Drastic Mood Disorders

March 06, 2012

Most people don't realize they had a bipolar disorder, due to the symptoms are not easily detected. This makes the number of bipolar events are very high, higher than schizophrenia. In dr. Soetomo Public Hospital, Surabaya, East Java, there are 10% among patients who seek treatment, suffered from bipolar disorder.

Bipolar is a mood disorder, or feeling up and down drastically. Bipolar can be suffered by any person, male or female. The symptoms often appear at the age of 15 to 24 years. There are two phases in bipolar:

Manic Phase
Occurs in people who could not control their energetic activities, high in motivation, high in self-confidence, and has too much to talk, because his brain is full of great ideas. But there are negative sides, which had some impact on them, such as doing foolish actions, that will lead them to become carelessness, never think twice before making an important decision, driving a car too fast, and also less concerned to people around them.

Depressive Phase
On the contrary to Manic Phase, where they feel very lazy to do anything, skipping school, missing work, hesitate to express ideas due to low of self-confidence, always feel sad, and always in trouble with people around them. Patients with depressive phase are able to say their intention to commit a suicide.

Someone may also experience manic and depressive phases at the same time. According to JawaPos interview with dr. Handoko Daeng SpKJ(K), mental specialist, the cause of bipolar is multy-factors and multy-genetics. "Genetic influence on bipolar incidence only 79%," he said.

Not all patients who experience too many stress, suffered from bipolar. "Me and another psychiatrist who must deal with many patients everyday, will also get stress. But we all didn't suffer from bipolar, " said Handoko. It may take people's understanding to know more about bipolar, and more concern to the people around them, in order to detect the bipolar disease early.

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