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973741 tn?1342342773

How was your bipolar evaluated?

What is the way that your doctor evaluated and diagnosed your bipolar disorder?  How long did it take? What were your very first sings?
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Avatar universal
I don't have bipolar, Mom, but it's become such a fad diagnosis that if you see a typical insurance taking shrink they will test for it because everyone who lives has up times and down times.  I doubt a regular doc can really diagnose it, it's hard to distinguish from just being depressed or anxious episodically, so I'm guessing anyone suspected of having such a severe mood disorder would be sent to a psychiatrist or psychologist, or should be.  Anyway, I was tested with a questionnaire.  Anyone who has taken a basic statistics class would see what they're going for, and to me, it seemed it would apply to everyone because we all have up times and down times in our lives.  What I was asked by the psychiatrists was, do you have periods when you are overly energetic followed by periods when you are overly down.  That sort of thing.  But with all the different types now -- there is true bipolar and then there are the other types which are really just different ways depressed people manifest their depression.  Now, again, I don't have it, but a psychiatrist thought based on my symptoms that I might and so he went to the questionnaire.  To me, someone with true bipolar, and I have known some especially when I lived in San Francisco and Berkeley because that area attracts a lot of people with mental illness who think they will be accepted there for some reason and fit in better I guess, it's a pretty obvious disease.  I mean, when you see an apartment that a slight woman has completely tossed around you can see the manic phase.  At one point she was living in the Book of Genesis.  So for true bipolar, it's a very severe and frightening disease.  
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Tired of hearing if you’re a true bi polar.  
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