Posted by PoohBear on March 30, 2004, at 12:04:12
In reply to what?, posted by ramsea on March 30, 2004, at 7:49:26
Ramsea:
I agree completely with you, but I believe you may have misunderstood my post...
ALL mental illness is looked upon by MOST people as something weird and unknowable. The brain is dark, unexplored territory.
My *thought* was that for many, BP could be a much more *acceptable* Dx than depression because people might view it as a more legitimate disorder than depression alone...
I'm probably all wet on this, but that's where I'm coming from.
My personal experience is that when I was diagnosed with adult ADHD and clinical depression 8 years ago, I chose to focus on the ADHD rather than the drepression (to my detriment), because in my mind that was a real *disorder* that could be treated rather than something that many people would look at as a weakness.
Does any of this make sense?
Tony
> My experience is the opposite of what I have been reading in this thread. First, it is still considered by the World Health Organization to be widely underdiagnosed.
>
> 2, I am a Bipolar 1 of many tears standing and have also worked in mental health. I have only ever seen people hide the fact of their diagnosis--never flaunt it. Though sometimes disturbed hypomania might lead a few to yell about it. In support groups (like this) people often feel comfortable admitting their diagnosis and having a good chinwag about bipolar.
>
> But of course as someone else already said, go to a mental health site and join the group, but expect to meet bipolars there. For one thing, we bipolars tend to be very verbal. That's even documented---there's more of us who are "writers" than in any other group.
>
> There's probably a greater chance of meeting us because we tend to be the sort of people who reach out to others, even when we're ill. So if a person hangs out with writers, as on the computer, and other creative-type activities (or high achieving people) there's a better than average chance of finding yourself neck to neck (how unpleasant sounding) with someone "claiming" to be "bipolar".
>
> I agree that it's weird to call someone bipolar due to an AD making them anxious, suicidal, or whatever. There should be procedure in place--a timed thing so it's possible to see if bipolarity is really the issue before adding this dx.
>
> I personally know some bipolar-evident people who refuse help or dx. This is more common. I guess there will always be some people who ***want***an illness and will leap to be called bipolar. But really, I tell almost no one. Most of us aren't proud and delighted to have a disorder that makes the majority of people think we're a lunatic.
>
> I have no doubt some people who don't have cancer say that they do, or they fake-out others with all kinds of bogus health problems. Don't see why bipolar should be different, but probably the mass of us are sadly, bipolar, and our quality of life has been damaged because of it. Not something any well person would want. Just my thoughts. Maybe the world is full of fakers. I hope not. Peace.
poster:PoohBear
thread:328931
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040329/msgs/330330.html