: you also see like people that will spend everybody’s, their retirement. And so it, it can impoverish a family, right? Yeah. That’s a big factor.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Financial strain is huge. I didn’t really think about that from a family perspective, but you’re right.
John-Nelson Pope: Or let’s say the compulsive or [00:23:00] impulsive buying, for example tens of thousands of dollars and just,
Chris Gazdik: right.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: A little bit of hoarding. Hoarding. Yeah. A little bit of that. Can you imagine being disciplined by a bipolar parent? No more wire hangers, dude. So it’s horrible. There can be abuse. Also counterbalanced with neglect, because when you’re depressed, you’re probably not able to do a lot, you know?
So it’s just, you really kind of don’t know what to expect.
John-Nelson Pope: Then there’s the possibility of suicidality. You know, that’s a, that desperate, that desperate, you know,
Chris Gazdik: with the patient that has bipolar or with
John-Nelson Pope: a patient that has bipolar, but also the family members just having to
Victoria Pendergrass: deal
John-Nelson Pope: with it, despair. And I think we all have.
We have in our own families somebody that maybe it’s that peculiar aunt or uncle or whatever [00:24:00] that has struggled with bipolar all their lives and their children, and then there’s substance use disorders that come with that. A
Chris Gazdik: lot of times people end up drinking, you know, and you kind of, if you don’t have a trained eye, like I sometimes struggle, like I can really differentiate pretty well.
I feel like because we’ve done it for such a long time, but if you don’t have training with this like you don’t know if this person in your family is Drinking and drugging and they’re an addict because everyone use these the addiction term You don’t know if they have depression because you know, they get periods where they’re a little bit weird and they’re up But you’re more worried about when they’re really depressed You don’t know if they’re just you know OCD and compulsive because They, they, you know, they get into a cycle of mania or hypomania and they write a book like how I just don’t know what I’m looking at when I’m a family member.
I mean, how much level of [00:25:00] confusion and fear comes into the picture
Victoria Pendergrass: when I was also thinking, like, and I probably, there’s probably statistics on this, but I wonder, like, what is
Chris Gazdik: sticks
Victoria Pendergrass: 16.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, wow. Neil’s telling me the last bipolar show that we did is episode 16,
the only one that we’ve done a die. No kidding. Yeah. Borderline personalities. Sort of. We’ve talked about it more than once, which is a great
John-Nelson Pope: Madonna song.
Chris Gazdik: Yes, it is. John. If you say that one more time, you’re gonna have to sing the whole song. Okay. I’m not going to do that.
Victoria Pendergrass: But what I was saying is I almost wonder like what the divorce rate within it.
Couples who have a diagnosis of like bipolar if they’re probably
Chris Gazdik: increased.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, I would assume so.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. A lot of fighting,
Victoria Pendergrass: but a lot
Chris Gazdik: of, you know, a lot of strife and strain,
Victoria Pendergrass: especially I would [00:26:00] imagine if the bipolar is undiagnosed,
Chris Gazdik: because
Victoria Pendergrass: then if it’s, if it’s diagnosed and they, you know, try medication, there’s at least the awareness of it, and then you can maybe kind of work within like.
The awareness of what they have, but if they, it’s undiagnosed, I can imagine it’s hella confusing and you’re like, what the heck is going on with you? And then
you end up like leaving the marriage or whatever, because you’re like, well, I don’t know what my partner is doing because like they’ll be, yeah.
Well, there’ll be one way for three months and then. The next three months or two months or whatever they like don’t sleep and Victoria
Chris Gazdik: the truth is a lot of times most times I would actually maybe make the bold statement. It is undiagnosed Because you know when we see by bipolar people in our world when they’re depressed,
Victoria Pendergrass: [00:27:00] right?
Chris Gazdik: Because and hear this When somebody’s manic or hypomanic, they feel
Victoria Pendergrass: great! Yeah, they’re not coming to therapy. They’re not
Chris Gazdik: coming to social work services. They’re not going to take their medication. No, because they feel wonderful. I am wired. Y’all don’t understand me. I have energy. Euphoric. I am euphoric.
I mean, it’s I would almost love to be manic one day, just to see what it feels like
Victoria Pendergrass: experience it. Yes.
John-Nelson Pope: So you could join the group, 10, 000 maniacs. I’m sorry. Okay. Here’s a question. We’re going to do a
Victoria Pendergrass: special episode where John just sings. Yeah. That’d be great. We’ll do a
Chris Gazdik: 24 hour show to get sponsorships.
Chris,
John-Nelson Pope: you were right. 4. 4 percent of us adults will experience bipolar disorder at some point in their lives. Well, 1. 4%. Have borderline personality disorder. Yeah, that makes sense to me.
Chris Gazdik: But I think that’s more because quite likely bipolar [00:28:00] is more diagnosed than borderline personality disorder. Want to know why?
Cause you get medications for bipolar disorder, frankly, can’t get medications for borderline personality disorder, which by the way, Medications in this particular world for bipolar disorder, unfortunately, are really important. Oh, I think they’re essential. Dramatic pause, because yeah, it’s not one of those things that you can just, you know, Victoria, you love that.
eloquently put phrase of, you know regulation, you can’t regulate a manic episode by meditation or by yoga or by exercising or by prayer or by good journaling. Or fill in the blank. Really. Right. It’s not something that you can really regulate. Your body, [00:29:00] your loved one’s brain. There’s
John-Nelson Pope: no guard rails.
Period. Right. It’s offline. It’s offline. The question, this is just a hypothetical because you, there is the heritability aspect of borderline that I think,
Chris Gazdik: borderline,
John-Nelson Pope: you said, I’m, I’m wondering if, you know, bipolar is a mood disorder. Could borderline in a sense be a, it’s, although it’s a personality disorder, is there a there’s a mood aspect to it that would make it seem more moody, I guess.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. But that, that’s why my, my theory, and it really is just Chris Gazdick’s theory. I haven’t heard anybody talking about it certainly in trainings or research or whatever. But when somebody has a thyroid issue, John, you know what happens with thyroid not producing or overproducing, [00:30:00] your mood goes wacky.
Exactly. Why? Because your hormones are out of bounds. Or PCOS. That’s what we know. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: PCOS. We literally just talked about this. Not
Chris Gazdik: in the aspect of
Victoria Pendergrass: like mood, but we did just talk about PCOS. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: you know, when you take Synthroid. To manage your thyroid if you have hyper, or I’m sorry, hypothyroidism. I think that’s where you take Synthroid.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s Synthroid. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Right. The other one, I don’t know what you do for hyper thyroidism, but you are trying to regulate your hormone system so that your mood doesn’t get disrupted in much the same way. We’re really trying to regulate not your hormones, but your brain functioning, and that becomes really, really important.
Mm-Hmm. to mitigate your mood. Remember the, those ranges right. with my forefinger and thumb. We have about four inches in the normal range. The medications work to keep us in that range.
Victoria Pendergrass: The okay zone.
Chris Gazdik: But bipolar people do not like that.
Victoria Pendergrass: And they go to the [00:31:00] high zone, and they go to the low zone. Because
Chris Gazdik: you’re taking away their wonderful high zone.
John-Nelson Pope: But, and they, and that’s coupled with the fact that side effects of some of the medication is, is almost like a Yeah. Lithium, for example. Yeah. I mean, you have to regulate yourself, right? In other words, you have to labs and you have to titrate it exactly right, the, the lithium or there’s a sense of feeling like I don’t want to feel like everyone else.
I want to feel absolutely different. Top of the world. Yeah, all the time. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: it’s just, it is a pain in the toot. But the reality of it is it’s bipolar can be so life disruptive. So family disruptive that the options of not taking it are not the greatest because there’s so much disruption really. That’s the point I’m trying to make.
And that’s, that’s unfortunate because there are these side effects. [00:32:00] There is this annoyance. Now, newer, second, third generation, you know, psychopharm for these things. Well, they use stuff. It’s better
John-Nelson Pope: to treat it like with hammer basically. Now that’s more targeted.
Chris Gazdik: What do you mean by hammer and targeted?
John-Nelson Pope: Okay, well, with the old drugs, it would, it would actually there would be horrific side effects. And I think people did not like that, primary
of which is sedation and possibly also the weight gain. That would be there and that, that’d be very similar to antipsychotics, right? So the, and then there was diet restrictions and things of that sort.
We didn’t know what was going on. No, no. So it was, it was like trying to do neurosurgery with a paper clip. Yeah. Yeah. Just very, very
Chris Gazdik: bad. It’s better now, though. It’s better now. We mean by targeted.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. Well, now you have medications that are targeted for a particular brain function. [00:33:00] And in other words, they would help with making more efficient use of the of the, of the chemicals in the brain.
And I was thinking. Yeah. Maybe serotonin, for example GABA for example, or MDA. That’s, that’s sort of aspect of it. So anyway, it’s getting an area. I’m not comfortable with it. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Well, there’s a lot to it. Yeah. No, but that was good. Thank you for teaching us that John. I mean, there’s, there is a lot to it.
And the medication aspect sucks. Also, you can’t force your family member to take them. Can we be clear about that?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You cannot force The family member to take them and, you know, however you can support them, you can talk with them, encourage them about it because equally important is it’s important to take the medication.
I know that sounds like a double bind for any family member that’s [00:34:00] listening to this. It’s a big double bind. But I think that’s really true. Listen, if you try to force somebody to take medications before they’re ready or willing, short, short of them getting admitted to a hospital, which oftentimes happens with bipolar disorder, you, you very well likely have left, as you say, Victoria untreated, you’re going to land in a
John-Nelson Pope: hospital a lot of times.
And that’s another aspect. And I think there’s a horror stories and I, and I’ve always. Belt this way because I’ve served three years on a psychiatric ward in the Navy as a as a Chaplain, oh boy. Yeah. Yeah. I saw I saw everything mood disorders personality disorders just whole a whole range of things but the the
point is is that when you go and funnily enough, there was less restrictions on, on in the military [00:35:00] hospital system, psychiatric system than there are here in civilian in the civilian thing.
And I never understood that because they’re saying, say that again. Well, there seems to, at least I was, if I was at an enlightened facility, the Naval Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida on the psychiatric ward floor, because we got all the people from the East coast come down there. Right. Okay. There was, it’s a big sample size in the military.
Yeah. Yeah. There was a sense of a, more of an openness and a less restrictive of clients at there. Yeah. in the military. On the other hand, I’ve had encounters with people that say, I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go to the, to the side crazy house or, you know, they, they, they do everything. I feel like I’m in jail.
Right. And there has to be a more humane way [00:36:00] and a more normalizing of, of treatment of people that if it’s necessary to hospitalize them, then to lock them up.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, it’s just difficult though, John, because I mean, you, you, you, You’ve got to have the safety protocols. I mean, you’ve got people that are struggling and they’re not acting well and you can take a soda can, rip it in two and, and, and, you know, commit suicide or hurt somebody and
John-Nelson Pope: you take their shoelaces and their belts and all that.
Yeah. But it’s more than that. I think. Okay. Why? What
Chris Gazdik: do you, what do you think? Well, I
John-Nelson Pope: think that the attitude, the attitude, the culture restriction, yes, it’s more of of keeping. Yeah. Inmates as opposed to treatment and my experience in the military, in the naval hospital that I was at, I can’t generalize, but I would say that it had a big [00:37:00] sample size of, of people on the East Coast was that there was plenty of groups, people to participate individual therapy.
It, you actually would see the therapist. Not just a technician. And there would be the psychiatrist that would be there, the psychologist. We did staffing with the, the nurse, the nurse practitioner, the PA, the chaplain, the psychiatrist, the psych
Chris Gazdik: you know what’s missing which is our topic today the family interventions and such.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, yeah,
Chris Gazdik: right, right, right Which we do that in psych hospitals, you know as we go real quick youtube live is helping us out it’s methamusel or to put tapasol for hyperthyroidism. So that’s cool. I appreciate that. I did
John-Nelson Pope: not know that.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, I didn’t either. Yeah. Synthroid is what I always bank on.
That’s the only one I can. Well, that’s for the
John-Nelson Pope: hypo. [00:38:00] Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: for hyper. Okay. You’re right. So they’re talking about hyperthyroidism. Victoria, you, you were thinking about this, which is actually yours is your topic today. I should have said that off the front end. This is, this is your,
Victoria Pendergrass: your
Chris Gazdik: topic. She, she was, she came to me.
She’s like, we need to talk about family dynamics with
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, because And like most of the I’m sure most of the topics that you have come up with over the years before even before John and I have joined they stem from like the clients that we have.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah we see this stuff in our office is why we talk about it.
And
Victoria Pendergrass: that’s why I look like I literally was with a client and I was like oh my gosh this would be a great podcast episode because this client of mine they are struggling with like their partner was diagnosed with bipolar they have two kids like They’re currently separated right now and they’re like working like through all that.
So.
Chris Gazdik: It’s a lot.
Victoria Pendergrass: It is. It’s not. It’s hard. And I don’t, I don’t, I don’t think a lot of people [00:39:00] consider like the effects that it has on the family.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. You know, I was just I had a relative show up in the news and Oh boy. Yes. Did you? Yes. Very highly educated, successful person and has family and had license revoked as a result of basically the bipolar disorder.
The manic state. Yeah. And so making bad decisions and also reluctant to take to take medication because she’s too smart.
Chris Gazdik: Got aggressive. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Irritable. Yeah. Right. And too smart. And, and by the way, bipolar people are brilliant. I don’t know if you know that. I happen to believe. Oh yeah. That there is a higher IQ, something or other that goes with this.
Because when people are manic. Dude, they do amazing things. They literally do write books. Or create movies. Or, or, organize [00:40:00] massive Groups and events and things. I mean, they just, cause they’re energetic and have the
Victoria Pendergrass: time way
Chris Gazdik: out of the box. I mean, there are artists, artists, the creativity, John is amazing, but that’s hard to live with
John-Nelson Pope: over the years.
If you were not a creative like that, it’s, it can be hell,
Chris Gazdik: right? That’s the side of it. Victoria, we’re talking about today, right? The family dynamics. Yeah. So what are you thinking about the family dynamics? Are you thinking about it more from the kid level or the spouse level? Like we’re, we’re, take us somewhere.
Victoria Pendergrass: Like I did this research, the stuff that I gathered was more from like the kid perspective. I guess it could kind of be from like the partner perspective too. As far as like worries and like questions that, you know, like, what can I do? How can I help? Is there anything I can do? Like, because I mean, I can imagine [00:41:00] kids and even partners, like are going to have a lot of questions as far as they’re at least expect or
John-Nelson Pope: what if you’ve been doing this for 30 years with a spouse or a partner or 20 years with a spouse or a partner?
And you’ve done everything, and you feel like you have no options. So there’s burnout. Burnout. You’re completely burned out. Helpless. Fearful. And maybe that’s what your client is feeling.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Yeah, probably.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, in my personal circles, I have a friend person who grew up with, you know, bipolar mom. And, you know, the long term impacts can be just, you know, devastating and exhausting it, you know, again, you can kind of, maybe the simplest way to think about this is you really do watch somebody, John, if you’ve been doing this for 15, 20 years over those years, [00:42:00] allowed aggressive, impulsive when they’re manic or hypomanic, which, which can, can be include violence in that.
Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and have abuses, vacillating literally with, they just dropped off the face of the earth, you know, for three, four months that they’re not talking, they’re, they’re internalized. They’re not, you know, getting out of bed there. It’s the depression. And that’s, it can be neglectful.
Victoria Pendergrass: So you literally
Chris Gazdik: vacillate between periods of time where I’m being emotionally, you’re physically abusive.
And then turn that around and make that, you know, neglectful and unavailable and just, you know, kind of checked out, you know, it’s a golden when you’re in that mid range, but that doesn’t happen very often.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and then if you’re a kid, like, that’s confusing as all get out.
John-Nelson Pope: Which mommy do we get this time?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, and then especially depending on like the age of the [00:43:00] kid. Depends on like their questions that they’re gonna ask, you know So like little kids might have worries of like well Then can am I gonna be like mom or dad when I get older? Like is am I gonna get bipolar? Like is that if they know the word for it?
Like that’s probably something that like Occurs right people and then the other parent is responsible for then like talk having these Conversations with the kids that say like, you know, this is like it’s not like the flu You know, it’s not like if this like it’s not like you can catch it It’s you know, and it kind of go through the fact that like it’s it’s I mean It’s a burden
Chris Gazdik: from the other parent to try to explain.
Yeah, really irrational behavior And that’s really what you’re trying to do is explain your rational behavior to your child. I checked out your notes Victoria Also, you are highlighting the classic, you know, well, you know, did I do this? [00:44:00] Is this my fault? Yeah, right.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah Yeah, I definitely say like when my key takeaway piece is like knowing that you know The kids are not at fault for how their parent is acting
Chris Gazdik: and that’s something that you hear people say a lot but really Really, like, kids are, like, confused at what they’re looking at, as is the spouse oftentimes.
And we rationalize things in our own mind about what I did to get in trouble.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, I mean, even think about kids of divorce. Sure. Lots of kids are like Well, what, it was my fault, like, what did I do that made my parents, like, break up and divorce, you know? Lots of kids internalize that stuff and find ways Internalize.
Yeah, and like, make it, make up things of like, oh, this is my fault. Oh, if I had done, if I had just cleaned my room when dad asked me to, he wouldn’t be laying in bed for the last months,
John-Nelson Pope: you know, and yeah, [00:45:00] and I’m sorry, but, but that’s the other aspect.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: They can’t, they cannot articulate or be able to put that in some sort of, of, of concept or paradigm that they can use.
And so they’re naturally going to default to blaming themselves.
Chris Gazdik: Right. It’s a natural default. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that’s why it’s a big factor when something big is going on with, you know, the caretakers. I’m glad I just reviewed my notes real quick, too, because what goes along with this is, you know, I’ve said on the show before, I happen to believe, because I’ve seen it time and time again, you know, with people that I’m working with longer term in therapy, we start looking at family relationships.
A highly critical person just crushes somebody’s soul. Okay, it’s, it is a powerful, powerful negative force in somebody’s life when you have a highly critical person. Now, there’s a lot, there’s, there are more than one reasons why somebody [00:46:00] might end up being highly critical, but this is one of them, Victoria, like, you know, little kiddo is there and it’s an undiagnosed bipolar parent and they’re critical as hell.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Tearing you apart for anything that you do.
Victoria Pendergrass: Impulsively
Chris Gazdik: coming at you for stuff that’s just like, What are you talking about, Dad? Like
Victoria Pendergrass: Yelling.
Chris Gazdik: Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, and again, it leaves the kids like, what the F is happening right now. And not
Chris Gazdik: just young kids.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Oh yeah. Then you have like your 17 year old or something, who’s like, then is old enough to bark back.
Chris Gazdik: Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: Or, you know, have a verbal like,
Chris Gazdik: That can get dangerous.
Victoria Pendergrass: Response.
Chris Gazdik: Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: And then especially, and that’s why like, You know, you know, people ask the question of like, what can I do? Like, well, we’re going to go there in a minute because the other
Chris Gazdik: thing I want to build with this is emotional safety. It’s really hard to [00:47:00] feel emotionally safe when you have so much vitriol and unpredictability when somebody is not medicated and bipolar.
I don’t know how you feel emotionally safe in that environment. The picture is totally different when somebody’s treated, by the way, when somebody’s engaging in treatment and managing their mood and knows that this is the case and isn’t denying that that’s the case, boy, that’s huge when you can get, you know, insightful about this and maybe that’s where we get into like, let’s move into the segments of what can you do about this?
Tell them they’re bipolar and jam it down their throat and they’re crazy and they need medications.
Victoria Pendergrass: Absolutely not. Do not do that. Do not do that. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: and I think it can also be complicated with the person self medicating. If they are, yeah. Yeah, and so there’s issues with Lots of weed. Lots of weed.
Or alcohol. Cannabis, yeah. Sure. And that presents its own problems with [00:48:00] the Canada’s Manic person on
Chris Gazdik: alcohol, not good. Yeah, not good at all.
Victoria Pendergrass: Or a manic person on a energy drink.
Chris Gazdik: Oh boy. Oh, that’s so true. Good point. Like,
Victoria Pendergrass: if I saw someone that was in a manic episode carrying around a Celsius, I
Chris Gazdik: Oh, don’t knock the Celsius.
Come on. I know, but I’m sorry. That was just that hurt.
Victoria Pendergrass: But if I did, I’d be like let’s talk about this.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. You know, Victoria, that gave me the
Victoria Pendergrass: Celsius, please. You know, I’ve
Chris Gazdik: never really thought about that myself because the energy drinks are kind of new. They weren’t. Yeah. Really around, you know, 15, 20 years ago.
Yeah. So that is a bit of a new age factor at that. Thank you for that. God bless you, Neil.
Victoria Pendergrass: I think for me and in what I was, my research and in my experience and knowledge and whatever else you want to back that up with, I think that a really important thing as far as like. What can you do is just awareness and [00:49:00] knowledge of bipolar.
So like, and kind of, you kind of mentioned, yeah, you kind of mentioned this earlier, like being aware of what, Especially the specific person that is in your family, like what does a depressive episode look like for them? What does a manic episode look like for them? Can
Chris Gazdik: you recognize it?
Victoria Pendergrass: And can you recognize it?
And then like then that way Then you can kind of especially if they’re younger. So you’re
John-Nelson Pope: talking about psychoeducational? Yeah Because
Victoria Pendergrass: I think then when you have that awareness Then it’s, I feel like it’s probably a lot easier to provide that family support. Also,
Chris Gazdik: really, really much more realistic to not take things personally.
Right. Yeah. Which is so hard.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. And I think also with the Understanding when it comes to medication that the, if this is a new diagnosis, because some people don’t get diagnosed until [00:50:00] they’re like
Chris Gazdik: in the hospital at age 40.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Or they’re not, you know, it’s been going
Chris Gazdik: on for a while, right.
Victoria Pendergrass: Is to have an acceptance that like medication is somewhat of a trial and error.
Concept. And that’s what I’ve worked with on some clients before is it ones that have bipolar and ones that are family members of people who have bipolar, but is this acceptance that like, it’s not, yeah. And it’s not going to be like, here’s a medication. Okay. Go out and live your happy bipolar life. It’s going to be like, okay, well, we’re going to start you out on this.
And then, you know, if you. Well, we might have to adjust the dosage or we might have to change the medication or we might have to like, you know, whatever to make it to where the person like feels like it’s actually, you know, where it’s actually effective. And
Chris Gazdik: yeah, you know, what’s, what’s frustrating to me a little bit, which [00:51:00] is one of the reasons why I created through a therapist as like, I feel like our charter is to blow up stereotypes and myths.
About mental health issues and disseminate good information that’s true and accurate as best as we can because, you know, that awareness and education level about bipolar is so important because as you’re saying, Victoria, like, you, you, you really, you know, need to be able to not take things personally and recognize when this is going on and There really isn’t as much of a randomness as you would think that there is And so if you become a little mini expert, you’re
not going to be joining the masses that talk about borderline personality You’re borderline.
You’re so borderline. I don’t know what to expect You know and and getting angry and flashing mad anger back. It’s like now you’re just Escalating right up with a person. You, it is dangerous to be in a fight with a manic person. Yeah. It’s not a [00:52:00] good look. What do you guys checking out? No,
John-Nelson Pope: no, no. I’ve had that happen to me before.
Victoria Pendergrass: That’s why he’s laughing. I’m laughing or not laughing because he just showed me a book that he found called my happy, sad mom. Mommy, okay. And it kind of like love that. I read the brief description of it. It kind of sounds like it’s Either it’s either going to be along the lines of like borderline or bipolar
Chris Gazdik: sounds bipolar.
Victoria Pendergrass: But
Chris Gazdik: my happy, sad mom, my happy mommy, mommy, but
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah, so I’ll have to, that might be my next day. But also books for kids, since my focus is typically on kids, usually books are amazing forms of psychoeducation when it comes to therapy and like teaching your kids things. And nowadays. There are [00:53:00] crap ton of
Chris Gazdik: children’s
Victoria Pendergrass: books that are aimed towards, like, specific things related to therapy, or things that we talk about in therapy.
I mean, I have, like, a pretty decent collection of things. I also have a pretty decent, like, Wishlist on Amazon. Well, now
Chris Gazdik: you’re adding one to it.
Victoria Pendergrass: And now I’m adding another one to it. But yeah. So, it says like sometimes mommy has happy days where she laughs and talks and laughs all day long.
Sometimes mommy is sad. She cries all day and stays in bed. Sometimes she’s so sad she has to go to the hospital.
John-Nelson Pope: So it’s kind of normalizing the experience. For a child whose
Victoria Pendergrass: parents live with bipolar disorder.
Chris Gazdik: Sure. 100%.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Witnessing. So. Who’s that by, by the way? It’s by Michelle, not even, V A S I L I U.
Vassilou. Oh, don’t know how to say it.
John-Nelson Pope: Vassilou,
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah. [00:54:00] So, so there’s,
Chris Gazdik: as we’re talking about what can family members do, I want to make a big differentiation between supporting and encouraging the person. So, so let’s assume that you’ve become aware, you’re insightful, you can recognize it, you’re not taking things personally, and you’re really doing a lot of self care to take care of yourself, to ward off the burnout that invariably is going to be a part of your experience.
So you want to really engage this person to help them see things. A very big need to set limits and create boundaries in combination though with not forcing something down somebody’s throat. Like you have to set limits and boundaries for yourself and you want to encourage treatment but you’ve got to be careful about overstepping.
Right. Also, little tidbit of a side note, if you want to engage this [00:55:00] It’s probably easier to do that in a depressive cycle than it is a manic cycle when they
Victoria Pendergrass: well I mean like we said earlier a mix when people are seeking treatment somebody who’s Manic is not gonna wanna come to therapy.
Chris
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. They’re, they’re top of their world. Yeah. They’re euphoric. But then Nothing wrong with me. So you won’t, so you probably, if they’re already a client of yours, you’ll probably go from seeing them, to then you might, you probably won’t see them for a couple months, and then they’ll show back up Yeah.
When their depressive episode kicks in. And you’ll diagnose them with depression.
Chris Gazdik: They won’t tell you about the bipolar side of the manic. Yeah, absolutely. Well,
Victoria Pendergrass: and that’s why sometimes It’s, it’s the length of therapy because then you notice a pattern,
Chris Gazdik: right? Right. Or
Victoria Pendergrass: you pick up like, okay, well this person only, at least hopefully if you’re insightful enough and paying attention enough to see like, okay, well you were here three months ago.
You know, talk to me about what’s happened between the last [00:56:00] three months, you know, between
Chris Gazdik: Can you do that with managed care? Here’s another really big thing though that you just made me think about Victoria that, that, that really can be insightful I think for particularly spouses. Okay. You have a big place to play in talking to the healthcare providers, the medical doctor who might be working with your spouse because the medical doctor will only see the depression.
They won’t see and have reports of the mania and they need to know that. You know why? Because if they diagnose depression for a bipolar patient and give them antidepressants, guess what’s going to happen. You literally throw them into mania. That’s a big psychopharmacological issue. You’re psycho pharmacological.
Sorry, John. No, no. That’s a big mental health medication issue. That is a term. I know it is. I know it is. But that’s a big medication issue. Really and truly. If you’re, [00:57:00] if you’re thinking my husband or my wife gets a little bit up there, a little bit out there, they’re a little bit impulsive, they’re not sleeping as much, and now they’re depressed, and they went to the doctor, and doctor gave them Zoloft.
They’re helping them with their depression. You gotta be like, oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. That might be a problem because you do not want to give a bipolar. I’ve seen
John-Nelson Pope: that with practitioners who have given it and that’s one of my issues with primary care physicians. I know we don’t or, or practitioners and I know that they do so much, but they prescribe the majority.
of psychotropic medications. Yeah. And psychiatrists get them for 50, you get a client or a patient for 15 minutes and don’t have any sense of what is, what is going on with that client. They don’t know the context. [00:58:00] That’s why it’s very important for us as lay people. I, I’d say that we’re more than that.
But there’s a, but we’re non medical people. But we need to know about interactions of medications. We need to know what you just shared because I’m wondering if there’s a number of practitioners that are therapists, psychotherapists don’t see that. I guarantee you that. They don’t see that.
Chris Gazdik: Because they come in depressed, they refer them to the doctor, doctor gives them antidepressant, they feel better and now they immediately get manic and they ain’t coming back.
They’re not coming back. Right? They’re peacing out. Making a, I mean, they’re going to become the world’s renowned poet. Well, and that’s
Victoria Pendergrass: why I love the concept of integrated healthcare. Where yeah,
Chris Gazdik: we’re getting better about that. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: and you know, I used to work for a company that did integrative health care.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah
Victoria Pendergrass: and even though they [00:59:00] Have their own downfalls as every company does but
Chris Gazdik: an integrated health care is what
Victoria Pendergrass: is where you have Behavioral health individuals, which is a therapist of some sort, like embedded in a clinic or in a doctor’s office
Chris Gazdik: or O. T. And yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: so this integrated healthcare, okay. It’s kind of like, if you’ve ever seen the show private practice, which is a spinoff of Grey’s Anatomy where they have like, they have like all different types of doctors in one building.
And so one client can see all these different. People, and then they all have access to the same chart. So when I go to pull up Chris’s chart, I can see his doctor’s notes from his last, like doctor’s visit in there. It’s where you work more cohesively so that you can better help. The client or the patient.
And this is
Chris Gazdik: really important. Yeah. With things like,
John-Nelson Pope: specifically.
Chris Gazdik: But,
John-Nelson Pope: but. [01:00:00] I would also argue on the, on the point of view from the, the client or the patient, that it’s very important that, that practitioners, that let’s say therapists or doctors, don’t say, well, this person’s a troublesome patient, for example that, that they do some real treatment.
I guess thorough for their own opinion, be thorough, be thorough,
Chris Gazdik: but you know, Victoria, it occurs to me in these systems, there’s a, there’s a modern day issue with integrated care. And so I know for certain that in large medical groups, oftentimes the mental health, and this has got advantages and disadvantages right now with you were just talking about, this is a great disadvantage because.
Unless you’re directly working with that person’s, you know, psychiatric care, it is protected. It is like behind what our local one calls the red wall. Right? It’s behind the red wall and no one can access that part of your record.
Victoria Pendergrass: [01:01:00] Right.
Chris Gazdik: Right? So it’s integrated care with a caveat. In modern day that your mental health stuff, albeit important to be protected, so it’s not just frivolously put out, you know, to people, but unfortunately you won’t get that data.
In a lot of medical groups because it’s that protected.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Yeah. What about,
John-Nelson Pope: In terms of is there a good theoretical or theory let’s say techniques, that sort of thing counseling theories that would be good working with people with bipolar? What would you say, sir?
Victoria Pendergrass: People with bipolar are family members of people with bipolar.
Well,
John-Nelson Pope: okay, let’s talk about family members. Okay. And then we’ll talk about the clients themselves.
Chris Gazdik: Well, good old family systems for social work is, is, comes to my mind. Amen. You know, systems theory. That type of thing. Cause you’re right. I mean, maybe that’s what you’re getting at. [01:02:00] That’s a family dynamic, too.
When you do the, the cognitive behavioral or. You know, a mogul therapy, oh my gosh, I couldn’t imagine trying to do any of the here and now gestalt therapies with a bipolar, but like that would be out. That’s not going to work. But yeah, I mean, do you have thoughts about that?
John-Nelson Pope: No, I just was I was just kind of probing your brain on that one because I, I’m, I’m probably
Chris Gazdik: reality therapy would be interesting.
Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: I think it would be. Yeah. I. I’m not, I, I would even think some aspects of solution focus might be good. Or even just, honestly,
Chris Gazdik: pure and simple behavioral stuff, to be honest with you. Yeah. You know, particularly as you’re trying to get rapport built. Especially, well, you don’t
John-Nelson Pope: want to, and you want to take away that sense of, that, that Somehow they’re defective or yeah, that they have that negative self image, which would be the, which is what our culture, I think, would say
Chris Gazdik: perfect transition.
Let’s carry ourselves out with that.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay.
Chris Gazdik: Your [01:03:00] partner, your mommy or your mummy. Your daddy is not defective. They’re, they’re, they’re, they’re not the bane of society. They’re not crazy. I mean, they literally have a biological condition that’s creating the sets of behavior that you see. And we really need to understand that.
And you really need to let go of the shame and embarrassment that we’ve talked about a little bit. So that you’re not alone and you can let other loved ones know what’s going on. You do not want to be isolating with an issue like this. Whether it be a kid in the family, nor a spouse to the partner. Like, you’ve got to have friends, family supporting you as you’re coping with a really disruptive situation.
Facet that bipolar can be so yeah, John They’re not crazy. They’re
John-Nelson Pope: wonderful people. Yeah, I had I had a client said am I [01:04:00] crazy? Am I crazy? But we have got to understand what’s going on
Chris Gazdik: with your brain
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, I love here Even though Is it like under the question? What can I do? Even though you can’t fix bipolar disorder Sometimes just knowing what your parent is going through and understanding that he or she Has an illness and can get better can help your parent.
Chris Gazdik: You know what? I think that’s a good way to take us out today Well said ma’am. Thank you for bringing the topic and helping us get the word out about such a an involved issue
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah
Chris Gazdik: Alright guys,
John-Nelson Pope: take care, have a,
Chris Gazdik: take care, stay well, have a good week, and we will see you with the I think the month in review is due up next.
Alright, take care, we’ll see you
then.