Additional articles by Noona:
http://askjacqueline.life/the-laban-effect/
What is Posttraumatic Stress?
http://askjacqueline.life/?p=1682
Hello. Here is my bio. I tried to think of what to say which took forever since nothing I wrote felt good enough. I decided to talk instead about how I ended up where I am in a neutral way and why what we are building online with each other is so important.
About Me
My family has had a long history with the Jehovah’s Witness faith. My great-grandparents became baptized publishers and pioneers during the turn of the century, and I am the fourth generation to become baptized in this faith.
I have a good working understanding of the doctrines, hierarchical structure, and practices of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and have used the tools given to me to further my understanding of God and what he requires of me as an individual. My search for God took me on a very unexpected direction in 2012 when my father was diagnosed with cancer and we needed assistance in order to help him attend that year’s Memorial (a recounting of the events and death of the Messiah Jesus Christ). My father had been partaking as an anointed individual for over 20 years and had never attended a Memorial outside of a Kingdom Hall in his life. Because of the problems that we had with his illness, we opted to try to have the Memorial at our home. This was a very difficult decision as we were taught as Jehovah’s Witnesses that you should only attend the Memorial with other Jehovah’s Witnesses at one of the Kingdom Halls. Due to my fathers failing health, and the lack of assistance from the Elders we were left with no option but to hold the Memorial service privately.
This decision turned out to be an important one as we delved into the scriptures and engaged in heavy research about the origins and purpose of the first Passover and its connection to the death of Jesus Christ. When we prayed for insight, the Holy Spirit directed us to go to the source for all of our questions, and this meant looking at the bible in the context of the people it was written to. In short, this meant understanding these events from a “Hebrew” perspective.
When we began to understand this historical narrative through a Jewish perspective, we learned more than we ever thought imaginable. We learned that the name of the Messiah is Yeshua in Hebrew. We learned that God gave his people a calendar that was based on agriculture and astronomical events which set them apart from any pagan reckoning of time. When we began to re-read the bible from a Hebraic perspective, we learned that so much greater understanding is all but absent from Western interpretations of the bible. By the time we were finally prepared to hold the Memorial, we better understood the deeper weightier aspects of God’s appointed times and why every aspect of the Messiah’s life and death was prophetically significant.
We learned that the appointed times like the Passover was an appointed time given by God and that these feasts only received a partial fulfillment and have yet to receive a complete fulfillment. I can’t tell you how much peace that this knowledge has brought me, to learn that our salvation is still in progress and that we as believers have so much more than I ever was taught possible to look forward to. Since 2012, my family holds the Memorial each year with a greater commitment to biblical and historical accuracy.
I no longer attend meetings or services held by Jehovah’s Witnesses, as I have found some of their teachings factually and scripturally inaccurate, and much of the doctrine taught at the time of my baptism has been invalidated by newer contradictory interpretations from the “faithful slave”. For me and my family, we have learned all that we can from the Jehovah’s Witnesses but must press on to spiritual maturity looking forward and not behind.
Since leaving the Organization, I have returned to school and am now finishing a degree in psychology in order to work in the field of behavioral health.
During my time as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, I saw a great deal of spiritual and emotional turmoil inside the congregations. Many of my brothers and sisters were experiencing depression, anxiety and constant fear of the future. Many suffered in silence hoping that simply attending more meetings or engaging in field service would help them and they blamed themselves when the depression persisted. I also became disturbed by what I called the absence of love permeating the congregations. Brothers and Sisters are experiencing an unprecedented amount of pressure from this dying and decaying Satanic system we live in. Many are unable to find the tools and resources to cope.
Marriages, parent-child relationships, and friendships within the congregation are all becoming toxic casualties of mankind’s downward spiral and many Witnesses find themselves preaching about a hope that they are not sure they themselves have. I decided to try and dedicate my times and energy into creating a resource page in order to help people from all denominations and faith, that find themselves without support encouragement or answers from the religions they practice. My hope is to build an online community of brothers and sisters committed to the cause of having true love among one another. Our creator is greater than our churches and greater than us, but we all must be willing to be receptive to following the lamb where he goes, even if it requires a leap of faith. Satan will continue to press us, isolate us, discourage us and our enemies will be the ones that are the closest to us.
It is in these times that we need to be certain of what we believe, and cling to it with all that we have.
The Soil You Are Planted In Part 1
I was thinking today about a chapter my class studied on Abraham Maslow and his theories about what types of needs that every human has and how humans go about pursuing them. Abraham Maslow was a psychologist born during 1908 and he theorized that we have lower order needs and higher order needs and that we seek to satisfy the lower and work our way up to the higher order needs. He arranged his theory in a pyramid with basic needs at the bottom (food, water, warmth, rest, sex, homeostasis) then Safety Needs (personal security, employment, health, resources,) then Psychological needs (friendship, intimacy, family, sense of connection) Esteem needs (respect, self-esteem, status, recognition, strength, freedom) and also Self Actualization (the desire to become the most that one can be in terms of morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts).
Later on in Maslow’s life he realized there was another important need that humans had and he called itself transcendence and this state of being is a state of transcending ones self where we start to entertain higher goals and we look outside ourselves. What fascinated me about this list is that we can see by the way in which God constructed man and his home that Adam and Eve lived in an environment where all of their lower order needs were always meet leaving them to pursue a state a transcendent state of existence. When you think about it, if you are deprived of basic needs such as food and water, your mind will be preoccupied with meeting those needs otherwise you will cease to exist. When you are in constant fear of safety, you are probably not dwelling on your esteem needs being filled. When you are deprived of friendship and a sense of belonging, you are probably not thinking too often about how to be a better version of yourself.
In science, psychologist treat all of these needs as legitimate, and Universal. This is to say that all people have these needs (we are born with them) and that we suffer psychological turmoil when they are not meet. We can ignore these needs when we have no way to fulfill them, but when we do there are consequences and we are not at peace when they are not meet. We have within us built in drive that is engaged (or activated) when we are deprived of our needs, that creates discomfort. That discomfort builds and builds until we seek out ways to satisfy this need and the discomfort is abated.
If you have ever felt uncomfortable when you don’t eat and hunger sets in. Have you noticed that the longer you go without eating, the more intense the hunger seems to get? If God did not include this warning system, we would not always meet our nutritional needs and we would suffer as a result.
Going back to my theory, God created man with needs that where always meant to be satisfied. This satisfaction of needs created an ongoing cycle of contentment allowing humanity to stay in a state free of discomfort, and frustration where they could focus on fulfilling transcendence needs and could look at life from a more spiritual perspective. In this way, mans physical and spiritual self was kept in harmony.
Our existence is very different on Earth currently.
The God of this system cannot and has no interest in meeting all of the needs of humanity, as there is greater value in placing people in a situation where they are in constant agony over needs not being meet, fear of being in a situation where needs are not meet, or placed in situations where they must do things that are wrong in order to meet their needs. In all of these scenarios, we become more dependent on Satan and his system and are more inclined to meet his demands in order to escape the pain of need deprivation and experience any sort of contentment in this life. When Satan approached Jesus, this scenario is a very good example of how Satan craftily thought to use natural human physiology and psychology to thwart the greatest threat to his existence ever to be devised.
If you recall, the holy spirit had led Jesus into the wilderness, not unlike the situation where his ancestors after leaving Egypt where led into the wilderness and failed to keep a very important commandment, “Have no other God’s”! This situation Jesus was in was called a test and for very good reason Matthew 4:1-11. We don’t know if God was in communication with Jesus and we don’t have very many details of what occurred with Jesus during this time. But what we do know about this account is that Jesus was in a state of severe deprivation. When you look back at what we discussed about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we know from the account that Jesus was deprived of food. I can easily imagine that safety, comfort, companionship, and other needs that are meet in a community of people were not meet and the account does not indicate in any way that Jesus was given any information as to how long God intended to let these needs go unfulfilled.
This was a perfect opportunity for Satan to prey on Jesus in this state and to suggest that Jesus fill those needs in a way that was specifically designed to separate him from God. Matthew 4:3 And when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” But notice Jesus reply in verse 5, “But Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” This was a very profound rebuttal that came from Jesus in light of human needs. For God to allow his prospective champion to be deprived of so many lower order needs (as described earlier) he knew that by this time, Jesus was in a potentially vulnerable situation. But God also as Jesus maker understood a little-known fact about his creation, humans have the ability to develop a greater hunger for higher order needs to such an extent that we can develop a greater toleration for the absence of lower order needs. In other words, Jesus need for self-transcendence which included a great need for connection to God and to his fellow man, to the extent that he was willing to stay in a deprived state physically and psychologically in order to ensure that this more important self-transcendence need remain fulfilled.
If Jesus did not possess this mindset, it would not have been likely that he would have been willing to sacrifice his life and live a life of deprivation that deprived him of a home, safety, respect, a family, a community, and all of the other needs that humans have in order to complete the work that God had intended him to do that requires a self-transcendent mind set.
Because Jesus was human, and experienced many of the things that we experience today, we can draw strength from this example in that we have humanity in common with Jesus and that we can receive the same help from God tapping into this higher reasoning that transcends self. God cares for us and is keenly aware as our maker of what we suffer in this life and it is a great comfort to know that God intends to meet all of our needs in the future when he re-creates a world that is designed to bring delight to our every sense and make it easy for us to fill our higher order spiritual needs.
Our greatest protection in our personal lives and with our fellow Christians is a commitment to protect our brothers and sisters and ourselves from Satan by being aware of our vulnerabilities. Be kinder to one another, give to those who are lacking if it is in your power to do so that all of us might be able to reach for a higher state of spiritual awareness that reinforces a strong relationship with God and brother. We want to be the people who live God’s reality in our present system, we live lives as though this future reality has already come to pass because we believe that what proceeds from God’s mouth is already a reality.
Hi Jacqueline,
I wanted to thank you for our chat. I know your time especially in retirement is really actually precious so I don’t take for granted when someone decides to spend some of it on me. What I was impressed with most about our conversation, is your approach to taking difficult emotionally rooted topics and dis-empowering them with reason and logic. Sometimes people can be convinced that their views on race, religion or gender are so objective and therefore right that they miss the emotion and subjectivity driving the intensity of their opinions. We tend to trust what we feel and not question it nearly as much as we should and I feel sometimes that in our time, we are being socialized to feel more than we think because this part of us is easier to manipulate. I say that because I feel that Satanic influence over the minds of mankind is a real and present danger and those who are not even in agreement that Satan is a real entity that is actively shaping the direction of the Earth are especially vulnerable to his influence.
There is a division that is occurring, and I am seeing it everywhere. It is so pronounced that relationships are being undermined and destroyed by what amounts to profound differences of opinion. The sad part of the situation is that people are not investing in understanding where the roots of their own conclusions are coming from but can be so adversarial if you try to reason with them about what they believe. I have some friends that have become very demeaning towards others that don’t share their beliefs and are not open to any agreement about the middle of the road philosophy (i.e. we agree to disagree but still respect one another).
It was refreshing to hear from you that sometimes it is a simple matter of ego and not really the viewpoint at all, and when you are unwilling to consider another perspective on certain things, is it a testament to your own feelings of self-importance?
I am sorry our call was cut short, but I would love to continue our conversation because I also enjoy how candid you can be sometimes and it really cuts paragraphs down to sentences. Some things can be said or done simply and when we eliminate over concern over feeling states at the expense of saying something meaningful it really isn’t productive dialog. God gave us speech and want to be more efficient in how it is used. Speech is a powerful tool, but it is only as effective as the one who wields it. Thank you again ?
Rene, you are welcome. Our conversations today were revealing indeed.
The Question of race and its effects on persons that are still alive and remember when four of their siblings were hlynched by the KKK can be a very volatile situation to deal with.
I hope I was helpful in giving pointers on how to go about it when talking to your friend, associate.
AS I mentioned I was on the team that was called in to determine why people were “GOING POSTAL” some years ago and received a letter of commendation for my handling of the seminar.
We actually never had another series of “Postal” events after this National convention because the teams identified the problem and dealt with it.
Since this question of God’s role in this has been brought up, yes we can deal with this on the site. Hopefully, your friend will come on.
You see He feels Spiritually abused also, but by the Almighty himself! Yes, tell him to come on and let’s deal with it openly.
The Australian Royal Commission on Child Sexual abuse first started because of an abducted child from Australia coming on and saying, “Jacqueline help me please” I don’t know how old I am or where I came from.
That was an ongoing issue all weekend with police and everything involved. So we have tackled volatile issues on the site.
Take Care
Hi Jacqueline,
Thank you for sending me a copy of your credentials for our project.
I think it is important that you share these credentials. I am writing an assignment on biases in psychology and even I wasn’t aware of what a big part that touch therapy and holistic therapy can play in behavioral health.
I want to talk about this perspective with people who are not knowledgeable about the other types of modalities in psychology and why funding programs like yours is important in a society that is becoming more depressed and emotionally unstable. From a religious perspective it is important to get Christian’s to understand that the last days are going to be difficult and it will create depression and sadness even for Christian’s.
I have never seen any religious group treat spiritual warfare like actual warfare and prepare for casualties and injured. I would like to focus on self help for Christian’s on our page and explaining what you do and why it is so important will go a long way in breaking down stereotypes about mental health. It will also allow people to seek help discreetly if they fear being ridiculed by other Christian’s who have been wrongfully taught to fear and mistrust therapy of any kind.
Rene yes there are more modalities than talk that will help persons dealing with Post Traumatic Stress syndrome. I participated in a study with a University on why some married persons wouldn’t allow intimacy with their spouse.
I asked why I was chosen to help as a therapist? They said because they had a very special group that was difficult to place within the study.
They were deeply religious people that felt it would bring reproach on their religion if they told some things. When I met the subjects I informed them not to talk to me because I knew them. They said they actually told the University about me and that I knew of many sexual abuse cases within the organization.
So long story short, they got free therapy and went on to live better lives as married individuals and the touch therapy was the only added modality. They were already under the psychiatry modal.
Hopefully, you and I can get grants to test this therapy on Spiritual Abuse victims to treat the body as well as the Spirit.
Activism is the main category of most of the video and help groups dealing with this PTSD after Spiritual Abuse but we got the classification of:
Counseling, Support Groups also the subsection: A religious, educational, charitable, scientific or literary organization.
I think this best describes our efforts. You are free to implement your programs. We have a very large audience from all over the world, some of the sessions last for hours, which means they are reading on the site. One reader recently got in touch and told me they had been on the site for 8 hours! The stats show readers are on 45 min to hours.
So we want our content to be helpful and informative because we are dealing with persons that still love God and are eager to learn what they have never been able to learn because their religion is about books, magazines and the thoughts of just one man or a chosen few.
We push the envelope sometimes, true but it causes their mind to wake up and think of other possibilities revealed to them and just ordinary people.
We hope everyone feels safe here! Asking questions and discussions about viewpoints is healthy and good.
We are not, however, a site where our views must harmonize with a certain man or organization viewpoint. If the same conclusion on a matter is reached then that is okay but we aren’t starting off with a premise of what we were taught.
We encourage all to look at the scripture and say what you see. Everyone has a voice on here as long as they aren’t mean spirited, persons have been beaten up enough.
Hello Rene,
That is so interesting about your brother teaching himself. This reminds me of my youngest son. He is 8 and absolutely hates class because he is bored. He needs to constantly move and play. He doesn’t have any learning issues. He is very intelligent just not being challenged and not learning things that interest him. I am left handed, but I am not artistic in the least. I always felt as though I should be more artistic being a lefty. I can’t believe a teacher would shame your brother.
Hey there Jacqueline,
Mood states are so interesting. My endocrinologist tells me that he feels that some forms of high energy and high focus seemed to be natural in some individuals and he said that it is mistaken for mild forms of mania. He also said he noticed this in his patients that were highly creative. This didn’t surprise me a bit, I have a brother who is not diagnosed with any type of disorder according to my mother. His teachers felt in middle school that he had a learning disability because he was struggling in English and showed signs of hyper activity. That year in middle school, my brother taught himself to read and write in Japanese and it turned out that his class to him was just very boring. For any one that knows, Japanese is a challenging language to learn and writing in Kanji is difficult for many people even with formal instruction. It turns out that my brother was just bored in class and I’m glad that my parents got a second opinion. His teachers also felt that students who were left handed were intellectually disadvantaged and tried many times to force/shame my brother to learn to write with his right hand. Thankfully that did not happen as he is an artist and he paints/sketches better with his left hand lol.
Hey Tasha,
Thanks for your reply. Lighting is so important as some individuals with seasonal affect disorder benefit from special lighting devices used in conjunction with therapy. I find it so interesting that our environment can play such an important part in our moods. I wish that I was taught more about the connection between body and mind in school as a teen, I think it would have made my adolescent years a lot less confusing lol.
Hello Rene, your post on seasonal depression was very interesting. I personally have known people who have this disorder. I know certain lighting in the home can be helpful. I personally love the winter months and enjoy rainy days, but not everyone does. Thank you for sharing.
Tasha, lol, I also come alive in winter, rainy days etc. I am so productive at these times. I have painted entire rooms plus ceilings and remodeled a bathroom by myself when shut in by 5′ of snow.
We are all so different.
Hey everyone,
I wasn’t sure if this would interest anyone, but I wanted to let everyone that may be suffering from Bi-Polar disorder why they may have problems that seem to come completely out of left field. If you have been diagnosed or feel that you might be suffering from Bi-Polar disorder than you might want to read the post that I just left prior as well as continue this one. This may help individuals who have experienced sudden and unexpected urges that are uncharacteristic of themselves, and may make you inclined to take risks that you wouldn’t normally take, do things that may endanger your health or well being. It turns out that seasons can affect behavior for individuals with this disorder.
I especially wanted to make everyone who might be unknowingly suffering from this disorder aware because they may not see the pattern of behavior and think that each storm of manic behavior or depressive behavior is not related. Satan will make use of our vulnerabilities. He is an expert at convincing us that his thoughts are really our thoughts and we often do not see the manipulation. When we have feelings of prolonged depression and we feel inclined to believe everything we are saying to ourselves, the self doubt and self deprecation it may help to understand the biological sources (our minds) and the environmental sources (Satan’s System) before we take to heart what we are thinking when our minds are knocked off kilter. It is also a good time to pray and fortify ourselves so that we are not vulnerable to depression as this is a good way Satan uses to discourage you.
Please review the case study that I reviewed for class to understand how this disorder has affected people and why some may not understand when they are unexpectedly at the mercy of this disorder.
Case Study: Bipolar
Now that you have read this chapter, here is a detailed case study to help you understand and integrate what you have learned.
Manic Monday
Elizabeth was excited. The 34-year-old paced around the boarding area while awaiting her flight to Las Vegas. Elizabeth was a bookkeeper for a restaurant whose owner refused to accept credit cards. They often had large amounts of cash on hand, and now a backpack full of it was slung over Elizabeth’s shoulder. She had nearly $15,000 of her employer’s money. She believed that with her superior statistical skills and knowledge of probability, the casinos would not stand a chance. “The Las Vegas casinos have never seen the likes of me,” she said to herself. “I work on a whole different level than most people.” With her boss’s money, Elizabeth reasoned, she would double, if not triple the “investment.”
The people around Elizabeth saw that she was highly energized. When she spoke, her words came out as if she could not speak them fast enough. Her ideas came to her so quickly that she bounced from one topic to the next. She spoke with a huge smile, and while people were not put off by her high energy, some found it strange. She spent the flight telling a seatmate about her (imaginary) connections to a casino and real estate magnate in Las Vegas. Once her flight arrived, Elizabeth thought she had better “look the part” and visited some high-end shops, spending more than a third of the cash she had on a few outfits and jewelry. Then she sat down at a blackjack table and began to gamble. She made reckless bets and quickly lost thousands. Within three hours of landing in Las Vegas, Elizabeth had spent all of the cash she had with her. No matter, she thought, she would make it up. Elizabeth got several cash advances on credit cards and made even bigger bets. “Got to bet big if you want to win big,” she said.
Elizabeth liked the feeling of being energized. She had previously had trouble with depression. During those times she did not think very highly of herself. She had terrible fatigue and no appetite. People did not like being around her, and she cried often. Being energized was exactly the opposite. Elizabeth could go days with little sleep and was capable of working on big projects. As a teen, she once spent an entire night painting the interior of her house. “I wanted it to be a surprise for my parents. Go to sleep with white walls—wake up with pink ones!” she said.
As the night in Las Vegas wore on, Elizabeth showed no signs of slowing down. She had drawn the attention of several men who were gambling alongside her. Assuming she had been taking cocaine, the men did not mind her pressured speech or some of the fantastic things she said. They especially did not mind when Elizabeth starting making frank sexual remarks. One of them convinced her to go to his hotel room. They were kissing in the elevator and if he had let her, she would have taken off her top before they reached the room. Once inside, Elizabeth was quickly naked and demanding sex. The man said something about a condom and she scoffed. “We don’t need one,” she said, and the two had sex. Within the hour, the man was asleep, and Elizabeth lay awake with thoughts racing through her mind. She saw a small light on the side of a smoke detector. She bolted upright. “They are watching me,” she whispered and hurriedly gathered up her clothes and belongings.
Elizabeth got dressed in the hallway and frantically plotted her next step. She had suspected for some time that a coworker of hers had been secretly following her and spying on her; now she was sure of it. There had been plenty of evidence: her lunch had been moved from one side of the break room refrigerator to the other; she had been passed over for promotion because of the “lies” that were being told about her; her key card stopped working at work, and even though security told her that her badge had worn out, she did not believe it. Now she was being followed in Las Vegas. Elizabeth made her way to the airport. Her expansive mood and excitement had morphed into intense fear that people were watching her. She decided it was too risky to fly home and instead bought a ticket to San Francisco. It was the last time her credit card would work.
Elizabeth landed very early in the morning at San Francisco International Airport and took a cab to the Haight Ashbury part of the city. She had no cash, none of her credit cards was working, and the cab driver was unhappy she could not pay the expensive fare from the airport. He called the police, and Elizabeth was taken into custody. It was apparent to the police officer that something was wrong with her. Elizabeth was making strange statements. She told him that she was important to God and that placing someone of her great stature—who was also a good friend of the U.S. president—in custody was going to get the police officer in trouble. Elizabeth was placed on a “5150,” or a mental health hold, and taken to the hospital. The staff there contacted Elizabeth’s husband, who was relieved to hear from them since his wife had been missing for nearly a week.
After spending nearly six days in a California psychiatric unit, Elizabeth returned home to face major trouble. She had been fired from her job, and she was being investigated for embezzlement. Her husband was barely speaking to her. She was remorseful about her behavior. When pressed for details about what made her act so outrageously, all Elizabeth said was, “At the time it just didn’t seem like it was a bad idea.” Her behavior was an incredible departure for a woman who was generally well-liked as a bookkeeper. She and her husband had been married for four years and were trying to start a family. She regarded herself as conservative and generally responsible with money. She had never before been in trouble with the law.
Spring was particularly a difficult time for her. Her mood seemed to be sensitive to the seasons, and the longer days that came with spring energized her. Her mood would become elevated and expansive. She would be overly joyful and happy. She felt overconfident about her abilities, overly optimistic, and reckless. Her libido would kick into high gear, and she would have trouble noticing the negative consequences of her behavior. This spring, however, the mental state that had led her to go to Las Vegas was the worst she had ever experienced.
Going months without having trouble with her moods made Elizabeth deny that she had a mental illness. She knew that medicine helped, but she often would stop taking it when she felt better. “Generally speaking, for months to years at a time, I am fine,” she said. “I don’t like being reminded of having an illness, and I am often fine without it, so I stop taking the medicine.”
A few months after her Las Vegas escapade, Elizabeth was waiting tables and had a little bit of money coming in, but she felt overwhelmed. She was coping with many stressors: she had lost a job she loved, she was complying with a plea deal she had accepted in her criminal case to pay back the money she had stolen, and her husband was divorcing her. He could not understand why Elizabeth refused to stay on her medicine. Two other times she had charged exorbitant amounts of money on their credit cards with impulsive shopping. She had also been unfaithful. The last straw was his developing a sexually transmitted infection from Elizabeth after she had slept with the stranger from the casino.
Elizabeth lost her appetite. She started sleeping later and could not get out of bed. She felt hopeless and furious about ruining her life. Things that she normally enjoyed doing brought her no joy. She found that she could not concentrate and gave up trying. She started drinking heavily. On the day that her divorce papers were served, Elizabeth got into the tub and drank a bottle of wine. When it was empty, she broke the wine glass and slashed both her wrists. She texted her ex-husband to say good-bye and closed her eyes. Later that night, for the second time in less than a year, Elizabeth was back in a psychiatric hospital.
Reference
Abnormal Psychology, 17th Edition. Jill M. Hooley. James N. Butcher. Matthew K. Nock. Susan M Mineka. ©2017
Discovering A Seasonal Pattern In Bipolar Disorder Symptoms May Have Implications For Better Management
Thursday 25 October 2007 By Olwen Glynn Owen
Approximately one fifth of people with bipolar disorder, mostly those with bipolar II, find their symptoms wax and wane with the seasons. Benito Mussolini was a prime example. In her biography of the Italian dictator Margarita Sarfati wrote: “He was quiet for months on end. But then came the troubled season (spring) when the sap rose and he was overcome by a swarm of powerful and dark instincts.” Psychiatrist Dr Athanasios Koukopoulos, of Centro Lucio Bini, in Rome, Italy who has been studying Mussolini says: “This seasonal bipolar pattern with spring-summer highs which led him to believe in easy victories, and winter depressions masked by stomach pains is clearly documented from 1938 on.” (1)
Seasonal influences, particularly light and temperature, often affect mood in people with unipolar depression, too. Seasonal affective depression (SAD) is now a well-recognised disorder amenable to light therapy. It has been difficult to gauge the extent to which bipolar patients are experiencing normal seasonal mood variation on top of their underlying disorder from a more profound change in bipolar symptoms triggered by seasonality. Dr Karen Shin and colleagues at Toronto University, however, have attempted to tease out the difference (2). They looked at the severity of seasonality effects in five groups of people: normal subjects with no psychopathology, those with non-seasonal depression, those with seasonal depression, those with seasonal bipolar disorder and those with non-seasonal bipolar disorder. The researchers used the Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ) and found almost a three-fold difference in severity between normal subjects and people with seasonal bipolar disorder. The latter group registered the highest degree of seasonal fluctuation. However, even the non-seasonal bipolar group showed as much fluctuation as people with seasonal depression.
Implications of seasonality for bipolar management
The question to which bipolar sufferers and psychiatrists now need an answer is whether or not knowledge of a seasonal pattern in bipolar disorder can be used to influence clinical management.
Dr Jose Goikolea and colleagues at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain, recently conducted a 10-year follow-up of 325 bipolar patients to see how having a seasonal pattern affected patients in the long term (3). The study was presented in May 2007 at the International Review of Bipolar Disorders meeting in Rome, Italy. The researchers identified 77 patients (23.7%) who had first presented with seasonally-affected bipolar disorder. Apart from their predisposition to seasonal influences, they did not differ in other ways from other bipolar sufferers.
Even though the study was conducted in Catalonia, an area with minimal light fluctuation, the researchers found seasonal pattern bipolar disorder was most likely to impact as an increased frequency of depressive episodes in bipolar II patients. Bipolar II patients were also found to suffer more seasonal affects in northern regions in a prospective study conducted by researchers at University of Pittsburgh in the US (4).
Seasonally affected patients in the Spanish study were found to be more likely to have presented with depression and to suffer predominantly depressive symptom episodes(3). They were also more likely to have experienced a higher frequency of depressive episodes and a longer course to their illness and were less likely to have experienced manic or psychotic episodes. However, they were no more likely than bipolar patients without a seasonal pattern to their symptoms to commit suicide or require hospital admission or to show a worse outcome in terms of other aspects of life. There was no difference between male and female patients in these respects (3)
Dr Goikolea believes the study holds implications for future management of patients showing a seasonal pattern. “There is an advantage in knowing when patients’ illness shows a seasonal pattern because you can predict when they are likely to become ill.” This may lead to instigation of a mood-stabilising dose of the therapy used to manage depression where this has been shown to be effective in each setting, he suggested.
“Doctors will be able to anticipate when a patient is becoming ill and change maintenance medication accordingly,” he suggested. A prophylatic antidepressant without mood-stabilising properties may be less helpful.
Other researchers also believe knowledge of seasonality has important implications for management of bipolar illness in children and adolescents. Dr Demitri and Janice Papolos for example write: “Levels of medications that previously produced stabilisation may not be as effective during periods of change in the light/dark cycle (5). Treatment strategies may need to be revised during these periods of seasonal vulnerability, ” they suggest. “The doses of some medications may need to be adjusted upwards or downwards, depending on the attributes of the drug and the pattern of seasonal symptom change.”
Studies have not yet been carried out to prove whether or not seasonal dose adjustments affect clinical outcomes in bipolar disorder but this question is certain to be addressed soon. If the hypothesis, that seasonal dose adjustment can provide greater stability and control, proves correct, a substantial proportion of bipolar patients could look forward to a significant improvement in the management of their illness.
References
1.Koukopoulos A. Bipolarity and history: Benito Mussolini. 7th International Review of Bipolar Disorders abstracts 2007, p21.
2.Shin K et al. Seasonality in a community sample of bipolar, unipolar and control subjects. J Affective Disord 2005;86:19-25.
3.Goikolea JM et al. Clinical and prognostic implications of seasonal pattern in bipolar disorder: a 10-year follow-up of 325 patients. 7th International Review of Bipolar Disorders abstracts 2007, p.67.
4.Friedman E et al. Seasonal changes in clinical status in bipolar disorder: a prospective study in 1000 Systematic Treatment Enhancement Program for Bipolar Disorder (STEP-BD) patients. Acta Psychiatr Scan 2006; 113: 510-517.
5.5. Papolos J and Papolos DF. March madness, September slides: the seasonal aspects of early-onset bipolar disorder. The Bipolar Child Newsletter, vol 20, June 2006.
Written by: Olwen Glynn Owen
Olwen at macline.co.uk
THANK YOOOOOOU SO MUCH EVERYONE. AS usual I am overwhelmed by the love on Ask Jacqueline. We are all on for 5pm Saturday for an informal chat and planning meeting.
Hello Rene, what a good idea. I would be happy to help in anyway you may need. It is beautiful how you want to help people.
Sounds like a good idea
Thank you so much for your support. Not sure yet if the rest of the group saw it yet but Ithink our usual 5pm central time and 8pm eastern might work better as everyone in the group is familiar with it.
Henry is emailing you. Check your email. Rene.
I have a new project idea that I am excited about and want to ask that anyone who participates in our Thursday and Saturday Study weekly spiritual support round-table please read this and let me know if you can assist (or pass this onto anyone who might want to lend a hand). Before I share my new idea with all of you, I wanted to share a happy childhood memory. One of my most pleasant memories from going to conventions and assemblies while one of Jehovah’s witnesses was the drama’s that they use to put on. These where the highlight of the whole day for me especially as a child when I couldn’t understand what I was hearing from the adults giving the talks. I could however understand better what I was seeing, and I loved the costume’s and sets.
When I was thinking about how to best explain how stress and illness affect Christians uniquely, I was stumped at how best to present new concepts without seeming preachy or overly complicated. It should come as no surprise to any Christian that living in a world controlled by a powerful malevolent spirit creature who hates the God we love and targets those who worship him in a very real but often unseen way would be stressful. It is our belief in this unique form of oppression and tyranny that unites Christians in their common beliefs and values.
While we may all believe that Christians face added pressure living in this world, we are not always told how to effectively cope with it. Because of this, Christians may face challenges like depression, and illness not knowing that the stress they experience might be placing them at risk. We are taught to be joyful and to live our lives in anticipation of a new world filled with joy and hope. When we don’t feel joyful, we can feel inadequate and different from other Christians. My goal on this site is to help Christians redirect their thinking about stress. To do this, I want to teach effective stress coping skills by first changing the way that you think about yourself, your environment, other people, and most importantly God. Jesus was successful in resisting Satan’s attacks because he drew his coping skills from an inexhaustible source his relationship with God. Jesus also did not view stress the way in which we are taught to view it, and he relied on his natural abilities to redirect stress into mutually productive areas for himself, the people he assisted, and his relationship with God. No one that I can find so far has combined stress management coaching from a mostly Christian focal point. I am currently developing a way to tie these two concepts together, but this has been challenging until now.
I need a few volunteers who will be my voice actors in a podcast/audio drama. I want to give our audience a glimpse into the way in which Satan uses stress to rob you of your joy, drain your coping reserves, and place you in situations that are designed to bring out the worst in you. I want to share how stress affects people negatively, but also to show how not all stress is bad. I also want to show how anyone can use the coping techniques that I have learned to change the way they view and respond to stress, and to help others. Most of the things that I learned from my very expensive college classes only offer deeper explanations of what I have found in the bible as it relates to human responses to their environment.
I will try to make the audio drama entertaining, informative, and up-building. I need as I mentioned volunteers to supply the voice talent and if a few individuals would like to also allow me to share their challenging stories and how they are overcoming them which will be incorporated into the drama. My brother and I don’t have a lot of resources to do this, but my brother who is both brilliant and generous with his time has agreed to help me, and If one episode is all that we can do, at least we made an effort.
I was inspired by something I learned in class two weeks ago from Dr. Vikram Patel a psychologist from India. He had the wonderful idea of making information that usually only specialists have available to them, to individuals in a community. He thought of this because of the reality of limited mental healthcare access in his country and the impending and alarming increased need for these services. I like Dr. Patel believe that information should be freely shared in the interest of public health. I have received many things from God freely, and it is only fitting that I look for ways to give freely which is in harmony with the goals of “Ask”. I hope that information like this will help keep relationships intact, will help families stay together and most importantly will squeeze out room for Satanic influences to conquer and devour in our lives and homes. I would like if it can be arranged for an informal meeting on Friday through conference call for anyone interested so that I can explain my idea in further detail. Thank you all for being such a wonderful source of encouragement and Christian love as it is all of you who both inspire and give me a platform to practice my God given desire to look to the needs of my spiritual family.
Rene count me in and post the time in CST and EST as well as California time zone.
Sounds like a great idea.
HI Marjo,
Thank you for commenting sorry I missed your post. I dont know how I overlooked you post, please excuse me for that and thank you for taking the time to write to me. There are so many challenges that we are going to face as the pressure from this society increases. I like you want to be able to give something more to equip each Christian and anyone else with practical toss to help them keep their spiritual balance. I am in the process of compiling some information that retains our minds to cope with stress. I am currently in the hospital but as soon as my health situation is under control, I would love to show and share with you the wonderful tools that behavioral psychologist have developed to cope with stress and anxiety. Thank you again for your post, I appreciate all of you on this site so much and learn so much from you. The warmth that I feel when I fellowship here is genuine and without pretense. I truly love and appreciate all of you and my goal is to share everything that I can to help all of you become the best versions of yourselves and help teach you remove obstacles in your life that hinder and obscure the beauty and wonder in each of you. I have nothing but optimism for the direction the holy spirit is taking us as we co tune to make our little space online a true home and wonderful example of how a loving fellowship is supposed to function. Be blessed my sister and I will keep you and the others in my prayers.
Hello Rene!
It is nice to see you here! It is important that we have places like this where to stay in contact to other people in faith. It is nice to be in a site where people have high moral. I have seen ex-witness sites, but they have been immoral places and I did not like them. Maybe we could train our selves some sort of psychiatric to help Witnesses whom have left the society so they don’t have to suffer depression alone like we have.