preview

Bipolar Disorder ( Bipolar )

Better Essays

Bipolar disorder has been gaining more and more attention over the last few years. With shootings on the rise, or at least the publicity of them, people are often pointing their fingers at mental diseases including bipolar disorder. An ongoing issue regarding mental illnesses, however, is the population has failed to fully understand what they truly are, the symptoms, and how to treat them. Bipolar disorder, which is commonly referred to as manic-depressive illness, is a disorder within the brain that causes abnormal changes in mood, energy levels, and activity levels. People of any ethnicity can have bipolar disorder, although bipolar disorder is more prevalent in the U.S. than any other country (see figure 1). Bipolar disorder, as …show more content…

Hormonal imbalances are also believed to be a trigger for bipolar disorder, as well as traumatic stress, such as the death of a loved one, rape, moving, or losing your job, home, and possessions. There are several different categories of symptoms when dealing with bipolar disorder; there are psychotic symptoms, manic symptoms, cognitive symptoms, and depression symptoms. Figure 2, by Terence Ketter, has a list of some of the more common symptoms from each category, and I will be breaking down the categories into a thorough list of the most common symptoms. The symptoms for manic episodes are an elevated self-esteem, need for sleep drastically decreases, talkative, feel the need to keep talking, racing thoughts, attention span decreasing making it hard to focus on important things, excessive involvement in activities with bad consequences, such as bad financial investments, shopping sprees, impulsive, unprotected sex, deeply driven at work or school, and may become agitated. The depression state of bipolar disorder can be equally troublesome, if not more so, than the manic episodes. When one suffers from depression, sadness and anxiety affect every aspect of their life on a daily basis. Common symptoms include, but are not limited to, sadness, loss of energy, a false feeling of guilt, hopelessness, worthlessness, failure to concentrate, feeling agitated, and mentally/physically sluggish, either the need for more sleep, or suffering from insomnia, drastic changes in

Get Access