Social Consequences of Recovering from Bipolar Disorder
Dina Veksler
ABSTRACT
This article is based on the author’s personal experience of living for many years with bipolar disorder and then undergoing a deep psychological transformation that led to the cessation of mood phases and the formation of a stable personality. The author examines this process within the biopsychosocial model, showing how changes in the social environment, deep psychological work, awareness and working through of one’s own functioning, emotional reactions, and ways of interacting with others gradually led to a transformation of the internal organization of the personality. As a result, a stable personality was formed, and the mental and physical symptoms of the disorder disappeared. After this, an ordinary stable life, not complicated by pathological states, could have begun.
However, after the cessation of the pathological process, the author encountered an unexpected problem. Family members were unwilling to change their attitude or to see the author beyond the previous diagnosis. Specialists insisted on the term “remission,” whereas the author considered it inappropriate for describing the result that had been achieved. As a result, a contradiction arose between the author’s internal state, which no longer corresponded to the former illness, and the external social framework that continued to keep the author in the status of a person with a mental disorder.
The article raises the question of what people should do when they have gone through a deep internal change and become free of the pathological process, but cannot live in a new status within their immediate social environment. How is existence after recovery possible if the previous diagnosis continues to determine the attitude of others? Bipolar disorder; recovery; diagnosis; social recognition; psychological transformation; remission; family; professional system.
