Alexander Palace Forum
Discussions about the Imperial Family and European Royalty => Olga Nicholaievna => Topic started by: Schvibzik on November 03, 2007, 09:00:10 AM
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Hi everyone, i am new on the boards ...so first of all hello!!
Secondly i read somewhere ...i cannot exactly remember where, that Olga had bipolar and was actually rather imbalanced.
Is this view substantiated? is there any evidence at all?
I know her relationship with her mother was rather strained, and can that be attributed to Bipolar?
all this is mere conjecture of course and i am sorry if this topic came up previously and has already been discussed
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welcolme on the forum!
I've never heard of Olga being bipolar before, I only heard some theories of Alix being.
It would be nice if you can remember the source or at leat what were the author's argumeznts to explain this? on which factqs he bases his theory?
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http://www.funtrivia.com/en/subtopics/Otma-Nikolaevna-91360.html
Which of the daughters had medical problems?
Grand Duchesses Olga and Anastasia. It's true, Olga and Anastasia had some problems--it wasn't just Aleksey who was ill. Olga had anemia and suffered from what we'd probably now call bi-polar disorder (in 1915, she suffered a nervous breakdown), and Anastasia had scoliosis; her aunt, Grand Duchess Olga Aleksandrovna, wrote that she remembered a nurse coming to massage her niece's back and naughty Anastasia ran off and hid somewhere, so the family had to search for her for quite a long while before that massage started.
there it is..on a website. I also see that there is already a discussion on this matter here
http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=1288.msg3133
:)
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Olga had a nervous breakdown. Sorry i have no idea where the question mark is on this european keyboard.
Iv'e never heard that before. I suppose it's plausable, given everything.
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IMO, categorizing Olga as bipolar would be an exaggeration. Yes, she was sometimes described as irritable, moody, or despressed, but to my knowledge there's no evidence of her exhibiting the extreme mood swings that characterize bipolar disorder.
I'm trying really hard not to be sarcastic, but I very much doubt that funtrivia.com is a reliable source for medical/mental health dignoses.
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I have never read anywhere that Olga was bipolar. That seems way out.
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Don't Blaspheme Sarushka
the fun trivia site is infallable!
*shakes head*
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wrong thread for your comment Schvibzik. Please go to the fun section.
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Yes, your getting off topic. Were suppose to be discussing serious topics.Olga did not have bipolar. I think that trivia website is wrong. I don't think she had that serious of a disorter. Maybe a mental breakdown, or stress or moody feelings, but not as severe as bipolar.
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I myself have scoliosis and had two major depression (the one had nothing to do with the other). I don't think you can call scoliosis a desease, it's more a condition; it's a deformation of your spine and causes a lot of back pain. Standing up for more than an hour is realy painfull, so I can imagine what Anastasia went through (considering all those ceremonies).
I am 23 now (the age Olga was when murdered). As for bi-polar, there have to be periods of extreme happiness following periods of extreme depression. I don't think Olga had bipolar disorder, just depression. Or does anyone know of her having manic periods? Being the oldest and brightest of her siblings, one can understand why she was more vulnerable for depression. The moods I can understand, I myself went through them. Being depressed you try to hide it from your family and the people close to you, so not to cause them more pain (and Olga's parents had enough of their own problems with the war, the hospital, Alexey,...) So the best thing you can do is to put on a happy face, but that doesn't realy work when you're actualy dying fom the inside, so you make a bigger efford. But it never works, cause you still feel awfull. To the outside world it looks like you have moodswings, but you're just trying to live trough the day and to please the people you love. The worst thing about depression is that you feel guilty you are depressed. And when you think about Olga who spend whole days with realy sick, invalid soldiers, her guilt must have been immense. Here were lying hundreds of brave young man, in great pain, and you are young, have everything and still feel so terrible. The feeling of guilt eats you up from the inside. No wonder Olga had a nervous breakdown.
It's realy hard to explain what I'm trying to say (it's always hard to put in words what you feel) but I hope some of you do understand what I'm trying to say.
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I think you explained yourself very well. There is no evidence to assert that Olga was bipolar.
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Bipolar seems to be something everyone thinks they have nowadays. I've noticed at school, I'll hear this a lot: Yeah, she's so bipolar. All she does is yell. Or... You probably have bipolar!
Being angry doesn't mean bipolar. It just means you're...angry. :D Bipolar isn't nearly as common as it seems to be.
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I don’t understand why people do not read the initial post properly
And then make the statements in reply accordingly
And what is it with jumping down people’s throats? This is meant to be a site for people who love the Romanov family.
This is my first post on the boards and replies to it are full of antagonism
I never claimed fun trivia was a reputable source for Olga having bi polar, it was merely the site that I came across such an assertion in regards to Olga.
That is why the question was asked here in the first place, and in the question I am ASKING if that view was substantiated, if there was ANY PROOF of Olga having Bi Polar, perhaps documents from the Imperial doctors etc
I in no way stated that I was certain she had bi polar because I had read it on fun trivia
Jeeeeeeeeeeeez
Besides I would be very much surprised indeed if any of the girls were not depressed. No human being could withstand that much pressure from having an ill mother, brother, worried father, war raging in your home country, people you love being assassinated..the list goes on and on
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I doubt that Olga suffered from Bipolar disorder...
during her later years in life i believe she suffered from depression, but a war would make anyone depressed.
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I have to agree with Sarushka.
Olga was.. moody
but i don't believe that she was bi polar. there is no evidence from doctors or anything showing this
the site you came across probably got wrong information from another site, a chain!
that is obviously wrong information.
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according to wikipedia:
Also called bipolar affective disorder until recently, the current name is of fairly recent origin and refers to the cycling between high and low episodes; it has replaced the older term manic-depressive illness coined by Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) in the late nineteenth century.[3] The new term is designed to be neutral, to avoid the stigma in the non-mental health community that comes from conflating "manic" and "depression."
And another source: ( http://www.caregiver.com/channels/bipolar/articles/brief_history.htm)
In 1913, Emil Krapelin established the term manic-depressive...In 1980, the term bipolar disorder (1980) replaced manic-depressive disorder as a diagnostic term...
So Olga could not have been diagnosed as bipolar, because the term bipolar did not exist back then. I hope this is a good answer for your question Schvibzik.
kind regards
Lyss
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I doubt that Olga suffered from Bipolar disorder...
during her later years in life i believe she suffered from depression, but a war would make anyone depressed.
You also have to remember that Olga also had a few friends on the outside plus she even read the newspapers that arrived. She was always said to understand the situation not only of the war but the political situation in the country. Also Nicholas was said to have closed door discussions with her.
Az
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I wonder where they got the idea that Olga had a nervous break down specifically in 1915... :-\
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Only a trained psychiatrist can make a diagnosis of Bi-polar disorder. So, unless and until one shows up here and is willing to read alot of Olga's writings and first hand accounts about her, this question cannot be answered.
As for people "jumping" down your throat, instead of taking some sort of offense, did it occur to you that it was a childish and essentially speculative question? Many of the regular users here are grown up (which Schvibzik clearly is no) and are fairly advances historians and scholars on the subject. Many "newbies" assume that they can just waltz on in and ask questions which have been discussed many times before, or ask highly speculative questions, such as this, which really belongs in the Having Fun section and not in the serious history threads.
We try to encourage young people to ask questions, of course, but we also want them to learn and grow as well, so stop taking things so personally, maybe a lot of the regular posters here have been around for a lot longer and maybe know a lot more on the subject.
Thanks.
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Yes, this is a very speculative question- sometimes inaccurate web sites have these kinds of ''facts'' about otma, and they are things that are unprovable. They have been gone for almost a century, and they died very young, without alot of scrutiny put on them- unlike Alexandra, their mother, for whom there is more historical evidence when asking questions. Nothing of the historical record suggests she was bipolar at all, so it is not a question that really makes much sense with regards to Olga. Asking if she was depressed, as has been done on threads before, is a question that has more merit, and for which there is more evidence, because some things might indicate this at the time of World War I. But, that isn't true of this question, which has never been asked to my knowledge before.
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Personally, I know quite a bit about Bipolar disorder.
Olga wasn't Bipolar, I'm very sure of that. Bipolar disorder is more than just depression. Olga was very stressed at the time and I'm sure any young woman would be the same in her position, but you're going way too far with it. A lot of people her age have those same feelings and you don't call them Bipolar.
Doctors can't even diagnose young individuals with Bipolar disorder. They have to reach a certain age before they can be diagnosed with it because young people naturally have similar symptoms like depression and mood swings. It's a little funny for someone to even ask if she had it.
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You can't be diagnosed with the personality disorder until you're 18(Which I think of kind of stupid, because it should be looked at on a case by case basis, but whatever). However, a doctor can put someone under 18 on medication, they just can't be officially diagnosed.
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As for people "jumping" down your throat, instead of taking some sort of offense, did it occur to you that it was a childish and essentially speculative question? Many of the regular users here are grown up (which Schvibzik clearly is no) and are fairly advances historians and scholars on the subject. Many "newbies" assume that they can just waltz on in and ask questions which have been discussed many times before, or ask highly speculative questions, such as this, which really belongs in the Having Fun section and not in the serious history threads.
Now this is exactly what you complained about on your other thread Shvibzik. People here just have varying opinions, and express them in what way they can. If that doesn't suit you, then that isn't anyone else's problem.
As for Olga having Bipolar, I don't beleive that to be so. Like Holly and Clock said, Bipolar is near impossible to diagnose at a young age. I've known Bipolar at first hand, and I don't find it entirely comparable to Olga. These children, let alone the entire family in itself, faced enormous stress with having to share the burdens of their parents and the war that ravaged all of Europe. Olga being the most perceptive of the girls, she would have easily become emotional. With so much expected of her and all her efforts to do all she could (not to mention the suffering of her patients), the stress could have developed into depression, which would seem likely from all we can read about Olga's character.
A Bipolar teen or child would have symptoms similar to schizophrenia, ODD, tourettes, and ADHD. From what we know, Olga was simply emotional at times rather than having violent outbursts and breakdowns. Thus I don't really beleive Olga was bipolar. If she did have any abnormal behaviour, maybe there is a possibility that she became disturbed by the gore of the Tsarskoe Selo hospitals.
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I wonder where they got the idea that Olga had a nervous break down specifically in 1915... :-\
You bring up a good question, Helen. I found an interesting article about nervous breakdowns at the Mayo Clinic website, which can be read here (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/nervous-breakdown/AN00476). Olga was ordered to rest in late October/early November of 1915. If she was no longer able to complete her daily activities due to her condition, which seems to have been the case to some degree, I suppose her experience could be loosely described as a nervous breakdown of sorts.
Personally, I don't think that Olga was bipolar. Had Alix wrote of Olga staying up for over twenty-four hours, tearing down a wall in her bedroom on a whim, then I'd probably wonder. But as it is, Olga's behavior doesn't seem to have been that extreme. In my opinion, her behavior lacks the extremes that characterize bipolar disorder. I know a few people who suffer from the disorder (some of whom I'm fairly close to), and I don't see many behavioral similarities between them and Olga.
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I'm normally a lurker on this site, but I logged in to respond to this message. Frist of all, I might come off as bias because I was a psychology major turned antipsychiatry, so I personally don't believe in the existence of bipolar (no proof of any mental illness other than what neurologists have discovered). However, when I first started to study psychology, it occured to me that Olga, in our modern times, might have been labeled bipolar. Especially given that it's become a very trendy diagnosis in the industry. No, you don't have to exhibit extreme behaviors in these days.
Personally, I think Olga's "condition" was the result of being incredibly smart and sensitive to her surroundings. For example, what prompted her break down? Working as a nurse, which is something that someone as sensitive as Olga shouldn't have had to do. Moreover, she seemed to understand Russia's political situation much better than her parents, or so I've read.
As for Alix, I think the same can be said of her. Given that she had four daughters, one right after the other, and endured years of stress trying to give birth to a boy, it's no wonder she was stressed! That and the fact that she didn't seem to be physically healthy all that often...
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Olga was ordered to rest in late October/early November of 1915.
Thanks, JB. Being ordered to rest could be due to a lot of different things, including something physical. Assuming it was because of a breakdown is jumping to conclusions... I will do a little digging about that time period.
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Hi, I am new at this. but i read on a wikepidea site about her. and i dont know if it is true. i read that she broke a windstill in a room probably her room or the nursey. because she didn't want to work in the hospital. and that maria have to write a letter to the hospital explaining why olga didn't come. then another time she broke some things in the cloak room or in a room in the hospital.
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I don't really think Olga has Bi polar because I just think that she was kind of stressed and then got nerves breakdown of all the things that was going around her. I first born and have a enormous press on me to do all things well in life. I not say that Olga as a first born child had this press on her. But she had a lot of press on her as a first born, being the example for her younger sisters and all these things she learned on the way and know more things about what was happing to her can make everbody have a nerves breakdown.
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It's maybe nonsense but to think about the pressure of a marriage...don't forget that she was firstborn and had already "meetings" with candidates but wanted to marry a russian. I think thats also one point which add up to her mental condition. :-\
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I agree with you Sweet Angels! I have two parents that are Bi polar &&&& I don't think that Olga was Bi polar! She was just sometimes moody, and there's no evidence from doctors that she was, like GD_42 said. That's true GD Valeria!
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As far as I know, it's really inacurate to make diagnosis of some mental illness in a person who is dead and cannot by analyzed by a psychiatrist. Of course, a psichiatrist could make an approach of what mental illness and historical character must have suffered from, but it's a great risque. In most of the cases, this specialist could be wrong.
No; I don't think she could have been Bi polar. Maybe she could have been a little depressed at the time of the war, and much more after Revolution beginning...but I think I would have been depressed too. She seems to have been a very sensitive kind of person.
RealAnastasia.
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Olga was always prone to fits of moodiness and independent thought, even before the war. The incredible strain of the work and the suffering of those she cared for in the hospitals could easily have exacerbated her emotions and likeliness to lash out, simply due to stress and conflicted emotions. Everyone does it from time to time. Doesn't mean they have some medical condition.
Regardless, I dare say this topic has been debated and picked at to the point where there isn't much argument left to make.
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Case closed? xD ;D
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Yup. I think so.
RealAnastasia.
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Very well..............
I've think about it, if it's a closed case or not.
History will always have more to discover!!! So I don't think it's a totally case closed, but nevermind xD
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Knowing a lot about bipolar myself (i have it and it as well as my mom, uncle, and brother), from what i have read about Olga i did not see any signs of such.
One thing i would like to correct about the diagnoses of personality disorders is that they now diagnose children as young as fourteen, but no younger. I know this because i myself was formally diagnosed with Bipolar 2 disorder (thats rapid cycling). Women are typically diagnosed earlier than men.
I agree with the notion that this case should be considered closed unless for some reason evidence that points to mental illness comes up in the future.
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Agree, case is closed :)
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Very well..............
I've think about it, if it's a closed case or not.
History will always have more to discover!!! So I don't think it's a totally case closed, but nevermind xD
I agree. No case could be considered closed in history matters. However, we may consider this case closed BY THE MOMENT, since we don't have any evidence about OLga Nicholaievna being a Bi-Polar yet. When something new will be discovered, we will open the case again. No problem about that! ;D
RealAnastasia.
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Well from all the accounts etc, would there be any such evidence in her diary that was published? Just a thought but I think it is closed.
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Well from all the accounts etc, would there be any such evidence in her diary that was published?
Nope, none that I recognized. Olga's diary shows the normal ups and downs of a teenage girl -- nothing as extreme as bipolar.
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I thought the case was closed :D :D :D
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I think the whole reason that people though she was bipolar was because they met her whenever Mme. Becker came to visit. Same goes for Maria, as people would describe her as rude and mean when other times she would be kinder. Well just my opinion I guess :)
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Well...this is your point of view. We have no evidence to say that people visited them when they have Becker visiting. Adding to this, not all women get nervius or unkind when Becker is visiting...:D
RealAnastasia
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Looks like I spoke too soon :\
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Speculation, speculation! I think we have run the gamut. The next topic to arise could be that because the Grand Duchess Olga N. had such a comparatively large head (Commented on by Queen Victoria, I believe), she could have been an arrested case of hydrocephaly! As the story goes: "Does two plus two always equal four?" The answer: "Not necessarily; it's what you WANT it to be!" AP
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Around and around this topic goes. When will it stop...who ever sums it up and leave it at that.