The Chronic Curmudgeon

Thanks for your comments. I have personally struggle with BP all of my life, and I also represent the medical profession. My own personal experiences (and battles) with BP are what drive me to help those with mood disorders live productive and fulfilling lives. There is so much work that still needs to be accomplished in this field to help us understand the disease and improve treatment outcomes. It's a shame that thousands of people (researchers, clinicians, nurses, counselors, drug companies) trying to better the lives of those who suffer from BP and depression can have their efforts adversely affected by the voice of someone who is so misinformed (Dr. Cruise). Words like that make our Mission Impossible....

Maybe it's the Libra in me, but I tend to take the middle ground in all this, and I don't think my position detracts from the Mudge's position or discounts Cruise's.

Chemical imbalances surely exist to cause the symptoms of bipolar and countless other mental diseases. Medicine clearly works to combat and reverse the effects. I've seen it do wonders for people.

But I wonder whether the chemical imbalances stem not necessarily solely from genetics (although perhaps partially) but from severe experiences that may blunt the brain's chemical-producing capability. Is it possible that experiences affect the physical attributes of our bodies' systems?

In other words, isn't it at least possible that mind, body, and spirit work in concert (i.e., "mind-body-spirit"), not each as an isolated system unaffected by the other two?

My mother has depression. My brother has Tourette's syndrome. Having taken antidepressants myself, I have battled depression in the past and, after reading the link that Mudge provided for bipolar II disorder, look back on my behavior over the past few years and wonder. After all, my grandfather had manic-depression, as they called it in those days. Lithium successfully treated his condition. I understand the disorder often manifests as the manic-depressive enters his or her thirties.

But I also know that a newfound spirituality has done wonders to elevate my mood over the past few years as well. And I refrain from ignoring it or attributing it to some sort of irrational high. Its affects have been all positive. Anyone I know would agree. I have seen it, for example, lead me to a palatable path in my professional life.

All I'm saying is this:

An interconnection of mind-body-spirit must exist, as does a solid science for psychiatry. For either discipline to disregard the other seems to be a mistake.

I guess I may be arguing for a meta-discipline that considers spirituality, psychiatry, and psychology as equals players in the complex systems that produce personality, emotions, and all the rest.

Unless, of course, one is not a spiritual person. Not to discount or dismiss what you're saying -- actually, not at all... having gone through both depressive episodes and hypomanic episodes and knowing how they have impacted me, I am very much inclined to be in the "whatever works for you" camp. If something can get you out of that state, if believing in something spiritual can help you as a coping mechanism, then I'm glad for you (in the general sense of "you," Brent - I'm not personalizing this, sorry if it seems I am), and I'm not going to denigrate it.

But there are many of us out there who are not spiritual, who haven't really ever been and never will be. I don't think that makes us "broken" -- otherwise, every atheist, agnostic, and otherwise non-spiritual person would suffer from some sort of mood disorder.

Now, I might be inclined to acknowledge that for someone who is spiritual, the comfort that their beliefs give them might in fact trigger some chemical/endorphin thing in their systems, causing a physiological change in their systems. Like I said, if it works for you, it works, and who am I to tell someone who would otherwise be suffering that they should choose to suffer just because I don't buy into their solution? But I guess in the end, even this for me comes back to the idea that the condition is physiological.

When I feel a depressive episode coming, I try to make it a point to get to the gym as quickly as possible for an intense workout. I had a therapist tell me once that by triggering endorphins I might be able to help blunt the impact of a depressive mood. The idea gave me a sense of control, a belief that there was something I could do to take charge of my condition and not be bound helpless by it. Whether it works in actuality doesn't matter, really; I believe it does, so therefore it does.

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I think it's just the idea of having some control that ends up helping the person with the condition. You get that sense from spirituality; I get it from self-reliance (ie, there is something I can do to fight this off and not just let it happen) and physicality. But wherever we get it, it's that sense of being able to affect our moods that triggers a physiological response, I think.

The danger in what Cruise did, however, was that he used his bully pulpit to suggest a) that Scientology's junk science is the only correct solution; and b) scientifically and medically proven fact (ie, chemical imbalances) are in fact untrue. He might as well have said, "it's all in your head."

Your approach, Brent, is to suggest that drugs are not the only solution that could work. You're not saying drugs are evil, and you're not saying that anyone taking them is harming themselves; just that there could be an alternative answer. That's an open-minded approach that doesn't even compare with Cruise's brainwashing, and even if I don't agree with you I'm not put on the defensive by it.

Cruise instantly branded Shields and anyone who's taken medication for a mood disorder (so by extension, me); his comments imply that anyone taking medication is either weak-willed or is making a mistake. And since he's not a physician, a psychologist/psychiatrist, or even a victim of the condition who can speak from any kind of experience, his comments weren't just unqualified -- they were irresponsible.

With your family history, you have more familiarity with mood disorders than most... but you know that many of us still have to fight the battle with skeptics and old-schoolers who believe that back in the old days, people just picked themselves up by their bootstraps, that anyone who's depressed needs to just "snap out of it," or that anyone who's going through a manic or hypomanic episode is just plain looney toones. Tom Cruise didn't help us fight that stigma at all - he contributed to it.

And coming from someone who takes spiritual guidance from a hack science fiction writer and con man, his comments were doubly ignorant.

What bothers me about Cruise's statements is this: I fear reactionary, ignorant comments like his wil turn people off to the open-minded, all-inclusive approach you and I are discussing.

You said something interesting...that it all comes back to being physiological. I agree. Everything we're talking about is, in fact, physiological. Everything has to do with matter. Thoughts, whatever. ...as if other things are non-physiological. This is nonsense. It's ALL physiological -- even the things we can't see or explain.

Bottom line...this is more reason for the people of Hollywood to accept the teachings of the Kabbalah .

Interesting:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743243447/qid%3D1110450522/sr%3D2-1/ref%3Dpd%5Fbbs%5Fb%5F2%5F1//104-5438235-0250334

The URL got cut off on the first try. Here it is in two parts:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743243447/qid%3D1110450522/sr%3D2-1

/ref%3Dpd%5Fbbs%5Fb%5F2%5F1//104-5438235-0250334