There is no real "test" for mental disorders. A psychiatrist gives you a diagnosis, and prescribes a medication for that diagnosis. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From an article-Mass psychosis in the US How Big Pharma got Americans hooked on anti-psychotic drugs. James Ridgeway Al Jazeera 12 Jul 2011 06:20 20 million prescriptions were written for atypical antipsychotics in the US in 2009, despite dangers of obesity and diabetes. Many were for the very young and the very old -- people who are helpless to resist arbitrary drugging. Carl Elliott reports in Mother Jones magazine: "Once bipolar disorder could be treated with atypicals, rates of diagnoses rose dramatically, especially in children. According to a recent Columbia University study, the number of children and adolescents treated for bipolar disorder rose 40-fold between 1994 and 2003. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Bipolar Disorder from WEBMD: The primary symptoms of bipolar disorder are dramatic and unpredictable mood swings. Mania Symptoms Mania symptoms may include excessive happiness, excitement, irritability, restlessness, increased energy, less need for sleep, racing thoughts, high sex drive, and a tendency to make grand and unattainable plans. Depression Symptoms Depression symptoms may include sadness, anxiety, irritability, loss of energy, uncontrollable crying, change in appetite causing weight loss or gain, increased need for sleep, difficulty making decisions, and thoughts of death or suicide. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I don't know about anyone reading the description of symptoms for bipolar, but that would include every living person....it is me, you, our children on any given day. If I was jobless, we didn't have food, my utilities were about to be turned off, my truck was being repossessed, and my house was being foreclosed on, I would probably be sitting here thing, "I have $500,000.00 in life insurance, my husband would be better off if I were just dead." It doesn't mean I am going to run out and drive my car off a bridge. If I gain weight because of all of the stress of losing everything we have because I have no job, I am bipolar???? If I am happy all of the time, don't sleep a lot, and love sex, I am bipolar? We all have those thoughts. However, I am not running out to Dr. Joe Blow to get psychiatric medication because I lost my job....that is illogical. Why is it easier for someone to receive disability and social security for saying that they are depressed than it is for our soldiers who come back wounded physically and mentally? Why is it that we allow these people to get onto Medicare and Medicaid and become addicts to prescription medication? I am a child of one of these people. In May, 2011, my mother was hospitalized. Upon cleaning out her house, we found over 1600 pills. 657 of those pills were Seroquel. A month later, while she was still in the hospital, we received a statement from Medicare reflecting that the US tax payers paid $1700.00 for that one month of Seroquel. I had 657 destroyed at a local pharmacy before she could come back home. How much money is that? There are families in the US that do not make that in a year. Then we receive an eob from Medicare stating what her 2 week vacation at an East Texas Mental facility cost. $28,000.00. If I could afford a $28,000.00 vacation, it sure wouldn't to be east Texas. When I went to a local MHMR with my mother in Dallas, TX, we sat in the lobby for 4 hours. As we sat there, at a minimum 300 people came in and out of that place to have their prescriptions filled. As I walked outside, I realized why. There is a Psychiatric facility right across the street. It looked like an ant bed. And what kind of insurance were everyone of those people giving the receptionist? Medicare & Medicaid. Why am I paying for their ability to get high? To live in another world? As we were leaving the building, on the way to my vehicle, we reached a garage. There, sitting in a car, was a while male smoking a little silver pipe. What kind of place is this? We the tax payers have become funders for legal drug dealers. I would love to see how much money these pharmaceutical companies are reporting as profit. I do not believe that we as US tax payers should have to pay for this. We are funding drug addicts. These people go into a facility looking for free drugs and they get them. The woman Nurse Practitioner that my mother seen, asked my mother what her diagnosis was. REALLY? So, you don't have to go see someone for a diagnosis here in Dallas. They ask you what your diagnosis is. This disturbs me. Can we not hire more firemen, policemen or teachers? Can we not buy our military better armor? Can we not buy a homeless vet a house for him and his family? What is wrong with society today? We are shoving drugs down the "undesirables" throats to keep them out of the way, on the tax payers dime. I have serious issues with this.