Anxiety , mood fluctuation , loss of motivation are part of the swings , twists and turns of normal life . And sometimes people need help . Being human isn ' t ( or shouldn ' t be ) a psychiatric illness . Labelling others as bipolar because they sometimes have emotional problems is like saying someone has ' gigantism ' or ' dwarfism ' because they ' re either a bit taller or shorter than the average height . We weren ' t put here on this earth to serve the monetary needs of pharmaceutical companies . So if you ' ve been told you are bipolar , are you really ?
Diagnoses as brands
Well you might be bipolar in the sense that you may now fit the new criteria . In the same way that if we were told the average IQ level was now 200 ( instead of 100 ) we might all then fit the criteria of being of below average intelligence . If we are told all men should be 7ft tall then perhaps most men can then start a course of growth hormone . Why not ? There ' d be money in it . If just about anything can be a symptom of just about anything then being told you have anything might mean just about nothing . Believe it or not that last sentence does make sense . " But look ! You fit the symptoms !" is no good if the ' symptoms ' have been engineered to capture a big share of the market . So if you have been told you are bipolar , the chances are that you aren ' t - not really . If you don ' t have a history of the kind of wild mania I was describing , hallucinations , and wildly fluctuating energy , bouncing between bodyparalyzing despair then back up to the heady mountain peaks of psychotic delusion , then what you have may be a healthy dose of the human condition . Period . In need of help perhaps , but not necessarily brain altering consumables taken with water once a day . There are other kinds of help that don ' t damage the brain . So what ' s the upshot of all this ?
Think Twice
Be sceptical , especially if someone is trying to ' sign you up ' and convince you to take medication long term . And while we ' re at it , when did doctors become drug dispensers above and beyond all else ? The ' first do no harm ' Hippocratic Oath lies in tatters as millions struggle with the injuries caused by the side effects of drugs that , in some cases , have not been shown to work . If you and all of us can ride out the current mania for calling every response to life ' s ebbs and flows ' a condition ' then we can all be better off in the long run .