Quote Mintball="Mintball"That is an excellent example. And also one that, in all probability, had been around for rather longer than it's easy to imagine given that it was only the 1980s when it was identified and named.
In the interests of being as balanced as possible, there are serious questions over some 'conditions', which may have had to be invented by the pharmaceutical industry for various reasons. A specific case, and very recent, is that of a low female sex drive. Big pharm realised it had the research to make a drug for this – so it then had to create a need. The likes of Dr Malcolm Kendrick also question when cholesterol became a disease and why, on a very similar basic.
But there's literature out there about exactly those issues. I not personally ever seen anything that disputes the very real existence of bi-polar.
Having said that, it is quite fashionable (?) to doubt some conditions (struggling to find the correct word here), particularly in terms of those that affect children and their behaviour – ADDT and similar ones. And it's only really relatively recently that people accepted that dyslexia was a genuine condition and not a put on or an excuse.
So to be fair to Toast, I don't think he's alone in perhaps assuming that something is not genuine, simply because diagnosis is new. But so much understanding, diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues is new and ongoing.'"
Excellent post. I have no doubt that there are many conditions which could effectively be rolled into one, or that there are conditions which are banded around to explain things such as uruly behaviour in children. I fully understand peoples scepticism of bi polar, and to be honest, until I had experienced my partners episodes I would count myself among them. One thing I would never do though, is be an arrogant, ignorant ar$e wipe about it. I could quite esily say that tourettes is a made up afflication by people who like to swear a lot, but having seen the detrimental impact it has on peoples lives, I wouldnt dare.
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