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Possible bipolar 2 diagnosis

wendyks profile image
13 Replies

I’m sad to share that my 15 year old is currently hospitalized. We were thinking it was depression, but the psychiatrist (who has seen her one time) feels it’s bipolar 2. My daughter has also suspected she has bipolar disorder and mentioned it a couple months or so ago. I’ve since learned more about bipolar 2, and I get that the mania is not full blown. I think it’s possible...but I’m not totally sure and am so worried about starting on a mood stabilizer. When looking at a diagnosis, how can we really distinguish between the impulsivity of hypomania from the impulsivity due to suffering a serious depression...the risky behavior of a typical teen...her own labile personality since toddlerhood, or the impulsivity that comes from adhd? Also, anything else you have to share about bipolar 2 would be greatly appreciated- meds, diagnosis stories, other advice, anything!! Trying to make sense of it all. Thanks so much!

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wendyks profile image
wendyks
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13 Replies
Onthemove1971 profile image
Onthemove1971

So glad you reached out to us.. while I have limited experience with bipolar. I just want you to feel the love and support from this community.. big hugs.

Our son has a chronic illness so we struggle with this in addition to his ADHD. We try to enjoy all of the positive moments and know, when it is bad It will get good again.

Please try not to be afraid of any medication. If you are working with a good psychiatrist they should guide you on the right path. Once she is better and medication is stable, hope life gets better for everyone.

Hugs for your struggles, we are always here for you.

Take care,

wendyks profile image
wendyks in reply to Onthemove1971

Thank you for your encouragement. Yes it’s crazy how different life is today from just a few days ago when the crisis began. And in this time, her psychiatrist (who is new by about 3 weeks) has proven to be amazing so...

SuzetteIClarke profile image
SuzetteIClarke

I am sorry to hear your daughter is experiencing this pain. I can speak from personal experience as was diagnosed with bi polar 2 just last year. I am in my 50s and had no mental health issues whatsoever until it was induced by a steroid injection. It was a painful process until I was fortunate enough to be referred to one of the top authorities in the United States. He explained that while there are many drugs on the market, many of them well marketed to doctors, the gold standard for bi polar is lithium. Lithium is actually produced by the body itself, occurs naturally in nature, is on the periodic table. In fact he explained that there are studies that show that in areas that have naturally higher occurring levels in the water, there are lower rates of depression in the population.

I started taking lithium about a year ago and it has been a godsend. It took about 2 weeks to start to lift me from a depressive episode that had lasted months. The doctor explained that people normally come in for the depression not the manic episodes.

I feel like myself again. Completely well.

I know of two other friends who after long journeys on other meds with their teens, ended up finding simple lithium was the answer.

You may find reading the journalist Jane Pauli’s account of her own journey with bi polar helpful.

I understand that it can be hard to co sister medication, especially when it comes to a child. In the ideal world I wouldn’t have to take medication but having bi polar, and not taking medication would be like having diabetes and not taking insulin. If you are unsure of the diagnosis, it might be worth for your own peace of mind, getting a second opinion. But rest assured this is a well known illness with excellent, long term studies of the safety of the meds available. I hope this is in some way useful and I wish you and your family all the best

wendyks profile image
wendyks in reply to SuzetteIClarke

Yes very helpful. Thanks for sharing your story, other resources and encouragement! It is a scary thing but you’re right- it’s treating an illness like any other illness.

anirush profile image
anirush

Both of my grandsons are probably bipolar as are their parents. Depression is scary. My daughter's bipolar was mostly depression, not much mania. She is in her thirties right now and pretty stable except for her anxiety. High school and late teens were awful with mood swings and lots of withdrawal from life. Bio dad never on medication and mostly lives on the streets.

My oldest grandson, 15, had depression in his early teens, hardly ever smiled, lost interest in things. He is on a cocktail of Intuniv, Welbutrin and Quetiapine. He is doing well in school and mostly fun to be around. It has been a long road finding the right med combo for him. Still working on the 14 year old's stability.

wendyks profile image
wendyks in reply to anirush

Thanks for sharing. So glad grandson is stable and hoping the other is getting there! We do wonder what Impact adolescence Has on this with hormones and all.

anirush profile image
anirush

Lots! Especially with girls. My daughter went into a funk at that time of month every month.

wendyks profile image
wendyks

Interesting. This crisis did happen at that time as well. Something to track!

SuzetteIClarke profile image
SuzetteIClarke in reply to wendyks

Just to mention that bi polar is thought to be linked to reproductive hormones in both women and men - which is why it is often triggered at adolescence or after childbirth. There is quite a bit of academic literature on the subject available.

penn_adhd profile image
penn_adhd

I'm glad that you're seeking treatment for her. The following is just my experience and not meant to scare you or say that this will happen to her. I have had friends who were bipolar and treated and I would have never known if they hadn't told me. One friend would get depressed, but I never saw anything that made me think bipolar or anything else. The two I'm thinking of we just lost touch after college.

I have also had a coworker who would get quite angry and once was literally foaming at the mouth and they called an ambulance on her when she'd gone off her bipolar meds (I worked for a hospital system at the time). I have a family member on my spouse's side that has bipolar schizophrenia and is left untreated for the most part. They've just enabled it for decades (oh that's just her, etc) and threatened to sue me when I tried to get her admitted for evaluation/diagnosis. In PA you have to physically harm someone to be admitted if a doctor or relative (spouse?) won't admit you even if you make threats. She finally was admitted for a week a few years ago when she attacked someone. She's mostly seasonal (worse in winter) and things I've seen or heard about when she's "off again" (their words for manic) is out swimming in the rain, thinking someone was out to poison her so had to wash every dish, telling someone she was a tree, flashing people and asking if she looks sexy, disappearing for hours at night and coming back covered in bruises saying she was just out in the mountains looking at the stars, etc. She can also be excitable and tends to repeat things others said or what she's saying over and over to the point that what could have been a 5 minute phone conversation is more like 30-60 minutes.

wendyks profile image
wendyks

Sounds like a really wide range of how it presents itself, and also a range of how people do according to treatment.

TMeeps02 profile image
TMeeps02

I've asked my own therapist before (I'm not Bipolar but have wondered about relatives) what the key usually is to noticing the difference between Bipolar and ADHD, especially ADHD with Major or chronic Depression.

She responded "sleep disturbances." Meaning, you have sleep disturbances with all of them but with bipolar the character and arch both look different.

You need medication on Bipolar. You need it for severe depression. The problem is that medications that work for severe depression often make Bipolar worse. A less acute but no less important problem is that treatment of all of the conditions you named are different because they're different conditions, not better or worse on a scale -- just different from one another.

I'd make your questions known to the psychiatrist, who might be very happy to elaborate and give direct feedback based on direct observation of many other people and your daughter specifically, but, in reality, if it were me, I would worry more about her actually being Bipolar and giving her insufficient treatment. The brain is still growing. Like other posters have said, it's about missing chemicals the body should be making. Also, like the others, I can say I've known some BP individuals that have attempted life without treatment and they often begin to fall into such unhealthy patterns that they eventually give themselves other problems which weren't inevitable.

Additionally, that she's in the hospital might be a benefit to the situation right now and not a tragedy. She can be monitored by trained individuals in order to get a fully informed diagnosis. In many cases of miss-medication, this isn't where people are coming from. I'm not pretending to think all inpatient programs are the same, infallible, or operate without struggle, but, when people experience misdiagnosis, it's not usually because they were observed for days prior to being sent home with a prescription. Open up to the doctor, let the hospital do their work, then see where everyone is.

wendyks profile image
wendyks in reply to TMeeps02

Thanks for sharing this. I also see how it’s particularly worrisome to misdiagnose this is even think it’s temporary. One thing she’s been doing is using a lot of drugs. It’s a real mess and another real mess has been navigating insurance and everyone in mental healths busy schedules. That part is a total mess. But I digress. Thanks for your thoughts. They make a lot of sense.

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