When I was working at the State Jail as a counselor for three years, I commonly had men come into my office and begin the conversation with “I’m having trouble with my bipolar, ADHD, manic depressive, schizophrenia” or something similar. In other words, these men had heard diagnoses that were either applied to them by a professional mental health practitioner or that they had heard about in the news or from their cohorts.  They seemed to have determined that these conditions described who they were and why they were in State Jail.  

Although this State Jail group was certainly a different type of population of people from your “average Joe”, the average person can still get caught up in mental health diagnoses and, unintentionally, not truly receive any meaningful help or treatment for whatever condition they truly are dealing with.  

As a new LPC, I first heard the theory that “Bipolar Disorder” is a “catch all” diagnosis and may not have any basis in fact while working for a local psychologist.  What this psychologist believed was that Bipolar Disorder was really a dysregulated response to trauma in the person’s life.  Since that time, I’ve read opinions by other psychologists and various types of practitioners that fairly well agree with each other that very seldom, if at all, do you find someone who is “truly” “Bipolar.”  I’m not saying the disorder does not exist, I’m simply offering another perspective on where it might originate. 

Here’s the (paraphrased) definition from the DSM-5 manual on mental health disorders:   

“Bipolar and related disorders are given a chapter of their own in the DSM-5, between depressive disorders and schizophrenia spectrum disorders. People who live with bipolar disorder experience periods of great excitement, overactivity, delusions, and euphoria (known as mania) and other periods of feeling sad and hopeless (known as depression). As such, the use of the word bipolar reflects this fluctuation between extreme highs and extreme lows.” 

A lot of my clients tell me when they think they’re bipolar that their “poles” or opposites often include being happy and being angry.   These would more accurately be called “mood swings” and do not meet the criteria for bipolar disorder. 

But even when the criteria are met (I’ve seen very few in my over 10 years in practice), if the client does not react positively to standard bipolar treatments such as Lithium or another mood stabilizer, then the question arises (again): Is this REALLY Bipolar disorder?  

The theories posed by other practitioners (especially those who work with a lot of clients with trauma) is that what looks like bipolar disorder is really the person’s reaction to a trauma “trigger” occurring, which results in moderate to severe mood dysregulation and the need for counseling and/or medication.  If we are, indeed, dealing with trauma, then we have a host of different avenues through which one could experience “trauma”. 

My definition of trauma is something negative happening in a person’s life that is overwhelming enough that normal brain processing does not occur and the “event” or “events” or “people” get “stuck” in the person’s nervous system, causing ongoing current distress even when the trauma took place possibly years earlier.  

When the past is “triggered” or brought into the present – that stimulus could be from any of our senses such as the smell of a former abuser’s cologne or perfume, or it could be an internal cue such as feeling worthless which reminds the nervous system of how the person felt back when the event(s) took place.  Regardless of how the trigger is executed, it results in the person feeling just like they did when the trauma took place and especially when there is nothing currently distressing to the person, this can be very disconcerting.   When there are current stressors that are also triggers, there’s even more distress because the nervous system can only handle so much negative input before the person is pushed into “flight, flight, or freeze” mode which is a safety device built into our nervous systems but which also can be very disturbing.  

The symptoms people around the person who is triggered see are usually the coping mechanisms they have developed to try to deal with their distress.  If it’s anger (which is a powerful emotion), then the person becomes angry, often to the point of rage. This is protective for the person but often results in emotional or physical wounding to those around them.  If it’s sadness, then this person may withdraw from social contact, want to sleep a lot more than usual, or avoid activities they usually enjoy.  These are some symptoms of depression.

So the symptoms look like bipolar disorder or anger management problems or depression but really, the symptoms are coping mechanisms to deal with the distress of being “reminded” of their trauma that has never been properly processed.   

Can you see how understanding the differences in these diagnoses could dramatically alter not only how the person receives mental health treatment but also how they view themselves from an identity standpoint?   

This is really a subject for another blog post, but I professionally do not believe our identities are our mental illness diagnoses.  In other words, I don’t believe a person is an alcoholic. Rather, I believe they have a “problem” with alcohol.  Similarly, I don’t believe a person IS bipolar. Rather, they are suffering from a “problem” with the symptoms of bipolar (or trauma) disorder.  Using your symptoms or your diagnosis as your identity can add significant shame that does not need to be there.  But again, that is for another post.  

<> If you believe you are suffering from Bipolar Disorder or have been told by others you might have the disorder, by all means get help from a mental health professional <>

As you are working on getting help, in order to help positively cope rather than destructively cope, try using this guided hypnosis track and see if it helps. 

Managing Bipolar Disorder