Bipolar Disorder Is Like Having Two Serious Illnesses at Once Video Lecture | Big Thinkers on Mental Health - Health & Fitness

bipolar disorder can have lots of
effects on a person's day-to-day
functioning so for instance again in the
middle of an episode of either mania or
depression people who are manic will
often do things that are really
impossible really out of character and
so issues of infidelity can come up for
instance in a patient with mania who's
having a sexual partner or sexual
partners outside of the relationship in
the midst of a manic episode people will
often spend money that they really can't
afford to spend in the midst of a manic
episode which you can imagine will cause
a lot of strain for them personally but
also in the context in the context of
their families people in the midst of
mania often don't appear to be logical
and so they will go to work and will
have lots of irritability and you can
imagine again that co-workers or
confused bosses are confused and
especially if they don't understand a
lot about the illness it can affect
their work relationships and their
ability to maintain their employment you
can imagine that if it's hard to get up
out of bed and even go to the
supermarket and get your groceries for
the day that it can be very difficult to
go to work and get all the things that
you need to get done either in your work
life organic or in your personal life
people will report
guilt or sometimes feeling like they're
worthless people will also report that
they feel like they're either kind of
moving in slow motion which is known as
psychomotor retardation and occasionally
people will report that they actually
feel jittery which is known as
psychomotor agitation in addition people
will report disturbances in their sleep
which are most commonly insomnia so
either difficulty falling asleep waking
up in the middle of the night or waking
up earlier in the morning than one
intends to occasionally this can be
hypersomnia though where people are
sleeping for instance 10 12 13 14 or
more hours per day
patients with bipolar disorder often are
resistant to receiving treatment
especially during a manic episode and
this is really part of the illness in
terms of not understanding that one is
sick bipolar disorder cannot be cured
however people will often find that they
will go the you know periods of time
without having any illness or periods of
you sigh meeow it really depends on the
individual and how their clinical course
goes as well as finding treatments that
work the mainstay of treatments are mood
stabilizers so these are moods
medications that are used to keep
somebody from having most notably you
know a manic episode or a depressive
episode finding the right treatment can
sometimes be a little frustrating and
patients really need to hang in there as
their doctors try different medications
to figure out what works best with their
neurobiology in order to support a loved
one who has bipolar disorder it's really
important to realize that this is an
illness like any other illness a lot of
times people will think of mental
illnesses as being something that's
within the control of the individual and
the individual will often think that is
well feeling tremendous guilt when they
do have episodes of either mania or
depression and so the first thing is
realizing that people don't choose to
have bipolar disorder and they would
definitely choose to live with more
mental wellness than having this illness
it's really important to be calm present
and consistent with people with bipolar
disorder as well as supporting them in
maintaining their treatment in the next
10 20 30 50 years I really see a lot
more research being done to try to find
treatments that are effective and have
less side effects than some of the
medications that we have currently
available today I really only see better
things for the future