Sometimes there is a tendency to romanticize bipolar disorder, as many musicians, artists and writers have suffered from them. Their moods swings were considered part of their image, and were regarded as imperative to complete the ‘artistic image’.
Manic-depression is a chronic mental illness, a physical disease of the brain. Although there is no evident, known cause, but there is a proven hereditary influence. Many bipolar patients have either parents or someone in the family who suffered from depression, hyperactivity, rages, suicide or any number of behaviors.
Bipolar disorder unfortunately, usually develops in ‘late adolescence or early adulthood’, but some cases of Bipolar Disorders have been reported to have started during childhood. While there have been people who have developed this condition late in life. Bipolar disorder (also known as manic-depressive disorder) is a mental condition in which the person alternates between feelings of mania and depression (Kalat, 614). On the surface, bipolar disorder that seems to affect almost all people in their daily lives. But in reality bipolar disorder is perhaps one of the most tragic mood disorders’ and in extreme cases the patients may even commit suicide. Real and tragic as this condition is, it is not recognized as an illness, and it takes years for the patients to be diagnosed and treated for this ailment.
A large number of people suffer from bipolar disorder, according to the ‘American Psychiatric Association, between 0.4% to 1.6% of the population suffers from this disorder.’ Almost 2% of the adult population; some three million Americans experience this tragic disorder. Some of these patients go undiagnosed and suffer this severe condition believing it to be a simple case of mood swings, although this mental condition is a serious, two-faced mental illness which plays havoc with the person’s mental stability. ”I unsuccessfully hung myself in the family garage........
