Thank you very much for your article in regards to the validity of Bi-polar Disorder. my mother claimed to have that and other mental disorders to qualify for SSDI. Of course she had physicians who were all to eager to verify her “self diagnosis”. They saw a cash cow and I suppose so did she on a lesser scale. She was physically, mentally and verbally abusive to my brothers and me. Every time she would abuse us it was always because she had a “mental illness”. We were just supposed to forgive her and move on. I hate her, I hated her then and I hate her now. She stole my childhood and my brothers childhood away from us. I knew there wasn’t anything wrong with her other than the fact she was an angry person who wanted constant sympathy from others and saw my brothers and me as weapons of mass destruction for our father. I wondered why she had children in the first place if she didn’t like children. However, I digress. The main reason I agree with your article is that she not only wanted mental illness for herself she had my brothers and me diagnosed with mental disorders. Her diagnosis for me was ADHD. Honestly, I never felt that there was anything wrong with me. So she took me from one doctor to another until she found one that would diagnose me with ADHD and prescribe me Ritalin. I hated it. I felt no emotions at all when I took it. No anger but also no joy, No sadness but also no happiness. I felt like a zombie on the inside. It also caused me to have serious sleep disturbances and horrific nightmares. It was supposed to be given to me twice a day during the school year only. However she had me on it three times a day all year long for 7 years and the only thing I got out of it was a physical addiction. I have four children of my own now and withdrawing from that addiction was more physically painful than giving birth to four 10 pound babies combined. I refuse to go to doctors unless very ill or injured and don’t take any prescriptions other than Synthroid for low thyroid hormones. I think another issue with all these “mental Illness” classifications is being used to abuse children through the use of physicians. It is deplorable!
Thank you for your time.
A Reader