bi-polar

[tryingtobestrong]

Wondering if my son isn't bi-polar but don't know how to go about letting the rehab know this. He has never had a diagnosis but never was at a psychiatrist.
The rehab he is at doesn't have a psychiatrist on staff so not sure how to even bring this up. How did you know if you child had this?
My adult child does not live near me anymore as well.

 

[BusynMember]

Its up to him to get a diagnosis if he is over 18. Also, as one who actually has a bonafide mood disorder and interact with many people regularly in the mental health community, this is a very over diagnosed illness that is often not the right one. The.bipolar people I know are very nice people who work and are stable and respectful. Borderline personality disorder, newer to being understood, is often called bipolar. Borderlines have moodswings too, but they are plain nasty to vicious, hurt others, steal, hAve limited empathy. But so do drug addicts.

Until a person is off drugs for a good while it is impossible to get an accurate psychiatric diagnosis. The drugs change the brain. The person has to have the drugs out of his or her system.

My daughter was diagnosed with bipolar while taking drugs. 12 years off drugs and she clearly never had bipolar, borderline (the most common disorder that is often called bipolar) or any mental illness. She is a bit insecure but very sane.

I would wait and see with your son. He still has a changed brain from the drugs.

 

[EarthIsHard]

tryingtobestrong, Will the rehab keep him there if he is bi-polar? Some don't deal with dual diagnostics. Just something to consider. If you do want to let them know, are you on the approved list to communicate with them? If not, you may consider faxing them because they will put that in his file. Maybe it's good that he's getting treatment in the rehab and bring it up a little later? Or, maybe they can set up an appointment with a psychiatrist for diagnosis.

 

[MyFriendKita]

My son was diagnosed as bipolar when he was 16. By that time we had been through two or three different diagnoses that were close to bipolar, so I wasn't really surprised. He was diagnosed after testing by a psychologist, who said he had depression and ODD. The psychiatrist decided his depression was bipolar, not unipolar, and prescribed a mood stabilizer (Lamictal), which was a wonder drug for him.

The problem with most of the bipolar people I know (several of whom are close family members) is they don't think there is anything wrong with them and do not admit to being bipolar. However, everyone around them is well aware there is a problem. They are good people, but not always nice people, and they have trouble keeping jobs and relationships. Life with the bipolar people I know, whether medicated or not, is very rocky. It's just that medication makes dealing with them more tolerable.

It is not impossible to diagnose someone who is on drugs, because if it were no one would ever be diagnosed, since substance abuse is very common in people with mood disorders. That's like saying someone who smokes can't be diagnosed with lung cancer until they stop smoking. I'd say that's a very dangerous stance to take. My advice would be to suggest to your son the possibility he might have some kind of mood disorder. Send him a questionnaire for bipolar symptoms (or have someone do it with whom he has a good relationship if you and he don't have one). I would not be insistent, just throw the possibility out there. The problem is, even though my son has a diagnosis, and did well on medication, he stopped taking it, so even if your son is bipolar and gets a diagnosis, it's no guarantee the battle with him will be over. I hope things work out for your family.

 

[Deni D]

Typically bipolar disorder runs in families and is inherited. It can also be diagnosed if someone has had a traumatic brain injury.

Would either of these apply to your son?

 

[Wish]

I have bipolar with an extensive history. My mother, a manic depressive (which is now known as bipolar) and has borderline schizophrenia as well. I lived with mental illness my entire life. If you want to bat some things off of me, ask me some questions, etc, etc, I welcome you to private message me. I'd be happy to help the best way I can, but, only your son and his doctor will truly know at the end of the day.

 

[BusynMember]

I have bipolar II.

I never used drugs. iI neve even drank. Not all people with mental illness do. And not all drug use is due to mental illness. There is peer pressure, shyness (my daughter was shy so she took drugs to be the life of the party) and just curiousity. As parents we often want to think mental illness made them do it.

Sometimes this is true, not always. How they behave while high is a drug use symptom, not intristically mental illness. Most drugs cause crazy mood swings. This does not mean much. It can not be interpreted as anything until the doctor sees if this goes on while the person.is drug free.

You can try to diagnose a drug abuser still using but as long as he is in drug land there is no way to be correct for sure. You have to treat the drug addiction first. Often once they stop the drugs the mental illness disappears. My daughter is but one example. She has no mental illness and was diagnosed with bipolar while on.meth and cocaine. Twelve years later....no mental illness. Wrong diagnosis. She was high. So she had moodswings then. No more.

Sorry but meth and coke .made her see bipolar. Of course. Drugs can make you hallucinate and act schizophrenic as well, especially meth


The only way to know mental illness in a drug addict is if they were diagnosed before the drug use otherwise the person.is not himself. Drug addiction is a complication for almost everything medications for bipolar, depression, anxiety will not work even.if the person just smokes pot. So why bother? Add drugs to.illegal drugs?

A clear diagnosis is not possible while one uses nor can anything be helped until the drug use stops and stays stopped. Then diagnose if the person is still not right.

One cam certainly try to find someone to diagnose while the person is using but don't be surprised if once the person.is clean the diagnosed mental illness goes away. Drug use causes symptoms of mental illnesses that may be strictly due to the drug use.


Get clean. First priority.

Love and light to all.

 

[Wish]

I never used drugs. iI neve even drank. Not all people with mental illness do.

Same as Swot.

I should say though, that I did experiment with different types of drug as a teenager but, experimentation is as far as it ever went. I didn't continue to use them. I never got hooked. I never fiend for them. I never desired them. I don't like alcohol. Rarely ever drank, or drink alcohol.

However, I will say this, for as severe as my bipolar was and still is, I did seriously ponder at times how I coped with my illness without any illegal substances. I can completely understand why one would turn to drugs battling this illness but I don't really fully understand why I did not turn to drugs for relief, for as much as I suffered. There are a few reasons that I can come up with for sure....


A little back history-

I was diagnosed and well versed in mental illness at a very young age when most grown adults at that time, never even heard of terminology that I grew and learned having been a child of someone who was severely mentally ill. My poor mother. Ravaged by mental illness. At a young age, and especially as a teenager, I knew deep down it was going to happen to me. I wanted to be stronger than then my mother. I wanted to conquer it. Even though I was very knowledgable in our specific brand of mental illness by living it, studying it and analyzing it so very deeply, I was still very naive (what do you expent, I was still young) and hopeful as a kid, teen and young adult. I thought I could over come it and by myself. On my own....... and that line of thinking turned out to be very dangerous for my life and I suffered many hardships by thinking I could overcome it by myself....... Anyway, I digress. There is a point to this. My point is I thought doing drugs or alcohol was an easy way out. I didn't want to be weak and I thought turning to something else like drugs was weak. I did know that any escape was just temporary. That I did know. I just wanted to be strong and deal with my reality, live in it the best way that I could and to not try to escape because I knew, I knew, that this was going to be with me forever and I thought I better learn to deal with it now because I didn't want to lose my daughter, I didn't want go to prison and I didn't want to wind up dead because of drugs or alcohol. My daughter only had me. I knew this was going to be a life long struggle and I didn't want to make my situation worse than it already was and was going to be.

Did not being on drugs or drinking help me any? I really wish with everything inside of me that I could say tell you yes, but no, no it didn't. I'm very sorry to say. Bipolar/mental illness was a way bigger monster than I ever imagined. Saying I underestimated this monster's strength was an understatement of the century. My life was still wrecked and I still acted erratically, even though I was on no substances what so ever. It caused a lot of damage. It caused me and my family and most of all, my beautiful daughter a lot of misery. I had many, many problems because of it, nevermind the PTSD from what I suffered as a child/teen being sexually abused by a few different men and other traumatic experiences that I had gone thought but that is a story for another day.

Not that it really means anything, it certainly didn't mean anything back then, especially to anyone....but I did try. I gave it my all, all of my guts, over and over and over again to the 10th power to over com it all. I. Just. Kept. Failing. I kept losing it all, what little I did have, time and time again. On the outside it was beyond devestating that others couldn't see ..... the deep cave abyss climbing back out of, nail and finger broken and bloodied, battleing every single scary and strong demon on the way back up, fighting with everything I had, everyday...... just to be somewhat......functioning. And if I did make some progress in way, shape or form, it was always interupted by my mania or just bad luck. I can say nothing is more defeating then fighting like hell every single day, every minute, every second of the day and no one can see it. Not being able to see the fruits of your own fight. That is always a hard, hard blow everytime I think about it, especially when it was happening. It's a very devestating thing. Everything that I worked so hard for. Think how that must have felt being a single mother to a my beautiful beloved child. It was excrutiating and no one in my family cared. Even though my mother was clearly sick, because she was worse than I, they still "blamed us" for it. I was alone in this fight and got kicked down by many every step of the way.

It all came to a crashing end when at early 30 something years old, I had a complete nervous breakdown that landed me into the mental hospital. It lasted 10 and a half months. The torture I went through was unfathomable. I understood, truly understood, then, why people killed themselves. Not because they wanted to die, but because they wanted to escape the sheer pain of it all of whatever it was they were going through. It is unending and relentless. It was like living every second of every day with hot iron pressing on your very soul and with an iron hand gripping your chest so hard that never let up, you can't breath, this non-stop, continous feeling, for 10 and a half months. It was unrelentless. It was the most scariest, most terrifying, most petrifying time of my life and my body shook the entire time, trembled with fear. I got called "crazy". The reason I didn't take my life is because my daughter's father took his and I didn't want her to experience another parent losing their life to suicide. Finally, after 10 and a half months and a series of different medications and also a seperate miracle happening, the worst of it finally broke and I had to pick up the pieces and accept my new reality. Was it new? I don't know, but I had to accept it. But I got stronger over the years and doing better now. Medication really helped contribuate to saving my life but it took forever to find the right medicine, it really did. Even though I was prescribed every single drug for mental illness in the book since teenagehood, I was anti-medication the whole time before my nervous breakdown, so I never stuck with any medication. I was pretty unmedicated the entrie time. Not only was I anti-illegal drugs, I was anti- any drugs. I didn't want the crap in my body. I thought I could deal with it on my own. Well, we all see how that turned out. But I don't want to mislead. Medication is not the save all, end all, be all. Not by a long shot. I did have a miracle that happened simultaneously that helped a lot that took the much stress off my shoulders at the time, that in turned, helped me get better. That miracle and the medication combined together broke that horrific spell. I needed both equally.

Anyway, another reason why I didn't do drugs or drink is because it always made me feel sick in some type of way. So that really helped keep me away from drugs and alcohol as well.

Didn't mean to write a book, but there it is. I guess you just can't compact some explantions into three little sentences. At least, I never had the talent for that any way. At the very least, hopefully my story helps someone along the way.

 

[BusynMember]

I admire you, Wish. My bipolar II does not sound like it was as bad as yours, but maybe that was because although I was extremely anti illegal drugs, not fond of alcohol and even very anti cigarettes, in no way was I against medically prescribed drugs. I thought of them like insulin for diabetes....you take them or you die and for me this would have been true. BUT.....

Although I was very compliant and a good patient, I was overly sensitive to many medications and had tons of side effects, sometimes hallucinating, usually after the medication was actually starting to work.

Back to square one. It took me over a decade to get on my miracle medication. And it was a real struggle for me. In fact, I went to see the doctor who put me on paroxatene, which is my miracle medication, but I had not gone there for medications. I had consulted this psychiatrist because he was known for doing safe ECT and I was almost 40 and desperate. Yes. ECT.

Electroshock therapy. It is still done, but they say it had been modified. And I wanted to feel better. I was tired of the dark hole of clinical, inherited depression.

The psychiatrist told me about a new medication Paxil and talked me into trying it first before doing ECT. I had no faith it would work and didn't want to wait the six long weeks I needed to wait in order to see if this Paxil garbage would work. But I wanted him to like me as a patient so that he would do the ECT so I took it. I expected a fail or maybe a side effect so bad that I would have to cut the trial short. I was pessimistic. I knew only ECT might help. But I was good......

Six weeks later I woke up one day and felt really really good! Not manic. Good! Like myself but without the depression. It was crazy great and I was in my late 30s and had started trying to help myself at 23. It took that long. It took forever. But the depression was gone. Gone!

All that time I never smoked pot except to try it a few times and never took one drink. I knew that if I did, it would make this hellish mood disorder even worse. I knew it. And I didn't stand it by taking illegal drugs. And I know you and I, Wish, are not alone.

I was not well as a child but didnt have my first terrible depression until 13. I remember the night it happened. One minute I was fine. Suddenly I felt an anchor drop in my stomach and in a nano second I was mired in a dark, severe depression that I could not shake for a year. I no longer saw friends. I no longer went out at all. I couldn't fight the bullies in school...I had always been bullied but before depression weakened me, I fought back. Now I just dropped my head. I daydreamed through school. My grades nosedived. I couldn't concentrate.

My grades never recovered. I quit the things I loved to do, including my beloved singing lessons. The truth was, I couldn't feel happiness anymore and nothing gave me pleasure. So why do anything? The world was gray, all gray. Bleak. I would never get better. Thinking you will never get better is a symptom of depression, one that can cause suicide but I hung on and never did try this although it nagged in back of my mind.

That is depression at it's worse. It's a black void. I would have had no energy to go on the streets to find kids who had drugs if 13 year olds had taken illegal drugs back then. I just knew I was so sad. I also had terrible anxiety. This is what depression was like until Paxil. I was not always nice at home, but I was sick. My mother didn't get it. She thought I was bad. Yet I know she was mentally I'll too as was my sister. Yes, it runs in families. My uncle. Another one. Depression. Anxiety. Eating disorders that last a lifetime, fortunately I dodged this one. But I had enough to call my own.

At the same time I did not steal, have wild sex, party or break the law. You don't have to, even with mental illness. And some people do so without mental illness.

I think bipolar is way over diagnosed and given to anyone having moodswings. Yet drug abuse alone causes severe moodswings. So does an even worse disorder where the person truly is mean....borderline personality disorder. I could be crabby sometimes, but I wasn't mean. Borderline is a lack of empathy, not bipolar. They both have moodswings but they are different. I would rather be stuck with bipolar II. And I am. That is my official diagnosis along with anxiety.

That is my story. I have been great since the Paxil and still take it and have a great life, great hub, great kids, great health for my age so far, and a great retirement ahead. And I never abused drugs. I have never been drunk in my life. Truth. Because I knew that substances would make me more screwed up (and I knew this by age 15) I never touched the stuff. Alcohol. Illegal drugs. I tried pot a few times but I felt worse and spacy and paranoid. Never again. Pot is not good. You feel abnormal and not in a good way. At least, I think pot is terrible for anyone with a mood disorder. Jmo

Mental illness is not fun. But there are better treatments now, although it is still an inexact science. There is hope.

I do stand by how you can not know if a drug abuser has a certain disorder if he isn't clean. The drugs mimic certain disorders. Drug addiction itself IS a mental illness in of itself.

Treat THAT first then go from there.

Much love and light to all! Keep the Faith!!!

 

[MyFriendKita]

SOT-although many mentally ill people don't abuse substances (like you), and many mentally well people abuse substances (like your daughter), there are many others who are both and there are facilities that treat both at the same time. To try and force sobriety before treating mental illness when both exist at the same time would be cruel and perhaps deadly. Perhaps your opinion comes from many years ago before more was known about mental illness and addiction.

Wish-as difficult as it is for the loved ones of a mentally ill person, I realize it is infinitely more difficult for the person with the mental illness. For you to have dealt with mental illness from both sides is heartbreaking. I'm glad you found your way through. You sound like you're a very strong and brave person. Thank you so much for sharing your story.

 

[BusynMember]

I hope and prayer that your son is normal and not bipolar after he is clean and he WILL get clean. You gotta believe.

Love and light!

 

[Wish]

Wish-as difficult as it is for the loved ones of a mentally ill person, I realize it is infinitely more difficult for the person with the mental illness. For you to have dealt with mental illness from both sides is heartbreaking. I'm glad you found your way through. You sound like you're a very strong and brave person. Thank you so much for sharing your story.

Thank you MyfriendKita (very nice and clever username by the way. Love it). That is very kind of you to say.

 

[MyFriendKita]

You're very welcome, and thank you! Kita is my dog's name (I couldn't think of anything else on the fly ). She is a difficult child herself (we joke that she has the worst qualities of a toddler and a teenager combined), but we love her all the same.