What Is Bipolarity?

Psychiatrists used to think that mental illness was one of two conditions: depression or mania. Those personality patterns represented extremes of not wanting to live and of living extravagantly. When psychiatrists became more popular as go-to consultants, they noticed that some people survived moods that ranged dramatically between those poles: they were manic-depressive, i.e., bi-polar. They had personalities on the “borders” of the extremes, so the term “borderline personality” was applied, especially to those who tended more towards mania. Those became the “bipolar I” types, who were “delusional” about reality to the point of having hallucinations. Somewhere in that more agitated level the “multiple” personalities were located, labelled with “dissociative identity disorder” (IDD) that is close to the fragmenting of the personality that happens to schizophrenics. Psychiatry kept expanding its territory, sometimes medicalizing behaviour that actually is within the range of normal (e.g., childhood bipolarity) and normalizing some kinds of behaviour they couldn’t explain or change with talk therapy (e.g., gender identity).

The number of schizophrenics was growing. I knew that if I could solve the mystery of our son’s schizophrenia the implications would be global. While he was recovering in 2008, I noticed that he was passing through identifiable stages that carry labels: from schizophrenia to bipolar I (with hallucinations), to bipolar II (lability without hallucinations), to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), to mild depression, to dyslexic syndrome (his condition at birth), and lastly to  normal behaviour, which he had experience only briefly following his Tomatis Method treatment. In other words, Focused Listening was healing each of those abnormal conditions in turn. I think of substance addictions as a separate issue, although they have a lot in common with OCD. Once Daniel had a left-brain sufficiently energized with a normal stream of sound energy through his right ear, he had the ability to learn and to take action. He learns, as we all learn, by trial and error and through study. Although his addictions tended to undermine his left-brain dominance, he used Focused Listening to counteract their effects. Thus, he kept himself sufficiently stable to do normal things while battling through some of the rougher patches of learning.

When Daniel’s substance abuse made him psychotic in 2008 and again eight years later in 2016, I noticed during the onset of both episodes that he passed through the recovery stages in reverse order but very rapidly. This demonstration of the collapse of his ear was further proof that the right-ear drives left-brain dominance. Focused Listening drew him back through those stages a third time to normal integration speeds and normal states of consciousness. His 2016 recovery took half the time of his 2008 recovery, doubtless because he was not medicated.

During  phases of Daniel’s illness when he was neither fully normal nor fully psychotic his behavior could become especially difficult for the people around him. We did not know what might be expected of Daniel in regard to changing or controlling his behaviour because the medical view was that schizophrenics cannot learn. We were afraid that asking him to do more than he wanted to do might also cause “stress” that could make his mental illness worse. He became upset easily, which is called being “labile.” “Upset” could mean anything from bursting into tears, shouting at someone in anger, venting a verbal tirade of frustration at himself, kicking a door, punching a hole in a wall, pushing a chair over, speaking or shouting threats of a somewhat more violent nature, and occasionally displaying the full repertoire. These events were like a child’s “tantrum” but are much more alarming from a person in his late teens, twenties, or thirties. AA called them “dry drunks,” to be expected as part of the addiction recovery process. The unpredictability of his behaviour kept everyone around him on edge and sometimes fearful. Talking and teaching helped somewhat. He often apologized later for his obnoxious outbursts. I understood that the outpouring of emotion released tension between left and right hemisphere, the way crying can create greater calm. However, following each episode of severe schizophrenia, Daniel seemed to have lost much of the teaching that had gone on before, and when he re-entered a labile phase, my teaching would begin all over again. Yet, he seemed quite capable of learning in other ways. His overall control of his right-brain emotions was gained gradually. Daniel was maturing, but his addictions kept his ears weak and made that progress slow.

While growing up, I had no useful label to apply to brief intervals of schizophrenia-like behavior that I had noticed in more distant relatives, friends, and people I had counselled. Their doctors labelled them as “attention-seeking,” “neurotic,” “maladjusted,” “immature,” “schizoid,” “schizophreniform,” and “labile.” The cause of their unusual behaviour might be treated nutritionally, but usually was approached with talking therapy. Symptoms were attributed according to Freudian or Jungian theories about childhood attachments to the mother, stages of childhood development where they had become “stuck,” or inappropriate guilt due to their religious teaching that was preventing them from enjoying their life. They were advised to change their beliefs about their parents, their sexuality, and their religious education. Thus, people already unable to control their behaviour were encouraged to blame others for their feelings, to unleash their primal urges, and to become further uncontrolled. This psychiatric advice proceeded according to a vague set of values defined more by the rejection of traditional ideals than by any clear alternatives that could ensure their mental health, stability in their relationships, or a reasonable comfort level for families and friends.

People are “bipolar II” if their moods do not include hallucinations, delusions, and garbled speech. They are “bipolar I,” if they occasionally cross the line into schizophrenia. Bipolar people may be prescribed SSRIs to make them calmer. The effects of those drugs can be studied by learning how people feel while taking them and when they decide to stop using them. Several Internet forums have a great many members who are trying to find remedies for the damaging effects of SSRIs they have taken. Many have symptoms they never experienced prior to taking SSRIs. Robert Whitaker and P.W. Andrews et al. have contributed importantly to our understand
ing of SSRI side effects.

When I discovered that Daniel’s schizophrenia, like his dyslexia, originated in his ears, I realized his seesawing bipolar behaviour reflected an intermediate stage of deterioration or recovery of his ears. Bipolar II is so widely tolerated that he tried to stake out that level of recovery as “good enough.” Yet, that syndrome was a passing phase on his way to excellent emotional self-control that we would see when his addictions abated.