Richard Aleshire

11/02/2015
RECR115

Bipolar
The illness described as Bipolar Disorder was first believed to be a demotic
passion and people were actually killed due to their foreign behavior. Aretaeus of
Cappadocia began the process of detailing symptoms in the medical field as early
as the 1st century in Greece. The distinction between mania and depression went
largely unnoticed for many centuries. The Greeks and Romans were responsible for
the term mania and melancholia that are still used today.
Bipolar Disorder is also known as manic-depressive illness, which affects the
brain and causes mild to severe shifts in a persons mood, energy, activity levels,
and the ability to carry out daily tasks such as taking care of oneself. Mostly appears
in teen or early adult years and is a life long illness. Some symptoms to look out for
a manic episode are very talkative, jumping from one topic to another, unusually
distracted, overly restless, sleeping little or all the time, having an unrealistic belief
in your ability, behaving impulsively and engaging in pleasurable, high risk
behaviors. Some mood changes would be a long period of feeling high or happy or
outgoing mood, and extreme irritability. Symptoms to look out for during a
depressive episode would include feeling overly tired or slowed down, having
problems concentration, remembering and making decisions, being restless,
irritable, change in diet or sleeping habits, and lastly thinking about death by
suicide. Mood changes would be a long period of time feeling helpless, hopeless and
a lost interest in once enjoyable activates.

There are different reasons and triggers that set people off into an episode,
there is no real cause other than genetics that can account for bipolar disorder.
There are different types and severities that come along with the disorder that can
be accounted for by the guidelines from the diagnostic and statistical manual of
mental disorders. Bipolar I is defined by manic or mixed episodes that last at least
seven days, or by manic symptoms that are so severe that the person needs
immediate hospital care. Usually, depressive episodes occur as well, typically
lasting at least two weeks. Bipolar II Disorder is a pattern of depressive episodes
and hypomanic episodes, but no full-blown manic or mixed episode. Bipolar
Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (BP-NOS), is diagnosed when symptoms of the
illness exist but do not meet diagnostic criteria for either bipolar I or II. However, the
symptoms are clearly out of the person's normal range of behavior. Cyclothymic
Disorder, a mild form of bipolar disorder. People with cyclothymia have episodes of
hypomania as well as mild depression for at least 2 years. However, the symptoms
do not meet the diagnostic requirements for any other type of bipolar disorder.
Bipolar disorder cannot be cured but can be controlled and monitored, some
treatment methods include medications such as Gabapentin (Neurontin), and
Lamotrigine (Lamictal), Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT), and psychotherapy in
which you talk to someone about what someone is thinking or any problems one
may be facing.
Additional things to consider are that episodes can happen at any time and
that episode may be a cause of another event in which one of their episodes
affected the outcome. Most people with bipolar disorder have problems at home
due to their illness so they feel responsible for the troubles that they see in front of
them because they feel as if they can and should have done things different but its

the environment and the time of the event that makes the response of the
individual. It is common for one episode to cause another. If someone was
hyperactive during a manic episode and annoyed someone to the max but felt as if
they were playing around and that person gets irritable and will not talk to them,
the person with the disorder will most likely fall into a depressive state due to the
glance of happiness that they felt but in return that good feeling they had turned
people away from them, which can lead to social issues. There are many mixed
emotions and sometimes people feel all of those emotions of sadness and
happiness, which helps in developing anxiety because of the constant reminder of
not feeling yourself and having an irreversible gut wrenching feeling in your
stomach and chest as if something wonderful and terrifying is about to happen all at
once making it hard to really concentrate on one thing and put focus on anything
but how your feeling, but really you never truly understand how or why you felt or
acted the way you did and it makes you think a certain way so you just continue to
think about more and more.