There are so many myths about what it’s like to live with bipolar disorder. People constantly make assumptions about it based on media portrayals, but life is not a movie or a news report. Life with bipolar disorder is complex and varied, and what works for some is not necessarily what works for everyone. So let’s dispel some of the myths about what it’s like to live with bipolar disorder and encourage people to stop making uneducated assumptions.
Living with Bipolar Myth #1: We experience violent outbursts
The media loves to report that a person has bipolar disorder when there is a violent incident. This convinces people that those with bipolar disorder are violent. This rarely happens.
While people with bipolar disorder are more likely than the average person to be violent, this is mostly when a co-morbid substance use disorder or personality disorder is involved. For example, the NESARC study from 2001-2002 found that while 0.66% of the population without a psychiatric diagnosis exhibited aggressive behavior, those without a comorbidity (that is, an additional illness such as a substance use disorder or a personality disorder) and bipolar I had a rate of 2.52% and those without a comorbidity and bipolar II had a rate of 5.12%. Those numbers are elevated compared to the general undiagnosed population, it’s true, but they’re still very, very low. To say that people with bipolar disorder are violent is fundamentally wrong.
Living with Bipolar Myth #2: We repeatedly experience drastic mood swings
Again, thanks to movies and television, people are under the impression that those with bipolar disorder will switch from one mood state to another at the drop of a hat. This is not real. Most mood episodes in bipolar disorder last from weeks to months (when untreated). In addition, most people with bipolar disorder experience fewer than four mood episodes per year. There is a minority of people who experience rapid cycling bipolar disorder (more than three episodes per year), but even these people experience mood states that usually last from days to weeks. 12-month prevalence of rapid cycling bipolar disorder found to be 0.3% in a 2010 study.
Living with bipolar myth #3: We’re all addicted
While it is true that substance use disorders are common in those with bipolar disorder, it is still not true for everyone. In surveys between 1990 and 2015, found that substance use disorders were present in more than 30% of people with bipolar disorder in the community and 40% of those in clinical settings. (For comparison, it is about 16.5% in the US population aged 12 and over.) That certainly makes it common (even in those without bipolar disorder), but it doesn’t make it universal. It is unfair to assume that a person has a substance use disorder just because they have bipolar disorder, when more than half of us do not.
Living with Bipolar Myth #4: We exhibit antisocial behaviors such as deceitfulness and a lack of guilt and empathy
Antisocial behaviors are not commonly associated with bipolar disorder and are not reported as diagnostic symptoms. Antisocial behaviors are commonly associated with antisocial personality disorder. A person can have both antisocial personality disorder and bipolar disorder, but this is only true for approx 4.1% of people with bipolar disorder. This means that the vast majority of us stumble through life just like everyone else. (This means that sometimes people with bipolar disorder do things like lie—just like everyone else.)
Living with Bipolar Myth #5: We’re all the same
I keep meeting people who have had a bad experience with a person with bipolar disorder and so I assume they would have a bad experience with everyone with bipolar disorder. This is simply not true. While there are similarities to people with bipolar disorder—we all have a brain disorder—most of who we are is unique. Yes, we experience elevated moods such as mania or hypomania and low moods such as depression. those are the similarities, but other things are unique to us. Some like chocolate, some like vanilla. Some of us would hold a door open for a little old lady. some of us wouldn’t. Some of us are dumb, some of us aren’t. These things are not about our bipolar disorder. it’s about us. We can’t blame everything on bipolar disorder, and neither can you. We deserve to be treated as individuals, just like you.
What it’s like for all of us to live with bipolar disorder
When I talk about living with bipolar disorder, the fact is that it’s different for everyone — even when it comes to experiencing the symptoms. I am a specialist in bipolar disorder. I’ve been writing about this professionally for 14 years and living with bipolar disorder for 26 years and even I can’t tell you what living with bipolar disorder is like for any person. Bipolar disorder is a very varied illness. The only way to find out how a person experiences living with bipolar disorder is to ask them.
Image: © Nevit Dilmen, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
