Unexpected Recovery from Bipolar Disorder

I was communicating through email with someone with bipolar disorder, a condition with extreme mood swings that include emotional highs and lows. When she was having a high episode, she could spend days without sleep and be super-productive. When she was in a low, she would feel like ending her life. In fact, she was once holding a knife ready to cut her wrist.

At one point, she was at a high again. That's when I asked her about her unhappy past. Since she was having a high episode, it wasn't difficult for her to tell me EVERYTHING. She teared while she told her stories through her computer.

Interestingly, that somehow "broke the spell". Usually, after a high, she would eventually swing to a low. But that never happened.

It wasn't something I expected, much less intended. However, I wondered how that happened.

According to mainstream science, bipolar disorder "is a lifelong condition (and) not yet curable". (Source: Is bipolar disorder curable? Treatment and long term management (medicalnewstoday.com)) Mainstream science is also clueless about how bipolar disorder is formed, except that it's "more common in people who have a first-degree relative, such as a sibling or parent, with the condition". (Source: Bipolar disorder - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic)

Going by my knowledge of psychology and practical experience in helping others, here's how I think it's formed: When we suffer a lot mentally, we are likely to cope with it in a wrong way. One of the ways is trying to make ourselves happy. Some people are particularly good at that, so they create a pattern within them: When suffering, make yourself happy.

This coping strategy may be modelled after a parent when one is mentally matured enough. This may be the reason for the apparent hereditary nature of the disorder. In any case, even if we manage to artificially make ourselves happy, the unhappiness remains, and when we can no longer cover up unhappiness with the artificial happiness, the unhappiness resurfaces.

If one keeps up with this coping strategy, it eventually becomes an unconscious habit, which can get intensely strong. The patient then becomes powerless over the mental pattern she has created.

Can it be cured? Going by the above story, it seems possible by disrupting the pattern: When the patient is having a high episode, encourage the patient to talk about her childhood unhappiness.

Will this work for others? I don't know, but it's worth trying.

UPDATE: I got to try out the above ‘method’ with a teenage girl who has mild bipolar disorder. I told her to contact me when she has an emotional high again. When she did, I told her to tell me about her biological father (who left when she was very young). She took quite a while to reply, and although she seemed to have thought much about the matter, she didn’t tell me much. Still, that disrupted her manic mood swing. More importantly, since then, she hasn’t had any extreme mood swings.

NOTE: If you have tried the above on someone, please tell me how it went.

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