19 and Learning to Drive

I have a friend who recently posted on her blog the observation that she might have been a very different person had she been given something for her anxiety when she was a younger person.

We're experiencing some of that at our house. Katee turned 19 last month and she's just now learning to drive her pink Honda.

Too bad her anxiety disorder wasn't considered serious enough to treat until she moved from the state system of care into the world of private insurance coverage. She still has anxiety but it's being treated with talk therapy and Xanax.

How common is it to struggle with both bipolar and anxiety disorders? In 2003, at the Fifth International Conference on Bipolar Disorder, Harvard Associate Professor of Psychiatry Gary Sachs, MD, suggested that anxiety could actually be a manifestation of bipolar illness. (Kathryn)