Bipolar

Bipolar Disorder - The Effects on Family

William Rotchford

Psychology 100

The idea of living a majority of your life having a disorder without ever knowing it can seem pretty strange and improbable, however, it tends to be the case with those who have bipolar disorder. With this disorder, a person is vulnerable to depression and episodic mania or hypomania (Culpepper, 2015). The hard part, when attempting to diagnose bipolar disorder, is differentiating between bipolar disorder and major depression. Unfortunately, depending on the population, a large portion of the people diagnosed with unipolar depression, between 7% and 52%, actually have bipolar disorder (Culpepper, 2015). This mind-boggling statistic may seem like a stretch, however, if a psychiatrist never sees evidence of mania then they would have no reason to suggest bipolar disorder as a diagnoses. In the film, Silver Linings Playbook, Pat, the main character, has recently been released from the psychiatric hospital by his mom, even though it wasn't recommended that she release him. Throughout the movie it is clear what happened to Pat and what he did to end up in the hospital in the first place. Pat, who was previously diagnosed with depression, came home from work early one day to catch his wife, Nikki, in the shower with another man. Pat acted irrationally nearly beating the man to death. It was a combination of his depression and this manic episode that had him reevaluated and diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Upon his release, his first request to his mom on the way home was to stop by the library so he could read Nikki's syllabus claiming to be reinventing himself; this actually is the driving force behind many of Pat's outbreaks throughout the movie. While bipolar disorder may seem like a personal struggle, it could easily become more of a family ordeal as everyone needs to learn the potential struggles of being bipolar and how to properly deal with various situations that may arise from the...