For the past 5 months, I’ve been getting back into psychiatric treatment for my bipolar disorder.

Is there a secret to getting proper psychiatric treatment? Sort of. It’s more of an open secret and it’s really simple to understand, but difficult to put into practice.

It takes two hands to clap.

Here’s the story

When I restarted my treatment, my assigned attending doctor was on a long leave. And for the first 3 months, I did not see the doctor who was supposed to treat me for the rest of my life.

I went through medicines and adjustments and landed on an antidepressant which really, really helped my conditions. But when my doctor got back in, he took me off, as I was showing possible symptoms of mania.

Bipolar patients generally don’t take antidepressants, as it might trigger a mood shift. My doctor – based on notes from the previous doctor – switched me back to mood stabilizers, which, FYI, had never worked for me over the 2 years of psych treatments throughout my lifetime.

Now, I had been on the antidepressant for 2 months, which had taken such an edge of my anxiety, that being taken off it suddenly, caused my anxiety to crash back, further increasing my manic symptoms.

How things got fixed

Over the next 3 weeks, I sought counsel from both my counsellor and support group while rescheduling 2 more psych sessions with my doctor.

I came to the conclusion that the situation was similar to back when I was in the army, and the army psychiatrist refused to listen to my worries of symptoms and side effect.

Long story short, my army days very nearly became my last, and I refused to have a repeat of those dark times.

After calming myself down and gathering the necessary information (drug history, condition status, etc), I went with the goal of clearing the air, and worst case scenario, requesting a new doctor.

It was nerve-wracking, walking through the door with anxiety beating, but I was in a fight for my life. No turning back.

As I took my seat, I gave my points and the doctor countered. We started a proper discussion on treatment, the first I had received from him in 3 sessions.

Luckily, we reached an understanding and I came out of the session with a new antidepressant which was similar to the last. but much more affordable. The doctor seemed to understand where I was coming from and that not only was I a lucid patient.

So far, things are going well. The new drug is working, and I don’t seem to be manic. And the side effects of a very mild headache every and more frequent number 2s are manageable.

There were a few high moods, but as explained to the doctor, without my anxiety and depression, I could put all focus into keeping any manic symptoms in check. A feat far simpler to achieve than combating both depression and anxiety simultaneously, believe that.

The Conclusion?

This combination of cheaper medication and better mental health is the result of one thing. Educated compromise. And that’s where we get back to the crux of the message. It takes two hands to clap.

Patients are not often clear or lucid enough in the throes of whatever illness being suffered. If no caretakers are present, you definitely need to rely on the doctor’s abilities and judgement.

But in cases such as mine where patients are in remission and lucid, there has to be a give and take.

Most public psychiatrists get to see a patient for an average of 15 minutes a session, far less than the hour recommended for a diagnosis. In those cases, they need to work with the patients who have lived far longer than that timeframe with their illness.

For myself, I had survived for over 17 years with my mental illness. With over 6 years of counselling, 2 years of psychiatric medication, and 3 survived suicide attempts, I know better than anyone of my own condition.

For doctors, they need to find a moment to look at their patients and make judgement calls on their mental faculties as mine did, and to put aside pride and preconceptions.

For patients, we must search ourselves for courage – more so than already displayed – to call out possible misprescription and to know when we are not able to make such decisions ourselves.

Psychiatric treatments are a thinly balanced tightrope. There are no miracle drugs, and everyone needs to come to terms with what individuals are willing to sacrifice in terms of side effects in order to lessen more severe symptoms.