A Dad Navigates Bipolar Disorder

If you or one of your children has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I brought a dad on the program diagnosed along with his child with bipolar disorder. George Brooks will share his experience and insights with us about living and functioning daily with bipolar disorder and the challenges of raising a son with the same diagnosis.

To get help or advocacy support for bipolar disorder, call the Meta Association at: (214) 810-6518.

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Transcription - A Dad Navigates Bipolar Disorder

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Did you know that if a parent has bipolar disorder, the child has a 10 to 25% chance of developing

bipolar disorder? If you or one of your children has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder,

I brought a dad on the program diagnosed along with his child with bipolar disorder. He will share

his experience and insights with us in just a moment, so don't go anywhere. Welcome to the

Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere to take great pride in

their role and a challenge society to understand how important fathers are to the stability and

culture of their family's environment. Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero. Greetings

everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. My guest is George Brooks. I asked George to come

and talk to us about his life growing up with bipolar diagnosis and then raising a son with the

same diagnosis. George, thank you so much for coming on the Fatherhood Challenge. Thank you. Thank

you for having me on. George, let's start with an explanation of bipolar disorder. What is bipolar

disorder? Well, bipolar disorder is characterized by mood swings. Those mood swings can go from

extreme depression to what's called mania. And when you're in a manic state, you're very high energy.

You usually have a sense of elation. During that time, I just want a lot of people find themselves

getting in a trouble because your impulsivity is really bad off. So when someone's manic,

they really have to be watched and monitored. But it can fluctuate between a depressed state to where

you can't get out of bed, to a manic state to where you could be exhibiting risky behavior and things

like that. So that's typically what bipolar disorder is described as. I know back in the 60s,

they call the manic depression. So it's the same thing. But it's just characterized between mood swings

that can be controlled or not controlled with medication. How many people do you think

approximately might be undiagnosed just because of how the definition changed from the 60s till today?

I don't think the I think the verbites change. However, I don't think the definition changed

all that much. Now, the thing with diagnosing bipolar disorder is that it can it can look like so

many different things, so many different physical conditions, mental conditions. I mean, if you have a

bad thyroid, some of the symptoms from that could look like bipolar. So in order to diagnose it

accurately, there really has to be a thorough, thorough medical exam, physically and mentally to diagnose it.

But I think people are being misdiagnosed, yes, only because like I said, it massed so many different

illnesses. So if someone thinks they have it, it sounds like it's important that they don't try to

self-diagnose. And instead, they seek professional help. So to get a diagnosis or confirm a diagnosis,

would they go to a psychiatrist for that? I always urge people to go to the