A mental illness can affect someone’s life differently than someone else’s. From all the wide ranges of diagnostics and characteristics, one might suffer greatly, lose touch with reality and it can impact their ability to function every day to those who experience a mild distress (Wood, Wood, Boyd, Wood, & Desmarais, 2013, p.359). This paper will focus on bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Bipolar disorder is also known as a mood disorder where patients experience fluctuation between episodes of radical, or mania, and extreme lows know as depression (Wood et al., 2013, p.360). As for schizophrenia, it is known as a psychotic disorder. Scientist describe this as the most serious and devastating psychological disorder because of the severe symptoms and misery that people suffer from it (Wood et al., 2013, p.368).
Bipolar disorder causes problems with eating, sleeping, thinking, concentrating, your mood, activity levels and shifts in energy, etc. A person dealing with bipolar disorder will switch between mania and depression. There unusual euphoric and cheerful state, or manic stage, is a time with increased speed and frequency of speech, racing thoughts, little need for sleep and distraction. In addition, their excessive self-esteem and impulsivity are accompanied by delusions of grandeur (Wood et al., 2013, p. 373). However, when people become depressed they can feel sadness or hopelessness and lose interest in activities they liked before (Wood et al., 2013, p. 372).
The reason one might suffer from bipolar disorder appears to be from a biological perspective. Meaning this risk factor comes from genes and neurologically. In terms of genetic factors, studies have indicated that a person is twenty times more likely to develop bipolar disorder if they have a first-degree relative, such a parent, children or sibling suffering from this condition. Moreover, altered levels of neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, and norepinephrine, might trigger bipolar disorder by causing extreme mood changes (Wood et al., 2013, p. 374). Finally, environmental factors like stress contribute to this illness as well (Wood et al., 2013, p. 379).
Schizophrenia is an illness that involves psychosis or the[ inability to tell reality from fantasy] (Wood et al., 2013, p. 359) but no schizophrenic will experience the same symptoms as someone else. This disease is usually diagnosed during adolescence or early adulthood.This psychotic disorder is characterised by “positive” symptoms that include hallucinations , delusions (false beliefs) and disorganized thinking and behaviour. Hallucinations are sensory perceptions that only exist in your mind. Hearing voices from family members, friends or spiritual individual are most common in schizophrenic. Many times these voices are unpleasant, abusive, and menacing. However, visual hallucination and bodily sensation that are scary and painful also exist, but they tend to be less common than auditory hallucinations. (Wood et al., 2013, p. 368). Schizophrenic also exhibit “negative” symptoms that start from loss of motivation, social withdrawal and not talking much to “flattened” mood where we see no emotional response (Wood et al., 2013, p. 369).
Some of the proposed causes for schizophrenia are interaction between genetic predisposition and environmental factors. Schizophrenia tends to run along blood relative. Per exemple, researcher have found that if both biological parents suffer from this disease than there is 46% chance of developing schizophrenia (McNeil, Cantor-Graae & Weinberger, as cited in Wood et al., 2013, p. 371). Other researchers say that environmental factors such as birth trauma, exposure to a virus or head injury increase the risk of schizophrenia. (Khandaker,Zimbron, Lewis, & Jones, as cited in Wood et al., 2013, p. 371). In addition, high activity levels of dopamine in the brain is associated with schizophrenia (Wood et al., 2013, p. 372).
To treat bipolar disorder, patient will take lithium to treat the severity of their manic and depression stage (Prien et al., 2013, p. 398). On the other hand, antipsychotic are prescribed for patients suffering from schizophrenia to help them manage with psychotic symptoms, like hallucinations, delusions and agitation. It does so by managing dopamine activity (Wood et al., 2013, p. 397).