Bipolar Disorder and Intelligence

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http://psychcentral.com/lib/2010/intell ... -disorder/

My older sister, who is bipolar, is very, very intelligent, however, the school's way of doing things meant she sometimes got very poor grades. But she is SUPER smart, even my guidance counselor, who worked with me and my two older sisters, has said she was intelligent. Many people have said she is. I believe she is WAY smarter than people (some people, anyway) give her credit for.

So yeah, I think the study is pretty accurate. But I have a high IQ and I'm not bipolar...at least, I don't think I am.

I have heard before that bipolar disorder (otherwise known as manic depression) is associated with creative genius.

There is a wikipedia page listing many many scientists, mathematicians, authors, artists etc who were thought to suffer from it.

I was manic my first year of law school and ended up in the top 8% of my class and on the flagship Law Review at a top law school. I fell out of hypomania my second year and bombed quite badly, especially the Spring semester. Overall, I am now in the Top Third.

So the consensus of grades would be "fairly intelligent but not exceptional." I think the traditional academic system is not suitable for a lot of people, not just people with bipolar.

I think mental disorders don't have that much to do with intelligence.

I have Bipolar 2 and some other stuff, and certainly have have an unusual type of intelligence.

I had a 2.3 high school GPA and a 2.8 undergrad. Two years of focus and stucture earned me 40+ hours of 4.0 in grad school. That, and some unusually good scores on #2 pencil tests got me into med school, where Major Depression struck again.

Anyway, I function differently than most physicians I know. Sometimes they don't follow my reasoning at all, though the community I work in apparently respects me as a diagnostician.

My GF is a 3rd grade teacher, she thinks I'm Spectrum. One of my meds is Adderall which did wonders, so maybe I'm ADHD too. There was some news release recently from some lab reporting a gene mutation associated with all three, ASD, ADHD and BPD. I've always known I'm different.

Hi All

Interesting discussion. As far as I know intelligence is difficult to measure accurately in people with disorders and mental ilness as you don't exactly know when that person is at their best and focussing properly. I have Schizoaffective and AS, yet when tested as a young child (unmedicated) my intelligence measured normal but tests done later (medicated) revealed a high genius intelligence. It all sounds good when said like that but my people skills are almost non-existent, and I'm not very young, so thought I would've learnt over the years.

The unfortunate part of having above average intelligence with Aspies and any other mental disorder is that we do not receive equal opportunies to other people without these added complications. Doing well in studies and producing excellent portfolios do little when one is socially inept.

How do you people deal with daily life and cope with your disorders and other illnesses? I could do with any advice, please. Helpful websites, books, if you know of any.

Thank you
Puzzled Aspie

Intelligence fluctuates in bipolar disorder. ( For example, during mania, I am the world's greatest genius, during depression I am average, and during euthymia I realise I was really dumb for going off my meds in the first place.)

More seriously though, although a lot of us were born and raised smart, the reality is that the cognitive deficits build up over time. It's very important for us to keep our minds active.

Even people with ADHD have varying result with these tests. I'm surprised that certain countries still insist on students sitting them and that scores are requested when applying for tertiary level studies. Correct me if I'm wrong, but all those tests focus on verbal and non-verbal strengths. What about other giftedness? Mozart might have been a musical genius but what would he have scored in language, maths and history. Even his logic had a bend to it.

Many historical greats were considered weird and eccentric. I regard that a compliment to carry me through the dreary darkness that monopolises my mood cycle.

I have Bipolar II. When I'm hypomanic, I'm certainly more creative, I'm more likely to come with a completly random idea for a novel and start writing. I'm also able to concentrate more when hypomanic. I don't know if I'm AS, because the thing with interests sort of fits...but then they only really seem to come along when I'm hypomanic, and then I'll start learning about a random topic to the point that it completely takes over my life and I'll forget all obligations and even sometimes forget the basis things such as eating, I don't sleep as much (I know that's a hypomania symptom anyway). It's not been so bad since I started medications, but I've haven't seemed to have gone hypomanic like the way I used to. I can't decide whether I'm pleased about that or not.

I've gotten A*s on History essays that I wrote in a hypomanic episode at three in the morning, revised biology to the point that I knew every little fact and could pretty much get 100% on the test...it sounds good, but the majority of the time, I'm depressed, and don't have the energy to even consider working, and actually don't. The whole of the last year at college...my results seemed to have peaked and flowed a bit. I was a straight A student when I was hypomanic, and failing when I was depressed. Quite literally, that was how it was. My tutors were a bit confused by the whole thing, really. They didn't know I was bipolar.

"The major comorbid mood disorder in patients with high-functioning ASD is bipolar disorder and not major depressive disorder."

I've read this too, but it's highly controversal.

I guess that is good info to add so everyone can make their own judgements Do they claim sampling bias?
It's not that surprising that it is controversial though, because depression is more common among NTs than bipolar. Many don't believe autism exists as a genetic difference or they believe that everything can be explained as autism without ever wondering why that is. There are many distinct "subdisorders" in autism, and many of the things previously thought "autistic" aren't, as it's exactly the same mechanisms causing similar "symptoms" in other disorders. There's the genetic link between them all to take into account: http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/02 ... -disorders
Here's another article on the topic of this thread: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ret ... -and-mania
I don't fully agree with it as bipolar exists because of genetic variation, and have a neurological basis. But this article is correct in a way - mania is thinking pathologized (in its most benign form).

The problem is more that autism has elements itself of problems regulating emotions correctly, but that's something different than bipolar and you have to distinct those two.

I also think that bipolar is more common under autistics, but I also think this can lead to overdiagnosing and not every autistic who has trouble regulating his/her emotions has bipolar.

And by the way:
I misstrust so studies, also because of my own experience. I was once missdiagnosed in a study what can happen very easily, because they think they can diagnose everything within an hour or so, with a view simple questions and of course they diagnose, where they have the focus on.

I believe the researchers know the difference between emotional dysregulation and mania and depression, as it's not only autism and bipolar that features emotional dysregulation so they might not diagnose it based on that alone. It might be underdiagnosed precisely because people think it can be explained as emotional dysregulation. As you know for a long time there were some restrictions on what they thought autistics should/could have for comorbids - and autistics obviously have a lot of comorbids. It's good that they are realizing that. It's bad that you got misdiagnosed, but acknowledging that many autistics are bipolar might lead to less misdiagnoses if that combination gets researched more?

If it would be that clear, it wouldn't be that highly controversal and also autism experts like Tony Attwood do primarily behavioural therapy with such children. I don't think that the answer is all black or white and that easy to answer.

The Misdiagnosis of Bipolar Disorder in Children with Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities
DISRUPTIVE MOOD DYSREGULATION DISORDER
ASD, a psychiatric disorder, or both? Psychiatric diagnoses in adolescents with high-functioning ASD.



No in my case this had other reasons. I've also transsexualism and was missdiagnosed within 5 minutes with Borderline PD because of my "gender issues", but now I'm rediagnosed wit transsexualism from several experts and already had my surgery and name change and so on. I just mentioned it, because it also happened in an autism study and not everthing what is published in studies is true. It's just a personal opinion of the researchers and if psychiatry would be that opjective, we wouldn't have such a huge controversal in some areas.
And to Bipolar and ASD: I think we need a lot more research in this area. I personaly don't know if I've Bipolar or not. At the moment I'm just diagnosed with depression. But I guess, I've too much stress anyway at the moment to be 100% sure in my case. Sometimes I think I have it, sometimes I think I don't.

Last edited by Raziel on 18 Jul 2013, 3:49 am, edited 2 times in total.