WOW–
The fact that other families in your community are going through the same thing or worse doesn’t prove anything. Most Jews don’t keep the Torah, does that prove that the Torah isn’t authentic?
There may in fact be many others who seem depressed or smoke, but you need to look at the entire picture. You can’t say that most of them are as troubled as you portray your son to be. Your son belongs to a small minority. Like you said, you know “8 families” out of many hundreds. That’s a very small minority.
As far as your family doctors and psychologists who have already ruled out bipolar, I say that they are not a position to rule it out any more than I am in a position to diagnose him. There is an expression that says that ‘if you are a hammer all you see are nails’. If you see a given specialist, he will try to figure out which condition that he happens to specialize in could be the cause of the symptom. Psychologists cant directly treat bipolar since it requires meds, so naturally they dont look for it. They see an angry defiant kid and they want to sit and talk with them because thats what they do. Everybody knows that psychologists are notoriously lousy diagnosticians. Ask any established bipolar person, who is now treated and stable, how many psychologists they needed to see before anyone had the good sense to refer them to a psychiatrist.
Lastly, and repeatedly, I’m not saying your kid is bipolar. I’m saying he might be. And considering the grave consequences of untreated bipolar disorder, I can’t understand why you’re resisting. How can you adamantly state he is not bipolar when I’ve already proven to you that you know little about the condition? You’re making an awefully hefty wager about something you don’t know a whole lot about, and the consequences of not diagnosing the condition are dire (15% suicide rates, 90% divorce rates, unemployment, substance abuse etc.).
Thanks.