Bipolar Disorder, Creativity, and Vitamin B

Bipolar 2

I am often quite depressed and I do believe I have a very mild case of bipolar 2 - which means I do not get manic, merely hypomanic, and spend a good deal of my time depressed. I know several people very well who are bipolar 2 (that in itself is a symptom - bipolar people tend to find each other). And have had some very painful experiences as of late. And please do believe I am not saying this lightly.

Bipolar and Creativity

As a sidenote, many of our world's greatest poets were bipolar - as it turns out - as are many other creative people - often resulting in their eventual suicide. As a result of that and studies of many other enormously creative people who often turn out to be bipolar - the possible link between creativity and bipolar has become very controversial. Kay Redfield Jamison writes a book on this very thing called, Touched By Fire. She has bipolar herself - a rather severe form - and seems to think the link is quite conclusive. Nevertheless, she leaves us with the idea that though bipolar may not cause creativity, nor creativity cause bipolar, when the two collide in one person, the bipolar may aid the creativity tremendously. Hard to know. In my experience the great pain I've felt and the great passion I've felt (both partly due to being somewhat bipolar) are necessary in driving me forward to write, to sing, to create - and to do those things well because of the genuine emotion I've lived through.

Bipolar Disorder and Vitamin B

But anyway, I've started taking vitamin B supplements and making sure to eat my fruits and green veggies again (like I used to several years ago) and oh my goodness!!! Life is better...the power of nutrition is incredible. My mother always told me that we (in my family) were constitutionally different (maybe because we had an unlabelled predisposition to bipolar disorder - not surprising if one looks back at the eccentric behavior of my family) and cannot eat sugar the way other people can and must eat very nutritionally. My grandmother used to say we were constitutionally deficient. My mother always took a vitamin B supplement. Anyway, having done this for two weeks I find: I am not hypomanic and not depressed. Rather, I am okay. And that is more than fine!!!

If you are interested the vitamin B supplement you would want is a B-complex which supplies 50 mg at least of each type of vitamin B (there are five I think or six), make sure it has B9, folic acid. A multi-vitamin once a day is almost definitely not supplying enough - although if you feel better then that's what you're going for. You should be able to feel the difference.

I would be really interested to hear any of your personal experiences with any of this stuff and your opinions. I am aware that yours might be very different from mine - and that's okay! I'd love to know why! Always looking for more information....leave a comment....

Jenniebee