1) Actor Maurice Benard gives a raw and insightful interview on Profiles of Hope about his life with bipolar 1 – Upworthy.com, open page and scroll down for video
2) Christopher Luke gives his super insightful personal experience with bipolar 1 – Youtube
3) Everything you need to know about bipolar disorder: a senior counsellor from SADAG (see below) talking about bipolar for bipolar awareness week, May 2014- video
4) Psychiatrist Leigh Janet in 5 short videos about bipolar disorder – here
5) South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG)’s Monday’s Mental Health Fact, 26th May 2014 via Facebook, Mental Health Monday’s: Bipolar Disorder
We all have mood changes; have happy days and grumpy days; have energetic days and couch-potato days; friendly and irritable days. Part of being human is the variability of our moods and behaviours. But what if you didn’t have control over that, or if you felt elated or euphoric most of the time that in fact it becomes counterproductive, and then all of a sudden if you feel like you’re in a slump and you can’t snap out of it? This could be signs of symptoms of Bipolar Mood Disorder.
Bipolar is a mental illness that affects approximately 2% of the population. Swinging between depressed moods (depressive episode), loss of interest in normal activities, loss of energy, inability to concentrate, and suicidal thoughts to irritation and extremely elevated moods (manic episode), feeling invincible, having an inflated self-esteem, decreased need for sleep, racing thoughts and speech, the change in mood can be seen – and felt – by those around.
Manic symptoms include:
• Severe changes in mood, either extremely irritable or overly
silly and elated
• Overly-inflated self-esteem, grandiosity
• Increased energy
• Decreased need for sleep, ability to go with very little or no sleep for days without tiring
• Increased talking, talks too much, too fast; changes topics too quickly; cannot be interrupted
• Distracted, attention moves constantly from one thing to the next
• Increased goal-directed activity or physical agitation
• Disregard of risk, excessive involvement in risky behaviours or activities
Depressive symptoms include:
• Persistent sad or irritable mood
• Loss of interest in activities once enjoyed
• Significant change in appetite or body weight
• Difficulty sleeping or oversleeping
• Physical agitation or slowing
• Loss of energy
• Feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt
• Difficulty concentrating
• Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide
If you are suffering from Bipolar who know of someone who is, SADAG will be hosting numerous Ask the Doctors Talks across the country and two Facebook chats this week. To find out all the details, please go to SADAG’s website www.sadag.org for all the info and updates, online videos, brochures, and questionaires on Bipolar.
*Please note this website, while helpful, is for an organisation based in South Africa, not Australia*
L i f e - be IN it! 