Compassionate Psychiatry Worked Wonders for My Life with Bipolar Disorder

        Before 2015 I had only met one psychiatrist who didn't want to get me on medication as quickly as possible, or who wasn't aggressively supportive of me staying on my medication. The attitude that even discussing reducing or coming off psychiatric medication was irresponsible and should be shut down asap, is all too prevalent in psychiatry. I had such bad side effects that I decided to come off lithium anyway.

        I believe in being brave and not giving up too easy, but there comes a point when soldiering on becomes stubborn, pig headed and foolish. Knowing the difference is not always easy. Life can be complicated, and it’s not always easy to know when we should meet life’s challenges head on or when we should give up gracefully. As far as living with bipolar is concerned, I sometimes want to go one way, but life wants to go another. If I don’t spot this conflict, I can find myself in all sorts of trouble. 

        I wanted to be medication-free, but life didn’t agree and the harder I strove to lower my lithium dose the greater my suffering grew. I didn’t see the signs. Why would I? At the time I had no idea that life ebbed and flowed, and there were times to act and times to be patient. So, life kept squeezing me, perhaps hoping I would see sense. It got harder and harder to lower my dose, the withdrawals and detoxification got worse and worse. I wanted to come off lithium, but I wanted it too much. I didn't have the ability to sit back and assess what I was doing with balance. I finally came off lithium after two years of struggle, depression and detoxification. It wasn't long before I was in a mental hospital, too depressed to stay at home.

After stopping lithium, I had such intense shakes and spasms I could have been mistaken for someone with Parkinson’s disease. These withdrawals got so bad that I once had to go to the Accident and Emergency ward because my neck had spasmed so violently I had problems breathing. My psychiatrist prescribed a medication that is used to treat Parkinson’s disease, but it didn’t work, and the shakes continued.

After my spell in the Acute Psychiatric Unit in Oslo I knew I needed psychiatric medicine, but I was wary of going back on lithium. So began a year where my new psychiatrist and I tried to find the right medication. The antipsychotic I had been given by the acute team had ended my psychosis but had its downsides. On olanzapine, I felt drowsy, ticks and twitches wracked my body and my mood was low. I don’t think I laughed once while taking it. I tried another medication which prevented hallucinations but made me restless and dizzy, giving me a gnawing headache that never went away. So, I tried another, which didn’t agree with me either. This time the drug made me feel numb, even more so than lithium. It did stop me feeling depressed but left a void inside me that I couldn’t live with. I felt like a dead man walking. It was not good.

Somewhere along the way, I had developed a sensitivity to medication and all the pills I tried disagreed with me. Health and stability eluded me as I cycled from depression to hypomania, with the occasional good day in between. As the year went on, my world shrank, as did my options. Nothing had worked. Nothing could keep me stable and healthy. Not lithium, not alternative medicine and now an array of conventional medications didn’t either. I had overturned the apple cart, and its precious cargo was bruised and rotting. I had ruined everything.

It was in this disillusioned state that the penny finally dropped. Enough was enough. I had to give up fighting the flow of life. It was a huge moment. My suffering had worn me down and knocked some sense into me. For the second time in my life, all I wanted was a bed in a safe, peaceful hospital where I could sleep and let the doctors and nurses heal me.

In the winter of 2016, I met a psychiatrist called Klaus Andresen. Dr Andresen was a sporty, energetic man in his late forties. He had a kind face which exuded confidence and intelligence. In our first meeting, I sat on the edge of the chair he offered me feeling nervous and vulnerable. Dr Andresen listened to me tell my story, showing no surprise or disapproval at the choices I had made. Once I finished, he paused and then told me something I never expected to hear a psychiatrist say.

“I try all the medications that I prescribe, and lithium has the worst side effects of the lot. I understand why you tried to come off it. I really do.”

I burst into tears. I felt so relieved. Finally, a doctor who understood why I had done what I had done.

“I don’t want to prescribe any medicine I haven’t tried myself,” he continued, “It doesn’t seem fair to expect people to take a pill I know nothing about. I take each medication for a weekend and see how they affect me. I know it’s only a weekend, but it gives me a taste of what the pills are like. Knowing a pill’s side effects from the writing on the side of the box is a long way from living with those side effects.”

Here was a doctor who treated my desire with understanding and respect. I can’t describe the sense of relief I felt. Going against the medical establishment had weighed heavily on my shoulders. It had been a lonely decision, full of guilt. Now a respected member of the establishment had told me he understood why I had done what I had done.

The doctors and nurses at the mental hospital I was in at the time were unlike any I had experienced since my time in the Royal Edinburgh. Instead of pushing me into going back on lithium or another medication, they took their time. They discussed my concerns with me, taking my dilemma seriously and refusing to judge me for my choices. The implied, and not so implied, disapproval that had marred previous conversations with mental health professionals was not there. In short, these doctors had a more measured, mature, Scandinavian approach. I had become accustomed to doctors telling me what to do, but the psychiatrists at Dr. Høsts Vei wanted to work in partnership with me to find a solution together. Their approach gave me breathing space and allowed me to come to my own conclusions in my own time. I was so grateful for their approach, and more importantly...

 

It worked.

By Oliver Seligman (author of Befriending Bipolar: a patient's perspective). 

Oliver has a Youtube channel called: @livingbetterwithbipolar       

Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/@livingbetterwithbipolar