Sally Alter's Blog: LONELINESS

ANOSOGNOSIA

What a long word, you may think, and rightly so. It is a very long word for a condition found quite often in bipolar disorder.

The denial of a bipolar diagnosis.

It seems strange to some people that a person might go to a doctor or psychiatrist and be given the diagnosis of bipolar disorder but not believe it. However, if you think about it, who wants to admit that they have a mental illness? It can be very distressing indeed. It is so tempting to say this happens to other people, but not to me. Yet, that can be very misleading and can alter the course of the illness.

If you think you are not ill, you do not take medication. And when you do not take medication you get ill. Yet people who deny their illness will not see this and think they don't need medication.

Others think they are starting to feel better so can't have bipolar disorder when in fact it is because they are taking the medication that they are feeling better.

There is no cure for bipolar disorder. It is a lifelong condition.

People do not deny a diagnosis on purpose. It is not a conscious decision. If you have denied your diagnosis it will likely be because you are lacking in insight or awareness because you are ill. It will be very difficult to convince you otherwise.

Denial can affect the following:

An increased use of street drugs
Suicidal thinking and actions
Trouble at work or at school
Trouble with relationships
Legal problems
Financial problems
Homelessness

If you are in any doubt as to your doctor's diagnosis do seek a second opinion. Then believe what the experts say. They are trained to recognize mental health conditions.

The worst thing you can do is to stop your treatment be it medication and/or therapy.

I personally went through a very long period of anosognosia when I was originally diagnosed with bipolar. I said surely I can't have a mental illness. I had never thought of myself as being mentally ill. And it took me many years of taking medication, going in and out of hospitals, and attending mental health clinics to finally admit that I really did have bipolar.

If you are suffering from this, do see your doctor and discuss it with him/her.

Three months ago, I started thinking about what people with bipolar have to face all the time. Usually, it is not about mania, although some people do have a lot of mania, it is about depression. Most people with bipolar disorder seem to have a lot more depression than anything else. They may go several weeks or months of feeling well, only to fall victim to the depression monkey once again when they are not expecting it.

I used to have the very same problem myself so know exactly what you are facing with your bipolar disorder. I have bipolar 1, but I don't think it matters whether you have bipolar 1 or bipolar 2, depression is a terrible thing to live with.

They say that people with bipolar 2 have more depressive episodes than people with bipolar 1, and their depression is usually more intense and lasts longer. I think these views are rather subjective, myself. Depression is awful no matter what kind of bipolar you have.

Anyway, it occurred to me that there just wasn't enough information out there to help people cope with their depression, so I decided to write a book on it. My book is about “37 symptoms of bipolar depression,” and covers just about everything you can think of, and more.

I really enjoyed writing this book so I made it into a fat workbook with check lists and lots of questions to answer. It also has a lot of lined note pages so that you don't have to write in the margins. You can keep all your notes together like that.

If you have run out of ideas for helping with the symptoms of bipolar depression, you might like to read my book. It is called “37 Symptoms of Bipolar Depression: Things you can do to get well and stay well.” and is available on Amazon along with my other two books on bipolar disorder. You will find all my books if you type my name in the search bar on Amazon.

Go and take a look now.

Sally Alter
Author of:

“37 Symptoms of Bipolar Depression.”
“How to Live with Bipolar.”
“Bipolar 1 Disorder Rescue Plan.”

I began writing on Quora.

Yes, it turned my life around. Although I can’t really say I thought it would change me for ever, I have been very pleased with the results. My therapist is, too, and says I am a different person from the one he met years ago. I feel like a different person, too.

I wrote my first question on Quora in 2015. It was a stupid question about IQ. I didn’t think it was stupid at the time, but looking back I feel a flush rushing up my neck and over my cheeks. So I won’t tell you what the question was.

Needless to say, I got a lot of very rude answers and didn’t think of Quora again for six years. Six years I wasted rather than turning my life around. At least I know that to be true now.

You may be wondering how on earth writing on Quora can change your life so I shall tell you. I began writing about what I know best and that is bipolar disorder. Seeing as I have had this cruel disorder since I was 15 I had a lot to say about it and soon many people were reading my posts. I now have more than 15,000 followers.

I wrote about bipolar for a couple of years and learned a lot more about it myself because teaching is the best way to learn. You have probably heard that said before and it is very true. I also studied bipolar so that my answers would be correct.

After a while, I decided to branch out from writing solely about bipolar disorder, so I wrote on many other subjects most of them relating to mental illness but not all. I have got a lot of pleasure out of that.

One day, a woman who does not have bipolar disorder contacted me and said I should write a book. To be very honest I had heard this said to me on many occasions because I have had a very adventurous life, for good and bad. I thought immediately that she meant for me to write a memoir of certain things that have occurred in my life, but she said I should write about bipolar.

I must say, It had never occurred to me to write about bipolar or anything else in book form because I thought I would have nothing to say and filling up hundreds of pages is no mean feat. I thought I might be able to manage a chapter but as for the rest of the book, I had no idea where to start. However, I had written over 600 answers on bipolar by that time, so I decided to put 125 of them into a book. It was not easy and it took me a long time to figure it out, but I did just that and it worked. I had written a book.

You will be pleased to know that little book has sold every day since June 2021. It is my best seller.

Once I had written the first book, I realized I could write another book, so I did, but this time I wrote it from scratch. It is about bipolar still but about bipolar 1 exclusively. There are a number of people who fall under that category and there are very few books out there on that subject, so once again my book did well. I had great fun writing that book, I have to say. I included many things that pleased me like yoga, tai chi, and qi gone. I also included many Mediterranean recipes and had great fun making them up from things I had cooked before. It is great when you write your own book because you can add what you like.

So, by now I was bitten by the bug. The Book Bug. I was now so pleased that I could write books that I got addicted to it and wrote a book on loneliness and a poetry book. Now today as a matter of fact, I have finished writing a workbook on bipolar and it will be published in April. I think I have done bipolar to death now and will find a different subject for the next book.

Writing books has been very therapeutic for me. I live alone with a cat so it has been easy to find the time and the place to write. And I find I can turn out a decent book in three months.

So, the long and short of it is that writing on Quora has changed my life. I hope it will do that for you, too.

Author:

“How to Live with Bipolar”
“Bipolar 1 Disorder Rescue Plan”
“A Practical Guide to Overcoming Loneliness”
“We Never Did Mornings” (poetry)

“37 Symptoms of Bipolar Depression” (being published in April.

All my books are available on Amazon. If you should be tempted to buy one, I would be very grateful if you would leave a review on Amazon. That helps other people know what the book is about and if you liked it. Thank you.

This is a very interesting question as you would think it a rare occurrence. However, doubting a diagnosis of bipolar disorder is so common it even has a medical term. It is called anosognosia!

It strikes many people as shameful to have such a serious mental illness and the stigma around this illness is terrible.

I myself doubted my diagnosis for many years. I just couldn’t think of myself as having a serious mental illness. It seemed unthinkable. Looking back it is laughable, but once I went into the mental health clinic and asked my psychiatrist if I had a mental illness! He looked over his glasses and frowned at me.

How was this possible? I had had bipolar 1 disorder from the age of 15 many years before. I had taken many different medicine cocktails and even spent many months in the hospital. Yet, here I was in total denial of my illness. I had walked into a mental health clinic and asked a psychiatrist this amazing question. That shows you how possible it is to doubt your diagnosis.

I’ll tell you what you do -

YOU REALIZE THAT BEING ALONE DOES NOT AMOUNT TO BEING LONELY.

Being alone is fine, but being lonely is hell.

I have been through both scenarios and have survived to tell the tale.

When I was first alone, way back 20 years ago, I was very lonely. Every day was a nightmare because I had nobody to talk to.

I noticed sharing things like passing the time of day with someone became very important. Just commenting on mundane things and being heard was the stuff of life. I could comment on a new bird at the bird feeder and there was nobody there to say, “Oh, yes, let’s look him up in the bird book”.

I also noticed that sharing decisions was very important. It soon becomes apparent that there are many decisions to be made in any partnership, and there is nobody there to share disasters when they occur.

When the a/c breaks down in the middle of the summer there is nobody there to share the decision of which company is more reliable to fix the a/c system. You find you have to try them all, and when you are a single woman, it soon becomes apparent that there are many rogues out there who profess to be something they are not.

When you are young and single these things do not matter because people, mainly men, will go out of their way to be helpful, but as you age so does the help available. It becomes old very quickly.

So, when you are old and single you had better be prepared to feel lonely much of the time. At least at first. But as human beings, we eventually get used to situations - people can endure the worst of situations and still live quite peacefully.

Over time, sometimes a very long time, your particular situation begins to take on a new light. Rather than feeling the sting of loneliness, you find that you are beginning to enjoy your own company.

It is quite a surprise. How could you have ever imagined you would prefer being alone? Yet, that is what has happened to me and I daresay many other lonely single people.

Over time, I have adapted to being alone and plan on being alone for the rest of my life. I look back with amusement sometimes because I was a social butterfly when I was young, always surrounded by company, always craving more.

Now, I no longer crave company. In fact, I generally shy away from it.

I notice these days that I am quite content with my hobbies and my cats and when my day is interrupted by people, I get bored almost immediately and just want to be alone again.

My friends are few and far between. But I don’t mind. If I have a couple of people to talk to every now and then, it is enough for me. I don’t need to be texting and talking on the phone for hours like some people do.

My quiet life is just that. Quiet. I get up when I have had enough sleep. I eat a bar of chocolate for dinner if I choose. I jump in my car and go for a drive if the mood takes me and there is nobody there to complain.

I was married to a big-time complainer for many years. I felt chained like a dog in the yard. My chain wasn’t long enough to stay out of the sun, and my bowl of food was always way out of reach.

Now, I have dropped that chain for good, and I can please myself whenever I choose.

How were your holidays? I hope you enjoyed yourself and had lots of goodies to eat. Now it is dieting all round! I had too much to eat but had one of the best
Christmases I have ever had. I was invited at the last minute to go to a friend’s house which was far preferable to being alone.

I know some of you were home alone at Christmas and others with bipolar were having a hard time of it. Christmas holidays can be very difficult for some people. It is very sad.

Did you get a chance to read any books? I must say I was too busy for reading but will catch up soon. I am reading a mystery called “The Face in the Water,” by Kathleen Pennell. She is a great writer who keeps you guessing to the end. I shall read her next book in the series, “The Man at the Ruins” when I finish with this one.

I am in the throes of writing my fifth book now. It is about bipolar symptoms and focuses on bipolar depression. I am a quarter of the way through and it will be out in the spring.

For those of you with bipolar, I do hope you will check it out.

I wish you a very happy New Year and blessings for whatever you aim to do. Are you going to make any New Year’s resolutions in 2023? I intend to write at least another three books.

Have you ever loved and lost? I bet you have. Nearly everyone I know could identify with that statement. We live in a world of uncertainties and love is one of them. You may find the love
of your life, later to realize that they do not love you in the same way and the relationship
falls through.

It is devastating. I am sure you have been devastated by unrequited love in the past. Nobody likes rejection. It really hurts.

I have taken this theme and made a book of poetry about it. It has been a labor of love. I think this topic really lends itself to poetry. What better way to express your love?

There are poems about lost love in sequence as if I am telling you a story about my life. I have a lot of
stories to tell! I have told the stories of my marriages, all three of them. I have loved and lost three times but am here to tell you that I survived. And that is about all we can do when our love is thrown away.

So many marriages end in divorce these days, it puts you off marrying at all. I think it is about 55% of marriages fail and bitter people are left to pick up the pieces of the broken relationship.

I once married a foreigner, a Latin lover, who I idolized. He was the proverbial tall, dark and handsome man and he looked as if he worked out every day although he did not. He was a lover. The problem was he was a lover to other women, too, and many of you will be able to identify with that. He was my true love and I have yet to get over him.

The love in my other two marriages was more subdued, which is just as well because it spared me the heartache when we broke up. However, I did lead an exciting life with both of them seeing as we traveled a great deal and visited a lot of countries. I lived in Malta, Scotland, England and now America with one husband so can’t say it was a dull marriage.

However, time really does heal old wounds. You may never really get over it, but the sting goes away.

My book is called, “We Never Did Mornings” and is for sale on Amazon.

“Have you ever been lonely? Have you ever been blue?” That’s how the song goes, doesn’t it? And it you are like many people you can identify with that song because you too have felt lonely on occasion.
Of course, you can go out and mix with society – eat alone or go to the cinema – but the worst thing is the secret feeling of shame that sometimes washes over us because being on our own often sends a message that we are alone because we have nobody to be with.
You may be living alone and feel lonely much of the time. Or you may even feel lonely in a crowd - many people feel lonely in their marriages. It is not a good place to be in. Loneliness can be a very painful emotion. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
There is a huge difference between being alone and being lonely. One is a choice, the other is not. If you choose to be alone, even isolated, that is one thing, but if you are alone because you have nobody to be with that is quite another.
I lived through years of loneliness after my husband died and can remember how devastating it was. I used to say to myself, “If only I had someone to call to tell them I have nobody to call!” How sad is that? At the time, I felt that the four walls of my house were caving in on me. Now, fortunately, I only get lonely on the odd occasion and I have made some really good friends to keep me company.
My new book “A Practical Guide to Overcoming Loneliness” is now out on Amazon. It covers all aspects of loneliness and has many anecdotes in it taken from my own life experiences.
It was a labor of love, and I felt a strong connection with all those lonely people out there.

DEPRESSION AND SUICIDE IN BIPOLAR DISORDER
Trigger warning!

If you have bipolar disorder, you will no doubt have had suicidal ideation which is thinking about death and planning how to take your own life. I say that with assurance because I know how common these thoughts are. It may be a revelation to you, but you are not alone with these negative thoughts. Most people with bipolar think about them.
Death by suicide is fairly common in people with bipolar disorder. The figures vary according to which poll you read, but on average it is between 15 and 22% of people with bipolar that will actually die by suicide. That is almost a quarter. It is shocking! Alarming! Many more, maybe 60%, of people with bipolar will make a suicide attempt, or several, in their lifetime.
These figures are not to be sneezed at, but I think it helps to demystify them to allay a lot of fear and suffering. Suicidal thinking is just another symptom of depression. Yes, it is nothing to get alarmed about, as long as you don’t follow through on your quest. People with bipolar depression often think about death and suicide. It is as common as the other symptoms of bipolar depression:
 Feelings of guilt, sadness and worthlessness
 Lack of energy, sleep and appetite
 No motivation to do anything, even things once enjoyed
 Slowed down movements, thinking and speaking
 Thoughts of death and suicide
If you are having these thoughts, I hope you will get help. You can ring the National Crisis Hotline, or talk to someone you trust. Whatever you do, make sure you put away anything that could harm you. Staying safe is paramount.
Don’t be another statistic. Your life is worth much more than that.
NATIONAL SUICIDE HOTLINE – 1 800 273-8255

BIPOLAR 1 MANIA!

Do you struggle with bipolar 1 mania? I know that I did before I got my bipolar 1 disorder under control. I can remember what a fool I made of myself on more than one occasion.
If you suffer from mania brought on by bipolar 1 you will understand that the symptoms are very difficult to control, and most of the time you don’t realize you are going into a manic episode.
If you are able, it is a good idea to make notes of how you felt leading up to your first episode of mania, then someone may be able to bring your list to your attention before it is too late when another mania is on the horizon. When mania takes hold, all you can do is see your doctor for a tweak of your medication or go to the hospital which nobody wants to do.
As you know, the symptoms of mania can be devastating. The euphoria is nice at first, and so is the spending, but soon comes the talking at a mile a minute, ideas coming into your head faster than you can keep up with them, and upsetting people wherever you go. And not everybody forgives us after a manic episode, do they? It is nothing to lose family and friends to bipolar 1 mania.
Personally, I used to have more dysphoric manias the older I got, and I think that is even worse to try to control. All the irritability that leads to anger, and in my case, long bouts of rage that lasted for weeks. You may be unfortunate like me, and have to put up with that.
What other illness has a total change of personality? Can you name one? It is awful to have diabetes and have to control your sugar intake, but at least when you are diabetic you are always the same person every day of the week. Not so with bipolar disorder, as you know.
And then 60% of people with bipolar 1 have psychosis on top of mania and have to put up with hallucinations and delusions. This usually ends with a hospital visit.
I would like to tell you that last month I published a book called Bipolar 1 Rescue Plan which was written for people like you and I. It is published on Amazon and I will leave the link below. I am sure you will find this book helpful in controlling your bipolar 1 symptoms If you do buy a copy please leave a review on Amazon.
Sally
https://www.amazon.com/Bipolar-Rescue...