When we hear Bipolar Disorder we might imagine an abrupt change in personality. One minute you are happy, the next you are sad. Bipolar Disorder is far more complex than this. There are multiple levels of severity to the disease that render it a spectrum of variability.
Mainly, Bipolar Disorder is a marked switch between mania and dysphoria. It is like spending a day going up, down and up again on a three-story elevator. On the third floor there is full-blown mania filled with high-speed arcade games, extreme rock climbing and bungee jumping. It is high above the clouds unaware of the eventual come-down. You feel established, as if you can accomplish all your life goals. You are on top of the world ready to pursue them with better focus, confidence and determination. Some describe this feeling as a god-like expansiveness. Others might express mania in a mental chaos like scribbles and doodles on a canvas, only the canvas is you brain ravaged by nonsensical deliriums and paranoid thoughts. Eventually, goals can become obstacles to the usual daily tasks.
The second floor is like an ordinary day where you go through your normal class/work routine fluctuating between the average joys and sorrows of the common undergraduate or PhD student. The first floor is ruled by feelings of dysphoria, a lack of happiness and emotion. As you enter the void you become wrapped in overbearing feelings of anxiety, desperation and fear. Here, there is only a bedroom with regrets hand-written on walls. This state leads to feelings of depression, suicidal thoughts and reminders of the bleakness of life and reality. You feel paralyzed, unable to work or go outside.
Now imagine having to take that elevator every day and not knowing in what floor it will stop.
The second floor is like an ordinary day where you go through your normal class/work routine fluctuating between the average joys and sorrows of the common undergraduate or PhD student. The first floor is ruled by feelings of dysphoria, a lack of happiness and emotion. As you enter the void you become wrapped in overbearing feelings of anxiety, desperation and fear. Here, there is only a bedroom with regrets hand-written on walls. This state leads to feelings of depression, suicidal thoughts and reminders of the bleakness of life and reality. You feel paralyzed, unable to work or go outside.
Now imagine having to take that elevator every day and not knowing in what floor it will stop.
This is the life of a person with Bipolar Disorder, and there is little information on the causes and most effective treatments to treat it. This pushes patients to start looking for alternate recreational activities such as exercise, meditation and even marijuana. To treat the condition we must first understand the causes, but how can we explain this abrupt change in mood? There is no clear evidence on what provokes the switch. Some studies speak of circadian rhythm dysregulations as a possible explanation matching times of the day with fluctuations in mood. Other researchers have determined the state of mania involves an overlapping of neuronal communication. It’s like if the neurons are connecting with one another to create a net full of dopamine influx, thus, the start of the manic stage.
This overlapping and excitatory state has been linked to creativity and insight. The neurological states during mania are impressively similar to how the brain looks when a great idea pops into the back of your mind after days with writer's block. The relationship between creativity and Bipolar Disorder is used to explain why many influential artists such as Van Gogh struggle with drastic mood changes while creating some of their best works such as Starry Night, a inflamed landscape of swirling emotions painted while living at a mental hospital.
This overlapping and excitatory state has been linked to creativity and insight. The neurological states during mania are impressively similar to how the brain looks when a great idea pops into the back of your mind after days with writer's block. The relationship between creativity and Bipolar Disorder is used to explain why many influential artists such as Van Gogh struggle with drastic mood changes while creating some of their best works such as Starry Night, a inflamed landscape of swirling emotions painted while living at a mental hospital.
Starry Night, Van Gogh, 1889.
Even though, we still know so little about Bipolar Disorder. For example, most psychiatrists and scientists do not fully comprehend the action of Lithium as a therapeutic alternative to stabilize a patient's mood. It is suggested Lithium’s anxiolytic properties are involved in possibly calming the levels of excitatory neurotransmissions, but no supporting evidence has been found. Moreover, Lithium causes memory loss as well as mood sedation. This prevents the person from feeling happy at joyful moments or even having a reaction to any emotional stimuli at all. It’s like being batman or a robot.
Dopamine influx in Bipolar Disorder
Also, Lithium does not treat depression. This means that a person will take two different pills. He will be prescribed an antidepressant and Lithium. The problem is that this combination causes a counter-reaction between the two, so the medications won’t reach their full effect.
There are still controversial views on the subject of marijuana as an alternative therapy to treat Bipolar Disorder. If you regularly tune into our psychology column Psyched Out!, you might already know that self-medicating Depression with the herb can heighten levels of dopamine and serotonin. This suggests cannabis can perhaps work as a natural anti-depressant subtlety reversing the lack of serotonin that forces people to unwillingly stay in bed and feel down. These effects could prove beneficial to people who find themselves on the Bipolar Disorder cycle spinning straight into the dysphoric phase. Dysphoria is characterized by low levels of dopamine and serotonin. An important fact to keep in mind with cannabis is that once consumed, THC will bind to the endocannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2 in different areas of the body. This potentiates a mood stabilizing effect by enhancing overall health. THC turns on different switches in the body to alleviate physical symptoms resulting from manic or dysphoric episodes.
The government should promote the accesible use of cannabis and THC in laboratories. Professionals in the field could then delve into the mysteries of why Lithium, basically a salt made up of chemical elements, stabilizes a person's mood compared to the effects of the marijuana plant. Spurring research innovations regarding the use of cannabis to treat Bipolar Disorder will uncover surprising and beneficial effects of the plant, even starting the confection of new cannabis related medications. Finally, it will also destroy myths regarding self-medication of a psychiatric condition such as Bipolar Disorder. If a substantial group of people from our society self-medicate with cannabis, it is the responsibility of those with power and knowledge to address the safety and actions of such a pharmacological strategy.
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