A Common Fact Pattern

I’ve represented several young men with these three characteristics:

1. Bipolar disorder;

2. High IQ; and

3. Homosexuality.

The client is usually between 21 and 30 years old. I’ve been told that bipolar disorder appears in males when they are in their 20s. Often the client had an earlier diagnosis of attention-deficit disorder.

It’s typically the young man’s mother who calls when he is in trouble, and I guess correctly, based on the tone of mom’s voice when she describes her grown son’s criminal problem, that I’ll be dealing with a person with this complex of traits.

I’ve helped these men out of all sorts of nonviolent trouble, but drug cases are most common. Is it because they’re self-medicating the bipolar disorder? One of this group of clients told me once that marijuana worked much better to keep him on an even keel than anything that Big Pharma had cooked up.

No answers here; just a dispatch from the front.

#mentalhealth