Mental Health in America: Bipolar Disorder

MENTAL HEALTH IN AMERICA
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Mental Health in America
Overview of Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder is always miscomprehended. This is because there is little research done on the all mental disorders, especially bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder (manic expression) is a mental illness that comes with severely high and low moods as well as alterations in behavior, thinking, energy, and sleep (Becker, Holdaway & Luebbe, 2018). Individuals with bipolar disorder have times when they feel very happy and energized and other times of feeling sluggish, hopeless, and sad. Between these times, they feel normal. Manic describes the periods when an individual who has bipolar disorder feel very excited. The feelings may come with irritability as well as impulsive decision making. Many people during mania may have delusions or hallucinations. Hypomania presents mild symptoms of mania whereby the patient lacks delusions or hallucinations, and that the manifestations do not interrupt with day to day living. Numerous individuals with this disorder use most of their time with depressive symptoms compared to hypomanic or manic manifestations. These mood swings in people with bipolar disorder make it difficult to comprehend the illness. This is the reason why individuals always judge people with bipolar disorder and stigmatize them because they don’t know what to think.
Averagely, the bipolar disorder starts at 25 years of age, but teenagers and children may have it also. Bipolar affects women and men equally, with approximately 3% of America’s populace diagnosed with the condition and about 85% of occurrences categorized as severe.
Bipolar comes in distinct types, Bipolar I, II, and cyclothymic disorder. Bipolar I disorder presents extreme erratic behaviors with manic up tendencies that stay more than a week or stay that one would require medical attention. It also presents extreme down periods that may stay for more than 14 days. Bipolar II disorder presents erratic highs as well as lows that are not extreme as those of bipolar I disorder. Lastly, the cyclothymic disorder presents periods of depressive and manic behaviors that for more than 1 year in teens and children and more than 2 years in adults. However, the signs and symptoms are not as intense as those of bipolar disorder II and bipolar disorder I.
When there are drugs and substance abuse by a person suffering from any type of bipolar disorder, more episodes will be presented. This disorder is called dual diagnosis and it needs assistance from specialists who can address the two issues.
The disorder’s dramatic episodes of low and high moods lack a pattern. A person may a mood state (manic or depressed) numerous times before switching to the other mood state. The episodes can occur in weeks, months, or years. The severity of the disorder is distinct from one person to the other and also changes the following time to become less or more severe.
The symptoms of the mania (high) state include being easily distracted, high sense of wellbeing and self-confident, less appetite, less sleep, impulsive, drug and substance abuse, poor judgment, unachievable plans unordinary sex drive, increased energy, fast speech, and low concentration, restlessness, hostility, anger, the sudden change from joy to irritability, excitement, hopelessness, and excess happiness. Depressive period’s symptoms include attempting suicide, suicidal or death thoughts, appetite changes, insomnia, more sleep, irritability, trouble decision making, uncontrollable crying, low pleasure, less sex drive, talking slowly, forgetfulness, trouble concentrating, hopelessness, loss of energy, and sadness.
Bipolar cannot be caused by a single cause. Several factors cause bipolar in some individuals. For instance, genes may cause one to have this disorder since it flows into their family. Also, brain development may cause bipolar disorder. There are several bipolar disorder risk factors. Developing bipolar disorder begins in late adolescence or young adulthood. Uncommonly, it can occur earlier during childhood. The condition can flow in families (Johnson, Carver & Tharp, 2017). Women and men equally get the condition, but women are somehow more likely to have rapid cycling whereby they have four or different mood changes annually. Women happen to use more time being depressed compared to men with this condition. The condition normally starts late in women and likely get bipolar II disorder and are impacted by seasonal mood swings. Medical, as well as mental problems like anxiety, migraine, and thyroid disorders, are common in women. Other things that make a person more likely to have this condition include The risk factors include certain health conditions, trauma or stress, predominant depressive polarity, suicide completion, unemployment, the elderly age of over 75 years, younger age of fewer than 35 years, Caucasian, no children, divorced, living alone, and male gender (Johnson, Carver & Tharp, 2017). Further, people with bipolar disorder abuse drugs and substances when they are depressed or manic. This is because they are likely to have obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, co-existing anxiety disorder, and seasonal depression.
Impacts of Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder impacts about 5.7 million individuals meaning it only impacts a small ...