Following my previous one encounter with Bertrand who was wrongly diagnosed bipolar (while he is hypersensitive), I had the pleasure of interviewing Charlotte who wished to bounce back on these words.
Charlotte has agreed to come and testify about her bipolarity and gives us some advice on how to live the disease-related crises. We will go back to the importance of keeping our critical mind on the diagnosis of doctors. Finally, the link between bipolarity, hypersensitivity and High potential.
Below is the video of our exchange. If necessary, I transcribed our remarks right after.
- Hello, everyone! Thank you for meeting us again for this little video. Today I have the pleasure of having Charlotte tell us about her experience and her high potential. Charlotte go ahead, I'll let you introduce yourself quickly.
- Then hello. I'm Charlotte. I'm a decorator. I converted more than ten years ago now. I've been diagnosed bipolarly since I was 18. And I experienced a fourth crisis a year ago (after 17 years of stability). And so this fourth crisis, in fact, that I've been through a lot because I didn't think I'd have a crisis after that long period of stability. And so I really wanted to do more digging in fact, better understand my illness, what I had. I started writing too. Finally I always liked to write is there I wrote. I went back to the old crises I had experienced. And as part of my research in fact and in the desire to get to know me better, to understand better what I am living, I have become aware of hypersensitivity. I thought I was part of it. And by doing research on hypersensitivity (so I am actually, I am hypersensitive) I actually came across the high potential and especially on your page. She was very interested. I did it live test (I have 16 out of 17... I am, I think!). Then I don't know if I can settle for that to tell me. And then I also fell down (and that's what really made me want to contact you) on Bertrand's testimony which was apparently misdiagnosed bipolarly while he is high potential, even though he has also experienced manic phases. So I did have manic phases in the sense that I could no longer control my thoughts or emotions. And I was able to put myself in a bubble in fact that was incomprehensible from the outside by others. So I'm not saying I'm not bipolar. I don't like being locked in this term, put in a box when we're all so different, and telling myself that I'm sick. I don't want to stay on that. In any case, what is certain is that the treatment is effective at a given time and serves in any case to pass those states of crisis that are truly handicaping in our daily lives. Now I think that these treatments are not necessary for life (while it is still said today that it is a lifelong illness, that the treatment is for life). Then I refuse to believe. Anyway, it's about me. I met my psychiatrist again. I spoke to him about the high potential because he did not speak about it himself.
– There are very few who know, or at least know well.
- Yes. And so he suggested going to a two-day review at a research centre. Just because you can be bipolar but not high potential and you can be high bipolar potential. Here, and hypersensitive finally good everything that goes with it. That makes a lot of sense! So I'm happy to do it (I haven't done it yet). In fact I want to do it in a scientific setting. In fact I want to make science evolve. I even want to try the experience of no longer taking treatment, to be followed, and possibly to show that it is quite possible to be balanced, and to control precisely his emotions and thoughts without treatment. There. So I'm not there yet, but I'd like to. I'd love to. What else can I say? And then it's true that I actually say it to myself also because if you want in my last crisis I managed to make the cause and effect link (which was not the case in my previous crises). Everything was a little confused. There is an environment in general, it is really the environment and the context that I live in that causes crises, at least high phases. And indeed during my previous crises I lived it inwardly, I felt things but I did not arrive with two words or clear bonds that are understandable by others. While the yes was actually a Love relationship With a boy. I'm always around love. In fact I made a statement to this very strong boy because I was already in the middle of emotion and I live very strongly. And that statement he rejected. So if you want to when he pushed him away I accept them. So I actually respected him, I didn't insist. But I got into a bubble. I started dreaming in my head and thinking about living it really in reality. Fortunately I had my best friend who was there, who knows me very well, who saw me in my previous crises and who saw what was happening. But there was a real connection. It was obvious that it came from there. While the previous crises I experienced were the more I fell in love with boys who didn't really know. There was a bond of seduction but it was confused. And then I left. But there wasn't really any tangible evidence.
– There wasn't a major event or something.
- Exactly. So then I almost think, what if I was actually cured? Because I understood that. After of course the idea is to know each other well. I think that to cure this disease is first to accept that we have these disorders. And then getting to know each other really well. What psychiatrists don't always do. They give treatments, and they leave us like that. And then here you are, sick and...
– *I have problems with connection. Try again a little later*
– And so I don't know what I'm saying anymore...
– That the psychiatrists gave a medicine and that's how it is.
– While frankly I think it's so not enough. So of course it's changing a lot. There are still some who take care of after therapeutically and there is a true accompaniment around the treatment. But if one assumes that the treatment is for life and that one remains on the biological aspect of the disease and the inexplicable side (it is said that it is hereditary, etc.)... I know that I have one of my great-great-aunts who was thought crazy, who was interned at the time because this kind of psychological illness was not at all...
– It wasn't known, we couldn't do it.
– She ended up in a psychiatric hospital. That I knew later because it was a little family secret.
– And then they made connections.
– Yes since in fact we tried to understand and my father dared to confess to me (not immediately because it was a taboo subject) that we actually had someone in our family who had been interned and gone crazy what. I really want to help those who have this disease, high potential or not, because I think we are still too much catalogued. It hurts us, it's difficult. When we diagnosed bipolar in fact the word "bipolar" did not exist. It was schizo-maniaco-depression. And when I was going to look in the dictionary... I can't be told I'm that! People will be afraid of me! Incredible things. And today I find it terrible to lock people in a definition that is so reductive in fact, and that does not allow good progress. After there are bad diagnoses, people who are diagnosed bipolarly that are not. And then we hear everything and anything about this term in fact, it is used at any end of the field.
– And there is the collective imagination that is very bad around it.
- Exactly. So here you go. Then I wanted to write. I think writing is super important.
– Write about it or anything else?
– On this subject and then on everything. For example, the subject of high potentiality or such things. Because actually I think we all have a lot of potential in us and that is more or less exploitable or to develop. I don't like to lock people in a box. "I agree with you!" "I am in my phases." It's all about love. After each one is different. I have a sister who has the same disease as I do. It is high potential too I think clearly. I even had my daughter (the high potential test) who is 13 years old, soon 14 years old, and who is 14/17. But it doesn't surprise me because I actually find it in a lot of descriptions you do.
– There's a genetic part with high potential.
– This is all that aspect, these tree-shaped thoughts, the fact at school not necessarily being interested in what all the teachers tell us... We are more interested finally I think of the human being, of what surrounds us, of what governs us, than the content we are served. That's a little bit of what I could say.
- Too good! Would you have advice on things to do (or not to do) for people who would be in a situation a little similar to yours? Whether it's over a period of crisis or a period of "everything is fine."
- Okay. So "don't do" I think it's not listening to doctors because I think it's a super important support. But stay clear with yourself. That is, doctors don't know us. Only we know each other (and our entourage). But in any case accept that there is this difference and that there is this problem of managing emotions and thoughts at some point (via an event, at such a season, I know it can be seasonal too). And then when we're okay, well, it's good. It's complicated to say that you're fine when you're bipolar and have seizures. Because in fact the idea is to find the right balance between high and low phases. And that must be accompanied in this direction and not just medicinal. But it's trying to get to know each other, to always dig into who you are in relation to this disease, not to be confined to the disease itself but really to go wider, to have self-confidence, to maintain self-confidence, to think that you really are someone unique. There. And that we must accept ourselves in the difference, surround ourselves with people who do us good, who trust us. Doing good. Get to know each other.
– The eternal quest for self!
"Well yes because if you are good with yourself in particular being good with others and in our world in fact. It's learning to pamper yourself, to love yourself as you are. It's complicated. It is sometimes a long search, which takes time. But it must be done and not rejected. Trust in medicine while keeping a certain respondent. I mean, how to say... A certain clairvoyance about who we are.
– To understand what's going on.
– It's not because they're doctors that they're saying what they're saying and it's done what. Research is for that, too. It is precisely not to stop at what one thinks and instead dig to go further and discover other things. And I would like to help research through my own experience. Each experience is unique. That's why I think any testimony is important. The more we get, the better. We mustn't hesitate because we didn't... I took time. You see, I thought I'd do it in that frame because I need it. I want it to be accompanied. I still don't feel ready to do it on my own. It's coming, but it's my first step anyway.
– It's already a great first step! A video online quite frankly is huge for a first step!
– I really hope that it will inspire and make others want. And then if they even want I can help them. Finally, they must not hesitate what on the contrary. On the contrary!
– I'm sure I'll be asked. Too good.
– So now I'm stabilized again, and I hope it never happens again.
– I wish you, too!
– And I'm gonna make sure it doesn't happen again! It's handicaping anyway you see. It still isolates us when we're in these crises. And when one is high potential but not bipolar I think the difference is that one manages to control these states. So then we have depression phases. And as you said those who are diagnosed eventually are those who consult because at some point they need it.
– There are many who are in nature and who don't know.
- Yeah, totally. And they don't necessarily live well. We must accept this difference to live it well.
– It's the base.
– Base! To make the other one want to confess what. Finally, say "yes, I am different too". We're trying too hard to look like others, put on masks, not be who we are.
– I can only join you in these sentences!
– Actually, I don't care what other people think. That would be a lie. But at the same time I'm thinking that I don't have to stop being myself because people will think that or that. They have the right to think whatever they want. We are all in reality, in reality. There are our experiences, our beliefs, etc. We're free. I don't impose anything. I say things, I don't impose anything. It echoes, it doesn't echo. You want it or you don't want it. There you go.
– In any case I hope that it will really echo many people, that they will recognize each other.
- Yeah, I hope so. That's why I'm here. And thank you Paul because I really like what you do, your approach. She's really good, I think. It's true. It's clear when you explain.
- Thank you very much!
– You open the way. We all tend to get into things to follow without expanding. And I think you have another broader vision.
– I think there are as many high potentials and different doubts as there are people with high potentials. Each one has its vision and its high potential what, more or less.
– Completely!
– There's a profile, a guideline if you want, but then each one varies.
– Yeah, totally.
– That's my vision of the thing anyway.
- Okay with you! So here's if I can help in one way or another it will be with pleasure (through my feedback experience), really with pleasure.
- Good, great. We need to talk about it. Dialogue must be opened. Already there is the series (on TF1 or M6 I don't know anymore) HIP with Audrey Fleurot.
– I've never seen this one before.
– I didn't look either, but it does a little research and I think it makes you talk. It opens the dialogue on it. Then I don't know if it's done right or done wrong, but at least it makes it possible to talk about the subject.
- Yeah, I'll go look.
– I saw that they put the replays for free online, but I haven't had the time yet. Thank you very much anyway for taking the time to come here.
– It is with pleasure and then you do not hesitate.
"I promise, I won't hesitate!" Nice afternoon to you.
