I have some experience with bipolar and I think it was perfectly correct and fine - I’m reading that she was reacting to the diagnosis - and it is true, a diagnosis is “just a label” - if you find a lump in your breast and it turns out to be cancer, it doesn’t mean you didn’t have cancer before the lab got back to you with the biopsy results. It DOES change your perception of the thing, but the thing itself didn’t change. For some people that clicks and is a helpful thought. For others, not so helpful, but you never know what is going to create an “aha!” moment for someone else.
Q.N. I think the problem is that you are calling people’s assumptions wrong - your assumptions about the situation are no more or less valid than anyone elses, and your experience with bipolar is yours, not hers, or mine.
I didn’t make assumptions, I said, “I wonder”. And I do, based on my experience with people with bipolar and without, and the way some (not all) people excuse and explain all behavior through the lens of their mental illness. I’ve got one bipolar friend who is lazy as sin, and yet when she can’t complete a class or a task at work, she goes into a “poor me, I’m bipolar it’s not my fault!” act and all is forgiven. She’s not alone in that - my mother blames every hard thing in her life on her depression, and I used to do the same thing until I got over it.
You’re perfectly correct to say, “no, that’s actually not the case with me” and I’ll believe you (why wouldn’t I?) But to get hostile because someone else *wonders *is a bit off.
Post #12? You found THAT hostile? Well, OK, if you say so…
Sorry, I never said that - I did say over time we all undergo changes but that’s not “just” aging, that’s because Life Happens, which I thought I clarified in subsequent posts. Maybe someone else said it and I missed it.
I’m not upset - I’m a little puzzled at to why YOU are upset but if you say you find something offensive I won’t question that, I’m just trying to understand WHY find it offensive. So far all I’ve gotten is that the incongruity between the perception by others that there is no or minimal changes vs. your internal perceptions of great change or instability is the problem.
You were essentially asking, “Gee, did you consider that people usually change between the ages of 23 and 30?”
Well, in my view, any idiot knows that’s true and takes it into account. It’s like 2+2=4. By suggesting I had not done so, I felt you were strongly insulting my intelligence (and questioning the veracity of my statement). I felt the question as asked built in the default assumption that I am an idiot who would not consider this.
Because I hate getting into pissing matches on this board, I asked someone in my office (who also has bipolar disorder) if they found your “wondering” insulting. Just to get a check on whether I was overreacting. She felt there was no question about it, you were being insulting.
Perhaps we are too sensitive. Certainly I have found that people no longer take me as seriously and/or question my intelligence since my diagnosis. Or, worse, we get into the habit of trying to figure out if everyone is talking down to us or dismissing us. (No, not speaking for ALL bipolar people here, just me and some friends.)
I would have responded a lot better if you had asked what changes I experienced, so you could judge for yourself whether they were the result of normal maturation or not, rather than going in with the default assumption that I probably hadn’t considered such a simple and commonplace factor.
I’m really getting tired of hijacking Phlosphr’s thread. Bottom line: he asked for opinions/experiences from others. I said what he did would have been bad from my point of view. People have subsequently jumped all over my statements, as if it were possible to deconstruct my life and opinions and prove me wrong on what is essentially an opinion/personal experience question. I felt like you and WhyNot have been trying to argue me into saying what I felt/experienced didn’t really happen, or that I’m wrong to feel that way, or that I probably haven’t considered everything I should consider before forming my own opinions, or whatever. It seems really bizarre, given that this is an opinion thread. Now, if it were “Ask the Bipolar Person,” I would likely not feel so attacked.
I am also frankly confused why people who are not bipolar and claim not to know much about bipolar disorder have come into this thread to try to fight with me over my own feelings on the issue. Truly strange.
You may not have used the word “all,” but you sure as heck sounded like you believed yourself to be speaking for most, if not all, of the bi-polar community. You also, frankly, sounded arrogant as all get-out. Your post seemed to me to have been the first hostile post in this thread, and ISTM that the rest have been defending themselves from what they perceived as an attack from you. Given your current bewilderment, apparently you did not intend to be hostile in your original post, but I certainly got the sense that you were slapping people down, and I think based on the responses you’ve gotten that most other people did too.
I wish my ex-BIL would become a different person due to meds because he’s a real prick as a diagnosed bi-polar who refuses to take medication. I think it may depend on how long the person has been bi-polar. If they’ve been going through life this way for many years (which happens frequently), I think yes, she will be very different from the person you’ve known. If this is an early diagnosis, many people may not see that she’s “a different person.”
Will her “core” change? I’ve never seen that happen, but the person who presents daily should, and probably will, change. And I would think it would be for the better.
I speak based on my experience (detailed above). Yes, I know a lot of bipolar people and can say that it is a common feeling many bipolar people experience. I used the word “commonly.” If you choose to incorrectly interpret this as “all,” I can’t do anything about that. If it sounds arrogant to you to speak from my experiences, both personal and professional, I can’t do anything about that either.
No one here (to my knowledge) has any problem with your speaking from your own experience. The problem was simply the choice of words with which you expressed that did not make it clear to a lot of us that that’s what you meant. It came across to me, and apparently to a number of others, as “I have bi-polar, therefore I know what such a person would feel like in that situation and <above all here> the rest of you are patronizing asshats for daring to say that kind of thing to a bi-polar person.” I understand that you are now saying that that is not what you meant. But it is not merely my interpretation, judging by the other responses you have gotten, so you may, as a psychologist, want to question the way you were presenting an opposing view.
And, fwiw, I am the only person to have made even a snarky comment, let alone hostile, in return. No one else has been hostile; they have simply questioned or disagreed, at least in my judgment. Again, obviously YMMV.
I want to be clear that I am not a psychologist and do not claim to be one. I have a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and some graduate work in psychology, but not enough to qualify as a psychologist.
Sorry, I misunderstood. I have a BA in psych too, btw. Didn’t get in to grad school though, even though I graduated 3rd out of a class of 12000+ and had 780s and 790s on my GREs.
Whoa, I leave for a couple hours to do some work and all heck breaks loose.
Look, I work for an large environmental advocacy firm - we do national and state campaigns for green living, sustainable lifestyles etc…etc…I’m trying to say we are all a bunch of dirt worshipping tree huggers. What I said to Sarah was in strict confidence and she and I have known each other professionally for some years…I’m a sounding board for her when she needs it and I just happen to be her boss, and in all respects we are friends.
I use the SDMB as a sounding board for me, I bring up things here virtually that I could not and would not bring up professionally and sometimes even socially. I’ve been coming around here 7 years [wow] and it’s never really let me down in terms of responses I am looking for.
That being said, I respect Q.N. Jones and her ideas, that’s why I wrote the post to get a good spherical view of what people think…I hope Sarah excels from her current spot into a spot where she is personally comfortable, I told her my views about what she was telling me so I could reassure her I was on her side and will accomodate whatever she needs.
I was simply wondering if people thought what I said was accurate and respectful given the situation. I think from what I’ve read that it was. I’m no slouch when it comes to reading people, and if I didn’t know Sarah, I’d not have been so frank with her.
I’ve started and stopped this post about 10 times now and still can’t clearly say what I want to. The gist is that to be told something like what you told Sarah would have been hugely comforting to me personally. I have mental and physical issues that I know could affect my working life (and have in the past) and to be reassured by my boss that they didn’t view me differently just because I had professional confirmation of those issues would be wonderful.
That’s cool. If your relationship with her is more personal, then IMHO, your remarks are more appropriate. Obviously, since you reported that they seemed to help her, that’s a good thing too.
I think a big part of the problem here (from my perspective) was that I did not expect anyone except for you to reply to my remarks, since it was ostensibly just you looking for opinions on a specific situation. I’m sorry your thread ended up trainwrecked.
Of course you’re the same person fundamentally, but having a diagnosis does change one’s perception of oneself and it also changes other people’s perceptions. It sounds like she was afraid that her diagnosis would change your perception of her, and in that regard the reassurance you gave her was extremely compassionate.
Phlosphr, I thought what you said was excellent, because it conveyed your acceptance of her just as she is, with or without the mental illness label.
Being ‘‘diagnosed’’ can change things for the better or the worse. On one hand, it can be nice to know there are other people out there going through the same thing you are. On the other hand, it can become incredibly easy to completely and totally self-identify with the diagnosis to the exclusion of all other components of your personality. What you did was right, because you reinforced the fact that she is a whole person, not just a label.
I would consider myself lucky to have a friend like you.
