Bipolar Mania ? Different Perspectives

[David Baxter PhD]

Bipolar Mania ? Different Perspectives
By Candida Fink MD
June 9, 2009

In Bipolar Disorder for Dummies, we talk a little about the differences in how bipolar mania is seen from the outside as opposed to how it is experienced from the inside. Inside, a person experiencing mania may feel?

• I am amazing!
• Everything is wonderful!
• I can do anything and everything!
• I have all the answers! My ideas will revolutionize the world!
• Sleep is only for people who have nothing better to do!
• Everybody loves me!

Outsiders may have a completely different perspective, saying or at least thinking?

• Boy is he bombastic!
• What a jerk!
• You need to sleep? you haven?t slept in three days!
• Do you need to criticize every single thing I say?!
• I?m so tired of arguing with you.
• Stop spending so much money? you?ll go bankrupt!

With such opposing perspectives, is it any wonder why people who are experiencing bipolar mania don?t get the help they need? From their perspective, they don?t need help ? maybe everyone else does, but they don?t.

Perhaps worse is the fact that those around them often see bipolar not as the illness it is but as a character flaw or behavioral disorder ? something the person needs to just learn to control.