Symptoms of Bipolar Mania

No one can really recognize symptoms of bipolar and bipolar mania at the first go. Many a times one tends to confuse them with other illnesses signs and symptoms. However, there are some classic symptoms of bipolar and bipolar disorder which can help you or your loved one to get help. Generally the main sign of this disorder is that the patient alternates between mania and depression. Called manic depression, this disorder has many other symptoms as well which are generally not recognized even by the close friends and family of the patients at once.

From the very advent of the human race, there has been an uncanny connection between superior or extraordinary intelligence and mental disorders. Even movies and books love to portray this connection in the form of a mad but intelligent scientist or the hallucinating but brilliant artist who is so embroiled in his work that he can’t even remember food.

Findings and Studies

Many studies have suggested that most creative masterminds if not all were patients of bipolar disorder. It’s usually suspected that the very reason why these people were so extraordinarily creative was due to this disorder. This is because one of the major characteristics of the mania period of this disorder is to radically enhance the mental, creative and physical energy. This also may serve as an explanation for the fact that these people had intense concentration and could work for longer periods of time.

Famous People with Bipolar

Some of the great names who were plagued with bipolar disorder were Virginia Wolf who was a great novelist and Sylvia Plath, a great poet of her times. The legendary musician and composer Ludwig van Beethoven also was a patient of this disease.

The Scarlet O’Hara in the movie Gone with the Wind whose real name was Vivien Leigh was also a patient of this Bipolar disorder. She was subjected to a lot of shock treatment for this disease as well.

The master painter Vincent Van Gogh was another Bipolar disorder patient. His masterpiece Starry Night was a result of the nightly sojourns in a mental asylum for the treatment of his eccentricity.

What does it Really Mean?

Though not everyone becomes a genius when they are afflicted with bipolar disorder, however there are still a number of artists and masters who are known to be bipolar. Is Bipolar disorder a reason for this extraordinary creativity and intelligence? Does the emotional instability cause all these creative juices to flow? Science should have the answer to all these questions one day.