He Bipolar disorder It is a serious mental illness that causes drastic, sudden and unexplained alterations in the mood and behavior of the person who suffers from it, conditions their ability to think, feel, interact socially, and can lead to sleep disorders. It usually develops in late adolescence, early adulthood. However, it is one of the most trivialized serious mental disorders.
With the instability as a scapegoat, the suffering generated by this pathology is usually ignored in who suffers from it. Extreme bouts of depression hypomania and mania, irritability, the feeling of inner emptiness, the inability to concentrate, fatigue, guilt, among other direct effects of bipolar disorder, take a very heavy emotional toll. It is indeed, one of the mental illnesses with the highest risk of suicide. And although it is chronic, it can be treated.
It is estimated that in Spain one million people suffer from this disease and that only three out of ten have it diagnosed. To explain its implications, store has two psychologists with extensive experience in the vast field of mental health: Timanfaya Hernandez y guillermo sickle. She is the vice dean of Official College of Psychology of Madrida professional specialized in forensic and health psychology, oriented to serious mental pathologies. She works as a teacher in the master’s degree in Forensic Psychology taught by the Rey Juan Carlos University and in the master’s degree in General Health Psychology from the Alfonso X el Sabio University. For his part, guillermo sickle He is a doctor in Psychology, president of the foundation psychology without borders and professor at the Complutense University of Madrid.
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To detect bipolar disorder you have to stop and think, suggests Guillermo Fouce, in if these mood swings affect daily lifebecause if so, that is the moment to to look for help.
Bipolar disorder alternates in so-called manic and depressive episodes. Explains the vice dean of the Official College of Psychology of Madrid, Timanfaya Hernandezthat when a person is in the manic phase, they can be recognized in a mood of extreme happiness that has no correspondence with a specific cause: “People who are in this phase usually experience sleep disturbances, think and speak very fastthey can become reckless and impulsive“. This can lead them, for example, either to buy compulsively unnecessary things, “wasting money”, or else lose fear of reckless attitudessuch as “driving aggressively”, describes the expert.
In the depressive phaseOn the other hand, a situation of great sadness, discouragement and a lack of motivation absolutely for everything: “Unable to feel happy, they plunge into what is called anhedoniawhich is a total loss of the possibility of feeling pleasure and, even, of carrying out activities that they have enjoyed on other occasions”. In this situation, the person finds enormous difficulties to be able to carry out any type of taskalso suffers sleep disturbances because there is a hypersomnia: “The tendency to sleep too muchto not being able to get out of bed, even though on many occasions sleep is not even restful“.
And key symptom to take into account in this depressive phase is the presence of thoughts about death and idea of suicide.
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Hay differences between men and women with bipolar disorder. On the one hand, explains Guillermo Fouce, president of psychology without borders, men experience longer emotional spikes than women. On the other, he argues that bipolar disorder occurs more frequently among them.
In this regard, Timanfaya Hernandez note that there is usually a higher prevalence of manic episodes in men, phases linked to impulsive behaviors and, sometimes, to the consumption of narcotic substances. For women with bipolar disorder, the data support that they are more affected by depressive episodesIn general, more serious than those suffered by men.
For these reasons, and those that follow, it is essential to make an adequate and timely diagnosis, because “a pharmacological and psychological treatment that arrives late It can make the symptoms become chronic and the depressive episodes last even longer,” Hernández asserts.
Stigmas that undermine mental health
Both one and the other must bear stigmas derived from our socialization processsays the psychologist forensic and sanitary: “Throughout our history we have used very pejorative language in which, for example, it is common disqualify labeling someone as ‘bipolar'”. In general, society does not understand what this and other mental illnesses are about, so people who suffer from them continue to be highly stigmatized: “We should look at them with more empathy and compassionand to think that it is not something that happens to a few because no one is free suffering from depression or developing a mental illness.
The expert stresses that Spain is the second country in the world in consumption of antidepressants while acknowledging that the stigmas attached to people with bipolar disorder are closely relationship with cultural conditions: Gender roles. What they have taught us about how a woman should be o How a man must be weighs on the shoulders of the whole society, but those who coexist with this serious mental disorder experience it from a particularly delicate angle.
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Within this perverse game of gender roles, she continues, “society admits as more logical that women are the ones who express their emotions in this way”, maintains Fouce, for whom the cultural context conditions the daily life of women with bipolar disorder, as do hormonal changes: “Health is made up of the biological, the psychological, the affective and the social”.
The UCM professor maintains that “men who express their emotions or who cry”, whether they suffer from bipolar disorder or not, must deal with an additional burden. And if they have also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, “the stigma of being sick, of communicating one’s emotions and the fear of being thought crazy is always present.”
Helping those living with bipolar disorder
The stigma that is taking more and more body is asking for help. The fear of showing one’s own fear, to uncover one’s own vulnerability. Social support is shown to be fundamental while those who suffer from bipolar disorder indicate that the lack of understanding and acceptance social is a stone in the shoe.
The president of Psychology Without Borders, Guillermo Fouce, observes that there are vast differences in the welfare of people with bipolar disorder who must deal with situations of unwanted loneliness and those who have a support network, emotional support. For this reason, the key is to combat the stigmas, to treat the situation naturally.
“Once it’s detected in a friend or family member, The most important thing is to ask for help.establish what is called the problem awarenessof the disease”, says Timanfaya Hernández. It will be much more difficult for the person who suffers from it, especially during the manic phase, when they are exultant. Not so much during the depressive phase: “As the symptoms are very unpleasant, it will be more It’s easy for him to realize… But understanding that euphoria and sadness are part of a mental illness is not easy at all”.
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The vice dean of the Official College of Psychology of Madrid explains that those who are close to a person with bipolar disorder notice it, for example, when in the manic phase episodes of great conflict in coexistence, with close people or even on the street: “Getting into conflict with people with bipolar disorder can be a losing war and accusing them can be counterproductive because they feel very bad. The main thing is to accompany them and make them understand that they have a disease And they need help.”
But he insists that it must be specialized help. Because the treatment for this mental illness is mainly pharmacological, but it has been shown that by itself it does not solve the problem. It is necessary to accompany it with a Psychological treatment by professionals who know the disease to be able to identify its evolution, Hernández maintains: “That recognize the symptoms that the person may have before entering a manic or depressive episode; that I can tell you how to proceed when you are in those phases, help to detect them and be able to prevent those spikes emotional, turn them into a plateau”.
In addition, a correct psychological accompaniment can help people with bipolar disorder to go dealing with all that amount of ideas, normalizing social life, working life, which the psychologist labels as essential: “It has been shown that maintaining good routines helps to stabilize the mood.” Guillermo Fouce is positioned along the same lines, on the need to have a psychotherapeutic treatment added to the pharmacological one.