Bipolar Disorder - Applied to my life

So we have come to our final application post and there is just one more post after this but if I find a topic I enjoy as much as this project I will do a new blog so leave suggestions below.

My mom was diagnosed with bipolar shortly after my second birthday when she experienced extreme postpartum elation after my little brother was born. I have seen my mother go through many episodes throughout my life but one sticks in my mind the most. It happened right before I started gr. 7 and the depression lasted 9 months with roughly 6 months of manic following. You might be comparing these times to the diagnosis on the previous post and notice they don't add up. My mother has a type of bipolar that is not well documented, A-typical. 90% of bipolar patients are typical and fall into one of the five mentioned types but 10% do not match these symptoms but still are diagnosed. When my mother went into her depressive stage, my brother, who was in gr. 5 at the time, and I had to step up and do a lot of the shopping and cleaning because my mom struggled to get out of bed in the mornings just to make it to the couch or bathroom. Getting her pills each month was a bigger task because she had to get dressed and walk 4 blocks to the pharmacy to pick them up. I would have done it except they were narcotics which can only be picked up by the patient or someone 18 years or older.

Now you might be thinking an absent mom who pays the bills sounds like the perfect opportunity for two almost teens to do what ever they want. Frank and I didn't view it that way. We saw that we had to take care of our mom when she wasn't able to do it herself and although we could have had more freedom, the only times we went out for our own fun was the library after school and youth group on Fridays. About 7 months into the depression my mom made the decision to move back north because she felt home would be a better place to recover. About two months before we moved, I noticed my mom began to do more and be up longer. By the time we moved in July, I noticed no remaining depression. My mom was back to what I considered normal and we moved without any problems,

My dad was diagnosed about two years ago as a rapid cycling mixed bipolar but he has asked I keep the rest of his story private.


Because of having two parents bipolar, I have an estimated 73% chance of being diagnosed but because I am still a teenager they will not go near this because it could be just hormones. I have two half brothers who have a roughly 23% chance of being bipolar. Sometimes it worries me but then I remember there is still a 27% and I should focus on the positive.

Now onto my conclusion :)

Bipolar Disorder: What is it?

Manic. Depression. Up. Down. Rapid Cycling. A-typical. All of these are terms that refer to a mood disorder called Bipolar. The National Institute of Mental Health defines bipolar as "a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks." The NIMH also says that the symptoms are severe but I do not agree. They can be as minuscule as feeling a bit blue during the day to as severe as not being able to get out of bed.

There is no one thing that will cause bipolar because it is combination of multiple factors including genetics, brain structure and function. 

This disorder just presents itself in late teens early 20's with over 50% of cases being diagnosed before age 25. There are two sets of symptoms because there is two sides to bipolar. Manic and Depression.

Manic is the extreme excitement (high) and its symptoms are:

• Extended feeling of being "high" or extremely happy
• Irritability
• racing thoughts
• Being easily distracted
• Being overly restless
• Sleeping little or not being tired
• Behaving impulsively and engaging in pleasurable, high-risk behaviors

Depression is the extreme sadness (low) and its symptoms are

• An overly long period of feeling sad or hopeless
• Loss of interest in activities once enjoyed, including sex
• Constantly feeling tired
• Difficulties with concentration or decision making
• Thoughts of suicide or dying
• Feelings of guilt or hopelessness
• Change in diet causing weight fluctuation

Unfortunately bipolar cannot be cured but there are many types of treatment. One of the most common is medications such as mood stabilizers, anti depressants, and anti psychotics. Other types of treatment include psychotherapy, electroconvulsive, and herbal supplements.

There are 4 common psychotherapies and they are:

• Psycho-education: educating those with bipolar about the illness and treatments. This is helpful because it can help the patient predict moodswings and start treatment before they get out of hand.
• Interpersonal and social rhythm therapy: helps the individual manage relationships with others and their daily routine.
• Family focused therapy: meant for both the patient and their family. Provides improved communication and family coping strategies.
• Cognitive Behavioral therapy: used to change negative behaviors and thoughts.

The final point I am going to touch on is diagnosis.There are five main types:

1. Bipolar I: classified by manic and/or mixed episodes 7 days in length and 2 week long depressive.
2. Bipolar II: classified by a rotation of depressive and hypomanic episodes with no definitive manic or mixed episodes.
3. Bipolar Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (BP-NOS): This is the diagnosis when the patient does not fit the symptoms of bipolar I or II. They are still diagnosed with bipolar because they are clearly deviating from their normal behavior. 
4. Cyclothymic Disorder, or Cyclothymia: The most mild form of the illness can be displayed in the presentation of hypomania and mild depression for a period of a minimum of two years
5. Rapid-cycling Bipolar Disorder: A brutal form of the mental illness that is diagnosed when the patient goes  has more than 3 episodes of the stages within one year.

Although Bipolar cannot be diagnosed through these, doctors will use blood tests and a physical exam to exlude any other possible illnesses that may be causing the symptoms. After the doctor has concluded that bipolar is a strong possibility, they will contact someone who is familiar with bipolar and its symptoms.

Both the doctor and mental health professional will want a detailed family and personal medical history because there have been cases that have been misdiagnosed as just depression or even ADHD/ADD. Bipolar has been found to also happen along side ADHD, various anxiety disorders and has unexplored connection to substance abuse.

Now that I feel you have been thoroughly introduced to the topic of bipolar I will tell you how it applies to my life.

-Shinara Newton

Defense Mechanisms - Applied to my life.

We have made it to the final application and topic post of this project. As much as I liked doing this project, I am a little glad it's over because I am curious about what my teacher will think, my final grade and because I do have other homework to do. See no denial or repression happening in that aspect of my life. Hmm I wonder if I do use any defense mechanisms in my educational life. Lets find out!

 

I have chosen to only touch on 3 of the defense mechanisms so I don't make this final post too long or boring for you. I chose repression, rationalization, and displacement. What ones do you use on a daily basis? Weekly? Let me know below!

There have been few times I have used repression because my mother raised me to deal with my feelings and talk them out which has helped a lot. The one situation that comes to mind is when a very close friend passed away. At the time I was in grade 11 almost halfway through my semester. My grades couldn't afford for me to break down or block out the world so I had to repress the sadness and anger until it was a less stressful time. That time never came because I had to deal with school, my first job and my mothers illness. Eventually I didn't even noticed these feelings because although my schedule was still full, I had friends and family supporting me and cheering me up any time the feelings threatened to come to the surface. This past June, all of those feelings came back when I found out that James had not actually passed away but was in a vegetative state and I had been told differently so I would move on. Since then with the help of family, friends and an amazing counselor, I have let go of my anger and sadness and just hope for James to wake up.

Rationalization shows up in my life mostly in my educational life. I have the bad habit of procrastination. When I end up doing a project last minute or don't get homework done, I rationalize it with usually the same excuses: I was sick (even if I wasn't), I had other projects to, I had to watch my cousins, work wore me out or one of the most popular, I wasn't given enough time (when I definitely was). I am working on this by prioritizing and planning my schedule better and not making excuses to teachers when the project is not done.

The final defense mechanism I want to touch on is denial. All children use this especially when they are getting in trouble. I often used it with my mom when I was yelled at for not doing a chore or leaving it until last minute because I didn't want to do it. I wouldn't  tell her this of course. Instead I denied she told me or denied it was my job passing the blame to my brother. In work if I made a mistake, my method of denial would either be not saying anything at all or saying I don't remember being told to do it or how to do it. Taking responsibility is a large part of growing up and denial is a block of this.

I hope you enjoyed my project. Maybe I will see you soon!!

-Shinara Newton

Defense mechanisms - What are they?

Unfortunately this is my last topic for this project. It has been so much fun expressing my thoughts and education though this blog that I am seriously thinking about either continuing this blog on psychology or starting a different one on something new. I'll let you all know when I decide.

Our final topic is defense mechanisms. This topic required a bit more research because there wasn't much in the textbook but I enjoyed the homework because this is one of the parts in psychology that fascinates me. I was able to find 6 defense mechanisms so I will give a brief description of them and go in depth with ones I choose to use in my application post. To keep it simple I will be writing it as a list so it doesn't look too overwhelming.

But first what is a defense mechanism? A defense mechanism is a way an individual will act or think in order to defend themselves.

Here are 6 common defense mechanisms:

1. Denial: The refusal to accept something by acting as though it does not exist or did not happen. This is one of the most basic defense mechanisms. It is thought to have originated in early childhood.
2. Regression: Reverting back to an earlier stage of devolpment when an unacceptable thought, impulse or action is presented.
3. Reaction Formation: The act of turning anxiety provoking thoughts in to the opposite in consciousness.
4. Repression: Blocking a hostile thought, memory or emotion from ones conscious.
5. Rationalization: Justisfying a behavior by using socially acceptable reasoning instead of the actual reason.
6. Displacement: Taking emotions out on an inanimate object or another person rather than the subject that caused it.

Even without realizing it, everyone is guilty of using these defenses in everyday life. Some use it for simple things like forgetting to take out the trash and not wanting to get in trouble. Others use them for traumatic experiences that are too painful to address. Whatever the reason, one should not be judged on them but rather hope to be understood.

Hope you go on to read my application post

-Shinara Newton

The General Adaptation Syndrome: Applied to my life

Round two of the General Adaptation Syndrome will be....... how it applies to my life!!! If you do not know what I am talking about please go back to my blog and read the other post on General Adaptation Syndrome. This is my first application post so please bear with me.

As we were learning this in psychology, I found myself applying it to things in my own life. For example, every time I have a science exam coming up I find myself freaked out and eventually I start not feeling well closer to the date of the exam. The exam is the stressor of course but how do I apply the stages to this scenario? Well of course the alarm stage shows up when I first find out about the test and immediately get worried because of the amount of content and how detailed it is. The resistance stage is up next when I study for the next couple of weeks. The studying is keeping the stressor (exam) in my mind and my body becomes increasingly anxious. Closer to the day of the exam I enter exhaustion. I feel lethargic, upset stomach for no reason and usually a headache or two is thrown in there as well. This is because my body has depleted its resources trying to keep up with the resistance stage and has now become open to bugs, viruses and you guessed it, illness.

Another example of this is my job at Tim Hortons. As I walk out onto the floor on a busy day, I immediately go into the alarm stage with multiple stressors of coworkers, management and the variety of customers I will be encountering. I am guarenteed to go into the resistance stage because I will be dealing with these my entire shift which can last anywhere from 6-8 hours. After a couple hours I begin to notice my knees are hurting, I can be irritable (never to customers) and by the end of my shift I sometimes am almost falling asleep on my feet and there is a bigger chance of getting an order wrong. There are ways to prevent entering the exhaustion faze like drinking caffeine, being cheered up by coworkers or even the simplest solution of all, having a better attitude about it.


Next up is the Atkinson-Shiffrin Model of memory! See you there!

-Shinara Newton

The General Adaptation Syndrome - What is it?

Yay our first topic! Is anyone else excited?? No? Ok well let's get started then shall we? Just to recap, my name is Shinara and I am doing a blog for my psychology project. Our first topic is the General Adaptation Syndrome.

So what is General Adaptation Syndrome anyways?

General Adaptation Syndrome is a three stage explanation, named by Hans Seyle (cofounder of the Canadian Institute of Stress in 1979), of the physical reaction to a stressor. A stressor is some kind of stimulus that causes a person stress. The three stages to this syndrome are alarm, resistance and exhaustion.

The alarm stage is first and starts when we first perceive the stressor. This gets the body to start to take action at least in a biological way. These changes start in the brain but end up being controlled by the endocrine system and the sympathetic nervous system which is a branch of the autonomic nervous system, the next tier of the peripheral nervous system. When the body encounters a stressor it engages the fight or flight response. This is an inherited response to the recognition of stress and is when a person either chooses to challenge the stressor or run from it. The body begins to use its reserved energy and resources.

The resistance stage, also known as the adaptation stage, is known for lengthening the sympathetic activity to try and gain back energy and fix the damage being caused by the stressor. Hormone levels are now lower than the alarm stage but still higher than they should be. This second stage is activated if the stressor is not taken care of after the alarm stage is activated

Finally the exhaustion stage. Even though humans have different levels of the amount of stress they can handle, everyone will eventually become exhausted if the stress does not stop. Passing this line can make the individual more susceptible to disease, illness and even death.

Next up is how this applies to my life!

Introduction

Hi everybody my name is Shinara :) I was assigned in my psychology class to do a project on psychology in my life and decided to do a blog on it. Originally the plan was video journals but not only did I have difficulty recording, I find I am more comfortable behind a keyboard than in front of a camera. For my PIYL project I had to choose 3 topics from a list provided by my teacher. The topics I have chosen to cover are

1. The general adaptation syndrome
2. the Atkinson-Shiffrin Model of memory 
3. 3 defense mechanisms.

In each blog post I will explain what each topic is, give a little background, and show how it applies to my life. I have written them on paper before hand which is why they will all have the same posting day.

Enjoy!

-Shinara Newton :)

References:
Bipolar Disorder. (n.d.). Retrieved November 22, 2014, from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/bipolar-disorder/index.shtml#part1

Episode #5: In Defense of Defense Mechanisms. (2007, February 25). Retrieved November 21, 2014, from http://www.thepsychfiles.com/2007/02/episode-5-in-defense-of-defense-mechanisms/

Rathus.S.A.,Maheu, Veenvliet (2012). PSYCH, Second Canadian Edition. Toronto, Canada:Nelson Education Ltd.