Essay On Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder, once known as manic depression, is know named bipolar to distinguish the disorder from unipolar depression (major depressive disorder.) Karl Leonhard changed the name to better specify the disorders, as ‘manic depression’ was a term used to describe an array of disorders and mental illnesses.

People with bipolar experience extreme contrasting mood swings, hypomania or mania, where they are extremely happy at one time then at another time they are extremely depressed. It can be difficult for those who aren’t treated to live a normal life. Scientists are still unsure what the cause of bipolar is but there are links to traumatic life events causing the disorder, also, things like environment, brain chemicals, genetics, other medical illnesses and pregnancy have an input in the development of the disorder. There are three types of bipolar; Bipolar 1, which is the more serious branch of the disorder, where the sufferers have experienced at least one episode of mania and major depression. Bipolar 2 is described as less serious and those affected with the disorder experience hypomania and depression. Lastly,

Cyclothmia is where people have episodes of hypomania and mild depression.

Experts believe that there is a genetic component to developing bipolar disorder. Symptoms of mania or hypomania include, high energy levels, irritability, positive mood, heightened creativity, inappropriate behavior, mystical experiences and sometimes delusions and hallucinations (only in mania.) In bipolar the brain is the main part of the nervous system that is affected. A malfunction in the limbic-thalamic-cortical circuit and the limbic-striatal-pallidal-cortical circuit in the brain is thought to onset bipolar disorder. These two circuits are involved in mood stabilization and it is not known whether this dysfunction is the cause of the disorder or a result of it.

Bipolar disorder is difficult to diagnose even for medical professionals. When people are in the mania/hypomania stage of bipolar they don’t tend to recognize their own symptoms and so most often they seek help when they are in the depressed stage. As a result of this, bipolar can often be diagnosed as depression. Professionals have to be very careful with this because antidepressants can actually make bipolar worse and don’t have much of an effect on bipolar depression. Some symptoms of bipolar disorder include-
• After a while, antidepressants stop working
• Depression doesn’t last longer than three months
• Oversleeping and overeating when depressed
• High energy when not in depressed stage
• A close relative suffers from the disorder
• Experienced depression stage before the age of 25
• Experienced recurrent periods of major depression

People with bipolar will have to take medication.

Everyone is different but usually the person will have to take a mood stabilizer such as lithium or valproate. In the depressed stage, people with bipolar cannot take normal antidepressant because they can onset mania or hypomania so they have to take different kinds of antidepressants that won’t onset mania like, SSRI’s or Dual Action Antidepressants. When they are going through mania or hypomania, as well as the mood stabilizer they may have to take an atypical antipsychotic. Lithium has been used in the treatment of bipolar disorder for over 50 years and is still used now but it is only fairly recently that there has been innovation in the treatment of this disorder. It was a long time before anything new was discovered in the way of treatment like anticonvulsants and atypical

antipsychotics.

If you have a close relative with bipolar, you are at risk of developing it yourself. Other things that have an influence in the development of the disorder include, stress, sleep deprivation and alcohol and substance abuse. Up to two out of every hundred people will experience the disorder in their lives. There are many famous people who had/have this disorder including Russell Brand, Demi Lovato, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Britney Spears, Robin Williams and Amy Winehouse, to name a few of them.

Most people, with maintenance of their medication can live a normal life. It is proven that people with bipolar are more likely to commit suicide or have heart problems than most people but if they have the right maintenance medication then they can have a mostly normal life.

The Black Dog Institute website is very helpful and informative. It explains everything clearly and in simple terms so it’s easily understandable for people who have little knowledge of the disorder. Most of the sources I used were reliable and were organization or government websites, which are known to be more dependable. Some of the websites were commercial but I always checked with other websites when I wasn’t 100% sure of how authentic the information was. They all provided realistic claims for the outcome of the patient with the disorder. It’s important that factual and easily understandable information is provided for people with disorders and illnesses and their families so they can access the right treatment and stabilize their condition.