re: Tell me about your experiences with Bipolar disorder.

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You two anomalies wanna argue whether or not anti-depressants/anxiety meds lower sex drive? Jeez. Glad to know you found a great doc to make the right cocktail. But most folks go to a doc, get a med and that's it. Most folks are ashamed of the label and want little attention brought to it. They don't publicly talk about it on a message board. Paige be like, "Hayyyy I'm Bipolar and I care about ponies and I like to frick !!"

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You sound like you're off your meds dude.

And who goes to a doc once and that's what they stay on

I've been on so many different cocktails until my most recent one

I had at least one med change a month for a couple years

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some day, Paige, you should not take your meds and come on the OT and tell everyone how you really feel.

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She's usually banned by the time she's that far into a mania phase.

eta: hahahaha I nailed it. Paige.

Borderline is horrendous. Meds do not work as well. Only therapy FOR LIFE. She will stop going. She WILL repeatedly try to kill herself over a lifetime. And assault you a few times too.

Bipolar is no picnic either. True mania is easy to spot. No faking that. Like seeing psychosis. I know a few GP's who hate having bipolar patients. Essentially they know statistically the disease is fatal. Always have problems with med non compliance which in itself is dangerous, but then as they age they have more health problems. Become less compliant with all meds like insulin, blood pressure, cardiac meds. Just very frustrating in an ER or GP setting.

Well I'm a complainer. And if I don't feel right I expect my doctor to fix it

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That's been my stance for most every supposed bipolar experience in this thread

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It felt like all I did for the first 2 years of residency was un-diagnose bipolar disorder. There's a lot of reasons people get slapped with the label...mostly sloppy psychiatrists (or ones that know they can't bill for personality disorders) or ignorant primary care physicians.

Wow,

I'm impressed with the honest replies to the guy's question, as well as the high number of people with first hand experience with bipolar people.

Like someone said a few posts back, it's way more prevalent than you think. I bet everyone on here knows someone who suffers with this disorder.

And that's what it is folks, a disorder. It is something that the person had NO control over whether they got it or not. It's like getting diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Just a shitty roll of the dice. They aren't "bad people", they didn't do risky or abusive things (like smokers who get lung cancer or people who dip getting mouth cancer), they are truly innocent victims of bad genetics.

So next time you encounter someone with mental illness, stop it with the knee jerk reaction of fear, stigma, and ridiculous "they're INSANE" attitude. Would you ridicule someone with severe birth defects? Someone with terminal cancer, Someone with leprosy? Mental illness is NO DIFFERENT.

Even with the HUGE gains we have made in medical technology and open minded thinking towards so many dieseases, the mentally ill are still seen by society as taboo, scary, ostracized, and feared. I know some of that is due to the actions of people with mental illness, but what if society had acted differently towards them, accepted them and encouraged them to seek help? Could we have prevented Columbine? Possibly.

I have a cousin who is bipolar and he is an incredible individual with a heart of gold, a lust for life, and a refusal to let his disorder ruin his life. He's in a profession where he has to keep his disorder secret in order to keep his job. How fricked up is that? Can you imagine fireing someone because they have Multiple Sclerosis? Same bad roll of the dice, just in a different guise.

I know this was long and preachy, but take just a minute to not be an OT bad arse and actually think about it.

Paige, at what age did your symptoms become apparent and when were you diagnosed?