Here is smalll quotatin from a form issued by a very typical LGAT. The entire thing can be read by accessing the URL.
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groups.google.com];
Note that they refer to bipolar:
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While it is ultimately your choice, OUR ADVISORS STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU SHOULD NOT PARTICIPATE in the Program if you:
(a) have a personal or family history of bi-polar affective disorder (manic-depressive disorder), schizophrenia, acute or chronic
depression or other psychotic disorder, whether or not you or they are being or have ever been treated or hospitalized;
(b) are taking, have taken or been prescribed to take within the previous twelve months anti-anxiety drugs (such as Librium,
Ativan, Klonapin, Xanax, Dormicum or others); anti-depressants (such as Elavil, Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, Cipram, Prothiaden or others); anti-psychotics (such as Thorazine, Haldol,
Stelazine, Risperdal, Zyprexa, Dogmatil or others); any medication to treat bi-polar disorders (such as Lithium, Gabapentin or Depakote)
However, this disclaimer did not prevent the boss of a man with bipolar from pressuring him to do this group whose form quoted above advises persons with bipolar not to do it. THe entire discussion though it relates to a different LGAT illustrates the damage done to marital relationships as well as people's jobs, when someone in a position of authority abuses their power to pressure vulnerable employees to go through these programs.
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forum.culteducation.com]
Hopeful Soul wrote
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. I have tried to learn about things like multiple personality and bi-polar disorders, manic episodes etc. The whole study of the human mind seem so complex and beyond my understanding. I do know from personal observation that Impact trainings at all levels aggravate in trainees things like agressiveness, agitation, anxiety, belligerence, rage and restlessness. Abstainance from activity in Impact processes has the effect of moderating and diminishing these undesireable things. To me this is a clear cause and effect relationship. Impact Trainings, whatever their apparent short term positive effects, have a long term negative effect when the euphoria of the training room wears off. Impact Trainings are clearly unsafe, carry huge risks of mental harm, are expensive, unregulated and without redeeming merit. They carry many of the qualities of narcotics in that they are addictive and difficult to break away from.
If you want to learn more about bipolar, there are some authors who have provided insider descriptions of what it is like to live with the condition.
Kate Jamison is one.
And a new and compelling description is given in a newly published memoir by Marya Hornbacher, entitled
Madness: A Bipolar Life.
What is amazing about Hornbacher's description was how she reported her using hectic social scenes as a way to enhance her own manic episodes. She had one two year manic episode and part of how she kept it going was to hang out for those two years in San Francisco during the Dot Com Boom. She had money, and raced around with other rich young people in the technology and arts scene who lived lives of perpetual motion. Someone who was manic could fit right in. Later in that phase Hornbacher hung out with eccentric artists who worked like maniacs in school and then partied and drank all night. She surfed not only on her own manic biochemistry, but found people just like her.
Some years ago, I had an e-mail conversation with a person who had bipolar. My informant told me she worked in Silicon Valley and fit right in with job settings full of other bipolar people. She said she was convinced that revolutions and economic booms may often be ignited by persons with bipolar.
Yet another informant told me she was convinced that lots of persons who start LGATs may have the condition as well--they thrive on staying up all night.
the other thing I learned reading Hornbacher was that she often had amnesia after coming down from manic episodes. She was unable to learn from mistakes she'd made when riding high. Its like having a fiendishly clever dope dealer inside your own bloodstream.
****If you read Hornbacher's book, you do need to keep in mind that she has the most severe form of bipolar--ultra rapid cycling Bipolar 1.
So if you or others reading this thread have bipolar, by all means learn from Hornbachers account but dont panic. You may have a much less severe form of the condition. And you may well have had fewer episodes and have a very much more treatable form.
Hornbacher wrote that book precisely because she now wishes she had better understood when younger that the more manic breaks she went through the worse her condition would progress. So she wrote her book to assist readers to see the consequences for her so that they could use her story to make a better informed decision for themselves.
The other thing to keep in mind when reading Hornbacher's book is that she apparently got her first symptoms when only 4 years old, back in the 1970s when no one dreamed that young children could have such a condition. It also seems to have run in her family.
What Hornbacher regrets tis that she not only had bipolar (and, too often, it had her) for over twenty years before her condition was correctly diagnosed, but that for years after diagnosis she continued to ignore recommendations from her prescribing psychiatrist which resulted in several more manic episodes.
This said, Hornbacher tells us in her facts list at the back of the book that according to one set of statistics about 2% of the US population may have some varient of the condition and that on the average, people suffer the conditoin for 10 years before being correctly diagnosed.
She also lists the things her prescribing psychiatrist told her she had to do to reduce the frequency of manic episodes. According to her health care provider, bipolar is a true medical physical condition in which the brains circadian (day night/sleep wake cycle) is unusually subject to disruption. Its like having a disordered thermostat that generates rapid fluctuations in tempreture.
*Get seven to eight hours of sleep each night. Every night.
*Avoid caffeine
*Avoid stress. Dont try to do everthing at once.
*Stop using alcohol and other recreational drugs. Alcohol cancels out
the effects of the psych medications and aggravates mood swings
* Take the medications
Flying through time zones is hazardous. Years ago on the Craigslist health forum one person told his that he or she had their first bipolar swing when young, as a result of taking a plane flight from the US to Australia. Imagine having that happen when you are thousands of miles from home.
A young person who unknowlingly has inherited genetic loading for bipolar may get involved with an LGAT and then flip out as a result of the combined stress and having sleep disrupted due to the late hours or assigned 'homework' that keeps them up past their bedtime.
For this reason alone, participating in an LGAT that disrupts sleep would be a dangerous thing for anyone to do if they are genetically susceptible to bipolar.
Note: Bipolar is not the same as Borderline Disorder. The two are often confused.
Bipolar is a disorder of the circadian rhythms. Often its onset is seasonal, is made worse by disruption in sleep and by any sort of stress. Quite a few people with bipolar report that they are vulnerable to manic swings at a particular time of year.
Borderline is caused by serious disruptions in parenting when a child is between ages 0 and 18 months. What triggers borderline freakouts is fear of abandonment.
It is possible for both bipolar and borderline personality disorder to occur in the same person --if say you inherit biochemical loading for bipolar, and your care as a baby is disrupted by your mother having bipolar and her being incapacitated by depression and unable to ensure age appropriate trust when you are between ages 0 and 18 months.
bipolar is genetic
borderline is brought about by disordered parent child relationships.
Both are treatable if the person has insight into their condition, concern for the impact on other persons and is honest enough to recognize where he or she does possess agency and humble enough to recognize where he or she needs to request help.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2009 11:50PM by corboy.