[Ready2Transform]

LOVE this, kikki, thank you for posting!  Good info AND a belly laugh.

[iamnottheenemy]

Agree. So want to share this with the headmaster at D's school, who doesn't get it at all.

[The lighthouse]

Enjoyed this Kikki.  So true and a good Monday morning laugh.

[Anjae]

The video is funny. Stigma of brain illness? To my knowledge there is no stigma of brain illness, but of mental illness. Brain illness tends to be associated with neurology, rather than with psychiatry/mental illness.

Or at least for me there is a difference between brain illness and mental illness. Even if, yes, mental illness has a brain illness component (or can have).

MLC for me is more of a hormonal illness. Stress is an hormone and MLC is a stress illness. So are must illness we deal with. They are all stress related.

[kikki]

To my knowledge there is no stigma of brain illness, but of mental illness. Brain illness tends to be associated with neurology, rather than with psychiatry/mental illness.

I deliberately wrote the word brain rather than 'mental' to make a point.
The word mental is where the stigma comes.  I'd love to see that word changed one day, because of this.  Most people still seem to have no understanding that to have 'mental' issues, they stem from physical issues within the brain.

I thought Ruby Wax did a good job of explaining that.

MLC for me is more of a hormonal illness. Stress is an hormone and MLC is a stress illness. So are must illness we deal with. They are all stress related.

The brain is one of the organs of the body, and yes the hormonal changes and stress at mid life can affect all of the organs of the body, especially the brain and change how it functions.
Physical changes in the brain show up as changes in personality and behaviour.
(or as motor issues, memory issues etc, depending on where/how the physical problem is manifesting).

Those changes in behaviour are what the stigma is all about.  It's often challenging for others to cope with, and people do not tend to understand. 
As explained by Ruby Wax when she was shown zero support from friends when she was institutionalised.  As she said - if she had something wrong with her knee, or had given birth, she would have been inundated with support.  Instead, having something wrong with her brain function - people steered clear.

[Anjae]

As she said - if she had something wrong with her knee, or had given birth, she would have been inundated with support.

Sadly this is true.

Yes, mental illness comes from physical issues in the brain. Those can be there since birth or come later in life.

Mentally illness can be tricky and encompass a lot of different things. In Portugal you can find patients with Down Syndrome (that is a chromosome disorder) in psychiatric hospital. They usually have a building/wards for Down Syndrome.

It is more than challenging to cope with the changes in personality/behaviour, sometimes it is impossible.

Coming from a family with mental illness from both maternal and paternal side, I know that sometimes there is little one can do. The ill person does need to go to hospital or, at least, to have appropriated medication. People with mental illness can become dangerous to themselves and others.

When that happens (and it has happened in my family) it is not possible to have them around. And, sadly, we are not yet capable of solving many of the mental illness issues.

Even if neurologist and neuroscience (unlike many psychiatrist and therapists) look for physical changes in the brain, we still do not know how to cure or mitigate many of the problems.

MLC comes with stress, stress alters the brain. MLC does not seem that difficult to stop/mitigate. Pretty much all it would require would be doctors capable of detecting the early signs and prescribe the right treatment (that does not have to be medicines).

Of course that does not allow for MLC being essentially a developmental issue and the need to be lived through. For it is not the delevolpemt issue that causes the crisis, but stress. The development issue alone would not cause it (people who cannot afford to have MLC can have all the development issues in the world still they do not have a MLC). I also see no need of anyone going  through something that could be avoided and that ends up being reduced to being scared/fear.

So, pretty much, yes, I would love some neuroscientist to come up with a way of preventing/mitigate MLC.

[kikki]

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/279338.php

Interesting research -

"The greater buzz that people with bipolar disorder get from reward is a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, it helps people strive towards their goals and ambitions, which may contribute to the success enjoyed by many people with this diagnosis.

However, it comes at a cost: these same people may be swayed more by immediate rewards when making decisions and less by the long-term consequences of these actions."

[iamnottheenemy]

Thanks for posting Kikki. I also went back and listened to the podcast on teens and depression up the thread today - somehow I'd missed that one the first time around.

[Anjae]

No wonder our MLCers look so much like people who have bipolar. Also, since you need the rush of reward more and more (and least people in MLC do), they need to strive more and more to get the kick of the reward.

And the more they do the bigger and darker their lows will be. So our MLCers keep getting themselves into more and more schemes that provide them with a high. Until the day they finally come crashing down full force.

[kikki]

Thanks for posting Kikki. I also went back and listened to the podcast on teens and depression up the thread today - somehow I'd missed that one the first time around.

Glad you found that podcast iante, his research is really interesting.

Absolutely anjae.  I still wonder if replay is a major jump up on the bipolar spectrum, or whether it's something that mimics bipolar style behaviours because the same areas of the brain are being affected while in crisis?