Posted by ggggg123 on November 4, 2010, at 8:48:22
In reply to Feeling so depressed about stigma, posted by Deneb on October 30, 2010, at 19:57:00
Deneb my sister is a fully qualified doctor, but doing her last placement before she becomes a gp. she has been studying and training for 11 years. She is currently doing her psychiatry training, she has been doing it for a year. She works on the psychiatric ward, treating many patients. She says all the bipolar patients are very very ill, they Will go for weeks or months in depression then often be ok, then they Will be manic for weeks or months, but are mostly on the ward when severely manic. This might not be true for all, but I think most would have some severe acute episodes. They are very sick and many have to take anti-psychotics in high doses to control the mania.
Many psychiatrists throw out diagnoses like sweets, the ambiguity surrounding psychiatric diagnoses is far too high. But unless you are admitted to a psychiatric ward because the people around you think you need serious help, I would doubt you have BP.
I knew a man who had BP, he used to do very crazy things when he was up, he thought it would be a good idea to jump off the local multi storey car park so he did unfortunately: his crazy girlfriend had persuaded him not to take his meds when he was up and he thought it was a great idea.
I met a another man who receives depot anti-psychotic injections the other week, as my mother knew him, she is a psychiatric social worker. He was speaking so fast, and he wouldn't stop talking and this was on the depot injection! if you go through periods where you are hyper active, probably highly sociable and doing insane things, you should think about being BP, if not I would say its agitation caused by severe anxiety.When you see a person with full blown bipolar, the severity of the illness really hits you. I think if you were rapid cycling this would also be very severe.
My sister sees people who have to be sedated for weeks in hospital till their mood settles down, then they often go back to normal and are maintained on antidepressants and mood stabilizers, it is very serious and the patient is often in grave danger in the manic phase.
poster:ggggg123
thread:967714
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20101030/msgs/968335.html