Is there any myths or misunderstanding about Bipolar Mood Disorder?

Answer 1

The stigma associated with a diagnosis of Bipolar disorder on patients is a serious problem.

Legally, Bipolar patients are denied security clearances as a matter of course, due to a perception of personal instability and bad moral conduct. They may not serve in the armed forces or in the police. They are almost universally denied life insurance at any realistic cost due to a perception that they are invariably suicidal, even though life insurance policies do not pay at all in cases of suicide. Public knowledge that an individual has ever been treated for the condition is seen as a near total bar to holding public office.

The drugs they take are associated in pop culture with angst and inner turmoil (Nirvana's album Lithium, being a prominent reference).

The conditions name is often used to describe mercurial indivduals who clearly do not have the disorder.

Answer 2

Here are some of the common myths about bipolar disorder:

• Bipolar disorder is rare. It's actually not that rare - up to 1.4% of the population suffers from bipolar disorder.
  
• Bipolar people are crazy. Most bipolar people are perfectly normal mentally - it's just that pesky mood thing that is annoying.
• It's easy to tell who has bipolar disorder. Actually, it's really hard. There are several other mood disorders which are similar to mania, including schizophrenia
  
• Bipolar people could be normal if they really wanted to. No, no we can't. Bipolar disorder is caused by a chemical imbalance, and the only way to fix that is by medication. 7 out of 10 bipolars are mis-diagnosed at first, and it takes an average of 4 doctor visits until you get the correct diagnosis.
  
• Bipolar people spend a lot of time being manic and hallucinating. Most bipolars actually spend more time in the depressive stage, and some of us can go for years without even having a manic episode.
• Bipolar people are either super happy or super sad. Actually, most of the time we just have regular moods like you do - the depressive and manic episodes can be kept under control most of the time by medication and therapy techniques. And we can have a really annoying mood swing where we have both mania AND depression at the same time, which is like being really happy and really irritated together.
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Answer 3

There are many negative stereotypes about people affected by schizophrenia. One of the worst stereotypes is the belief that all people with schizophrenia are violent or dangerous.