Recognizing Signs of Bipolar Relapse

People with bipolar tendencies go through the “extremes” when they express their emotions. Sadness becomes depression and happiness becomes mania. Magnification of such emotion brings fear and uncertainty to the people closely affiliated with the patient, since these magnifications happen randomly and unpredictably. Patients who have undergone bipolar therapy and have been emotionally stable for quite some time is not yet free from the danger of relapsing. All trusted family members of a bipolar patient should never condemn the relapsing patient. Never put the blame on patient, nor accuse him of having taken for granted his medications. It will always help to maintain an open mind and a welcoming attitude towards the whole scenario. Likewise, it also important to avoid making life decisions for the patient. Let the patient still feel that he’s an individual who is in control of how he would want things to come off.

Bipolar relapse treatment is a combination of three therapies:

1)     Family –Focused Therapy

  1. Contains modules and exercises on improving tolerance towards a bipolar family member. The most important piece in this therapy would be the relapse plan. It is crucial for all the members of the patient’s immediate family and close acquaintances to participate in the relapse plan.

2)     Interpersonal Therapy

  1. Psychiatry based therapy which deals with how the bipolar patient will deal safely among the other people in his environment.

3)     Behavioural Therapy

  1. Relapsing patients are more in tune and in control of their emotions. Behavioural therapy aims to stabilize a bipolar patient’s means of dealing with his internal struggles.

Below are some essential methods in recognizing signs of bipolar relapse.

Be on the lookout for very quick speaking pace

Patients with bipolar episodes tend to have racing thoughts; and in order to ease the speed of their mental activity, they verbalize what they are thinking. Such is the reason behind their speed talking. Speed talking is one of the universal signs of an impending bipolar attack.

Patients get easily irritated on the smallest things

Bipolar therapy is a mixture of psychiatric and medical procedures geared at making a bipolar patient tolerable with his surroundings. Recent studies also point to low t treatment as another helpful therapy for this condition. A sign that the patient is responding well to this therapy would be increased tolerance in an environment that triggers his uncontrolled irritability. In the event that the patient gets easily irritable again, it is a must that the family takes the patient out of that environment and seek a psychiatrist; preferably the same mental health expert who administered the therapy before.

Patient thinks lowly of himself again

Patients with bipolar disorder experienced magnified sadness which leads to depression. In this case of extreme emotional slump, the patient again sulks in to hopelessness: looking like he got drained of all his physical energy. He will express disinterest in things that he used to find interesting such as sports and video games. In the vent that the patient has children, don’t let the children see their parent suffering an emotional slump; this will make the bipolar parent feel more unworthy of rearing his or her children. Likewise, the sight of a parent being traumatized by a mental disorder is emotionally boggling for a child.