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Bipolar Disorder: A Cognitive Curse or an Ego Booster?

November 16th, 2013 No comments

What do Britney Spears, Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe, Jim Carrey, Robert Pattinson and Ben Stiller all have in common? Other than being rich, famous and having household names, they all struggle(d) with a mood disorder called Bipolar.

Bipolar Disorder (BD) is a mental disorder involving extremes. The stereotypical bipolar patient vacillates between severe depression and severe manic episodes with brief too long periods of remission between episodes. Remission simply refers to the time where a patient isn’t exhibiting symptoms from either category (e.g. they aren’t “cured” of BD, they just aren’t having a manic or depressive episode). A manic episode generally consists of extreme impulsivity, lack of control, feelings of grandeur, distractibility, racing thoughts, and feelings of irrational elation among other things; whereas depression generally consists of hopelessness, extreme sadness, lack of energy, irritability, lack of appetite and other various other symptoms.

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