people who think they are bipolar

Sorry about that, I think the little over 1% is bipolar I only, the 2.6% a combination of all forms. Thanks for checking that out.

I think 5% is off, that's a huge percentage, which would make it the or one of the most common mental illnesses out there, which is doubtful. I think your original statistic from the NIMH is more accurate (and a very good resource).

It sickens me as well, though largely because I work in healthcare (I'm a certified Spanish Medical Interpreter -interpret for Spanish-speaking patients all over the hospital, inpatient, outpatient, ED, procedures, etc.) and I see how people sometimes have to wait in the Acute Psychiatric Service in the ED for available beds -they can be hard to come by. I also see people get discharged rather quickly when the inpatient unit is full. So for someone to take up a bed when they're just there for attention or similar reasons makes me really mad sometimes.

I've read on different forums people saying they miss being in the hospital after discharge. (For some people) at the end of the day, it's a place where you have no daily life responsibilities (you're fed, you're fully taken care of 24/7, you have group, individual, talking with the nurses, etc.).

Although I can't know why this person was there and what she had been through, I remember a few months ago in the inpt unit, waiting for the doctor I was going to interpret for, seeing a young girl (maybe early 20's) in no apparent distress sitting cross-legged on her bed with another young girl, merrily chatting away, and it literally looked like a college dorm roommate chat. Again, I can't know what she was going through, but the picture bothered me. I was going to interpret for someone I had before, who I knew to have come in acutely psychotic, and now was on so much Depakote that she had become incontinent (the really awful kind). And that day she was calmer, but still in very bad shape, quite disoriented, miserable. I sometimes wonder how staff deal with these things, don't know if they get cynical or what. If someone claims to be actively suicidal, they pretty much have to admit them, at least for a couple of days, even if they may not buy it.

I was told by a very well meaning Pasteur that my bipolar was the result of being invaded by a double headed demon. I allowed then to do an exorcism on me and the next day I wound upon the psyche ward for a week. Consequently, I do not go to that church anymore and have changed spiritual paths. I also depend on science and meds...why? Because it works.

ultramar is right

think about it for a second.
at the end of the day you ARE fed. you ARE taken care of. and for some people being around others with your same issues is comforting and you can sit with them late into the night talking about episodes and struggles. thats stuff is great for when you are not well and stuff.

but theres a flipside to hospital. that if youve been in one and seen the true nature of a mental hospital - it would trump all the good stuff. so you have the patients beating up other patients maybe. you have people getting in restraints or seclusion time. a lot of hospitals are unsanitary. your taken care of but many times its on their schedule not yours so you lose a huge amount of freedom. most hospitals wont let you go outside. many have very limited activities. lesssss privacy - you may have to strip naked for checks or shower with the door open or something. and MORE.

ok so all that trumps the good stuff to me. that good stuff can be replicated for many people in real life. with little effort most times.

the hospital gives a feeling of comfort and caring. people like that. i get it. ive felt there. been there.

but...
faking in general is horrible.
faking to be in the hospital is not good for many reasons. whether that its on your life record or that if u lie it may come back to bite you. like u may have to take meds you dont need or get treatment that you dont need. etc

I guess I am going at this from a different angle...

I am sure there are a "few" people that do indeed " fake" whatever to be in the hospital, but really, there has to be some sense of need or reason they are in an emotional state to begin with.

I will never judge anyone over this situation. As far as "looking" a certain way ???? I think that is absurd, and I will tell you why, I cut my thigh in 3 place down to the bone 6 inch wide cuts. I need sutures I went to the hospital, I "appeared" calm and collected. no one knew anything until I showed them why I was there.

Two other times I went to the ER because I was suicidal , everything was planned down to the letters. I again looked completely fine.

I almost never show by apperance that I am in a crisis.. I have sat right here on my computer at times talking people off a ledge and giving advice and spent many overnites right here in PC helping someone stay safe , while next to me is all I need to end my life...

No one knows what is really going on in someones mind.

Me neither.

im the opposite about my appearance in crisis.

people say its extremely obvious. i actually have an extremely hard time hidingg it too. so i couldnt if i wanted to.

My aunt suggested she might be bipolar once, though I could tell she had no idea what that meant. I mentioned to a friend once that I'm bipolar and could never go into the millitary even if I wanted to, but he said everyone gets depressed. People in general don't understand a lot of things, mental illness especially. I can't say it has ever really bothered me. I'm kind of apathetic about people and tend to just keep it to myself.

I've only been to two different inpatient hospitals, but the voluntary one was FAR better. I had my own room, a nice bathroom/shower, and you could actually walk around the place without having to be escorted. They'd even let us go outside if we asked. The involuntary one, the first thing they did was throw me into the isolation room and and had me strip searched (flashlight and everything, short of cavity search). There's a lot of little things I could nit pick about, but the worst was a nurse chasing me down the hall because he thought I pocketed my meds, then it taking several days just to get a 5 minute appointment with the MD for excruciating neck pain (pinched nerve), and she did nothing about it. Forceful medications and injections are illegal where I live, so I'm lucky in that regard.

At times I really did want to get out of my house and into a new environment, but I can't really say it was helpful at all being in there. At the very least I have the experience, though now it seems much easier to be put back into the hospital if you've been put in there before. Of my 3 hospitalizations, I was only a danger to myself during the involuntary one, and the other two were just my therapist being a ****.

I am also very good at hiding things. But, I've gotten less good at it more recently. My explosive anger is an example of that. I used to be like a still pool. I learend to hide everything because as a kid I got the "you're too sensitive" talk a lot. Also, knowing people don't care, that teaches you to hide it because why bother?

When I was about 11 or 12 years old I wrote a song, which I called "The House of Joy," but it was a sarcastic title, because it's about how if you're feeling depressed, don't bother telling anyone because they won't care. People only want you to show happiness, even if fake. There's even a suicidal line in the song. I still remember all the words.

I performed the song for my afterschool program, we had like a talent show thing. And, that's the diffrerence between then and now. No one batted an eyelash that a 10 year old girl is singing an up-beat song about why you should just hide your feelings and she's considering suicide. Maybe today someone would freak out.

I did something similar in 8th grade---wrote new lyrics for an old song standard at that time called "I Gotta Be Me (Unfortunately)". Tells you a bit about my life growing up with a social-climbing mother and clueless father. My English teacher actually told me she was worried about me (I'd turned the poem in for a class assignment) but in those days nobody wanted to see a kid 'labeled', so it never went any further than that.

Sometimes I wish my folks were still alive so I could ask them about the time they took me to a child psychiatrist because I had night terrors. He thought there was something wrong with me because I drew my balloon strings straight, rather then wavy like most kids did. My parents never took me back.

I also remember hearing my mother talking to my father about 'manic depression' sometime after this, although I don't know if it was in reference to me or someone in one of her Photoplay magazines. Later on I suffered a long-lasting depression after my grandmother died, and now I realize that what they were doing when they gave me different kinds of pills was attempting to treat it, rather than some mystery illness like they told me.

So the clues were there all along, only in those days no one was labeled manic-depressive at 13. I was pretty decent at hiding it, even from myself, so when I finally did receive the label 40 years later it was a shock to my nervous system. Now I know I've had bipolar for most, if not all my life, and it explains so much about the difficulties I had in trying to be "normal" while growing up, and indeed throughout my adult years.

eh, I wrote poems about death and stuff. Class teacher read. Sent me to school psychologist. She talked to me, and thought I am normal (not my first sent-to-see-somebody). I am glad I never got refered. Not back in kindergarten when I pretended to be a rabbit (I still act like cat at times. Meow. If you sent me to shrink over that, I would pee on in his lifes and scratch his curtains... j/k). When I was grief stricken over fathers death, I was recommended meds and designers clothes.

*shrugs* I am glad I wasn't medicated/treated back then. I mighta never become the person I am. I mighta fallen for the "I am ill" trap.

It goes both ways. I don't think today's "treated" kids are on their way to thrive.

I don't mean this as offense. I just think some people may be idealizing childhood treatment and what it can do. Especially since today's "mentally ill" kids don't get extra compassion and love and humanity. Those are crucial elements though.

I think you're spot on, Venus. My older son's school wanted me to medicate him for ADHD (with which he was never diagnosed) and I refused, although I did send him for counseling several times during his youth. He turned out to have BP like me, and I've never regretted not medicating him since the school was wrong in assigning the ADHD label to a bipolar kid.

Part of me thinks I was lucky to live without meds until I was 30. I learned how to cope on my own and who knows where I would have ended up if I would have known I was "ill". There can be advantages to the kind of tough love that my parents gave me.

However, there is that other part that realizes that I've continually ruined my life time and time again. And I wonder if many of my problems could have been controlled if it would have been managed earlier.

I just don't know. I kind of flip flop on the topic of diagnosing younger children. Diagnosis is one thing I think. Medication is another. For me personally, I didn't get into any REAL trouble until I started qualifying for credit cards. But I know others who can get into life changing trouble even before that. I guess it just depends.

councelling and guidance is good... but maybe if all kids gotten more life guidance instead of being forced to learn for tests and memorize stuff they will never use... (and being medicated if they fail to function within this broken system)... life would be easier for so many.

I don't think medicating kids is good, but I think that helping them is important instead of just not caring at all. It doesn't have to be a councilor or psychologist or anything. Just being there and listening and trying to help is enough. I try to always do that for my kids even though they are small.

That's the thing that makes me mad about my childhood. It was that I was screaming for help and everyone either ignored me or would tell me I was being dramatic/a liar/pathetic/sensitive. They didn't have to medicate me, just listen and take me seriously. That's still my problem in my family. No one takes me seriously, because they never have, and they've seen me struggle my whole life so they think it's just an act. I hate that! I don't even bother any more.

I'm a pro at pretending! It was a huge shock to everyone when I overdosed when I was 15.... To date, my parents have still never once attempted to talk to me about it, aside from telling me I'd better not do that ever again and making belitting remarks about it. (Oh, and my mom named our dog Ty after tyelonol... which was what I OD'd on) I'm still a very great pretender, but I try to not be. Sometimes I overcompensate (especially in relationships) and talk about EVERYTHING that is possibly going on... which overwhelms people. I can't really seem to find a balance most of the time.

And talking abouy lyrics - in highschool I wrote a poem called "Inventive Ways to Die". I thought it was hilarious. I still do, but I wonder about why I find it so...