FriendlyRelic

If you ever can't think of anything to write about, check out /r/writingprompts. They have a few good prompts every once in a while!

I have Bipolar II with mixed episodes and rapid cycling. I luckily don’t experience psychotic episodes at the moment. But even I have trouble dealing with just half of the issues your brother experienced. I’m so sorry the mental health system of the United States failed your brother and your family. It really, really, sucks.

I don’t know if you want to know the stats. If not, stop here.

Schizophrenia plus Bipolar Disorder is a really rough prognosis. Studies have shown a 1 in 2 people with Bipolar Disorder have attempt suicide at least once in their life. There’s as high as a 20% lifetime chance to succeed. If he was rapid cycling or had mixed episodes, it could be even higher. Because he had psychotic symptoms, it was even higher. More than 75% of people who are bipolar take their medication inconsistently. Note that this is specific to Bipolar Disorder. People with schizophrenia have decreased life expectancy by 10-25 years. 20-40% of people with schizophrenia attempt suicide once, and up to 10% (maybe closer to 4.9%) succeed.

People with all types of Bipolar are naturally impulsive. Drug use is very common. Being manic makes you feel on top of the world. It’s literally a natural high,.. one of the best. People refuse to take their prescriptions and possibly resort to other drugs either to trigger another manic episode or to match that first king of the world feeling. So people with Bipolar have one of the highest rates of refusing to take medication

Tag on Schizophrenia on, and at the very least your already disquiet mind gets even worse. You might have voices telling you to do fucked up things with impulsive behaviors, or just a 24/7 radio station that just spews nonsense.

It’s extremely difficult to treat something like that. Please don’t blame your family or yourself . Your brother was very sick and was abandoned by a broken system. Even if he got the treatment he needed, it would’ve been difficult for him to stick to it. I still struggle with taking the right pills when I need to. I’m so sorry for what these illnesses have done to you and your family.

Hope I didn't miss the gravy train.

I recently used an EC2 server to build a web service for a mobile application I was writing for one of my college classes. It took me about 1-2 hours to set up and install everything I needed (FIRST TIME!). You guys do fantastic work.

Do you guys have any plans for offering free, higher tier service for those of us who are poor and in college? I know there's some grants in place, but a lot of tech companies (Microsoft, Github, Google, Idea) "donate" some really useful software.