It has recently come to my attention that children as young as 2 1/2 years old are being diagnosed as bipolar. I did not know this until I joined Daily Strength bipolar support group. I don’t have children, so I don’t keep up in that realm.

I am sickened by the fact that the bipolar diagnosis is on the major rise in children under 16. There are very clear situations where the diagnosis is appropriate. But in most cases, I honestly believe it is a behavioral problem. Either the child needs therapy, needs to fucking play outside, or the parents need better parenting skills.

Back in March, a little girl of four died from an overdose of Bipolar and ADHD medications. She was diagnosed bipolar and ADHD at 2 1/2 years old. You can read the article here.

Obviously, this is an extreme case. But it is indicative of the child-bearing generation to have their children diagnosed to fit into a little box and behave a particular way.

Think on this: One time, an ex-boyfriend of mine told me to think about ADHD and children. He said, “Bitch, how long does a show go on before a commercial break? Ten minutes or so?” Of course, I said “Yeah, sounds about right.”

He said, okay, “What’s the average attention span of a child that gets diagnosed ADHD?” I said, “I don’t know. I don’t have kids. Maybe five minutes or so?”

He said, “Do you see a correlation between the amount of time the TV trains us to pay attention and the amount of time a child can maintain attention? Also, remember that there is more action per frame in movies (at 24 frames per second) than there ever was in history.”

I think he was onto something. I am not saying that ADHD doesn’t exist; I just believe it’s not NEAR as prevalent as doctors are diagnosing. Children need to play. They need to go outside. They need to build forts, and they need to be creative.

The constant, non-stop action in the video games that they play, the commercial breaks every eight to ten minutes, and the unexpended energy that our children possess really play into these diagnoses.

I live in Dallas. Try to find one kid that goes outside and plays. Nada. Not one. They are all inside playing WoW or Wii or something. Or they are so structured that they go to school, go to soccer practice, go to piano lessons, eat dinner, do some more lessons, finally do their homework and then get to bed and get five hours of sleep.

Please. Can we let our children play again? I mean, play FOR FUN?

Yesterday, I showered for the first time in a few days, which was good.  The dogs wouldn’t come near me.  I also did my hair. That’s a big deal.  I haven’t done my hair since before I went into the hospital this last time.  My psychiatrist (whom I saw yesterday) did not understand what it means to “do my hair”.  I found that kinda funny.  He said, “you didn’t wash your hair in the hospital?”  So I had to explain to the 50-ish year-old guy, who apparently hasn’t been around women too much that “no, I washed it, I just didn’t do it, meaning, I didn’t blow it dry or curl it.  See, it’s curled.”  He looked at my hair and went “oh.”

Sometimes I wonder about that man, but he’s a good doc.  He said that the reason that I am so emotional right now, and having so many ups and downs is because I am still titrating back up on my Lamictal.  The good news is that we don’t have to take the whole 5 weeks just to get to 100 mg, since I was only off the medication for six days.  Lamictal sucks when you have to “get up to speed” on it.  It takes five weeks to get to 100 mg.  Most people take about 200 mg.  I take 400 mg as my therapeutic strength.

So, today, I finally am getting my schedule back in order.  I went to bed at 9:30 p.m., but still couldn’t sleep until about 11 p.m.  I woke up at 7 a.m.  Still, not where I want to be, but much better than before.  I was sleeping 11-13 hours a night, and now I am back to 8 hours a night.  I am very anal about my schedule.  I am usually asleep around 9:30 p.m. and up around 5:30 a.m.  So I am getting a lot better.

Also, yesterday, I didn’t have any mixed episodic-type things going on.  That’s the first since I got out of the hospital (or even before I went into the hospital).  Yesterday, I was just mildly depressed.

I got my books on DBT, and started reading them.  I started the exercises in one of the book, and re-read the stuff on mindfulness (or at least, started) in the other book.  Very good stuff, even though it’s for people with Borderline Personality Disorder.  DBT should be mandatory for all bipolars, since it deals with emotional extremes.  I will do a write up on the books later.

This morning, I got up and did my face routine without any issues.  I didn’t have to push myself.  That’s good.  I put on deoderant (and I hate to say it, but that’s a big deal even from weeks and weeks before I went into the hospital), and I plan to go to Walgreens and the grocery store today, and work on my backlog of job listings that I get via email.

Well, that’s all I have for now.

I found a great new support site this week called Daily Strength.  There are literally hundreds of support groups on this site, and they have several bipolar support groups as well.  I participate in the following groups:

Bipolar Disorder

Bipolars Help One Another

Bipolars with Experience, Empathy and Enthusiasm

The latter two are what are called “user support groups”, meaning, they were created by users.  The first one is the main bipolar support group created and maintained by Daily Strength.

It’s a really cool site because you create a profile, can set goals, you have a journal, you can chat with folks, and there are discussion boards with various categories.  I have found a lot of support and great people out there, and many have a great sense of humor.

There are tons of different support groups for physical illnesses, or just about anything you can think of.  Take a looksee.  It’s a great site.

I will be adding resources on the site soon like recommended reading, videos, other sites, etc very soon, so please check back!

Welcome to Bipolar Bitch. This purpose of this site is to share information, gripes, bitches and stories about bipolar disorder. My intent is to make it fun and lighthearted, but there will be times when I will provide serious informational content as well.