OT: why is everyone bipolar now?

[Becca]

WTF????



Anyway, I think it has a lot to do with responsibility or the lack there of. We as a whole have become a very lazy bunch. If we are depressed, instead of getting up off our fat butz and finding something to do, we take the pill. If the kids are over active give them Ritilan (of course it couldn't be that they have been sitting in front of an X-box for 15 hours and have a little energy they need to get rid of...

LOL! I love this one.

"My child has ADD!"
"Can he sit through a 2 hour movie?"
"Well, yes."
"Then how can he have Atention Deficit Disorder."
"My son can't sit through 6 hours of school."
"Are you sure he isn't just bord?"
"My son is a good child!"
"Even good kids get bord if they aren't being challenged..."

[ghost5]

What Bong said....

[ewallace]

Sorry, but from some of the above posts I can...not assume, but have great suspicion that not many of you know much about bi-polar. Reason is because essentially if you are NOT, you will never understand the disorder. Just like GDA's quote about swimming.

Now, I joke a lot about myself being bi-polar. Here are my thoughts:

There are 2 stages of bipolar. Think of a solid line.

Stage 1 (the worse of the 2) goes graph-like above and below the parallel line. That demonstrates mood swings...above=great ideas, rapid thoughts, shopping sprees...etc

Stage 2 is when you are even with the line or below = depression.

I personally was diagnosed with stage 2. I have a lot of the signs. I have taken meds for it, and it made me worse and started having mood swings throughout the day instead of every few months. The problem is you don't give anti-depressants to bi-polars, and you don't give anti-physcotic drugs to depressed people.

Bottom line, maybe I am, maybe I'm not, but BP2 and aggitated depression are very similar and difficult to diagnose as well as confuse.


And everybody stop bitching. Chicks dig bipolars, because we are spontaneous. If you have bipolar and tourette syndrome you'll end up like Xebs.

[IronFist]

Here's the thing. Your body only absorbs like 20% of any medication you take. The rest get flushed down the toilet and winds up in your recycled drinking water. Sperm counts in Western men have dropped significantly in the last 35 years because of birth control pill residuals in the water; fish in the arctic register high concentrations of anti-depressants; etc...

So, we are all being exposed to increasing doses of psychotropic drugs, which can cause mental problems, which gets you a Rx for more drugs, which you pizz into the water supply, and so on and so forth.

Nuh-uh! Really? Female bc doesn't affect men, does it?

[ShaolinTiger00]

Sorry, but from some of the above posts I can...not assume, but have great suspicion that not many of you know much about bi-polar. Reason is because essentially if you are NOT, you will never understand the disorder. Just like GDA's quote about swimming.

Now, I joke a lot about myself being bi-polar. Here are my thoughts:

There are 2 stages of bipolar. Think of a solid line.

Stage 1 (the worse of the 2) goes graph-like above and below the parallel line. That demonstrates mood swings...above=great ideas, rapid thoughts, shopping sprees...etc

Stage 2 is when you are even with the line or below = depression.

I personally was diagnosed with stage 2. I have a lot of the signs. I have taken meds for it, and it made me worse and started having mood swings throughout the day instead of every few months. The problem is you don't give anti-depressants to bi-polars, and you don't give anti-physcotic drugs to depressed people.

Bottom line, maybe I am, maybe I'm not, but BP2 and aggitated depression are very similar and difficult to diagnose as well as confuse.


And everybody stop bitching. Chicks dig bipolars, because we are spontaneous. If you have bipolar and tourette syndrome you'll end up like Xebs.

I disagree with your description of the Stages. It's way off!

"The classic form of the illness, which involves recurrent episodes of mania and depression, is called bipolar I disorder. Some people, however, never develop severe mania but instead experience milder episodes of hypomania that alternate with depression; this form of the illness is called bipolar II disorder. When four or more episodes of illness occur within a 12-month period, a person is said to have rapid-cycling bipolar disorder. Some people experience multiple episodes within a single week, or even within a single day. Rapid cycling tends to develop later in the course of illness and is more common among women than among men."

I was diagnosed with "manic depression" as a kid and later in it's new relabeling "type II bipolar disorder"

essentially I'm pretty ok, but people are amazed how ****ing moody I can be. I'm happy one minute sad the next for no reason. and then I'm happy again..

[rogue]

You can keep all that new fangled bi-polack jive, and I don't care what a Pole does in the privacy of his own home. Me I'm sticking with my good old tried and true acute paranoia with delusions.

[Vash]

I figure, the more personalities I have, the more likely it is I can have an orgy all by myself.

[Becca]

Sorry, but from some of the above posts I can...not assume, but have great suspicion that not many of you know much about bi-polar. Reason is because essentially if you are NOT, you will never understand the disorder. Just like GDA's quote about swimming.

Now, I joke a lot about myself being bi-polar. Here are my thoughts:

There are 2 stages of bipolar. Think of a solid line.

Stage 1 (the worse of the 2) goes graph-like above and below the parallel line. That demonstrates mood swings...above=great ideas, rapid thoughts, shopping sprees...etc

Stage 2 is when you are even with the line or below = depression.

I personally was diagnosed with stage 2. I have a lot of the signs. I have taken meds for it, and it made me worse and started having mood swings throughout the day instead of every few months. The problem is you don't give anti-depressants to bi-polars, and you don't give anti-physcotic drugs to depressed people.

Bottom line, maybe I am, maybe I'm not, but BP2 and aggitated depression are very similar and difficult to diagnose as well as confuse.


And everybody stop bitching. Chicks dig bipolars, because we are spontaneous. If you have bipolar and tourette syndrome you'll end up like Xebs.

My Dad and brother are both stage 1 bi-polor. My brother has learned to manage his without the meds, but the older my dad gets, the harder it got for him to deal with it. Fo all thouse who think being on meds is great, take note: anit-physcotic drugs are bad news; only take them if you absolutly must! My dad's been off work for going on two months because of the Depicote. He lost the ability to focus his eyes well, and can't drive truck... Lithium made him sleep all the time. Luckilly the Lorzipam is working out well, but it is interfearing with his recovery from the muscle peralisis... nasty things, anti-phsyc drugs...


That's why it drives me nut to see people put thiere kids on them just to make the kid more controllable when enrolling them in a swim class would burn off the extra spunk much better.

[Golden Tiger]

Nuh-uh! Really? Female bc doesn't affect men, does it?

Only if they stop taking it.....

[sean_stonehart]

Anyway, I think it has a lot to do with responsibility or the lack there of. We as a whole have become a very lazy bunch. If we are depressed, instead of getting up off our fat butz and finding something to do, we take the pill. If the kids are over active give them Ritilan (of course it couldn't be that they have been sitting in front of an X-box for 15 hours and have a little energy they need to get rid of.

Another trend is what ever the drug companies come out with, there will soon follow a clinical "syndrome" taylor made to fits the actions of the drug.....didn't it used to be the other way around???

Plus it sounds cool if you admit that you have a "syndrome" or condition or whatever. Funny, 30 years ago if you did that, you went on an extended stay with the relatives....

Ain't it the truth!?!?!?!

Normally I ***** about "Personal Responsibilty" or "Parental Control & Responsibility" or the like & am looked at like I've lost my mind ... or what's left of it.

[sean_stonehart]

Only if they stop taking it.....

Too true...

[ewallace]

I disagree with your description of the Stages. It's way off!

"The classic form of the illness, which involves recurrent episodes of mania and depression, is called bipolar I disorder. Some people, however, never develop severe mania but instead experience milder episodes of hypomania that alternate with depression; this form of the illness is called bipolar II disorder. When four or more episodes of illness occur within a 12-month period, a person is said to have rapid-cycling bipolar disorder. Some people experience multiple episodes within a single week, or even within a single day. Rapid cycling tends to develop later in the course of illness and is more common among women than among men."

I was diagnosed with "manic depression" as a kid and later in it's new relabeling "type II bipolar disorder"

essentially I'm pretty ok, but people are amazed how ****ing moody I can be. I'm happy one minute sad the next for no reason. and then I'm happy again..

Uhh...actually what you described yourself as being is BP1. BP2 rarely goes into the manic phase, and is generally stable or down. A "rapid cycler" can almost as a rule be BP1. I've been dealing with this thing petty extensively the last year. My analagy above about the parallel line isn't the most accurate...medically speaking, but that is a general way of how physciatrists illustrate the two stages to common folk a general understanding. So apparently being depressed for or more times you are condisdered bi-polar. That's BS (not from your description ST00, just in general). I still believe I have been misdiagnosed, but no one has been willing to try just an anti-depressent.

From WebMD:

Bipolar I

Considered the classic form of the illness, bipolar I causes recurrent episodes of mania and depression. The depression may last for a short time or for months. The person may then go back to feeling normal for a time or may go right into a manic episode.

Bipolar II

People who have bipolar II experience depression just as in bipolar I. However, the episodes of mania are less severe (hypomania). Bipolar II is more common in women and may be more common right after a woman has had a baby (postpartum period). People with bipolar II have more depressive than hypomanic episodes.

[ewallace]

I think people in general like to have things wrong with them. It gives people an excuse.

You know there is something wrong with you when you say to yourself; "I better go get diagnosed for something, I know I have something wrong with me."

And there might be something wrong when 5 different doctors have made the same diagnosis. Problem is there is a fine line between BP2 and depression diagnosis. It's very difficult to distinguish and there are no lab tests to determine if it is BP.

For those of you who think it's a "mind game" or "weakness of the mind" (in true biploar), you really have know idea WTF you are talking about.

Its just BAD PARENTING.

The last three generations have had to suffer the effects of;
"political correctness"
"spare the rod and spoil the child"
"my child is a sensitive genius"
"discipline is a barbarian concept"
and of course, spanking your child these days will land you in jail.

BAD PARENTING is EVERYWHERE!

True about bad parenting. But it has nothing to do with bipolar disorder. This is ignorance on the subject. Not entirely your fault, you have just not experienced it personally. Your attitude would change greatly if you did.

On a side note, it's very difficult to diagnose children with BP, because the majority of the time it is accompanied by some other kind of disorder (ADD, Tourette Syndrome...etc). Drugs aren't always the answer...at least not in my case. But there are countless stories of people who stablize while on the drugs (Depekote, Lithium, Lamictal, Trileptal), and when they do they think they are fine and stop taking their meds. Then after a few weeks they experience symptoms again and drive their car along with 5 children off a cliff.

This is a very real, very dangerous disorder when it truely exists. Just as dangerous many doctors have no idea wtf they are doing when it comes to treating bipolar. It's an art as of now. Different drugs work for some and not for others. Different combinations work and don't work as well. Some work for BP1 and not BP2. But the disorder, and fluctuations of mood are real and can be quite dangerous, especially on the lows of the disorder.

[PangQuan]

I never said that for everyone, its all in the head.

But you cannot deny the fact that a large majority of people diagnosed with a mental disability (this could be a multitude of conditions) do not actually require the meds they are put on.

I will not disagree that some people are in fact actually suffering from an illness, but I have seen first hand mis diagnosis' and medicated people.

I am very literal and put a loop hole in my previous post to cover this aspect of the discussion.

[ewallace]

I never said that for everyone, its all in the head.

But you cannot deny the fact that a large majority of people diagnosed with a mental disability (this could be a multitude of conditions) do not actually require the meds they are put on.

I will not disagree that some people are in fact actually suffering from an illness, but I have seen first hand mis diagnosis' and medicated people.

I am very literal and put a loop hole in my previous post to cover this aspect of the discussion.

I agree entrirely. I wasn't singling you out with the "all in the head thing". It's just a common attitude among elitest CMA practicioners that don't put their knowledge to the test in a competition environment.