One shrink who I used to see had a scale in his office, and every visit began with being weighed and him recording the result. This was a good idea, because a lot of psych meds cause weight gain, which has a major impact on qualify of life.

I've never had a shrink recommend that I attend bipolar support groups. I find them to be so helpful for managing my condition that they should be widely encouraged.

One shrink would, at the end of every therapy session, rate my my mood from zero (totally depressed) to ten (raving manic). The purpose is to train the patient to get better at reading their moods. I saw him for 8 years, and we eventually quit doing this exercise, because we were always in agreement.

One shrink would have his receptionist give you a clipboard onto which you listed all the medications that you were on, and their doses. Every visit. The idea was to teach the patients to remember all this information, so that if they were hospitalized, they could tell the hospital what meds they needed.

I think this was a good idea, but I think it's even more important to have all this information written down in your wallet in a prominent place where anyone going through your wallet will find it. This is crucial in case you're unconscious or not making sense. In the TV series "Homeland", the main character, who is bipolar (which she keeps secret) is knocked unconscious for a few days. The hospital, not knowing that she was bipolar, didn't give her mood stabilizers when she was unconscious, so when she woke up she was having a manic episode.

Any bipolar person who has had a really problematic manic episode should have an emergency antipsychotic in their own possession. I have no idea why my shrinks did not arrange this. I only got an antipsychotic after I had had 3 life-threatening manic episodes, and even then, my getting that antipscyhotic was my idea.

In 1988 I called my shrink and was very, very manic, and he phoned in a prescription to a pharmacy that was 5 minutes from home. But by the time I got it and got home, I was convinced that God didn't want me to take it. A few hours later I was strapped down and raving uncontrollably in the mental hospital that the cops had taken me to. It's important the person have antipsychotics within easy reach before they're too far gone to take it.

The failure of my shrinks to do make sure that I had an antipsychotic in my possession was their worst mistake in my history of treatment for bipolar.