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What is bipolar disorder?
Bipolar disorder is a disease of the nervous system that involves the brain and the body. Environmental, heredity, genetic, and biological factors create changes in brain cells and an imbalance in the chemical within the nervous system, resulting in abnormal fluctuations in metabolism, emotions, and thought processes, including attention.

What does the name "bipolar disorder" mean?
"Bipolar" refers to the two physiological states of mania and depression that are associated with the illness. These gave rise to the previous name of "manic depression." Although many people with this disorder have mainly manic or mainly depressive episodes, there is usually a mixture of symptoms at any given time.

Bipolar disorder causes much more than simply mania and depression. It can also cause feelings of irritability, anger, jealousy, resentment, anxiety, avoidance, embarrassment, fear, inadequacy, regret, and confusion. In addition to mood swings, you may experience drastic fluctuations in energy, activity, weight, metabolism, and sleep/wake cycle. Bipolar disorder increases your sensitivity to stress so that you become more vulnerable to life changes.

Bipolar disorder impairs thinking by causing poor focus, distractibility, and poor memory. Poor judgment, impulsivity, repetitive, obsessive thoughts, and overfocused, compulsive activities make you more likely to overwork, overindulge, and take unnecessary risks. Problems with procrastination, poor motivation, and difficulty starting and/or finishing projects make it difficult to attain your life goals.

How many people have bipolar disorder?
It is estimated that 2 to 7 percent of people in the United States suffer from bipolar disorder. Almost ten million people will develop the illness sometime during their lives. About half of those will never receive the correct diagnosis or treatment.

How many people are affected by bipolar disorder?
In addition to the people directly suffering from the illness, bipolar disorder affects the lives of their parents, brothers, sisters, spouses, children, grandchildren, and friends. Parent struggle with the problems of bipolar disorder in their children. Doctors, nurses, therapists, and social workers devote their time to helping and caring for individuals with bipolar disorder. All in all, it is estimated that about twenty million people's lives are touched and changed by bipolar disorder in the United States alone.

If I have bipolar disorder, how much of my life will I actually be sick?
Bipolar disorder is far more serious than most people think. One quarter of the people with bipolar disorder are unable to function for most of the year. Over half of diagnosed bipolar patients have four or more serious outbreaks per year, and some patients experience a mixture of symptoms continuously throughout their lives. However, this picture improves dramatically with successful treatment.

Does Bipolar disorder cause physical health problems?
Yes. Persons with bipolar disorder have more heart problems than the rest of the population. They also have more headaches, particularly migraine headaches. Migraines are even more common in bipolar depression than in common, unipolar major depression.

Bipolar disorder also increases the risk for substance abuse and addiction: 60 to 80 percent of people with bipolar disorder will suffer from alcoholism or drug abuse during their lives.

Overall, the death rate is higher in people with bipolar disorder, especially those receiving insufficient treatment. Compared with the rest of the population, people with bipolar disorder experience more accidental injuries and deaths, particularly from motor vehicle accidents.

What is the worst thing that might happen to me if I have a bipolar episode?
The worst tragedy of bipolar disorder is that it can prevent you from having the kind of life you want and deserve. Without treatment, bipolar illness makes it impossible to use your natural talents and abilities, so that you never live up to your potential.

The second-worse danger from bipolar disorder is the loss of anything and everything you accomplished in your life. In bipolar episodes, people break up their families, destroy their marriages, and alienate their children, sometimes forever. People have destroyed their careers, lost their homes and life savings, and driven away their friends when their bipolar disorder was uncontrolled. People have thrown away fortunes, gotten pregnant, caught diseases, went to jail, and injured or killed themselves and others in accidents during bipolar episodes.

Are people with bipolar disorder more likely to kill themselves?
Suicide is a serious problem in this illness. Thirty percent of individuals with bipolar disorder will attempt suicide during their lives, and 20 percent will succeed. Even failed suicide attempts can cause crippling, lifelong injuries. Fortunately, your risk of suicide decreases dramatically when your bipolar disorder is treated.

Can I be hopeful about my future?
Absolutely. With successful treatment, people with bipolar disorder are healthy and can achieve the kind of life they want and deserve. For the first time in history, we have a broad choice of effective treatments for bipolar disorder, and there are even better, cutting-edge therapies about to be released.

What can I do now to get my bipolar disorder under control?Maintain your determination, find a good doctor, keep a healthy lifestyle, find medications that work, care for your psychological needs, and find strategies to do the things that bipolar disorder makes difficult.

Why do you think I need to learn about my bipolar disorder?
There is so little reliable information readily available about bipolar disorder that you, the patient, must become your own expert on your illness and your well-being. Once you have found a doctor and a therapist who is/are knowledgeable about bipolar disorder, try to learn all you can. Ultimately, you must become the guiding force behind your own treatment, not through intuition or destiny, but by the knowledge of facts.

Why do you talk about bipolar disorder like it is a disease? I think I am a normal person.
In order to diagnose bipolar disorder, the symptoms must cause problems in major areas of your life such as work, school, social activities, and/or relationships with friends or family. Bipolar disorder is certainly a disease if it is keeping you from reaching your full potential in life.

However, if you bring your bipolar disorder under control with proper ongoing treatment, you can then use your full range of normal talents and abilities. At that point, you still have bipolar disorder but it is not an illness. Rather it is like a cancer in remission.