Expert: Jurriaan Plesman, Nutritional Psychotherapist - 11/2/2004

Question
I am actually on this board as an expert, but wanted to talk to someone who deals more with the psychological aspects of treating Manic Depression.

It seems that I have the problem of not being emotionally in touch with anyone. I don't have an interest in anything much outside of sex, nor do I venture out willingly to make friends. My grandmother and mother are the same way in terms of their poor outlook on life and poor social skills.

I'd like to know what therapeutic approaches you take to someone that is "empty" and has no reason to live. Some days, I feel like I could walk into a Communist rally and open fire on as many people as I could get before the cops took me down. (I loathe Bored Young White People more than anything-- You can be black and fairly intelligent or white and very stupid and still not get the same results.)

As far as relationships: I am thinking about getting a mail order bride for purposes of having a regular sex partner. This is a result of my not being able to form relationships easily. Or, of my not being able to feign interest in another person long enough to get past the preliminary stages and into bed.

I've taken Seroquel for the better part of two years now, and it helps me sleep soundly (which was nearly impossible before then), but it doesn't take my mind off the fact that there is NO point to all of this or the triviality of human life.

Suggestions?

If you have any other diagnostic questions to ask me, please do.  

Answer
I feel it would be important for you to have a one-to-one relationship with a counsellor, so that you could discuss your feeling with him/her.

I can only talk in generalities here and its is up to you to follow up any suggestions that I might give..

Feeling empty and distanced from the world is a sign of depression. These feelings do not cause depression, but I see them as symptoms of depression. In other words, if we can treat depression, then your feelings will be different from what they are now.

I also see depression as primarily a physical disease, That is I believe and I have evidence to believe that depression  is due to a metabolic disorder that affects the amount of energy reaching the brain. Thus if we have proper levels of energy reaching the brain, symptoms of depression should disappear.

The source of all biological energy is glucose, that we derive from food. If we have insulin resistance, then the body has problems using glucose as its source of energy and hence many biochemical reactions are disturbed.

We have found that many people with “mental illness” have hypoglycemia - a sugar handling problems - that can be treated by going on a hypoglycemic diet.

There are many articles at our web site, discussing the nutritional aspects of mental illness.

It will also benefit people with Bipolar Disorder (BD), but it will not cure that particular disease. I do believe that BD people should be under the supervision of a psychiatrist. Drugs can help these people. There are some side effects to these drugs (lithium carbonate) but these can be overcome with good nutrition as in the hypoglycemic diet. BD people on lithium carbonate should be supplemented with  vitamin B12, folic acid fish oil.

The manic phase of BD can be reduced with the supplementation of lecithin. It contains phosphatidyl choline - a forerunner of acetylcholine, which is a tranquilizing neurotransmitter. But this should not be taken during the depressive phase.

Thus if we can treat the physical aspects of depression (or BD), you will find that one's outlook on life and feelings towards the self changes. Naturally, having suffered form a mental disorder for many years, we may have acquired a low self-esteem. This has all sorts of consequences on personality and relationships with other people. This can be overcome through a course of psychotherapy. We happen to have a free course of self-help psychotherapy course at our web site.

The point is that psychotherapy is only going to be helpful, if we treat the physiological aspect of the illness first.

Please discuss this with your therapist.

I hope I have been of some assistance.

Jurriaan Plesman
Free web site
http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au