Bipolar Disorder

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ght percent of people experience serious depression during their lives. Bipolar disorder affects men and women about equally and is somewhat more common in higher socioeconomic classes. At least fifteen percent of people with bipolar disorder commit suicide. This rate roughly equals the rate for people with major depression, the most severe form of depression (E).

Some research suggests that highly creative people—such as artists, composers, writers, and poets—show unusually high rates of bipolar disorder, and that periods of mania fuel their creativity. Famous artists and writers who probably suffered from bipolar disorder include poets Lord Byron and Anne Sexton, novelists Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway, composers Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Sergey Rachmaninoff, and painters Amedeo Modigliani and Jackson Pollock. Critics of this research note that many creative people do not suffer from bipolar disorder, and that most people with bipolar disorder are not especially creative (E).

SYMPTOMS
Bipolar disorder usually begins in a person’s late teens or twenties. Men usually experience mania as the first mood episode, whereas women typically experience depression first (E). Episodes of mania and depression usually last from several weeks to several months. On average, people with untreated bipolar disorder experience four episodes of mania or depression over any ten-year period. Many people with bipolar disorder function normally between episodes. In rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, however, which represents five to fifteen percent of all cases, a person experiences four or more mood episodes within a year and may have little or no normal functioning in between episodes (H). In rare cases, swings between mania and depression can occur over a period of days or hours. The term ultra-rapid cycling may be applied to those who cycle through episodes within a month or less. If this pattern is demonstrated within a t...