Posted by Squiggles on May 12, 2007, at 7:46:25
I found an interesting excerpt from this site.
I was one course shy of finishing my Ph.D. and my submitted proposal for the dissertation had been accepted. I developed bipolar disorder[PTSD?] during that time partly due to work stress, maybe genetic, maybe withdrawal from benzos, and imho, largely due to frightening death threats to me and other academics, and constant harrassment from a fellow psychotic student.I was kicked out on my *ss for protesting the conditions I had to study under. I was told by some witnesses that I should have got a lawyer, but I was thorougly exhausted and entering medical treatment for the consequent mental breakdown.
I figured, why trust these creeps to help me, and I've never looked back, except with regret for so many years of academic work. There is a limit to how much wear and tear you can cope with when you confront too many misfortunes.
Squiggles
http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/medical/bipol.html#history
" Can a bipolar student get a degree?Kay Redfield Jamison is the paradigm example of success here. Not only did she get a degree, she became a tenured academic and unquestionably one of the world authorities on manic-depression. It wasn't easy, as her autobiographical "An Unquiet Mind" will tell you. She suffers from a severe form of the disorder, and requires serious medication to stay on the rails. She often appears in chat shows and newspaper interviews, but the URLs to these decay fast, so if interested do a Web search. It's a difficult disorder to accept that you have, and one of the main problems in its successful treatment is non-compliance, i.e., the patient stops treatment for one reason or another, often because they think they're cured. A good short article on coming to terms with it is The 5 Stages of Bipolar Grief.
* Classes. The first problem with being a bipolar student is that you can't afford to lose months at a time from your studies to periods of no-classes no-homework depression, or periods of no-classes no-homework life-and-soul-of-every-party mania. So you must find a way of remaining stable enough to get through most of the class work on time. While you may one day be able to learn how to control your moods with little or no medication, it is a difficult thing to learn (most fail), with lots of mishaps along the way, even if you succeed. One serious mishap can lead you into being technically an unsatisfactory student, which means you have to argue your way back into continuing your studies. This is usually possible the first time. It is very difficult the second time. In other words, you need either to accept the need for medication, or leave the university for a few years to try to learn how to cope without medication. You can't realistically expect to do both at once.
* Exams. The second problem of being a bipolar student is exams. These are periods of high stress which may unhinge you and send you into extremes of mood which make an exam either impossible, or what you write not worth much, although you may well be convinced the examiners will fall over in amazement at your genius when they read your exam scripts. You have to find a way of approaching exams as calmly as possible, with no last-minute up-all-night revisions. This means a quiet life and methodical study. And don't be tempted to change your medication in the few months before an exam! If absolutely neccessary do a bit of addition or subtraction to your basic well-established regime, tapering the change in gradually while keeping an eye on your reaction. A good friend who can tell you what your moods look like from outside is a great help; they can often spot changes well in advance of you noticing them.
* Keep it secret? Should you tell people of your problem? There will be exceptions, but generally speaking you will find university departments and directors of studies sympathetic, and willing to give you some leeway if you seem to be trying to cope with a difficult problem in a realistic way. You will be very likely to need some allowance to be made now and then for your problems, so if your director of studies is not sympathetic to bipolar students, find one who is. You are entitled to change your DoS just as you are entitled to change your doctor, just because you'ld like to. You don't have to give reasons if you'ld rather not. Probably the best approach is to ask other students to find out who might be a sympathetic DoS, and then approach that DoS. Not much can be done about unsympathetic departments or other unsympathetic staff, I'm afraid. Note that a frequent concomitant of the manic extreme of mood is high pressure behaviour which may lead some people to decide that if at all possible they never want to see you again, so you must beware of generating unsympathetic reactions by your own excesses.
Given appropriate medical documentation from your psychiatrist or doctor, a department may accept that your performance in a particular assigment or exam did not properly reflect your true state of knowledge or ability, and make allowances. They will not, however, excuse you from needing to have done the work of the course, e.g., "I didn't pass the exam because I was too depressed to attend the lectures" won't work."
poster:Squiggles
thread:758069
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070509/msgs/758069.html