Posted by Quintal on March 21, 2008, at 19:32:32
In reply to Re: Bipolar III caused by antidepressants?, posted by 49er on March 21, 2008, at 17:39:29
Just my two pen'orth on the bipolar specturm. I was diagnosed with plain bipolar disorder aged 19 based on self-reported symptoms, and treated on and off for the next four years with nearly every drug under the sun. At age 24 my pdoc discharged me, and wrote in the notes something to the effect that in his opinion, I was little more than a personality disordered malingerer. He said that he had never seen any sign of 'bipolar symptomology' in me and the fact that I'd taken nearly thirty antidepressants without having a manic episode bolstered this view. In the following year I came more or less to accept the grain of truth in his assessment and tried my best to get on with life med free. In a way it was a delicious irony that I suffered my first psychotic episode while med free, almost two years after he discharged me. With a bit of prompting from me and my father, this was diagnosed as a manic episode. So according to the DSM that would make me Bipolar I, although no one has said such.
I live in the UK and as far as I'm aware the only bipolar categories in current use are Bipolar I and Bipolar II. There is also a condition called cyclothymia, which closely resembles what is now being described as Bipolar III, but there are no elaborate subdivisions as has been suggested here. My take on that particular problem is that there as many different forms of bipolar disorder as there are people with bipolar disorder, and beyond a certain point this endless dividing and categorising becomes futile, and a little silly to be honest - as they all merge into each other at some point. For example, my 'Bipolar I Disorder' is indistinguishable from Paranoid Schizophrenia during the acute phase, although we normally think of Schizophrenia as being a very different kettle of fish. I'm not a fan of the Kraepellian approach, although I acknowledge it does have its uses.
Q
poster:Quintal
thread:818928
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080316/msgs/819307.html