Actress and Singer Talia Jackson Describes what Having Bipolar Disorder Feels Like

[Music] so welcome i'm glad that you're here thank you we get to look at your brain today yay which is always exciting totally i don't get to see my brain every day no people don't and we should really because um you know when we're looking at mental health it's really about brain health right so i think there's so much value to looking at the brain and seeing what's going on [Music] [Applause] what would you say is a priority or like when you're looking at sort of your mental health challenges what is most problematic for you currently in my life i would say it's the anxiety and just bipolar mood swing like awful frustration anger the manic like it's just so the the back and forth of never knowing who i am like that's really what it is for me i don't i can't remember like who i was before any of this who is the real yeah exactly yeah well i think that um you know part of the reason i asked that question is sort of what is the thing that's at the forefront and it bothers you the most and also you're on a couple of medications i'm on two xanaxes i've had to take xanax uh not regularly but for panic attacks and horrible anxiety since i was maybe 15. on wellbutrin i don't feel depressed but i'm not happy i'm just not wanting to currently kill myself like that's what that's a good thing and that you know like i guess is a good thing because that is what anti-depressants are for it isn't doing it for me you know because even if it isn't the depre even if the depression is gone the anxiety is telling me that it's going to come back and you're going to get manic again and da da da da da and this is going to happen and blah blah blah and so it's like the other things going on in my head almost like invite the depression back in so here's your goal that you stated to understand why i suffer greatly with mental issues and to get the proper medication and treatment to live a full life i love that goal [Music] my whole life people have kind of almost they've said like i'm like a pessimist or like i view the world like half the glass half empty instead of less half full and the reason i viewed it that way is because i've never been able to have like that blissful like almost ignorant happiness that i've seen people have and it's always seemed unfair to me because it was like why like why can't i just feel like that over any old scenario and i want to be able to enjoy the small things in life and like truly enjoy them and really be like their present in the moment and caring about it because i don't i don't want to live my life just like floating through it anymore a manic episodes do are those in good control right now and if not what does that look like okay so my manic episodes because i technically am bipolar 2. my manic episodes almost feel like the more majority of my life so sometimes i can't even tell when i'm manic i just accept other people can you know for me i feel like bipolar 2 almost because you live your your life in more of a manic state than you do to your depressive state the depressive states are so much harder i definitely don't feel like this is something i can do for much longer [Music] let's look at some brain scans this is a healthy brain scan of a female your age and the reason why i stand up by chance you can stand up so healthy brain scan for a female your age and what we're looking at here is the blood flow to the brain to the surface of the brain in this example so structural scans are like mris or cts or x-rays they're actually looking at a structure yeah and the structure of the brain in this case we're looking at blood flow through that structure so and these for this particular set of scans we're looking at blood flow to the surface um the color doesn't matter whether it's green purple pink whatever it doesn't matter the color's just on there to show shape and contour okay all right first one here looking at the brain like this like okay up the one down here is looking at the brain like this from the top down this is going to be the right side of the brain and this is going to be the left side of the brain okay like that okay yeah so when we're looking at these if we see a dent or a hole where we didn't expect to see one that means that there's a reduction of blood flow okay and that means that there's probably not great function in that area yeah right all right makes sense so far yeah yeah all right let's look at yours there's yours [Music] yeah what do you notice a lot of holes a lot of holes a lot of dents you do have a couple of holes right yeah this one right here that's your prefrontal cortex prefrontal cortex right up behind your forehead really important for focus and concentration very typical area when people have add or adhd okay is a reduction there it's also impulse control planning concentration all of those good functions yeah is a little bit low now you also have a little bit of a reduction back here you notice that yes this is um actually occipital lobe and that's more important for visual processing and this is not terrible okay it could use some help and i think this is creating some problems for you but this is something that can heal the other thing that i notice about your surface scans look at the top down what do you notice it's like this little lumpy bumpiness yeah you can see it from the side too oh yeah that's called scalloping and scalloping is often a sign of toxicity so things like thanx can actually reduce the blood flow to the surface yeah and so it can actually make you know these areas of lower blood flow worse worse because there's not because you're reducing blood flow overall to the cortex of the brain okay yeah that could be why i just always i'm like so confused all the time hard to kind of keep yeah i just like don't know what's happening or like sometimes things don't feel real and i'll just be like where am i like there's different things like that you do have a little bit of a reduction in your temporal lobes here too and the temporal lobes are really important for the formation of memories and they're also really important for mood regulation so when they're lower it's easier to become more easily irritated and it can just make you more prone to ups and downs more fluctuations yeah i know that's the case okay so this is our surface skin and now we're going to look at the deeper scans of the brain yeah it's good findings yeah also i like it because these are definitely things we could work on yeah yeah [Music] this is the second set of images we're going to look at okay now this is looking at the area deep to the cortex so previously we were looking at the outer surface now we're looking at the inner okay and we think of this part of the brain is being more closely related to emotional function okay so what we're looking at here color does matter on this set of scans okay okay so blue is an area of low blood flow red is an area of relatively moderate blood flow and white is an area of relatively high blood flow so this is a healthy example we see a lot of blue a little bit of red a little bit of white that's mostly back here that's in the cerebellum and the cerebellum is an area of the brain that's very densely packed with neurons it's active even when we're here at rest it's helping us maintain posture coordinate movement helping different parts of the brain talk to one another so we expect a lot of activity there so there is your emotional brain what do you notice a lot of red and a lot of white too yeah like underneath the red correct you've got a lot of activity in your emotional brain yeah absolutely so let's talk about what's bright okay okay right here this guy right in the middle is the thalamus and that is the center of the stress response in your brain yeah you mentioned at one point you kind of felt like your adhd is coming from like your emotional brain like the anxiety yeah like stress yeah so thalamus and basal ganglia here and here are both central to the stress response in the system and your stress response is really bright a lot of activity in the thalamus and the thalamus will make you more prone to depression and negative thoughts okay basal ganglia now the basal ganglia a little bit of brightness is actually good for creativity so that's good you can probably buy music and all of that and that part is a little bit of brightness will serve you well when it's too bright it makes you anxious okay so we've got a lot of anxiety brightness we've got a lot of depression brightness and i think those things are creating a problem for you yeah now your cerebellum has a lot of good activity we like that um you also have a little bit of some what we call insular brightness and this is a little unusual this i circled the whole thing but you see how this kind of extends right here and there's this really bright spot right there yeah this is actually the lateral prefrontal cortex or the insular area that extra activity is interesting because it's unusual um this will predispose you to substance abuse and then right here this is an interesting thing your thalamus do you see how it's brighter on one side than the other wider over here than over here you see it over here too yeah brighter over here than over here that actually occurs when people are prone to mood cycling again bipolar yeah yeah god i knew it too like that feels so relieving to me because at least i know i'm like not insane you know yeah okay your brain is out of balance so really what i want to do is help you help your brain get into good balance bring more blood flow to the surface so you have better function bring more balance to this inner brain so that you have an easier time with mood regulation so that we can kind of get you to a version of yourself that you recognize and you feel good being in your body so yeah makes a lot of sense i think when we're looking at this yeah it does now there are things we can do medications can help calm down specific areas of the brain supplements can help with this we know that things like meditation and breathing exercises and gratitude practice yoga meditative yoga can all bring more blue to the brain and help quiet it let's talk about what we're going to do yes so from a medication standpoint we can do it a number of different ways and give you a prescription for something i can talk to your psychiatrist and be like hey here's what we're seeing and i'm wondering if we've considered these medications which based on what i've learned from getting to know you and looking at your brain scan might really be helpful yeah and also a lot of doctors don't realize that benzodiazepines are actually really bad for the brain yeah doing harm over the course of time they can be a good like in case of emergency brake glass strategy but they aren't a good long-term strategy you know you have you're young like we want your brain to be healthy and happy and not me too already starting looking like it's lumpy bumpy scalloping um and i think we need a better strategy for sleep that's not marijuana because that is not helping your brain either the weave i know it's bad for me and i i truly do want to stop because i don't i don't want to depend on that for the rest of my i don't want to depend on anything for the rest of my life it is a it is a process the heal the brain takes time to heal um but i do think when we get the right medication combination it's going to calm things down so it feels like it doesn't feel so long that healing yeah yeah exactly [Music] you

Channel: AmenClinics

Views: 13,026

Keywords: talia jackson, amen clinics, bipolar 2, Talia Jackson bipolar, dr Julie brush, family reuinion, scan my brain, Talia Jackson brain scan, bipolar disorder, panic attacks, Brain Health, ADHD, Anxiety, Depression, Dementia, Alzheimers, Nutrition, Daniel Amen, Amen Clinics, Psychiatrist, ADD, Mental Health, Brain SPECT scan, Brain Scan, Psychiatry, Integrative Health, Wholistic Health, Memory, Mental Health Treatment, Mental Health Services

Id: PhcftyaTXu0

Length: 13min 10sec (790 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 13 2021