Introduction
This essay is about the bipolar disorder and its impact on humans. This paper will discuss a number of issues that surround the prevalence of the disease. The main aim of this paper is to identify the effects of bipolar on humans. It also seeks to explain and outline the different ways through which bipolar disorder inhibits a person’s ability to maintain relationships. The essay seeks to answer a number of questions that covers a broad scope of the bipolar disorder. This includes its prevalence, effects on people’s daily activities, it emotional implications as well as its treatment. This paper will discuss bipolar and its effects on human rational ability and social conduct.
Defining the bipolar disorder
Bipolar is a mental illness that affects an individual’s mood causing fluctuations in energy and activity levels (Chengappa & Gershon, 2013). Bipolar is also known as manic-depressive illness and its effects can abhorrently affect personal relationship with others. Patients suffering from the bipolar disorder exhibit exaggerated mood changes and this is known as mania or hypomania (Chengappa & Gershon, 2013). Defining the disease as either mania or hypomania depends on the severity of the changes in moods.
How does the disease negatively affect a person’s attention?
A person with bipolar disorder does not think normally as an average person. People suffering from the bipolar illness have a different mindset that alters their ability to concentrate and be attentive. Bipolar patients are extremely thoughtful and very anxious. Their minds perceive everything in the extremes and this gives them a fluctuation in moods very often. Such people do not get upset when wronged, they become very depressed and they always see like everybody hates them. This affects their ability to concentrate because something worth neglecting can depress them.
What age is the disease likely to be diagnosed?
Bipolar is a disease that affects almost 2 million people in the United States every year (MayoClinic, 2014). The likelihood of having this disorder is greatly influenced by genetic makeup and family background. People who have relatives that suffer from the disease are more likely to be diagnosed with the same compared to those who do not. The disease however has not been identified to have any form of prevalence with regard to races. It seems all races are affected equally. In terms of age, the disease is normally detected at 15-25 years of age and it also affects both men and women (Christian, 2014).
How does bipolar affect a person’s everyday functioning
Parts of life that are most affected
Bipolar makes relationships very difficult. A person suffering from bipolar has extreme mood swings that can leave their loved ones confused. It is actually very difficult to distinguish between the disease and the person. Therefore, when the disease is activated, the person behaves in a manner that changes the perception of the people living around him or her (Tracy, 2013). One minute a bipolar patient could be smiling and laughing with you and in the next they get very offended and suddenly they are not in the mood to talk anymore. This shift is so arbitrary that one may take offense and forget that the individual is suffering from a disease (Tracy, 2013).
Bipolar patients have a very unstable mood pattern. This makes them very unpredictable and one cannot tell their response when they are angry or exited. This affects their rationale when making decisions even at places of work or even in the family. Bipolar patients, when offended, they perceive it in the extreme way (Tracy, 2013). This may greatly interfere with their relationship with other people like children and spouses. When a person suffering from bipolar is offended by his or her spouse, they may see it as an expression of hate. When a person feels like they are being undermined or hated in a relationship, they may get very broken and this may cause trouble in that relationship (Tracy, 2013).
In working environment, bipolar patients also can have great problems in performing their mandates. For instance, when a customer in the workplace gets rude, a bipolar patient does not see it as a working challenge. On the contrary, they assume that the customer had targeted them and they take it very personal. This will definitely affect their working morale for the rest of the day (Tracy, 2013). They become so angry that they can go for days in a bad mood, hence affecting their performance. Students in schools and collages will also suffer the same fate. Feeling like everybody hates you can easily distract one from their rational mind set.
Ability to form friendships and relationships
People suffering from bipolar disorder find it very difficult to maintain friendly and lasting relationships with people. This has negative impacts on their social life and may have many disadvantages that can be detrimental to other aspect of their lives (MayoClinic, 2014). Bipolar patients are known to overreact to a simple situation. Friends will always have problems and sometimes even quarrel. In any healthy friendship, the parties involved must quarrel sometimes but that does not mean that they are not good friends (MayoClinic, 2014). Bipolar patients do not understand that people are meant to make mistakes and that even a close friend can disappoint them.
With their overacting tendencies, such people will have very few friends around them because people will feel very uncomfortable. Not only will people shun them, but they too will tend to shun people because they think they will be disappointed. Bipolar patients have a trust problem. They do not easily trust people because they are always paranoic. Friendship, on the other hand, is based on trust and understanding (MayoClinic, 2014).
intimate relationships are also greatly dependent on trust. Since bipolar patients find it difficult trusting people, it becomes difficult for them to get into serious relationships. Anxiety also makes them be very cautious hence locking out prospective friends.
How it affects their ability to work and play
As mentioned earlier, working and playing for bipolar patients is greatly compromised. This disease causes a person to become paranoid. Interacting with other people is also a problem hence creating a barrier for their ability to work in teams. Bipolar patients are never interested in joining a group of people because they need to protect themselves from being disappointed. A simple comment about their dressing or haircut can cause them mental stress for the rest of the day. Such reactions in a team of people with different temperaments can be very stressful. To avoid that, bipolar patients prefer to avoid people.
Treatment used to manage bipolar
Bipolar is classified as one of the long-term chronic conditions. However, the disease has a number of ways in which it can be treated and controlled. Nonetheless, the treatment of bipolar is specific and unique from one patient to the other. Part of the recommended treatment includes medication. In fact, some people treat their conditions without their knowledge. For instant, many drunkards and drug abusers use their drugs to suppress their symptoms. There are however two main types of medicines that are globally used to treat bipolar. They include Modd Mobilizer and Atypical antipsychotics (Bressert, 2014). Other treatments include psychotherapy and self-help strategies (Bressert, 2014).
How effective are these treatments
Lithium is one of the mood mobilizers that have been used for some time now and its effectiveness has been approved by major psychotherapists. On the other hand, atypical antipsychotic is thought to have great side effects even although it works very well in suppressing the impacts of the bipolar disease. Psychotherapy is one of the best strategies in treating and managing bipolar disorder, it is the greatest and the most successful method (Bressert, 2014). Psychotherapy basically helps the patients to deal with the challenges they face as a result o their illness. This is the best way to deal with a personality challenge.
Study
Roy Chengappa and Samuel Gershon, Bipolar Disorders, 2013, ISI Journal Citation Reports.
This journal has defined the disease and has given a wide range of its prevalence among the American pollution (Chengappa & Gershon, 2013). The journal gives real statistics to show the exact number of people suffering from the disease and their treatment records. Extensively, this journal has discussed the causes of the disease and also the most effective measures that have been proven to treat and manage the disease (Chengappa & Gershon, 2013). The journal also points out that the disease can cause great alteration to the normal human rationale ability. The study primarily focuses on the disease and its effects on its victims as well as methods of treating it.
Methods used in data collection and the major findings
The methods used by the authors to collect their data were mainly through questionnaires, interviews, and reporting. The major finding of the study includes the high number of people suffering from bipolar without their knowledge. Also the study has majorly identified the different ways of treating the disease. This research work has also included the different levels of severity of the diseases and the causes of such exaggerated high levels.
Conclusion
This paper has been set to discuss the bipolar disorder in detail. The paper clearly outlines how the disease affects a person’s ability to concentrate on their daily activities. It also has described the impacts and effects of the disease and how it affects person’s ability to make friends and establish lasting relationships. The paper has also outlined the age limit that professionals consider to be the most common age when most patients are diagnosed with the disease.
In this essay, a number of treatment methods have been discussed and ways to manage the disease have also been outlined. In the end of the paper, a study on one academic journal has been undertaken. The paper has summarized the findings of the journal and identified the methods used by the authors to collect the information thereof. This paper is a comprehensive study that has clearly and extensively discussed the bipolar disorder and its impacts on human’s ability to live social life.
References
Bressert, S. (2014). Treatment of Bipolar Disorder, Manic Depression. Psych Central. Web.
Christian N. (2014). What is bipolar disorder? What causes bipolar disorder?Web.
Chengappa, R., & Gershon, S. (2013). Bipolar Disorders.ISI Journal Citation Reports, 16 (6), 1399-5618. Web.
MayoClinic: Tests and diagnosis. (2014). Web.
Tracy, N. (2013).How a Person with Bipolar Thinks. Web.