RonPrice
03-23-2010, 11:55 AM
BIPOLAR DISORDER:
A Personal Analysis of My Chaos Narrative
A Longitudinal Context: October 1943 To March 2010
10th Edition
By
Ron Price of George Town Tasmania Australia
(125 Pages: Font 14—50,000 words)
1. Preamble and Introduction:
1.1 This is a small book. Ten years ago it started out as a brief essay and it is now an appendix to my memoirs, a five volume 2600 page opus found in whole and in part at various places on the internet. Both this small book and my memoirs could benefit from the assistance of one, Rob Cowley, affectionately known in publishing circles back in the seventies and early eighties as “the Boston slasher.” His editing was regarded in some circles as constructive and deeply sensitive. If he could amputate several dozen pages, several thousand words, of this exploration of my life experience of bipolar disorder(BPD) with minimal agony to my emotional equipment I’m sure readers would be the beneficiaries. But, alas, I think Bob is dead.
1.2 This is a longitudinal, retrospective account going back to my conception in the last half of October 1943. Neurobiological, neuropsychiatric and affective disorders like BPD have diverse manifestations and symptomatology as well as a broad range of age of onset and specificity of symptoms. Little is still known about its pathogenesis, that is, the origin and development of the disease. What follows is one person’s story, one person’s life experience of BPD. It is my personal life-narrative with the diverse manifestations, the symptomology of BPD as I experienced it.
1.3 I make reference to a strong genetic contribution to the aetiology of BPD, a genetic predisposition, a genetic susceptibility as a factor in the pathogenesis of BPD. A family history, what is sometimes referred to as a family pedigree, of affective disorder in a first-degree relative, in my case my mother(1904-1978) is relevant to this narrative. My mother had a mild case of what may very well have been BPD, at least I have come to think of her mood swings as falling into a significantly high place in what is sometimes called the BPD spectrum during her 75 year life. Her mood-swing disability or affective disorder, though, was never given the formal medical diagnosis manic-depressive(MD), a term which was replaced in 1980 after she died by the term BPD.
1.3.1 All manifestations of BPD share uncertain etiologies, with often opaque relationships between genes and environment. Some medical experts and theorists in the field of such studies posit latent changes in the expression of specific genes initially primed at the developmental stage of life. Some studies and some experts emphasize that certain environmental agents disturb gene regulation in a long-term manner, beginning at early developmental stages in the lifespan perhaps even in utero. But these disturbances, these perturbations as they are sometimes called, might not have pathological results until significantly later in life. In retrospect, as I look back from these middle years(65-75) of late adulthood, the years 60 to 80 as some developmental psychologists call these years of the lifespan, these perturbations and pathological results were clearly manifested at the age of 18. I could easily theorize an earlier onset on the basis of behavioural perturbations manifested in early childhood and into adolescence and I do such theorizing later in this account(see sections 2.7.1 and 2.7.2 below).
1.4 The new diagnostic term, BPD, is now found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-III). DSM-III had 300 disorders twice as many as in the DSM-II. The DSM is considered the bible by specialists and by the various professions and other interest groups. It is considered by many as an information source, a major scientific instrument in the field of mental health. In the DSM the term maniac was deleted and a one-size-fits-all classification system for MD and BPD was more finely tuned by the 4th edition published in 1994. The exact discourse that has come to have jurisdiction in this labelling process, the circumstances that have come to result in a person given some mental illness label are due to: (a) norms and expectations as well as (b) medical, psychological, physiological and (c) most recently, neurochemical and electrical brain activity as seen in brain imaging.
------------INSTALMENT #2----to come if interest shown---
A Personal Analysis of My Chaos Narrative
A Longitudinal Context: October 1943 To March 2010
10th Edition
By
Ron Price of George Town Tasmania Australia
(125 Pages: Font 14—50,000 words)
1. Preamble and Introduction:
1.1 This is a small book. Ten years ago it started out as a brief essay and it is now an appendix to my memoirs, a five volume 2600 page opus found in whole and in part at various places on the internet. Both this small book and my memoirs could benefit from the assistance of one, Rob Cowley, affectionately known in publishing circles back in the seventies and early eighties as “the Boston slasher.” His editing was regarded in some circles as constructive and deeply sensitive. If he could amputate several dozen pages, several thousand words, of this exploration of my life experience of bipolar disorder(BPD) with minimal agony to my emotional equipment I’m sure readers would be the beneficiaries. But, alas, I think Bob is dead.
1.2 This is a longitudinal, retrospective account going back to my conception in the last half of October 1943. Neurobiological, neuropsychiatric and affective disorders like BPD have diverse manifestations and symptomatology as well as a broad range of age of onset and specificity of symptoms. Little is still known about its pathogenesis, that is, the origin and development of the disease. What follows is one person’s story, one person’s life experience of BPD. It is my personal life-narrative with the diverse manifestations, the symptomology of BPD as I experienced it.
1.3 I make reference to a strong genetic contribution to the aetiology of BPD, a genetic predisposition, a genetic susceptibility as a factor in the pathogenesis of BPD. A family history, what is sometimes referred to as a family pedigree, of affective disorder in a first-degree relative, in my case my mother(1904-1978) is relevant to this narrative. My mother had a mild case of what may very well have been BPD, at least I have come to think of her mood swings as falling into a significantly high place in what is sometimes called the BPD spectrum during her 75 year life. Her mood-swing disability or affective disorder, though, was never given the formal medical diagnosis manic-depressive(MD), a term which was replaced in 1980 after she died by the term BPD.
1.3.1 All manifestations of BPD share uncertain etiologies, with often opaque relationships between genes and environment. Some medical experts and theorists in the field of such studies posit latent changes in the expression of specific genes initially primed at the developmental stage of life. Some studies and some experts emphasize that certain environmental agents disturb gene regulation in a long-term manner, beginning at early developmental stages in the lifespan perhaps even in utero. But these disturbances, these perturbations as they are sometimes called, might not have pathological results until significantly later in life. In retrospect, as I look back from these middle years(65-75) of late adulthood, the years 60 to 80 as some developmental psychologists call these years of the lifespan, these perturbations and pathological results were clearly manifested at the age of 18. I could easily theorize an earlier onset on the basis of behavioural perturbations manifested in early childhood and into adolescence and I do such theorizing later in this account(see sections 2.7.1 and 2.7.2 below).
1.4 The new diagnostic term, BPD, is now found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-III). DSM-III had 300 disorders twice as many as in the DSM-II. The DSM is considered the bible by specialists and by the various professions and other interest groups. It is considered by many as an information source, a major scientific instrument in the field of mental health. In the DSM the term maniac was deleted and a one-size-fits-all classification system for MD and BPD was more finely tuned by the 4th edition published in 1994. The exact discourse that has come to have jurisdiction in this labelling process, the circumstances that have come to result in a person given some mental illness label are due to: (a) norms and expectations as well as (b) medical, psychological, physiological and (c) most recently, neurochemical and electrical brain activity as seen in brain imaging.
------------INSTALMENT #2----to come if interest shown---