Manic depression explained
‘The recent suicides of Paul Hester and Rene Rivkin have highlighted the travails of manic depression, but how much do we really know about it?
Professor Ian Hickie is the Psychiatrist and Clinical Advisor to beyondblue and points out that manic depression is a medical illness. “It’s a medical illness, it runs strongly in families (and) it has biochemical effects within the brain,” he explains, before adding, “It’s often the interaction of that brain chemistry with other environmental circumstances that matters.”
It is an illness that is officially called bipolar disorder but Ian prefers ‘manic depression’ because it is more descriptive. For 80 per cent of the time, people are depressed or not functioning and for the other 20 per cent of the time they are manic or ‘high’. “They’re extravagant, on top of the world, full of energy,” Ian says, “but often full of mad and crazy schemes to spend money, to invest, to rearrange the relationships in their lives…”‘
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