Bipolar  disorder is a mental health condition affecting around 1 million people in the UK. It is the name given to a condition in which people experience mood swings from depression through to elation. In it’s mild form, people don’t even know they have the condition as they only experience mild depressions and mild elation. Consequently, it often goes unnoticed and undiagnosed and often doesn’t cause any serious disruption to the person’s life.

In it’s very serious form, people have severe depressive episodes which can be life threatening as there is a high level of associated suicide. There can also be swings into mania and sometimes delusions and hallucinations.

There is a vast spectrum of manifestations of this mood disorder. Some people manage to have a completeley normal life, other than having to take medication to keep their sypmtoms under control as for many other physical conditions.

For others, it is a very challenging condition which causes the sufferer a great deal of anguish and frustration.

It is often undiagnosed, misdiagnosed, mistreated and highly misunderstood by many, including some of the professionals in their field. The diagnosis is usually based on the subjective evidence of the indiviudal concerned as there is no current medical test which can be conducted which can prove for certain whether or nor a sufferer does, in fact, have bipolar or whether there are all sorts of other factors at play which don’t amount to Bipolar at all.

Depression and Anxiety are such common mental health conditions that most people don’t think of them as “mental illnesses”.

Personality disorders are also kept distinct from mental health problems by many again seeing these disorders as being separate from mental health conditions.

This blog aims to provide information on diagnosing mental health conditions, on research studies, on case studies and on advancements in the knowledge being gained by the medical profession on this condition.