Maybe you can, according to this study done at the University of Missouri.
By examining the results of two large national surveys, MU researchers found an “age gradient” in the prevalence of bipolar disorder, with part of the population appearing to outgrow the disorder. In the survey results, 5.5 to 6.2 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 24 suffer from bipolar disorder, but only about 3 percent of people older than 29 suffer from bipolar disorder.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090929141530.htm
I guess when I read this it says to me there is a question with the initial diagnosis being correct or not versus did they really outgrow it. However, the study suggests that the change in symptoms and diagnosis has more to do with the age at which one reaches full physiological brain development.
Researchers predict the prevalence of the disorder also could be affected by brain development, particularly the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex, the very front part of the brain, is thought to control perception, senses, personality and intelligence. In particular, it controls reactions to social situations, which can be a challenge for people with bipolar disorder.
“The maturing of the prefrontal cortex of the brain around 25 years of age could biologically explain the developmentally limited aspect of bipolar disorder,” Cicero said.
Interesting.
Makes you wonder if children diagnosed as bipolar could outgrow it as well then when their brain reaches full development.
I also wonder about the effect of hormones during the teen and young adult years and can’t help but think that has a significant impact as well. I know I personally was much more emotional and volatile as a teen and young adult (as I think most people are) and I am not bipolar. For me it was related to maturity (ie brain development), hormones, and life experience and reference points as far as what acquired problem solving skills or lack thereof I had at the time.
Anyway, something to keep in mind.
12 Comments
Very thought provoking.
We were involved in a research study out of the University of Colorado and Stanford that was finding much of the same thing. Many children grew up and no longer met criteria for bipolar.
Why? Not sure, but I know that diagnosing children with mental health issues is a tricky thing to do.
Well it’s pretty telling, considering the psych paradigm calls it a medical illness needing lifetime treatment, if that was the case, a person could not “out grow” an illness, ya know?
Blows holes in their belief system.
Adults who have been through the drugging of their “bipolar label” minds, mostly talk about tools learned in life to get them through, which can answer the question of “does bipolar burn out”? which many people used to call manic depression burning out in adults…it’s pretty much people figuring themselves out and coping with their moods, emotions and personality traits positively without crutches of any sort.
PS–those adults being off meds now successfully, and one of them is the Furious Seasons blog author, med free for over 2 years after an 18 year run on just about all psych meds….there are others in their 40’s and 50’s who tell the same tale, success off meds and a decade or 2 of lost years of their lives on meds.
“but I know that diagnosing children with mental health issues is a tricky thing to do”
No it’s not a tricky thing to do; it’s a dangerous, criminal, and abusive thing to do.
It’s pretty obvious by now for anyone that has been watching this phenomenon occur over the past couple of decades with any skeptical aptitude or questioning mind; that psychiatry and our society have been duped into believing in made up and created supposed diseases that do not exist and never have.
Has Manic/Depression aka bipolar been over diagnosed? Is Kermit green, the pope Irish, and the earth flat lol.. Do we really even have to ask this question at this juncture in the facade unveiling. Mental Illness and it’s all encompassing diagnostic gamesmanship has become a virtual cottage industry and a multi-billion dollar gold mind for marketing teams at huge pharmaceutical corporation that don’t give a flying duck about your health, as long as profits keep rolling in, and market share keeps increasing.
Of course with a society of suckers sitting on their couch reaching for easy fixes and pathetic excuses for every problem that comes along in life it’s easy pickings.
WC Fields had it nailed down when he said “a sucker comes along every minute”.
how do they know if the people just stopped getting treatment? i’ve heard that as people get older (meaning 50’s and 60’s) they don’t need the medication as much. i’m 28 and have been on lamictal for 6 years. i don’t feel like i’ve lost any of my life being on drugs. in fact, i think it saved my life. the 2 years where i was unstable without meds were the part of my life i lost. i am more myself now than ever before. meds get a bad rap when many times, they save people’s lives. people want to rant and rave about how bad they are, but there are people out there who’ve only just started their lives since being stable on meds.
Another example of “I can’t control my own life”, so I’ll go get this magical behavior pill and receive a nice label to go with it. Now you have a whole new identity and those emotions (feelings) that are muffled into a blissful state of placidity.
Oh yes, the radicalization of medicine constructed to include the entire human emotional condition. It really has become new religion of our time, and those believers don’t just stand by their pills, they go about proselytizing this ingrained marketing myth upon their children, and onto the whole world before them.
Doesn’t really matter that these pills are killing and maiming millions, destroying lives, tearing apart families, and work no better in than a placebo (nothing) in all reality; the religion of psychiatry/pharmacology is the chosen faith.
I’m sure those apostolic huge corporate drug makers making countless billions off users ignorance, will undoubtedly forgive your sins, and promise you ever lasting happiness until death do you part.
I glad you said “I think” it saved my life. In fact a mind altering drug does not save your life or anyone else; since at best it can only alter your brain chemistry and change your perceptions for either bad or good depending on how the pharmaceutical lotto balls fall.
Amazing that people are able to find “themselves” in a mind pill? So, I guess your saying before a mood stabilizer you were someone else entirely?
Don’t mean to pick on you personally, but I have heard this line a thousand times before, and it’s always great sounding until your pill stops working, or the side effects appear, some tragic life events stumbles in; then it’s back to the drug roller-coaster ride and the precarious search for self, looking everywhere but where it is, staring back at you in the mirror as it has always been.
J-Momma, not to pile on but I agree with Stan. I would have sworn the meds I was on were working. Once I started tapering due to horrific side effects, I realized how misguided I was as they destroyed my life.
I sincere hope you have a different outcome but please don’t be surprised if you see the light like I did. I hope I am wrong because I don’t want anyone to have to do through psych med withdrawal. But I fear I will be.
AA
Starting psych meds at age 22 and being 50 or so years old are 2 different lifetimes basically. Most people in their 20’s seek to “find themselves”, and clarity of mind usually happens as we age. What happens to many people on these drugs, is they become numb to their true self and feelings, and once off the meds is when they step back and say, “what the hell happened to that last 5 years?” etc.
There’s plenty of older people successfully living off meds and who have dumped their psych labels, look around the Internet.
What happens, is a person decides to take control of their life, and if meds are added at the same time as a plan of action, the person confuses pure self-determination to make it in life with medications….in fact, go off of the meds with the same determination to get your act together, and you’ll see even more clearly it was you not the meds influence who saw the light, but life is a learning lesson, and one has to learn by doing, experimenting, and trialing things. To each his own!
PS– I am referencing the commenter JMomma above with the age 22 start of psych meds, per their comment stating been on meds for 6 years…..
Stan–now I’m not trying to make you mad-but the current Pope is German!
I am only teasing and looking to lighten the atmosphere a little, so dont take offense, I implore you! As for your line of thinking, well, Stan, I think you are right not just on the mental health front, but as regards the pharmaceutical industry as a whole. Who the hell ever heard of “restless leg syndrome” before Big Pharma had a pill to sell for it??? And you know what ELSE I noticed? About 7-10 years ago, Tourette’s was the diagnosis du jour for whiny, annoying children in my area. Suddenly there were classrooms with 10-15 children diagnosed with ” mild Tourette’s” and medicated to the eyeballs, with everyone else having “ADHD” and doped for that!!
Here are two things that I know: Tourette’s and ADHD are real neurolgical disorders and they are rare. They do NOT occur in such large numbers in one school population, much less five school populations! I kid you not, I know one mother who would periodically take her children–and she had three that were supposed to have mild Tourette’s–off all medications, saying she ‘was not going to give her children all that poison shit” and within two weeks would put them all back on it. Why? She was honest enough to say they were “really whiny and annoying and I am just not willing to deal with it.” I am not kidding.
What I have often wondered, is what effect does early onset puberty have on all these behaviors that we see in 9, 10 and 12 year olds these days? Puberty messes up the developing brain in a big way, anyone who has ever had the pleasure of raising an adolescent has seen this firsthand. It takes time, but it is a natural maturation process and if you can keep them alive, most come out on the other end intact. But this is a process that USED to happen at 12, 13, 14. I am 48, and in my generation the average age of menarche(first period) was 14. Now the average is I believe, 11!! What happens to that developing brain when the onset of puberty occurs at 8 or 9? My point is, it is a waste of time to try and teach 3rd graders Algebra, their brains are not developmentally ready for such a skill and they will not absorb it. So what happens to the 8 or 9 year old brain if it is not developmentally and neurologically ready for puberty, but improved nutrition, and God knows what in the milk and water, lead to that immature brain receiving the pituitary stimulus and onslaught of hormone activity several years early? Is early onset puberty being misdiagnosed as early onset bipolar disorder? I wonder.
Onset of early puberty has been associated with hormones added to milk and cow feed, among other things, and of course psych meds screw up metabolic issues often permanently–Risperdal DOES increase lactation in men and women and the ‘manboob’ thing is all too real of a side effect of that drug; unless people stop interfering with their childrens bodies as they are growing, who the hell knows what chemicals will do what, and in the end the child STILL grows up, and how the outcome will be is a total crapshoot, in that regard. Knowing what I know now, and with all of the info out there today, someone drugging their child has literally lost all common sense, hell why stop drinking caffeine when pregnant? drugging the kids after they are born is the culprit now!
I know I am posting long after this discussion, but I have to put some light on this situation as a person living w bipolar. It is a real disorder for some ppl. Yes, I agree some ppl look for these excuses but if my parents had known about this when I was little I think we would of had a much much better relationship growing up. Not necessarily doping me up but different calming exercises and such. I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 19, I am now almost 28. I have gone off my meds (lithium) several times in those 9 years and let me tell you, each time was worse. I believe now I have a balance but still need some meds (extremely small dose) to help keep it in line. Do you understand how hard it is for someone to just wake up one day and cry for 4-8 hours and have no idea why you are or why you cant make it stop? Or maybe when one can go a whole week or 2 on maybe 3 hours of sleep per night and then at the end of the weeks you have to sleep for 14 hours and are horribly depressed for a day or two. I agree I hate taking meds or depending on something, but what do you do when you are always up, then down, and co workers, family members, bosses, customers, all kinds of ppl in your life have commented on your up and down mood all the time? I’m not saying mask your problems, I’m saying there are alternative methods of dealing and safe meds for this disorder. And in my experience it does get easier to control as you get older.
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