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What You Need to Know About Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder is a disabling, chronic psychiatric disorder that lasts a lifetime but medications and other treatments, as well as lifestyle changes, can ameliorate the symptoms.
World mental health day is observed on 10th of October every year with the objective of raising awareness on mental health issue around the world. This year, a meeting between President Trump and rapper Kanye West, held the day after world mental health day, brought “bipolar disorder” into the spotlight. In this televised meeting Mr. West stated he was misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder when in fact he suffered from “sleep deprivation.”
The purpose of this post is not to agree or disagree with Mr. West’s diagnosis but to utilize this opportunity to create discussion and raise awareness about this mental illness. Often associated with creativity, eccentric personality, and unstable moods, the illness is not “a disease of the rich” or “a modern world problem.”
The two extremes of mood, “melancholia” and “mania” have been documented by ancient Greek physicians and philosophers. French psychiatrist Jean-Pierre Falret created the first concept of a new psychiatric disorder which he termed “folie circulaire” (1851) or “circular insanity”, a mental disorder characterized by a continuous cycle of…
