BIPOLAR DISORDER ---- COULD IT BE?

Everyone can relate to the word mood. We are all happy, excited, sad or depressed at some point in our lives. Bipolar Affective Disorder (Manic Depressive Illness) is a biochemical imbalance that causes gross mood changes from the high reaches of mania to the lows of severe depression. For the one percent or twenty million Americans who have this condition it can mean hospitalizations, a life time of medication, disability at an early age and the reduced income associated with it, and it can at times be life threatening.

Bipolar Affective Disorder is nobody's "fault" - parents are not to blame for the way they raised the bipolar, nor is the individual to blame for failing to deal adequately with the stresses of life. The cause of Bipolar Affective Disorder is unknown and at the present time there is no cure. There are, however, effective treatments available.

SOME DEFINTIONS CONCERNING BIPOLAR DISORDER Affective Disorder: any disorder of "affect" or "mood" most often caused by biochemical imbalance.

Anhedonia: the inability to experience pleasure; a loss of interest in once pleasurable activities.

Antidepressants: drugs developed primarily to treat and relieve symptoms of depression.

Antipsychotics: drugs used to treat severe distortions in thought perception and emotion that characterize psychoses. (also known as neuroleptics).

Bipolar: Literally...having two poles. In bipolar affective disorder wide mood swings from mania to depression usually with periods of normal mood. Impaired insight into mood during an episode is common.

Cyclothymia: Comparatively mild mood swings from depression to mania. Often cyclothymics are always up or down, not staying in a normal mood for long.

Delusion: A fixed false belief regarding the self or the world persistently held despite clear evidence to the contrary. In depression, often of guilt, sin or crime. In mania of grandeur and unlimited power to save the world.

Depression: A mental disorder of lowered mood, slowed thinking, decreased pleasure, guilt feelings, hopelessness, despair, and problems in sleeping and eating.

Euphoria: An exaggerated feeling of physical and emotional well-being.

Euthymic Mood: The "normal" mood when not manic or depressed.

Hallucinations: A perception of sounds, sights, physical sensations or smells that do not exist.

Hypomania: "less than manic" but still highly energized, in an unusually good or unusually irritable mood, making impulsive decisions and having mildly impaired judgement. Falls somewhere between euthymia and mania.

Lithium: a drug used for stabilizing the mood swings of Bipolar Affective Disorder.

Manic Depressive Illness: previous name for Bipolar Affective Disorder. Still commonly used.

Mental Health: A state of psychological and emotional well-being that enables an individual to love, work, relate to others effectively, and resolve conflicts.

Mixed Episode: A bipolar episode with features of both mania and depression,

Paranoia: The tendency to view the actions of others as deliberately

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