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Jun 16, 2013, 12:05 PM
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Member Since: Mar 2013
Location: USA
Posts: 1,486
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Quote:
Originally Posted by passionskyy
I think it is way too over diagnosed. I think there is a trend among the psychiatric doc's to over diagnose bp. I hope it stops...when I went to the hospital for it I took like 4 tests. I'm bp and I hate it although I'm dealing with it.
But just being a little more irritable etc doesn't mean bipolar  !!! Ugh, it's so annoying to me how so easily this disorder is used...
I should listen to my music...always a saving grace. |
In one of the incarnations of the DSM (don't remember which) 'irritability' was added to the criteria (I think both I and II with the irritability in I being more extreme) and in my opinion this is one of the things that has managed to expand the diagnosis of the disorder.
Although they can be confused as well, I think many of the other symptoms of mania (or hypomania) are more discrete/recognizable as 'abnormal' (in the sense of outside the realm of what's considered 'normal' experience) than irritability.
Anyone and everyone can get irritable sometimes, even very irritable, and lasting for many days, for any number of reasons. Whereas, for example, not sleeping for a full week and not feeling at all tired is something that's far more unusual. But it seems, if you are often depressed and in addition get very irritable at times, you can get diagnosed (at least with II).
I don't think they should necessarily exclude some sort of anger/irritability/rage from the criteria, but I think it needs to be defined in a much more specific way.
I know I get irritable sometimes. Sometimes I don't know why, sometimes it's my anxiety that's giving me a short fuse, or something has really p**ssed me off in an ongoing way. In my experience, these instances have not been a part of an episode, just life (and sometimes anxiety). I've only ever felt irritable in the context of an episode when it's a case of people being too 'slow' (because my mind is going so fast, I think I'm brilliant when manic, etc.) which irritates me. But that's in a specific context, not being just generally irritable at a given time.
I don't know why it was added, but I'm actually going to do some research and see what I come up with. I'm not denying that there aren't perfectly good reasons for it being there, I just think it's something that can be so easily confused with non-bipolar issues, since it's so non-specific.
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