UK Mental Health Worker Opens Up About Bipolar Disorder
Thursday, 27 July 2006
BBC News Online published a story about Robert Westhead, a 33-year old National Institute of Mental Health (NIHME) worker who suffered from bipolar disorder.
Robert began experiencing symptoms at age 19 and became seriously ill with severe mood swings. His moodswings happened in cycles of 8 days where he would be manic for 8 days and depressive for 8 days. Robert described some of the symptoms of mania and depression that are common among bipolar disorder sufferers; feelings of grandeur (“I was on a divine mission seeing God personified in a black dog and the eyes of a cat”), needing very little sleep, racing thoughts – before crashing down and bursting into tears at various moments.
Robert’s story was important in illustrating that sometimes patients can forget what it felt like to feel “normal” that when he was in a mildly depressed state from cutting back medication dosage. Essentially, Robert stabilized at a depressed level and thought it was a normal mood until he began to experience physical pain from the depression. Then, Robert came to a dangerous state of becoming suicidal. He attempted suicide from a lithium overdose.
Robert took another year to stabilize with different drug combination and eventually finding an effective combination for him.
