Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterised by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that each last for an unknown period of time, between a day and a few months. When the mood is abnormally elevated or can be associated with psychosis, it is called manic, whereas the less severe one is named hypomanic, through sharing the same symptoms. In the first case, the person is full of energy. They can be happy or easily irritated and usually don’t need much sleep. In the second situation, the people are sad, have a negative outlook on life, cry and are most likely to commit suicide.
If you’re wondering what the symptoms are, you should first learn what types of bipolar disorder exist. There are a few types of bipolarity, but the most important ones are Bipolar I, Bipolar II and Cyclothemia.
Bipolar I and Bipolar II
In the first case, the person has had at least one manic episode that can be followed by a hypomanic or major depressive episode. In the second one, the person has never had a manic episode but has had at least one major depressive episode and a hypomanic one.
Cyclothemia
This type of bipolar needs at least two years for an adult to be identified, or at least one for children and teenagers. In these years, the people with the disorder should have constant changes between periods of hypomania and periods of depression.
Someone can have Bipolar I or II with ‘rapid cycling’, which means that they exprience four or more episodes of any kind within the year. Another interesting combination is when the person has a mixed episode of depression with manic or hypomanic tendecies. This is called Bipolar I or II ‘with mixed features’. Another obstacle can be the season. Some people can have Bipolar I or II with seasonal patterns, which means their mood is being influenced by the different seasons.
Bipolar disorder can be viewed from different perspectives. One of them is quite interesting, presented in the gothic horror book “The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, where bipolarity is seen as two different people.
The book makes us quesion what the author was trying to imply when he made Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde the same person. It turns out that Dr. Jekyll had developed a serum, which he used to turn into Mr. Hyde anytime he wanted an out. Mr. Hyde was the bad person, the horrible monster who didn’t have to fit into the standards of society. This way, Dr. Jekyll could be good and kind and Mr. Hyde would be his secret shadow. Robert Louis Stevenson wanted to put the bipolar disorder into perspective and show that humans and their minds are not unidimentional.
This book is one of the first that describes double personalities as a disorder. The main theory is that the author, Robert Louis Stevenson, wanted to prove the existence of this disorder by writing this novel upon the release of clinical studies on bipolarity.
There are people who truly see bipolarity as two separate individuals, Jekyll and Hyde, and feel like it as well; and there are other people that only feel like Hyde, both their personalities being just like him and nothing like Dr. Jekyll.
In conclusion, bipolarity can be viewed from different perspectives. Obviously, from the clinical one, where you learn about your disorder and how to live with it, how to manage it. You can learn how it is seen by someone healthy, for example through the creative perspective of young authors. You can come to understand it by talking to a medical team, which includes a psychiatrist. It isn’t something to be ashamed of. To be different is to be unique and special. As long as the person keeps themselves healthy by doing checkups at a clinic and follows the doctor’s instructions, everything should be just fine.
In case you want to know more about:
A strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson)
The plot of the book starts with a lawyer, Mr. Utterson, who is taking a walk with one of his friends, Mr. Enfield. They walk past a door and the gentleman describes a connected incident he witnessed recently involving a man, Mr. Hyde, where he walked right over a young girl. From that tale they figured out that he lived behind that strange door. The name triggered something in Mr. Uttersons mind. When he got home, he took out Dr. Jekyll’s will. That’s where he knew Mr. Hyde from! In his will, dr. Jekyll stated that if anything happened to him, everything he owned should be left to mr. Hyde. With his concerns, he visits a friend of Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Lanyon, but he has lost touch with him since their student days, so it wasn’t helpful at all. He raised his concerns with Dr. Jekyll at a dinner the doctor holds, but he waves him off and asks him to look for Mr. Hyde’s best interest. About a year later, Mr. Hyde is suspected for a murder and he goes off the grid. That’s when Mr. Utterson, accompanied by Dr. Lanyon, visits Dr. Jekyll, who is very ill. After Hyde’s disappearance, he soon gets better, is at peace and ready to start a new life. Lanyon dies soon after and leaves an envelope to Mr. Utterson, with a letter only to be opened after Dr. Jekyll disappears or dies. Some strange occurrences start happening, one of them being that Mr. Utterson is visited by Dr. Jekyll’s butler, who hasn’t seen Jekyll in some time and is very concerned. They both go over to Jekyll’s house and enter his laboratory, only to find Mr. Hyde in Dr. Jekyll’s clothes, dead. Mr. Utterson finds a letter from Jekyll, in which he explained how he had found a way to split his two personalities, good and evil. Soon, mr. Hyde started to take over and he couldn’t control it anymore, as his supply of antidote ran low andis attempt to produce more failed. That’s why, in order to keep everyone safe from the mean, bad, ugly and dangerous Hyde, Dr. Jekyll selflessly took his own life.
