squish7.com /psych ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY Stuff on this page - Find a doctor/therapist in the USA.  click here for a North of Boston list. - Chart / description of key subtle differences between ADD, Bipolar, Schizo; self-diagnosing - ADD, Bipolar, Schizophrenia: Life as a mutant; illegal defamation of our "disorders" - Doctor/Patient relationship: Being Half the Doctor; legal and moral rights Internal Linx: ADD . Brain Philosophy . Biposkitzoauttenia EMAIL: change to proper spelling -- sqkqquish@skqkuuisih7.com If you're ever suicidal, remember that life can suck, but the men in white coats go to the ends of earth to keep you grounded on this stupid planet, so it's not worth bothering. Just stick around, life's fun at least half the time (bipolars know this). More importantly, you're gonna face the exact same ugly problems and depressions in any life anyway. "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life." - Hamlet I've compiled a thorough list of therapists and doctors for the Department of Mental Health in my area which they often distribute.  For North of Boston, click here.  If you have a list of doctors / therapists in your area you'd like to post or work or visit a DMH in your area, please email me your list.  You can check out other lists below. USA THERAPIST/DOCTOR FINDER SITES www.citysearch.com - Search for psychiatrists, psychologists, or psychotherapists near city/town; some ratings - Do not search for therapists, this will bring up mostly physical therapy www.insiderpages.com - Search for psychiatrists, psychologists, or psychotherapists near city/town, some ratings - Do not search for therapists, this will bring up mostly physical therapy www.wellness.com/find/Mental%20Health - Find social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists/therapists, etc, in any given state and city Healthgrades.com - physician search - Search physicians (including psychiatrists) within distance of state/city (includes automatic map for locations; can sort results by nearest) www.steadyhealth.com/find_doctor/psychiatry - Quick list of most psychiatrists in a given city therapists.psychologytoday.com - Find therapists, etc by city/zip CHART / SUMMARY OF KEY ATTRIBUTES OF ADD, BIPOLAR, SCHIZOPHRENIA Use this ADD / bipolar / schizo symptom list/chart to self-diagnose yourself or distinguish between the three.  Much misdiagnosis occurs because symptoms can be similar.  These are mostly textbook symptoms but a little is my personal interpretation via my experience with all three (I basically have all three).  My more in-depth description of their intertwining follows.

	ADD/ADHD	Bipolar	Schizophrenia
Percent of Population Affected	5%	2.5%	1%
When it starts	Must have from six/seven years old.  Look for comments on old report cards, or describe ADD to your parents and ask if they sound familiar.	May have from birth, or more often develops in the teens or twenties.  The earlier it develops, the harder it is to tell the bipolar from any ADD.	May have from birth, may develop later.
General effects	affects logical thoughts; train of thought; affects attention & organization.  no major emotional effect.  ADD is extremely stable, always there 24/7, whether its effects are noticed or not.	affects feelings and moods; highs, lows; emotional states; these can be regular, or can; come and go sporadically.	affects perception of reality. realities can be stable, or can shift.
"Symptoms"	unfocused, hyperactive (ADHD), impulsive, disorganized; very creative	depression; mania: euphoria, anger, passion, racing thoughts, cutting, sleeplessness; sometimes, psychotic/schizophrenic symtpoms as well (to the right).	psychotic, hallucinate, hear voices, have "delusions", and can be homicidal/suicidal
Lack of Focus	mind wanders, thoughts wander/drift, often quickly; second to second; or long-term project to some other long-term project, etc	the emotions wander around, drift, change, day to day, month to month, etc	drifts/wanders from one reality to another
Impulsivity	thoughts and hence actions can be impulsive; suddenly reading/writing another book	can be emotionally impulsive; sudden passion for reading/writing another book	N/A?
Focus on tasks	disorganized, mentally focusing on tasks difficult, chronically late; can affect job/school but usually not detrimental	can be too depressed to bother with tasks, or too manic to deal with them; can make work/school difficult	hard to deal with tasks that require grounding in our standard reality; 5% of schizophrenics can work
Over-focus	can hyperfocus on a task	can be overpassionate about project	can be focused on a particular reality
Creativity	creative; thoughts and ideas flow to different possiblities.  this type of creativity is stable, always there, like always being a pianest	emotionally-charged and sometimes sporadic and temporary creativity or passion for a project. Sometimes delusional about the project's worth, at least relative to our common reality.	N/A?
Treatment	stimulants or similar.  Ritalin, Adderall, Straterra, Wellbutrin...	mood stabalizers / antipsychotics -- Depakote, Lithium, Clozeril, Abilify, Seroquel, Geodon, Lamictal, Zyprexa, Risperdal... and anti-depressants: Wellbutrin, Prozac, Paxil...	antipsychotics; Zyprexa, Clozeril, Abilify, Seroquel, Geodon, Risperdal...

ADD, BIPOLAR, AND SCHIZOPHRENIA: KEY DIFFERENCES / DISTINCTIONS [see chart above] ADD/ADHD, bipolar, and schizophrenia, are very intertwined, overlapping, and quite often misdiagnosed or. mistreated, one taken for the other, or become even more difficult if you in fact have two or all three.  Not only does a doctor have to decide which is the problem, they have to decide if two or more are present at the same time.  This can be difficult, but I think I've become a mild expert on it, and have a lot to explain about them and the differences.  You see my mind is disturbingly eclectic; I quite definitely have ADD and schizoaffective (elements of both bipolar and schizophrenia), and have experienced almost every textbook symptom of all three, which is more rare than having one or the other, so psychiatry hasn't had a ton of people to study, and has a ton of progress to make understanding their connections. Note I'm not just drawing on my personal experiences, but on knowing many other ADDers, bipolars, and schizophrenics I know well or have met, in real life or online, and lots of other tales I've heard of other people. Let's start with the ratios.  ADDers are 5% of the population, bipolars 2.5%, schizophrenics about 1%.  So if you can't figure whether your schizo or ADD, consider you're five times more likely to be ADD.  Also, if the disorders or brain chemicals are totally independent of eachother, i.e. no predisposition of having another if you have one (which is very doubtful), then an ADD/bipolar is one in 800 people (5% X 2.5%), ADD/schizo one in two thousand, bipolar/schizo one in four thousand, a a full ADD/bipolar/schizo one in 80,000 people.  These numbers are much larger if having one gives you a predisposition toward having another.  The "symptoms" cross over somewhat, so perhaps so do the chemicals.  If, say, half of ADDers get bipolar, then an ADD/bipolar is one in forty instead of one in 800 (5% X 50%). As for ADD/bipolar, I've learned the absolute key distinction to tell them apart is that you absolutely must have had ADD from a very young age, say six or seven, whether or not it's been bad enough to be noticed; chemically, it must have been be there early if you have it at all, while bipolar can be genetically dormant then hit in the teens or twenties.  In this case you're lucky the later bipolar develops, cause you have more experience telling the symptoms of one before the other, so it's easier to tell them apart once both are present.  Schizophrenia can be seen early or later in life, and as far as I know is not heavily linked to ADD, but schizophrenia does overlap with bipolar.  We might say a bipolar's emotions wander around the way an ADD's mind does, as does a psychotic's perception of reality drifting long-term to other places. As to symptoms, I've learned ADD affects logic and thoughts of the mind, with zero effect on emotion; really, zero, let me explain.  Emotions might be associated with the situation, but not actually changed.  One might get disapointed or excited at some of ADD's effects or benefits, but ADD is not actually chemically shifting any of those emotions.  You might think your hyperactive kid is emotional, but really, he's having the same amount of fun banging Susan with a stick or scribbling on a paper during Ms. Peterson's English class as he would be if he were doing those things at the proper playtime.  It's just causing trouble because he's having his fun when others are sitting still.  An ADDer playing the piano, improvving with a dizzy fast melody spiraling quickly all around, is exactly as emotional as someone reading a slow, steady, melody.  A fly vs a slug.  [See chart above for specific list of "symptoms"] In contrast, bipolar is defined by the abnormal shifting of emotion.  A bipolar will be more happy playing one melody than another.  If your kid is really really enjoying banging Susan with a stick more than he normally would, or gets extremely depressed at his punishment, then these could be bipolar signs.  And schizophrenia deals with neither thought focus nor mood; it's function is to shift the subject's perception of reality to different areas.  These are three very different functions but can often overlap.  Also, the symptoms of ADD and schizophrenia are more constant, always there 24/7, while the effects of bipolar shift around, come and go. As for ADD/bipolar overlaps, the key overlap is the wandering mind of the ADDer versus the emotionally charged, racing thoughts of mania.  The ADDer will become bored at one thing and do another.  The ADDer will drop everything and go to the store because he's bored.  The bipolar will go because s/he wants to go on a sudden manic spending spree, racing from store to store.  It is even harder to tell apart if both kinds are present together. One of my psychiatrists described the overlapping of bipolar and schizophrenia as follows: mania exhibits many very different and varying attributes, and one of these can be psychosis, which is the defining attribute of shizophrenics, so they can share this attribute.  I.e. when a bipolar is maniacally psychotic, he's experiencing perhaps the exact same chemical experience that a schizophrenic experiences all the time, although I don't believe it can work in reverse: a schizophrenic can't get manic or depressed due to chemicals. As to ADD and schizophrenia overlapping, I've personally noticed that my perceptions/"delusions" of reality can drift more and also faster because of my wandering ADD mind thinking about those realities more, but otherwise I don't think people connect them much.  I once took some extra ritalin when I felt extremely schizo, panicy racing mind totally scrambled.  The drug had the instant effect of me suddenly feeling calm, collected, grounded in reality, the panicky racing thoughts completely stilled.  Here I believe that I was experiencing the psychotic aspect of mania, worse because of wandering ADD mind, and the drug somehow jolted the type of mania to slight euphoria instead of psychosis, instantly eliminating it, and at the same time, focusing the ADD so my mind wasn't disorganized either.  See how complex it is when the three are intermingled. Ethically, if we're to have any understanding of psychosis or the extremes of psychosis, we should take a huge step backward and ask why these behaviors are extremely taboo.  You must realize that those alternate realities are exactly as real as our own.  The only difference is the psychotics occupy a small minority.  If we were a planet of schizos with the same "delusion," this would be reality, and there'd be no one to percieve Earth in the way we percieve it.  So why are we right?  Maybe some aliens have sent your friend on an important mission.  I had a friend kill himself, who believed for months previous that he had spirit guides leading him onto another plane.  I find this possibility comforting, that he's just left for somewhere else, and also quite spiritually possible. As to treatment, stimulants for ADDers, mood stabalizers and antidepressants for bipolars, and antipsychotics for schizophrenics.  As the disorders seem to overlap, so do the meds.  Stimulants sometimes seem to give an antidepressant effect to the bipolar or even the nonbipolar, like ritalin or provigil (though are usually not prescribed for this purpose), and the antidepressant wellbutrin is even used for ADD.  Also, many meds are used to treat both schizophrenia and bipolar.  Clozeril, abilify, seroquel, geodon, zyprexa, risperdal, to name some.  The meds for schizophrenia and ADD do not seem to overlap.  One problem I have is doctors are reluctant to prescribe stimulants for a bipolar; they believe it's related to manic episodes, but this is leaving half of my problems untreated.  Bipolar is always treated first, then ADD, often leaving my ADD to be utterly ignored. If you think you have ADD, bipolar, schizophrenia, consider all the possible "symptoms", and work a lot with a doctor.  Diagnosis and treatment of the negative aspects of these curses/blessings, can sometimes be tricky, but very possible. ADD, BIPOLAR, SCHIZOPHRENIA: LIFE AS A MUTANT; UNFAIR AND ILLEGAL DEFAMATION OF OUR "ENHANCEMENTS" "ADDers", "bipolars", and "schizophrenics" are unfair victims of mass defamation and prejudice by society and the psychiatric community. Our brains our gifted with creativity, talent, and vision, and focusing exclusively on the negative side effects of these is to promote a warped negative version of reality. It is practically psychotic, and I argue it's even illegal. Firstly I think it's mass defamation, secondly, in regards to treatment, a doctor has the legal right to force medication on you if you're a danger to yourself or others or cannot function at all in society. But they do not have the extended right to try to beat every drop of these conditions out of us. Being ADD, bipolar, or schizophrenic, is like being a mutant. You have cool superpowers for others to be jealous about, but which are also hard but very possible to tame, and worse, some people think you're a freak. I absolutely encourage any ADD/bipolar/schizo to watch X-men 3. Really. It should be our Bible.  In this movie, many mutants struggle with the control of their powers and the ethics of having them. Scientists invent a drug that will cure anyone of their mutant powers. Some mutants want this cure, some fight against it. You have to ask yourself which side you lean toward. If psychiatry were advanced enough to give you a pill to make all your problems with your "disorder" go away, along with every single benefit, would you bother taking it? A friend once asked me, "How can I get me some of this bipolar sh**?" Why not work on inventing pills to turn normies (a slang term for nonbipolars) into ADDers or bipolars, enhancing their brain, for anyone who wants to accept both the pluses and minuses? Society does have somewhat of an idea of the benefits of ADD, less so of bipolar, and almost totally blind to the benifits of schizophrenia, save perhaps intelligence like John Nash.  I'm pretty certain Douglas Adams was ADD, although I'm not sure this is common knowledge. His brilliantly funny writing hits totally nonsequiter rants.  And a zillion other famous creative people are ADD. Bipolar is half beneficial as well. Bipolars have creativity too, but this is more emotionally charged than an ADDers. Passion for a project. Another is euphoria. This can be a benefit with no downsides, or it can have negatives; one can be so happy in our own worlds that we reject the outside world and our obligations. Same with schizophrenia. Schizos (and bipolars) visit strange, wonderous, adventurous worlds, are often lifted out of the mundane to other intriguing places that "normies" can't visit, like taking a trip Pluto or another dimension, with also many problems and downsides in those other places, causing some trouble. It's very understandable to want to ground someone in this particular reality when this conflict exists (if someone's homicidal in California but not in Florida, you want them in Florida), but very often these worlds are not destructive, and in these cases no one has the right to tell you not to move to another state. You even have the legal right to refuse medication if you're not a danger to anyone, and should even have the right to be on any med cocktail that allows you to be pretty much functional. At any time I've experienced anything like hearing voices, these have been positive experiences, a couple friends I visit; no one's ever told me to kill anyone. I personally have visited so many other wonderous places that I'm on a mission to try to help others visit them via books or screenplays. I'm lucky to have the ability to visit these many other places, and then to have the creativity via ADD and mental stability to document them. High price and cost (the downsides) aside, why wouldn't anyone want to visit Disney World? THE DOCTOR/PATIENT RELATIONSHIP IN DISORDER TREATMENT (BEING 50% DOCTOR) A bipolar once told me that he tells any new doctor, "I'm the doctor, and you're the second opinion.  If I don't like your second opinion, I'll go to someone else." While this is a tad extreme, I think the patient needs to be at least 50% doctor, an equal half and half relationship. The doctor has a vast education in the functioning of the human brain and psyche, and a key understanding of the plethora of chemicals used to treat you, and also has an objective view of your situation (though he sees little of it). But the patient is just as important. He's the one who spends 24 hours a day living in that brain, constantly able to observe his own behavior. You know how all the meds make you feel. Your observations are somewhat subjective, but you can minimize this by putting great trust in the opinions of the people around you who tell you how you're behaving. I have had eight years to learn to put infinite trust in my mother's extremely sensitive guage of my moods. If she says I'm 1.8% more touchy today, then I know I am, and every time she tells me this, I get a much better objective feel in general of whether I'm moody or not. The patient can research and learn a great deal about his condition and the medications, can obtain a fraction of the knowledge the doctor has. You might even discover some things that your doctor might be wrong about. Compare your doctor's opinions and methods to the general opinions of psychiatry. I didn't even need a doctor at all to self-diagnose myself with ADD in high school. It wasn't hard (although of course I needed a doctor to agree to get treatment, which was easy since I'm very ADD). I studied it, I checked off all the "signs that you're ADD" on the self-tests, nodding vigorously to each one. If it quacks like a duck...  I've even had a doctor or two question that diagnosis, just on the information I'm bipolar, without even asking me a single question about my ADD sympotms. And on the other hand, while I didn't need a doctor to diagnosis ADD, the doctors have been essential in my bipolar/schizoaffective diagnosis. They know much I don't. The law says you have the right to refuse all medication, as long as you're not a danger to yourself or anyone and can live out your life and function tolerably in human society. This is important, it notes this isn't a tyranny, your opinion of your own treatment is important.  The law might even be extended to say, you have the right to be prescribed some specific medication regimine you think is good, as long as doctors agree that its safe and you can function on it.  (What's the difference in having the right to no meds -- some random chemical state fate's given you -- and the right to be on some particular chemical state via meds you've worked out that you and a doctor think is good?) The longer you deal with your problems and research, the more you learn, and the better a doctor you become. Having decades of experience with your specific condition makes you a specialist in the case study of your own problems, and the doctor is always essential to helping you. The best working relationship is when each of you understand the other's worth, puts faith in it, are both willing to compromise where you don't agree, and so on. You may not have a legal right to prescribe yourself medication, but unofficially (and in every way that counts), signing the prescription is half your job.

Internal Linx: ADD . Brain Philosophy . Biposkitzoauttenia