Posted on 03/06/2010 6:41:41 PM PST by j_marie
On March 4, 2010, John Bendell shot two police officers at the entrance to the Pentagon. He and I have a feared and very personal trait in common.
Like me - and 5.7 million other Americans - Mr. Bendell had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. However, unlike Mr. Bendell, most of those 5.7 million and I have never committed a crime and are not violent.
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Every bi-polar I know is violent without their meds.
Obama is bipolarizing the whole country.
That’s not typical. For bipolar, at least. It may be typical for psychotic or schizophrenic.
They can often be confused.
Likewise. It also seems to be part of the disorder that they think they are “cured” when the meds are working, so they stop taking them...
They just don’t have a grip on reality.
This can lead to any number of bad behaviors, including violence.
Hmm, now that you mention it, every bipolar I’ve known has also been schizophrenic and/or psychotic when off their meds. And sadly for one, they never could get the set of meds balanced properly. She ended up committed for years before passing. It was a nightmare.
Don’t most bipolar episodes end in less time than it takes to drive cross country in a premeditated attack on the Pentagon after posting about it? And if it re-activated, wouldn’t it likely focus on something else?
I have not followed this story with great detail, but I had guessed he made the posting from somewhere in DC, so that would be a lot closer to the event.
My son when 20 years old, married a bi-polar girl, not knowing what his future would hold. At two kids the ‘state’ took custody of the kids. The social workers, bashed the paternal grandparents who tried to help out and foster care. The god-like control of the ‘state’ has polarized us and created a hatred of government never experienced before in our lives.
At three kids, with number four on the way, the state will have no part of biological family help and continues to demonstrate that the state cannot solve the problem as their lock on the family is going into year number three. The expect to force the bipolar mother to care for her kids, in the absence of the father, without family help.
She disabled from many perspectives but the main push is punitive toward the father and grandfather. Feminists at work too.
I understand he was a heavy pot user and probably thus kept fueling his paranoia.
Of course drugs are a victimless crime /s
I agree. Being bi-polar does not cause this violence; however, paranoid psychotic or schizphenric could contribute.
People are so loose with the labels.
“Obama is bipolarizing the whole country.”
And some are getting to be manic, about that.
But for me, it is all very depressing.
SSRIs kill !
Psychosis can occur as part of bipolar illness. However, I don’t know the specifics of this case.
No.
In my experience (two bipolar family members), episodes tend to increase in severity and length as time progresses, especially when left untreated. This is not something that just goes away on its own after fully established.
The ironic and tragic part of bipolar disorder is that the seriously ill can feel very well at the height of a manic episode. They don’t think they need meds, they think they know everything, they may show psychotic, paranoid, or schizophrenic symptoms, and they function with a hair-trigger temper that can be very dangerous.
Worse yet, there’s not much that can be done until they break a law. To get a disturbed one off the street, a judge must rule that he’s a danger to himself or others, and that’s very, very hard to prove until he’s done something actionable.
Moreover, once taken off the street and hospitalized, the state cannot keep the patient locked up once he’s back on his meds and stabilized. So he’s let back out, doesn’t like the reality and sluggishness that the meds induce, and quits taking them. And the cycle begins again . . .
In a word, no.
There is a type of bipolar disorder that involves paranoid and schizophrenic symptoms.
My brother-in-law has had it for years, claims government agents are after him and satellites are shooting him, just flat-out nuts when he’s off his meds. But bipolar medication works its charm and brings him back to reality — as long as he will take it.
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