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Created: October 26, 2003
Latest Update: October 26, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Manic Depression or Bipolar Disorder

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, October 2003.
"Fair use" encouraged.

On Thursday, October 23, 2003, Nona Taite, CSUDH, wrote:

Good morning Jeannie,

I wanted to e-mail in regards to the class session in which we discussed insanity, and how it's inherited from your ancestors. I wanted to say that you hit the nail right on the head. I can say that because I have a relative who suffers from manic depression. I can recall from when we were younger, she would always tell my mom that she wanted to kill herself, because she was too depressed to go on. My mother soon discovered that insanity ran in this relative's father's family; his mother was admitted to the psychiatric ward, and that's where she resided until her death. I personally believe that this is a generational curse, and it will continue until this curse is broken. Can it be broken?

I hope that you can give me your thoughts and opinion. Nona

On Sunday, October 26, 2003, jeanne responded:

No genrational curses, Nona. But depression is a pretty terrible pattern to live with. No one really understands it. What we inherit is only partly chemical, and they're getting better all the time at helping people that do need chemical help. What we inherit is more often patterns of behavior that we learn from our parents and others in our family. We need to unlearn some of those patterns. That's why Zora Neale Hurston in Their Eyes Were Watching God, spoke not of "inheritance," but of the results of "nature" and "nurture." A crooked spine, a chromosome that carries illness (physical or mental) are the results of "nature." But there's lots more to it than that. There's scape goating, labeling, family expectations, habit, klutziness, being a little different (maybe creative). All that plays a part.

Insanity is such a broad term. I don't remember what I said, but close to half the population must have depression because that's what the doctors are diagnosing these days. This decade is the Prozac decade, so we're all "depressed." And if we don't fit "deepressed," well then we're bipolar, so we fit when we're depressed AND when we're not depressed. Next decade it'll be something else, with new drugs to fix us.. But I did learn to be weird from my mother. It's just that I like being weird.

Let's think of the problem in terms of "answerability." Your relative, "Susie," is "depressed." Maybe someone in the family could remember to give her an occasional "good dog." Remember how often I ask for a "good dog" when things are rough, and weighing me down? If your family could learn to hear that Susie is telling you by her demeanor that she needs a "good dog" then you are listening in good faith to her attempts at answering what must feel very much to her like a monologic non-answerable world. Remember that answerability doesn't come with built-in training to answer well and make others understand you. Answerability is a gift that can be developed with the help of those around you. Sometimes medicine will help. But sometimes not. I have a lot of faith in "good dogs" and in the patience to understand that answerability has to be learned behavior, and when you feel bad, it's harder to learn. See if you can discover what for Susie is a "good dog." It may not be what you think. And she may not be able to tell you, because maybe no one's ever offered her one. Or maybe, according to Steve Riskin's theory, she hasn't yet found that empty memory space that will let her pull together the fractal patterns from her lived experience that will let her share her world with those she loves.

love and peace, jeanne

Some References:

• Bipolar Disorder Also referred to as manic depressive behavior. From the website of the National Institute of Mental Health.

  What Causes Bipolar Disorder?

  Scientists are learning about the possible causes of bipolar disorder through several kinds of studies. Most scientists now agree that there is no single cause for bipolar disorder—rather, many factors act together to produce the illness.

  Because bipolar disorder tends to run in families, researchers have been searching for specific genes—the microscopic "building blocks" of DNA inside all cells that influence how the body and mind work and grow—passed down through generations that may increase a person's chance of developing the illness. But genes are not the whole story. Studies of identical twins, who share all the same genes, indicate that both genes and other factors play a role in bipolar disorder. If bipolar disorder were caused entirely by genes, then the identical twin of someone with the illness would always develop the illness, and research has shown that this is not the case. But if one twin has bipolar disorder, the other twin is more likely to develop the illness than is another sibling.7

  In addition, findings from gene research suggest that bipolar disorder, like other mental illnesses, does not occur because of a single gene.8 It appears likely that many different genes act together, and in combination with other factors of the person or the person's environment, to cause bipolar disorder. Finding these genes, each of which contributes only a small amount toward the vulnerability to bipolar disorder, has been extremely difficult. But scientists expect that the advanced research tools now being used will lead to these discoveries and to new and better treatments for bipolar disorder.

  Brain-imaging studies are helping scientists learn what goes wrong in the brain to produce bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses.9,10 New brain-imaging techniques allow researchers to take pictures of the living brain at work, to examine its structure and activity, without the need for surgery or other invasive procedures. These techniques include magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). There is evidence from imaging studies that the brains of people with bipolar disorder may differ from the brains of healthy individuals. As the differences are more clearly identified and defined through research, scientists will gain a better understanding of the underlying causes of the illness, and eventually may be able to predict which types of treatment will work most effectively.

• From Ask Jeeves:

  I asked Jeeves: What percentage of the population has manic depression? Here's a piece of the answer:

  Mood Disorders – Test Your Knowledge

  Here are the facts behind some basic conceptions and misconceptions about mood disorders and the people coping with them.

  The mood disorders, major depression and bipolar disorder (manic depression) are rare diseases and affect very few people.

  FALSE. Although the statistics seem to vary by whichever source one uses, one thing we do know is that mood disorders are extremely common. Some researchers say that at least 50% of all visits to physicians are depression related (examples include: “stress”, high blood pressure, fatigue, stomach and bowel problems, chronic undefined illnesses, fibromyalgia, etc).

  Among the facts and figures available: at least 1 in 5 people will suffer a major depressive episode over the course of a lifetime, usually before the age of 40; more than 2.3 million people in the U.S. have bipolar disorder; 10 million have a depressive disorder. The Center for Mental Health Services in Rockville, MD estimates that 5.4% of all Americans have a serious, on-going mental illness.

  Other reports state that 23% of Americans aged 18 and older have a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year, while 9-13% of children ages 9-17 have a “serious emotional disturbance with substantial functional impairment”. These numbers are absolutely chilling, but luckily it appears that a large number of children and adolescents do recover from their diagnosed or diagnosable mental illness.

  Women experience depression twice as often as men, which the American Psychological Association (APA) says is directly related to women’s subordinate roles in American society and to the higher incidence of violence, poverty and sexual abuse in women’s lives.

  Mood disorders made up 27.6% of psychiatric office visits in 1980 — the most common presenting illness.

  The number of psychiatric hospital beds (for all brain disorders) in the United States exceeds the number of hospital beds for all other major illnesses — and mood disorders make up a large percentage of those psychiatric beds; of the more than 1,000,000 total hospital admissions in the United States during 1998, nearly 270,000 (or 26%) were psychiatric admissions.

  Workplace studies show that 17% of all female employees and 9% of all male employees have a mood disorder; mood disorders cost American businesses $43.7 billion in lost productivity each year. (The total cost of mental health services in the U.S. in 1990 was $148 billion, which includes both direct costs — treatment and rehabilitation — of $69 billion, and indirect costs — lost productivity at home, school, and/or work — estimated at $79 billion.

  From Ask Jeeves.

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