When you meet people, do you try to diagnose them or figure out if they are bipolar?

I know 2 who have admitted it, and we can discuss it.

[gina_re]

Originally Posted by ValentinaVVV

When you meet people, do you try to diagnose them or figure out if they are bipolar?

I know 2 who have admitted it, and we can discuss it.

I'll admit I do so...based from personal experience and from reading too many textbooks and research articles. But I don't dare share them with anyone. Just my own personal case studies.

I usually think/hope they don't think I do. It has caused so much disruption and problems for me, all I can do is pray that people I meet do not have it.

[Icare dixit]

I would never say it if I thought someone might be bipolar or have unipolar depression. I do like to guess and be proven right.

I like to think I can sense it immediately. Depression or schizophrenia or anything more or less like it. Same with ASD.

I was misdiagnosed for years. So when i had a friend do something VERY manic, I asked them. They said "Yes". I have known this person a long time.

I felt relieved that someone knew exactly what I was going through.

I once found a bottle of Lamictal sitting prominently on the table at a client's home during a consultation. I took a risk and called her on it. We exchanged the secret handshake of the mixed states, then got high.

^ and then you went gambling in vegas together. lol

Not intentionally, but sometimes it works like that yes. If things jump out at me, I will think (BP, bpd, NPD, hpd, etc). We had a service person in our home the other day and I suspected possible BP. I'm not going to call the crazy person alert hotline on anyone, but yeah, I do this sometimes.

Originally Posted by ValentinaVVV

When you meet people, do you try to diagnose them or figure out if they are bipolar?

Not so much try to as find myself sensitive to noticing "clues". In other words, I don't look for them, but if they're there, I notice them. I've never said anything, it's just part of observed traits impression of someone. (If there was a reason to, I might say something, but that's not ever actually happened.)

I seem to be able to weed out BP persons in the crowd - or at least I'm pretty sure they are

[Woolly Bugger]

I have never wondered if an acquaintance is bipolar, but I frequently try to guess whether someone I have just met has ever committed homicide. Seriously.

I do sometimes pick up on potential symptoms and make guesses, especially on TV shows/movies and in books.

[Icare dixit]

Originally Posted by Woolly Bugger

I have never wondered if an acquaintance is bipolar, but I frequently try to guess whether someone I have just met has ever committed homicide. Seriously.

Wow. Does it bother you? Sounds it might interfere with functioning.

Not judging or anything, just so you know. It's just foreign to me.

Originally Posted by Woolly Bugger

I have never wondered if an acquaintance is bipolar, but I frequently try to guess whether someone I have just met has ever committed homicide. Seriously.

I know a few of those too. lol

[wildflowerchild25]

I do it with my students a lot. I feel like they're too young to be determined BP, even though some have that dx. Mostly I'm trying to figure out if they're a sociopath or not. I have one student right now that seems to feel no emotions at all. It's scary. He spent the last week telling me to kill myself because he (thinks) he knows I've tried in the past. I mean how ****ed up so you have to be to tell someone to kill themselves? It's pretty sad actually. He'll never have a normal relationship. He has no feelings. He has no emptHy toward other people at all. I think he could kill someone and feel no remorse. He broke his mother's nose and arm and doesn't care AT ALL. it's scary.

But some of my students I see that cycling thing, I see them do work consistently for a few days or weeks and then suddenly say **** you I'm not doing it and I wonder. I wonder.

Originally Posted by wildflowerchild25

I do it with my students a lot. I feel like they're too young to be determined BP, even though some have that dx. Mostly I'm trying to figure out if they're a sociopath or not. I have one student right now that seems to feel no emotions at all. It's scary. He spent the last week telling me to kill myself because he (thinks) he knows I've tried in the past. I mean how ****ed up so you have to be to tell someone to kill themselves? It's pretty sad actually. He'll never have a normal relationship. He has no feelings. He has no emptHy toward other people at all. I think he could kill someone and feel no remorse. He broke his mother's nose and arm and doesn't care AT ALL. it's scary.

But some of my students I see that cycling thing, I see them do work consistently for a few days or weeks and then suddenly say **** you I'm not doing it and I wonder. I wonder.

That would be hard to deal with. I bet you see a lot, probably more than some uninvolved parents.

[zijax]

Nope, I don't think about the bipolar thing when I'm with others.

[Icare dixit]

Originally Posted by wildflowerchild25

I do it with my students a lot. I feel like they're too young to be determined BP, even though some have that dx. Mostly I'm trying to figure out if they're a sociopath or not. I have one student right now that seems to feel no emotions at all. It's scary. He spent the last week telling me to kill myself because he (thinks) he knows I've tried in the past. I mean how ****ed up so you have to be to tell someone to kill themselves? It's pretty sad actually. He'll never have a normal relationship. He has no feelings. He has no emptHy toward other people at all. I think he could kill someone and feel no remorse. He broke his mother's nose and arm and doesn't care AT ALL. it's scary.

I was hesitant about posting this, because it's sad people can be so distanced from their emotions, but your story actually made me feel better.

I sometimes I can be quite be distanced from my emotions. Sometimes very much the opposite, but let's say, "mindfulness" comes somewhat naturally to me at times, having developed a personality to deal with emotional pain, not all that very different from some aspects of an antisocial personality, at times. It helps with BP. Just like teaching really: you need some of that.

But it's so different still from what you describe. I'd never ever go that far. The compulsions to hurt sometimes are so much more benign. I may sense weaknesses, I don't generally exploit them and only in a controlled fashion when someone provokes it.

Made me feel good. I would probably be scared as well. Sad too. There might be people he'd or has already hurt badly like he tried with you.

[st0psign]

I have a couple of acquaintances I'm pretty sure are bipolar.

[Icare dixit]

Does anyone suspect Clare Danes to be bipolar? I do. But maybe she just extrapolates.

Can you really, convincingly, act bipolar without being bipolar? I don't think so.

But maybe you can play a convincing sociopath when you have a borderline personality, a schizophrenic when you have BP (possibly, or just, with, a borderline personality).

Originally Posted by Icare dixit

Does anyone suspect Clare Danes to be bipolar? I do. But maybe she just extrapolates.

Can you really, convincingly, act bipolar without being bipolar? I don't think so.

I don't think she is. I'm not aware of any indicators outside of her acting role on Homeland.(Though obviously I don't know her personally, lol!) With celebrities under such scrutiny as they are, something even resembling BP symptoms would be seen as sensationalistic and therefore exploited. They'll latch on to the least tidbit with little regard for accuracy as it is, as we sadly see every day.

I do think it's possible to portray convincingly. I think it's a matter of a few things. One is how diligently they study, and choosing appropriate sources for greatest accuracy. Also, perhaps as part of that they personally have close in their life one or more people with it. Basically, choosing authentic models and really tuning in. Then of course there's skill level. They have to be able to translate that knowledge into portrayal.

(Scripts help too of course. Can't discount that hard/impossible factor to overcome.)

I agree she does a good job with it. "My kingdom for a green pen!" Priceless.

[Pikku Myy]

I don't. I really believe we are all off in one way or another. That's what makes life interesting. I try to enjoy everyone as they are.

It is not a matter of enjoying someone or not. I love my bipolar friend. It was just interesting when I got diagnosed, because now I can see the symptoms more clearly in my friend.

It is actually comforting to know someone else, IRL.

[Icare dixit]

Originally Posted by Innerzone

I don't think she is. I'm not aware of any indicators outside of her acting role on Homeland.(Though obviously I don't know her personally, lol!) With celebrities under such scrutiny as they are, something even resembling BP symptoms would be seen as sensationalistic and therefore exploited. They'll latch on to the least tidbit with little regard for accuracy as it is, as we sadly see every day.

I do think it's possible to portray convincingly. I think it's a matter of a few things. One is how diligently they study, and choosing appropriate sources for greatest accuracy. Also, perhaps as part of that they personally have close in their life one or more people with it. Basically, choosing authentic models and really tuning in. Then of course there's skill level. They have to be able to translate that knowledge into portrayal.

(Scripts help too of course. Can't discount that hard/impossible factor to overcome.)

I agree she does a good job with it. "My kingdom for a green pen!" Priceless.

I just saw another film where someone plays the role of someone with BP. The actual real-life person she portrays is clearly BP, but no-one describes here in the media as having BP. It takes one to know one, I suppose. The media doesn't generally describe people as having BP, I think.

It's the intensity. It's missing in the actress's play, no matter what "manic" things she does, but clearly visible in the real-life person while she doesn't do anything considered manic.

It's rather subliminal. Felt intensity, missing in others, not readily explainable. It just is. Sharp affect.

People with ASD have the opposite: flatness of affect despite acting "intense", for example.

The two are hard to distinguish or simulate. Clinicians might see both as flat or lively. They can be tricked.

I only know that I am not easily tricked. But maybe really good actors can. I don't know. Honestly don't believe it: being so good in acting takes at least severe depression, I think. It's just having a full repertoire, register, versus a less full one.

[Icare dixit]

Take, for example, Anders Breivik: he killed a lot of people in Norway, likely a sociopath, but also schizophrenic. His affect could, and was, though maybe not using those very words, described as very flat, but actually it has an extreme intensity.