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Mental Disorders

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Week 5: Discussion 5: Mental Disorders

Analyze the factors (both genetic and environmental) contributing to the development of a specific mental disorder (of your choice). Discuss steps that could be taken to reduce the incidence of the disorder that you had identified above. Be sure to focus on prevention, not treatment.

My choice for a mental disorder is Bipolar. I chose bipolar because it’s a mental disorder that runs in my family and has affected my family tremendously. I have researched it somewhat but not in depth so this gave me a great time to start.

Bipolar disorder is also known as also known as bipolar affective disorder, manic-depressive illness, or affective psychosis. A person with bipolar disorder will experience mood swings that will range from depression to mania. When a person is depressed they might feel sad, irritable, anxious, suicidal, low levels of self-esteem. Then, when they have a mood switch you might feel increased sex drive, poor judgments, euphoria, and high levels of self-esteem. There are several types of bipolar disorder (Bipolar phase 1 & 2, Cyclothymic disorder, Mixed bipolar, and Rapid-cycling bipolar).

Some steps that could be taken to help reduce the incidence of Bipolar disorder:

Paying attention to your warning signs- If you pay attention to your symptoms early on can prevent episodes from getting worse.
Avoid drugs and alcohol- Even though drugs and alcohol will make you feel better at first. It will actually make your symptoms more likely to come back. Also with the side effects of using drugs and alcohol it can make your worse.
Keep Stress to a minimum- With people that have bipolar disorder stress can trigger episodes of depression and mania. Try to do things to help you relax, and do things that make you feel good for you not anyone else.

References for my Bipolar research

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