Bipolarized: Rethinking Mental Illness
Directed by Rita Kotzia (2014)
Film Review
This documentary tells the tragic story of a man with presumptive PTSD who was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder at age 17 and spent the next 16 years drugged up with lithium carbonate. In 2010, after two attempts to stop the lithium caused incapacitating depression, he admitted himself to a specialist clinic in Costa Rica that helped him gradually taper and discontinue the lithium.
Although family and friends noticed an immense improvement in his functioning (he was less depressed and more alert, energetic, and focused), without the medication he continued to experience disabling spells of anxiety.
He tried numerous alternative treatment options:
- He saw a naturapath who gave him 20+ intravenous chelation treatments for toxic blood levels of lead and mercury.
- He saw a shaman in Colombia who treated him with psychic surgery.*
- Yoga (partially effective)
- Acupuncture
- Transcranial magnetic stimulation**
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