what good is knowing what is wrong if you can't change it?

I don't know what use it is to know what is wrong if you can't change it. For example, i know that my black-and-white thinking is bad for me as is how i rate myself according to performance and my self-defeating personality disorder. I always feel great hope when i read about these things, but knowing what is wrong doesn't help fix what's wrong. I'm still stuck in all these behaviors only now i know that they're also bad for me which just makes me feel worse.

I find self-help is great at telling you what's wrong but not of any help in helping me change what's wrong which makes me wonder what is the point of knowing.

On a larger scale, being diagnosed with bipolar 27 years ago hasn't solved my bipolar. The meds i'm on now mostly help by sedating me so i'm not out getting into trouble. I'm also not living, sleeping long hours and laying around the rest of the time.

Psychology is amusing but that's about it's only use.

Sorry you're feeling down. I think it helps to know what's wrong because then I don't feel so crazy. It's like, if I'm dancing like a ballerina around the house and don't know why, it can be troubling, even to those around me. However, if I'm dancing like a ballerina around the house and know I'm bipolar, I realize that I'm in a manic phase. Then I can talk to my pdoc about increasing my mood stabilizer.

Hey man. I was just skimming through posts and the words 'black and white thinking' jumped off the page. That's our kid. Its all digital. There is no in between state, no large grey area whose clarification depends on context and a host of other factors.

I can't tell you how many times we've sat in a therapist's or psychologist's office with DS nodding his head in gleeful approval of the ideas being presented, eyes locked with the therapist's - "oh, yeah...", "you know, I never thought about that before!" I almost want to laugh, thinking, 'he's heard this before'. I can start to detect just the hint of the slightly rushed, just ever so slightly breathless speech pattern of early mania beginning to come to life as he tells the therapist how he is going to begin making the positive changes, etc., etc.,.

In the car, on the way home from the appointment, I begin to go back over some of the points brought out in the therapy session, very casually, very chill, mind you; DS doesn't like my S-L-O-W rate of speech, "will you get on with it, Dad!!!!" But it isn't my speech that's irritating him, its some of my questions are requiring a bit of thought, some reflection and that, ain't gonna happen, no, no, no. Aint gonna happen at all. The therapy session is now over. Any further trying to have any conversation about how to take the "theory" and put it into practice (which we were all just talking about - this very scenario!) will eventually lead to an angry melt-down.

Then sometime later, a few days later, a week, I'll hear these exact words that you wrote, "knowing what is wrong doesn't help fix what's wrong. I'm still stuck in all these behaviors."

I picked him up from skating this evening, which he did for 3, 31/2 hours tonight. Brought him home, now he's in our basement gym doing bench presses ( its a little after midnight ). If I dared mention how he's agreed with the doctors that intense exercise late at night leads to bad things and he needs to begin employing some of the 'chill-out' techniques he was taught, screaming fits would wake the rest of the family and they are all exhausted, so I let it go, tonight.

He's 16, diagnosed with PDD-NOS, but he's so a-typical of AS in so many ways. Don't know if he's BP but labels don't matter - it is what it is.

How's the seroquel working for you, anyway? The sedation and all that, yeah we noticed that when we first put him on but we weaned him down when his irritation got worse (even though the mania was abating, oddly) and thought there were some early signs of NMS. We started back thinking maybe he'd gone up too quickly but he's within 75% of where we began back-pedaling and there is no sign of sedation at all.

What you think?

Sorry to jack your thread but there ain't exactly a mecca of parents out there living and feeling every bit of agony their kid's are experiencing, as if it were them, you know? Thought there'd be a lot more robust sharing of ideas and 'been-there-done-thats' than there is, but it is what it is.


Couldn't help but notice your signature, "Boredom can't kill you but you might wish it could."


Ja, that's his most dangerous time. When he is bored. Not manic, not agitated, not sad, not angry - its when he's bored. That's when it all falls down.

As for meds...

I have found I’ve been able to change some things but not others

I do find psychology interesting

I recall once telling a therapist I was talking to... "I know what my options are. I just don't like any of them."

Lol!...I can almost see the blank look he must've given you.