Quote:
Originally Posted by Eloise42
Last I checked the whole diagnosing children with bipolar thing was still a little controversial. I'm not sure how I feel about it. If everyone who knew my brother and I when we were children was asked to guess which of us would be bipolar I'm pretty sure everyone would have immediately answered wrong.
My brothers emotions were always on the surface. He was jumping up and down excited, quiet for hours or having a severe red-faced, point-of-no-return, total melt-down. As an adult he is so normal it's boring.
They thought one of my cousins was bipolar when he was little because he threw such extreme tantrums. Now he is pretty much the most typical, average 13-year-old boy I've ever seen. As far as I can tell his main "moods" are annoyed, electronic social networking and boobs.
Sorry if that went off on a tangent. I'm curious about other people's thoughts on the idea.
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I used to babysit for an 8 year old boy who was diagnosed bipolar...and he definitely was. The difference in children is that the mania is usually shown as extreme anger, but the depression is just as bad. I have no doubt at all that he has bipolar. For me, if I had seen a pdoc when I was in grade school, I probably would have been diagnosed with clinical depression; that showed up by the time I was in 3rd grade. I wanted to commit sui but didn't know how to go about it. The hypomania showed up around 9th grade. I was diagnosed at age 17; that was the first time I ever saw a psychiatrist.
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From the movie The Hours: "If I were thinking clearly, Leonard, I would tell you that I wrestle alone in the dark, in the deep dark, and that only I can know. Only I can understand my condition. You live with the threat, you tell me you live with the threat of my extinction. Leonard, I live with it too."