Isn't it getting tiresome how everybody is being diagnosed as bipolar?

Question

Dumb. How did humanity exist for thousands of years before they discovered bipolar and the pills. BS charlatans convinced they have the cure

Answer 1

Well, it used to be you were a drunk, a druggie, a loser, a r****d - now you're just bipolar. 25 years ago, you were just addicted.

Answer 2

Manic depression is one of the oldest illnesses.  First, mention in the second century. In 1650 a scientist named Richard Burton's wrote a book, The Anatomy of Melancholia. His research is still used today. In 1854 Jules Falrat coined the term "folie circulaire", (circular insanity), and established a link between depression and suicide.   His work led to the term bipolar disorder.  He recognized the link between depression and mood changes.  He also realized  the disorder reoccurred in families. Thus, a genetic link.

I was diagnosed a the age of 32 as bipolar.  I am 53 now.  They don't promise a cure.  There is no cure.  I have been off my meds since January.

Answer 3

Gah, Moron.

Answer 4

I agree with you.  The word "bipolar" is simply a label used to categorise a list of psychosocial traits that Psychiatry considers to be improper or abnormal in society. Psychiatry defines these traits as a "mental illness", and promotes it as a "disease" that requires "treatment".

“Bipolar” has its origins in psychiatry's widely discredited DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual)  The DSM's criteria are vague and ill defined and have their origin in psychiatrists convention where they simply vote new diseases into existence. (“All in favor say aye” -- and you've got yourself a new disease).  It is based on a brain disease model which cannot be proven by any sort of medical tests.

The lack of science behind the DSM gives a clear idea of why it has earned such critics as the following:

Herb Kutchins of California State University, Sacramento, and Stuart A. Kirk of the University of California, Los Angeles, authors of Making Us Crazy: The Psychiatric Bible and the Creation of Mental Disorders wrote, “the developers of DSM assume that if a group of psychiatrists agree on a list of atypical [new] behaviors, the behaviors constitute a valid mental disorder. Using this approach, creating mental disorders can become a parlor game in which clusters of all kinds of behaviors (i.e. syndromes) can be added to the manual.”

Dr. Thomas Dorman, an internist and member of the Royal College of Physicians of the United Kingdom and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada, wrote, “In short, the whole business of creating psychiatric categories of ‘disease,’ formalizing them with consensus, and subsequently ascribing diagnostic codes to them, which in turn leads to their use for insurance billing, is nothing but an extended racket furnishing psychiatry a pseudo-scientific aura. The perpetrators are, of course, feeding at the public trough.”

Symptoms of “bipolar” are often in reality symptom of physiological, but not psychological problems.  A good medical doctor can do a blood test (real doctors do tests, quacks do not) and can find if someone has a lack of certain amino acids, a vitamin deficiency, toxicity, low thyroid function or a hormonal imbalance.  If for example, a person has a Vitamin B12 deficiency, they can then take Vitamin B12 and will soon feel much better.

Answer 5

I think more and more terms are used nowadays to describe certian behaviour e.g. down in the morning and afternoon but real high at night (keep calling friends in A.M.), can't control roller coaster kind of emotions in a day. (If I don't used the term "bipolar" , I have to write so many stuff above)...no cure to all mental illness (my shrink said),...the only way is to alleviate (lower??) the severity of symptoms, improve people's lives. That's all..  

Answer 6

there is no cure for bipolar disorder, and probably won't be any time soon.

i agree with the other answerer - most drunks have emotional problems or mental illness.. try an AA meeting and observe.

Answer 7

Bipolar disorder aka manic depression has been known and treated (with lithium) since ancient rome.  

There are current studies using MRIs that are able to show a difference in areas of brain structure and functioning in bipolars when compared to non-bipolars.  Other studies are showing common dna markers in bipolars not found in non-bipolars, but as of yet it isn't certain which ones contribute to which symptoms.

Similar studies are finding differences among schizophrenics and diabetics.  Few people ridicule the idea that diabetes is 'just a fad label'.

As for the DSM, the same can be said for any science manual - until you can build the equipment to physically test a hypothesis, you have only the concenous of the leaders in the feild to agree that something exists. Consider how many theories have been proven since the developement of the electron microscope.

It's unfortunate, but even after proof is established through medical technology, there will still be those who deny it because the stigma of mental illness remains due to other people's fear of what they don't really understand.