How can I best help a bipolar friend in Los Angeles?

July 19, 2010 1:02 PM

How can I best help a friend who appears to be suffering considerably from bipolar disorder?

Short version: I plan to share freely of myself and my personal struggles with being bipolar, and to encourage my friend to seek professional help. To this end, I am trying to discover the best free or cheap mental health resources in Los Angeles. Do you have any advice, either about the best resources to recommend, or about things I should/shouldn't say or do?

Long version: I am acquainted with a wonderful person. I will call him Jim. Jim and I have shared mutual open, friendly feelings, but without the time to develop a strong friendship together. I recently travelled for a year, and upon returning home and getting back in touch with old friends, I learned that Jim had been having a very tough year.

Jim apparently went through a manic episode severe enough to require hospitalization about 9 months ago. When I learned this, I looked at Jim's Facebook profile, and saw a number of friends reaching out to Jim over the past few months, saying "Where are you? Are you ok?" I also heard that Jim was trying to make a lifestyle out of staying with friends, and not maintaining a permanent residence. Jim is in his mid twenties, and Jim's family is not a source of emotional stability (nor, I think, of financial support).

All of these things made me worry a lot for Jim, and so I emailed him telling him that I also experience high and low moods, and that I want to offer him any help I can, from a shoulder to cry on, to a discussion of our experiences.

To my great joy, Jim has accepted this offer of help, and I'll be visiting with him for one or more days in early August. I am confident about my ability to talk honestly and openly about myself and my experiences, and to listen sympathetically to anything Jim wants to talk about. I have read a great deal about bipolar disorder, and can recite the diagnostic criteria for depression, mania, and hypomania, as well as relating stories from my own life about how those symptoms have manifested. But I think the best possible outcome would be if I could help Jim learn to ask for help from people better qualified than myself to give it.

In a perfect world, I imagine I would give Jim a single phone number of a psychologist that I trust, saying, "Call this number any time you need to. This person is always willing to help." I am willing to use my phone number that way, as a last resort, but I am worried about making that sort of commitment, since I know that I am not always well-positioned to give help. I am worried that a list of anonymous public services will be off-putting, will seem like something set up to serve poor, failing, crazy people, a category which no one wants to think of themselves as falling into. Realistically, I would at least like to recommend a single public resource phone number, rather than offering an overwhelming array of choices.

Looking through old questions, I found these:
http://www.ihatemylife.us/medical.html#mental
http://dmh.lacounty.gov/DMHServices/adults.html
http://www.mhala.org/find-help-english.htm

I rather strongly dislike talking on the phone, so it would be easiest for me if I could help Jim without doing that. However, I am willing/able to buckle down and do it if that's what I need to do.

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (5 answers total)

What kind of insurance coverage does Jim have? What kind of mental health services someone is eligible to receive is often determined by their funding source. If the answer is "none" the follow up is, does he qualify for Medicaid? If he does not have insurance but qualifies for Medicaid, he'll likely have a lot of options in terms of community mental health providers. If he has private insurance he'll likely have a smaller selection of providers that provide higher quality services in nicer settings. If he has no insurance and does not qualify for Medicaid his options will be limited to places that provide low-cost, sliding scale fee-for-services and how much treatment he receives will likely be determined by how much money he can afford to pay out of pocket. If he does not qualify for Medicaid and cannot spare any money to pay out of pocket for services he may be shit out of luck.

I think we did "help I need low cost mental health in LA" before, let me search my comments and figure out what we came up with last time.
posted by The Straightener at 1:19 PM on July 19, 2010

Here it is, add Didi Hirsch to your list per the social worker in LA I contacted for that last person who needed this info.
posted by The Straightener at 1:23 PM on July 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

Something that could help him at home, as a place to exercise his mind when he can:

Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Bipolar Disorder

Also, I'm very close to someone doing their damnedest to work through the negative effects of Bipolar Disorder, and he has found great help and insight in the Tao Te Ching. His favourite translation is by Thomas Cleary, but there are many available and each reader should select based on what makes more sense to them.
posted by batmonkey at 2:35 PM on July 19, 2010

First, I want to say that it's awesome that you're willing to be supportive of Jim within your boundaries. He's lucky to have a friend in you.

However, If Jim hasn't been actually diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, please tred carefully.

I have ADHD, which wasn't diagnosed until last summer. I was told as a child that I was Bipolar. Which I guess makes sense, given that ADHD in girls is often undiagnosed, and I also had(have) PTSD, with severe depressive episodes.

I carried the stigma of "I am Bipolar" privately for a very long time, and once broke down and told my then boyfriend's parents about this. Very embarassing at the time, and even more embarassing now. Had I been able (for lots of different values of ability) to get myself into therapy, I might have gotten better sooner.

I still exhibit some behaviors that might make folks go, "yup, bipolar," and I'd be pretty pissed if someone armchair diagnosed me now that I'm on the road to better.

So while I can't offer you any resources in your area, I do encourage you to remember that sometimes things that walk like ducks and quack like ducks are...something else.
posted by bilabial at 3:51 PM on July 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

If he's anywhere near Pasadena, I know of a free bipolar support group that meets at a hospital a couple times a week. But as The Straightener mentioned, Didi Hirsch is probably the best single resource in LA (I'm a therapist in LA). He can also get some referrals from the hospital he stayed at 9 months ago.
posted by so_gracefully at 9:09 PM on July 19, 2010