Bipolar Disorder Defined and Its Prevalence

Now, he is energetic, intensely elated, irritable and self-important. An hour later, he a painful sadness, negative thinking, and indifferent to things that used to bring them happiness. These are the manifestations of people who have a mental disorder called Bipolar Disorder.
A person with Bipolar Disorder has alternating moods of extreme mania and depression. Bipolar disorder is also otherwise referred to as manic-depressive illness. When the patient is in a depressed state, he feels extremely gloomy and negativistic. When he shifts to being manic, the patient can look hyperactive, always on the move and mischievous.
Bipolar disorder is much less common than depression. In North America and Europe, about 1 percent of people experience bipolar disorder during their lives. Rates of bipolar disorder are similar throughout the world. In comparison, at least 8 percent of people experience serious depression during their lives.
Bipolar disorder affects men and women about equally and is somewhat more common in higher socioeconomic classes. At least 15 percent of people with bipolar disorder commit suicide. This rate roughly equals the rate for people with major depression, the most severe form of depression.
Some research suggests that highly creative people—such as artists, composers, writers, and poets—show unusually high rates of bipolar disorder, and that periods of mania fuel their creativity.
There are a lot of well known personalities around the world who has manic depressive disorder. Some are writers and some artists. These famous personalities in history who may have the disorder are painters Amedeo Modigliani and Jackson Pollock, novelists Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway, Lord Byron and Anne Sexton, and composers Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Sergey Rachmaninoff. Critics of this research note that many creative people do not suffer from bipolar disorder, and that most people with bipolar disorder are not especially creative.