May 8, 2014 • 37 mins
Suffering from bipolar disorder means a lot more than your garden variety mood swings. Bouts of mania and depression are just the headlines. There are also theories that there's a link between bipolarism and creativity. Learn all about this disruptive, yet manageable disorder.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Welcome to you. Stuff you should know from house stuff
works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
(00:28):
Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant that makes this
stuff you should know. I'm Jerry's here too. So it's
all good. The original gang. That's going pretty good. Man,
How are you? I'm great? Good, Okay, then let's get
to it. Yeah, do you have a good set up
for this one? It's sorry now, No, I think it
kind of speaks for itself. I mean it's bipolar disorder.
(00:50):
Like we it's been around long enough, and I think
it's been um exposed enough. People have been educated enough
that you know, anything I do would just seem jackasses. Uh.
While we were just talking before we hit record about
whether not we know anyone who has bipolar disorder, and
I think most people probably know someone. You might not
(01:12):
even know it, but um, I definitely like I had
a very specific friend in college. You had it, and
that was you know, it was like twenty, so it
was you didn't know about that stuff when you were
twenty at least I didn't. So it was very weird.
And that's first time I've ever heard the term. And uh,
you know, he fit the profile as far as being
(01:34):
super up and uh, full of life and energy one
moment and then super down and very troubled to say
the least. And this was these are words I'm using
from my twenty year old self. You know, I just thought, man,
he's like he's super super happy or now he's super down.
But that's this sort of a rudimentary way to describe it. Yeah, yeah,
(01:58):
I mean, I mean that is bipolar to order in
a nutshell, And that's why they used to call it
manic depressive disorder too. Yeah. When did they stop that?
I think maybe in the nineties. It seems like to
me it sounds about right. Um, and you're you're not
too far off from everybody knowing somebody with bipolar disorder,
because apparently about five point seven million adults in the
(02:19):
US are diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and I think three
percent of the population worldwide is estimated to suffer from it. Yeah,
and you said adults. Um, it can manifest itself in children,
but generally, UM, teenage, mid teenage years and up is
when you're going to first start seeing signs of it. Yeah,
(02:40):
fifteen to twenty five from what I understand in general. Um,
And as you said, Chuckers, like the the condition of
bipolarity UM is characterized by intense, frequent swings from very
very happy to very very sad. And it's much beyond
(03:03):
the average person's mood swings. Because I mean, like if
if you're fifteen years old and you're listening to this
and you're like, well, sometimes I'm unhappy and then other
times I'm said, that's normal. Um, this is far beyond normal.
Like where you are in either case, like you say,
super up or super depressed. Um, it's nowhere near what
(03:26):
you are normally. And in some cases of the most
severe bipolar disorder, there is no normal. It's either totally
one way or totally the other, and the person suffering
from it to swings back and forth, maybe over the
course of a couple of weeks, UM, and lives like that. Yeah.
(03:46):
Uh sadly, UM, Like we have a couple of stats
about the effects. We'll get too early here. H you're
less likely to have a job if you are bipolar.
That seems really high. Yeah. Um, ten times more likely
to abuse alcohol or drugs, which is as a cyclical
effect because alcohol and drugs are really rough on you
(04:09):
if you have bipolar disorder. Well, yeah, they can trigger
a swing one way or the other. Yeah. I saw
that in my friend actually in college fu. Yeah, and
of bipolar patients, uh successfully commit suicide out of who
try it, and those numbers are startingly high. Yeah, yeah,
that's very high. That's start startlingly startling. Okay, um, so
(04:35):
let's talk about this. What's the what is I've already
kind of given a rough overview, but let's dig into
the symptoms of bipolar disorder. Yeah. They're basically, um, they
characterize two swings, mania and depression. If you're having a
manic episode, you're gonna be a great mood, You're gonna
(04:56):
be high on life, you're gonna have a lot of energy.
You're probably gonna be talking really fast. And it's called area.
So what log area? What's that excessive talking? Talkativeness? Oh yeah, um,
just really fast thoughts like everything. What was that movie
with brad Cooper and de Niro, Oh, Silverlings Playbook? No,
(05:21):
the other one, and you're gonna say that, although that
is what other movie of those two been in together,
the one with um where you take a pill and
you can like tap into more of your brain, which
is de Niro. Isn't that too? Yeah, I don't know
the name of that movie. I know what you're talking about.
It wasn't a very good movie, but exceptional or amazing
or I can't remember. This is at the point when
(05:41):
people are yelling into their car stereo, including Bradley Cooper. Yeah,
he's like, you idiot. Yeah, And I can't believe I
just forgot about Superlians Playbook because that directly covers this. Yeah,
but what I was talking about was the manic He
was almost mannek in that other movie where just ideas
all that I'm at a hyper speed and he just
(06:01):
couldn't do them fast enough. So that's characteristic of a
manic episode. Sorry, Bradley Cooper. Uh, you're distracted, you don't
maybe need as much sleep, you're restless, you're puritable, you
might want to have a lot of sex. Like everything's
just uh, magnified, I think, yeah, and with a manic episode,
(06:22):
they're often like all of this is often accompanied by
a sensation of euphoria. So most people who suffer from
bipolar disorder don't go seeking treatment when they're in a
manic state, right, because they can like that. Yeah, for
some people a manic state, you can have all these things,
but it's instead of accompanied by euphoria, it's accompanied by irritability, uh,
(06:45):
quickness to anger. So it's not all it's not all
fun and games for everybody. But for the most part,
if you're in a manic episode and you're bipolar, you're
you enjoy the manic episodes way more than you enjoy
the depressive eppisodes. Yeah, and I think both are super
rough on friends and family because in the manic state,
you you don't know quite what you're gonna get, you know, right, well,
(07:09):
like you may you engage in um very risky behavior.
You may make a bunch of risky investments, may buy
a lot of stuff. Um, it can go so far
as to uh, you can have psychotic symptoms. So in
a manic episode where you're displaying psychotic symptoms, you may
think you are God or totally UM, infallible, untouchable, can
(07:33):
do no wrong, and then that can feed into the
symptoms of you know, engaging in very risky behavior. You
can even hallucinate like full on see things. Yeah, you
can suffer from delusions and hallucinations. So the d s
M says that if you have a certain number of
manic symptoms UM for at least one week, then that
(07:53):
is considered a manic episode. So that has kind of
changed apparently with the d s M five. This is
ds M four stuff. With the d s M five,
they um really kind of they I think that the
prevailing idea was what's with this whole um bipolar other
(08:13):
otherwise specified, not otherwise specified. It's just a total cop out,
which we'll get to in a minute. But the idea
that there's like this, you don't fit this one or
this one, so you fit this generic third. Actually I'm
glad that's changed. I think they've kind of dug into
diagnosing even more. We changed some of the thresholds and
exclusionary criteria and now um it's a it's supposed to
(08:36):
be a little more laser guided UM. But one of
the ones, one of the things they did change was
that for example, UM, I think as little as five
days of an episode is enough to constitute a diagnosis
rather than like a week or two weeks or something. Right,
that makes sense, yeah, um. And then you have hypomania,
(08:56):
which is sort of like mania light UM, just a
less intense version of mania. UM. So that's the mannic swing.
The depressive side of the coin uh is exactly what
you think, but like amplified by a million. Like you're
not just sad, you feel despair, and your sluggish and
(09:17):
you can't focus, and you're restless and you're irritable. Um.
These are where the suicidal thoughts are coming. So it's
it's not your garden variety depression that you might feel
on a day to day basis, because we all feel
that that's right. And you might also experience UM mixed symptoms,
which is called a mixed episode. So for example, you
(09:40):
might have UM like a lot of intense energy, but
you might also be suffering from feelings of utter despair,
which sounds like a horrible combination. Um. And basically you
can take stay any mania and then add um just
some some of the depressive like suicidal thoughts managed suicidal thoughts, right,
(10:03):
that would be a mixed episode, right, and then you
have something called rapid cycling, which is uh, when these
swings are presenting themselves. Do you know what d S
M Five says? Like, Uh, I couldn't find that it
had a lot of um changes to the rapid cycling.
I think that what they found was that UM drugs
(10:24):
that doesn't necessarily respond to drugs very well. And they've
they've kind of started to understand rapid cycling a little more.
But I don't know what they changed with the diagnostic
criteria for that. Well, here they characterize it by a
year of at least four episodes of mania, hypomania or depression. Right,
so like if you have four episodes in a year,
you've you've got rapids. Apparently that's rapid. I think it
(10:47):
can be a lot more rapid than that. I think
like that's the minimum to be considered rapid cycling. Alright,
So what are the different types of bipolar disorder today?
There's definitely bipolar one, which is essentially your your life
is going from one end of the spectrum to the other.
(11:07):
There's not periods in between really where you're um, where
where you're stable. Right, that's the most severe obviously, Yeah,
you have bipolar to which um the sequel that's right. Uh.
That means you have at least one episode of depression
and one at least one hypomanic episode, but you could feel,
(11:30):
you know, somewhat stabilized in between, which is a big
differentiation apparently between one and two. Um. And then, like
we said, there used to be bipolar disorder no, not
otherwise specified the cop out right, and it was there
was a lot of people who were just kind of
fitting into this and weren't necessarily getting the right diagnosis.
(11:51):
And I guess they've expanded the criteria um for bipolar
one and two, and then they've also kind of looked into, um,
massive depressive disorder uh and then said, well, you you,
this has some aspects of mania as well, and that's
technically a bipolar disorder too. So they kind of did
away with it a little bit, I think as they
(12:11):
thought they were looking bad. Yeah, it's so hard to
category I mean, I know, they take a lot of heat.
It's tough to categorize mental illness because it's so different
for everyone, and well, a lot of people criticize the approach.
The basis of the d s M is tell me
how you're feeling, which is flawed in and of itself
to begin with, because subjective reporting is just completely unreliable. Yeah,
(12:32):
but you can't take a blood test. And and then
secondly to to to further subjectively interpret those subjective self
reports uh into supposed you know criteria and then saying well,
you have XX and X, but you don't have X,
so technically you're not bipolar, which means you don't have
your insurance won't cover these meds that you need. The
(12:55):
whole system is very screwed up, which is why they're
hoping to do things like create blood test that's say, ah,
you have bipolar one, and it's because of this UM,
these neurotransmitters are messed up, so you will respond very
well to this specific dose of this medicine. I don't
think we're more than ten years fifteen years away from it,
(13:15):
but it's it's gonna be a long, horrible ten or
fifteen years for people who are suffering the most from
bipolar disorders. That can't come fast enough. Uh. And then
the final um unless that's gone away, to psyclothymia, is
that's still around, that is the least severe, and that
is um at least two years of hypomania and milder
depression swings. And I think also that's I believe it's
(13:38):
still around, but I think it's um it's changed a
little too. And I think that um. Apparently the child
psychologists of the field said, you guys, there's a lot
of um exuberance and even mania symptoms that are totally
normal in adolescents. So let's let's tighten this up a
little bit because we don't want kids to be diagnosed
with bipolars because their parents think that they're hyper. Right.
(14:01):
Put my fifteen year old on lithium exactly. Yeah. So
I think that they managed to kind of change the
criteria for cyclothymia, saying this is just above the normal
threshold of mood swings. Yeah. Um. So, like we said,
they don't know or I don't know if we did,
they don't still know what causes it directly, um, nor
do they know how the drugs that treat it are. Yeah.
(14:24):
I mean there's a lot of like try this out.
It's like we know spaghetti will start to stick to
a refrigerator. We don't know exactly why, but let's strow
it at the side anyway, but what they do know
is that genetics can play a role. You are gonna
have an increased likelihood to develop it if someone in
your like if your parents had it, let's say, but
(14:45):
they also have these odd outliers, like you could be
a twin and your twin has bipolar disorder, but you don't, right,
So it's just sort of a mystery still. But yeah,
it seems like they that it does have people are
genetically predis post and then an environmental factor can trigger
their bipolar disorder, like a really rough childhood or a
(15:08):
bad life event or something really really good. But a
sudden swing in normalcy and a person that is genetically
predisposed um to bipolar disorder is what can kick it
off in your life. Yeah. Um, other we already talked
about drugs and alcohol that can definitely trigger um seasonal changes.
(15:30):
I think we've talked about seasonal effective disorder SAD. Yeah, SAD,
which I think I think most people experience a little
bit of that, right. But again, if you're genetically predisposed
for the way I see it, and this is totally unscientific,
but just from researching this, it seems like you you
have there's a normal baseline for brain chemistry. Uh. And
(15:51):
it's not a thin line. It's like a pretty good
sized block. And it's easy to also get outside of
that one way or the other right, and when you
are outside of it, you have the symptoms of bipolar disorder.
And if you're bipolar one, you're just constantly going from
the top to the bottom of that block. And that
sounds very scientific and needs to understand the block. Well,
(16:13):
I mean maybe not scientific, but easy to understand, okay.
And then if you if you say, have bipolar two,
you can exist within that normal range, but you can
be knocked out of it, but your brain chemistry is
already predisposed to having bipolar disorder by virtue of being
able to overproduce or underproduce certain neurotransmitters. That's it, I
(16:34):
think will ultimately be the understanding of it. Well, I know,
they definitely tie a lot of mental disorders to either
too much or not enough uh dopamine and serotonin. Like
it's it's definitely brain chemistry going on, yes, you know,
and that's yeah, they think that that's the basically the
(16:54):
basis of it is just fluctuations in brain chemistry like
super low serotonin during manic and depressive episodes is charted. Yeah,
and apparently sarotonin's one of the brain one of the
narrow transmitters that are like, everybody calmed down, let's just
keep things stable here. That's what sarotonin is. And you
can have too much dopamine, which can result in both
(17:16):
mania and depression. Yeah, and I think too much is
also present in psychosis too, so hallucinations delusions, that's why
you can have those during such a tough thing to
try and study, you know. Yeah, I'm reading that. I
started that book. John Ronson, the great John Ronson, who
listens to our show, by the way, writer of Men
(17:37):
who Stare at Goats, oh neat. Yeah, he's a fan.
And hey John Ronson his his book The psychopath Test.
Let's started reading that. Yeah, it's super interesting. So far.
Is it uh, semi historical fiction? Is it nonfiction? Is
it totally fiction? It's sort of a look at how
the industry, the mental health industry, tackles mental health. So
(17:59):
it's not fiction. Yes, that sounds like it's up my alley. Then, yeah,
I should have said nonfiction right off the bat. You're like,
I'm gonna make you guess. Yeah, I will let you. Uh,
I'll let you borrow it after a fenshion Actually how
about that? Okay, and then I will take you up
on that right after these messages. All right, So I
guess we can talk a little bit about how it
(18:21):
has treated medication wise. Um, it is a long term
illness that is is basically looked at as a uh
even a lifelong illness for most people, something you have
to deal with, uh forever. Yeah, Um, medication wise, lithium
since the nineteen seventies has been the go to. Uh
(18:43):
it still is. It's a mood stabilizer and it's gonna
help out with both sides of your mood swings and
apparently which it works for you, right, And I like,
like you said, that's the go to and it typically
like people tend to respond to that. Yeah, it's it's
a go to for a reason, not just because it
was first or that there's a Nirvana song he he
(19:04):
was bipolar, right, sure? Um, and uh, there are alternatives
to lithium because not everybody responds to it. Not everybody
has a good reaction to it. With even somebody who
does respond well to lithium, UM, they have to keep
a pretty good eye on your lithium levels in your
(19:27):
blood stream, so you have to visit the doctor quite
a bit. The whole point of I guess the rigamar
role that you will go through when you're diagnosed with
bipolar and say I want to combat this with meds
UM is basically shooting blind and using a pragmatic approach
(19:47):
to medicating you into saying, Okay, you're reacting well to
this one, Let's try a slightly lower dose and see
what happens. And with lithium in particularly, they keep an
eye on it through through blood tests. But with all
meds using used to treat bipolar disorder, they're going to
really kind of like, um, try everything. Yeah, and it's
still like how you feeling, Yeah, tell me how you're feeling,
(20:11):
not let's do this uh test to read on the
screen how you're feeling still yeah, you know uh. And
again part of the reason why is because they don't
quite know how some drugs work. They just know that
they do work for some people, but not everybody. Yeah.
Anti convulsants is another UM another one that they use,
and it's also a mood stabilizer and I think that
(20:34):
calms down the when your brain is the parts of
your brain at least that are ramped up and overacting. Right.
One of the ways that it affects that is by um,
increasing the amount of GABBA in your brain. You know,
gabba kind of What does that stand for? Again, it
(20:55):
stands for gamma amino beautyic acid. Obviously, well done, thank you,
It's been a while since I tried to pronounce something hard. Uh. Well,
you can use the anti convulsants sometimes, even with lithium. Again,
it's can be a cocktail of drugs that you're on. Right,
depending on what works for you. A typical anti psychotics
(21:19):
can help. Um. They usually use those after they've tried
the lithium. I think they tried lithium first, unless you're
a teenage girl or a pregnant woman, right. Um. And
then uh, the antipsychotics work because um, they affect the
amount of dopamine in your brain. And again, high levels
(21:41):
of dopamine can lead to psychotic symptoms, which is why
they call the drugs that treat those anti psychotics, right. Um.
And then benzodiazepine a k A. Relaxants. I think those
are used less, probably because uh, they're addictive or can
be addictive. Yeah, and then least the short term used
(22:02):
and they yes, they use them to promote healthy sleep.
To um, Like you said, one of the symptoms, especially
of mania, is just going without sleep, like you got
too much to do and you don't even need it,
so you don't sleep. Um. And one of the I
guess the presence of gabba or low amounts of gabba,
(22:25):
which is a neuro transmitter that's involved in getting sleep.
I believe staying asleep too, um kind of underlies this
idea that your sleep cycle is off and it's either
the result of your bipolar disorder or it's helping to
cause your bipolar disorder. Either way, they found that promoting
healthy sleep. For example, there is a thing called dark therapy,
(22:48):
which is no exposure to artificial light after dark for
a certain amount of time can help promote healthy sleep
and can help stabilize bipolar disorder symptoms. All that makes sense, Well, yeah,
the like it always kills me when I see people
on Facebook at like three am saying on Facebook that
(23:08):
they have insomnia, Like, well, you've got a little shiny
bright screen in your face, start by putting that down
and see what happens. Um. So yes, So with there's
all these little clues out there, Chuck that, like so
many pieces of the jigsaw puzzler on the table, they
just haven't been fit together yet, you know. But it
(23:29):
seems like there's, um, there's a kind of a hornet's
nest out there. I wondered, can you live with bipolar
disorder without medication? And apparently there's a big divide in
the bipolar community, like there's pro med and anti med
And I've seen comparisons between talking about like religion or
(23:49):
politics or meds with bipolar people. It's all the same,
like you want to avoid those things to keep things friendly. Um.
But I've seen that some people are like, yes, you
can live without meds, but you probably can't get too
stable without meds. And you get the stable, then maybe
you can. But um, there's practically no way to get
(24:13):
the stable without the help of medications. So people who
have bipolar story will be like, I've been med free
for a year, which is great because it means that
they have managed to fight off episodes and triggers, but
they've done that through other therapy to not just avoiding treatment.
Because if you avoid treatment, not only does the does
(24:35):
does your condition get worse, it gets harder to treat. Yeah, yes,
the episodes supposedly definitely get worse. Yes, you go. Uh. Well,
there are all kinds of therapies that you use along
either in place of your medications or along with and
we won't get too much into these because we've gone
through most of them before, but cognitive behavioral therapy of course,
(24:59):
family therapy, group therapy e c T. We did. We
did a whole show on e c T, didn't we. Yeah,
we did. That was a good one. Yeah, electro convulsive
therapy and UM. One that I hadn't heard of, social
rhythm therapy. I hadn't heard about this either, but it
makes utter and complete sense. Yeah, and that has to
do with UM. I think getting your yourself and your
body on a set schedule is much better for you
(25:23):
if you have bipolar disorder, not only just sleep, but
just regular regulating your your day and your schedule. Yeah.
And I don't think anybody's suggesting that bipolar disorder is
a mind over matter type situation, like I think there
are very few mental illnesses that are that more clearly
(25:43):
demonstrate the brain based understanding of mental illness than bipolar disorder.
Like your neurotransmitters and the chemicals in your brain are
out of whack. It's as simple as that. UM. What
these other non medication therapies seek to do, especially the
UM the interpersonal and social rhythm therapy and coignitive behavioral therapy,
(26:05):
is to get you to confront this thing, to confront
your condition and learn to understand it. Like, understand what
your triggers are. Understand that you have to have X
amount of hours of sleep or night or else you
may end up in like a manic episode. Understand that,
like you just can't drink whiskey. Maybe you can have
a beer like every couple of weeks or something, but
(26:27):
you can't touch whiskey because you'll end up in like
a manager a depressed Like, there are triggers out there
and for you personally, these are your triggers and if
you avoid them, you can stay in that stable range
and and learn to live with bipolar disorder. Yeah, you know,
super interesting. Yeah, alright, so right after this break, we're
gonna talk about whether or not there's a link between
(26:49):
creativity and bipolar disorder. Hey, Chuck, we've got a pretty
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(27:32):
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(28:14):
u f F. Alright, buddy. There has long been um
debate on whether or not creative people are either more
likely to be bipolar or bipolar can lead to creative genius. Yeah,
didn't we talk about do we do an episode on that?
It wasn't in a Thinking Cat? I think it was
(28:35):
in Can this Thinking Cat Make Me a Genius? Episode? Yeah?
Trans magnetic stimulation Yeah yeah, yeah, Um, yeah, there's there's that.
It's that latent inhibition kind of thing for schizophrenia and creativity. Yeah.
I mean, there's definitely like a laundry list of very
creative people throughout the years that suffer from bipolar, from
(28:57):
Beethoven to Jimmy Hendrix who wrote Manic Depression, Sylvia Plath,
at Garlin, Poe excel Rose is on the list. Yeah,
Graham Green Dickens, did I say, Dickens, No, but you
just did Francis Ford Coppola, Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys. Yeah,
he he really had a terrible episode after um did
(29:21):
Smile ever get released and it it just flopped? Well,
it got released recently. I never got released at there,
So something happened that set him off. I guess the band,
the rest of the band members wanted to go in
a different direction. Well, he was obsessed with the Beatles too,
and trying to be better than the Beatles. And I
(29:42):
mean Smile was up there was pretty good. But yeah,
I guess it never got released in maybe that's what
triggered his episode and started the dark years. Yeah, and
this was long before anybody understood anything like this. Is
prior to the advent of the use of lithium for
bipolar disorder. Oh yeah, they didn't come around to the seventies. Uh. So,
(30:04):
I have a thing that I like to read. It's
a little long, but there's this great article from Slate
called what does it feel Like to Have Bipolar Disorder?
And it was written by someone named Mills Baker. Uh
And it kind of backs up a lot of what
we're feeling here, but gives you just a little insight
since uh, we're not. Since we can't talk firsthand, we'll
(30:26):
let Mills Baker do it. See mine please. I think
only in their extremes, armenia and depression actually unintelligible to
ordinary folks. That is, at their utmost intensity, they're unlike
anything a normal person experiences. UM, But at most times
they're not at all so different from the maximally intense
(30:46):
moods that everyone knows, just more so, longer lasting, and
disconnected from normative causes. And that seems to be one
of the big points. Is basically what he's saying is
that it's not so different maybe than feeling manager depressed yourself,
but it's way more intense, it lasts for way longer,
and there's may not be a cause, right and not
(31:08):
to I don't have bipolar sort of, but it would
seem like it's too a debilitating degree, like it affects
the rest of your life negatively. Yeah. Um, bipolar is
less about short term mood instability than about long term
mood cycles. Uh. Instability is a part of it, but
not the only part. Second, the cumulative effected these cycles
on the formation of a personality significant, so after a
(31:31):
childhood of radically of radically changing interest and attitudes. On
such a timeline, one develops a certain excitability, flightiness, distractability,
or perhaps that's just me again. It's different for everyone,
but it is a major part of being bipolar, the
personality that is shaped by a lifetime of intense, fluctuating moods.
(31:51):
So he's taken just a more macro approach. It's gonna
make you who you are. You can't just look at
the bad mood or the upmood. It's gonna basically form
your personality over the years. Yeah, I would imagine. Uh.
To know what it feels like is to know the
quality of that uh phenomenon logical experiences a bipolar person
(32:11):
encounters that an unaffected person does not. I don't think
there are many of these going berserk, being creative, having
an awful temper, not being able to trust my own
emotional reactions. These have a certain weight when I list
them out. Uh, they can even sound unique. But everyone
loses it. Everyone has moments of charisma and creativity and success,
strength and achievement, and everyone struggles with himself. You may
(32:33):
not hallucinate, which this guy does, by the way, but
I can bet you understand what it's like for your
mind to misbehave and react insanely. If you haven't yet
lost control of your life, just wait. Uh. And for me,
the most enduring way that bipolar feels different is in
how I cannot trust my reactions. I thought this part
was really interesting. When someone says something to you and
(32:54):
you recognize it as an insult, for instance, as abuse
or abuse, you your react to anger is appropriate and
you can commit to it, or you can make some
determination based on your values and your reason and choose
a different course of action. I can't even trust the
person in that the person even insulted me, So I
can't trust my emotional perceptions or reactions. So that's got
(33:16):
to make you just feel way out of sorts if
you can't even you know, feel like you're trusting your
own emotions, right like if you that's one that's the
one thing that you have is your how you're feeling
about any given situation that makes up your personality and
large part and if that seems flawed to you, that untrustworthy. Uh.
(33:37):
And then finally, that is the strangest thing about how
it feels after the dust of the actual disorder settles
more than a decade in Uh, this guy is talking
about his twelve year I think since he was diagnosed
after more than a decade in the open, insanity has
abated and visits only briefly. The idea that I'm a
secret artist is absurd. What's left is a more less
(34:00):
normal life in which I have to emphasize mental hygiene
like prioritizing regular sleep, for example, and which I always
feel doubt about what I think and feel, as we
all probably should anyway. Yeah, so he seems and he's
on medication, and uh, it seems like he has a
healthy attitude about it. I think it's interesting to hear
people talking first person about mental illness. Well, it's I'm
(34:24):
sure it's a lot easier for him to talk about
it now too, that he's got it licked. Yeah, or
you know, coping with it at least. So you got
anything else? I got nothing else. This is a good one.
Hopefully it helps some people. Yeah, thanks to Mills Baker
for being open to Slate about the disorder. Thanks to
Slate and Mills, Mills and Slates. If you want to
(34:47):
learn more about bipolar disorder, you can type those words
into the search part how stuff works dot com. Uh,
it will bring up a very good article and a
bunch of other stuff too. Uh. And since I said
very good article, that means it's time for listener mail. Josh,
I'm gonna call this a shark correction. Really. Yeah, remember
how we um talked about sharks basically perfected themselves and
(35:10):
haven't changed in millions of years? Yeah? Oh yes, yes,
I was like, we haven't talked about sharks forever, Now
I remember yet. Yeah. Well, there's some brand new findings,
which is pretty excited in Jake Hayes from New York
City Sitnizsen. I really enjoyed the Darwin in Natural Selection episodes, guys,
and thought you might find this recent study published in
the journal Nature. Uh. That is interesting given the example
(35:33):
you gave about sharks. Apparently, contrary to the theory that
they have barely changed over the past hundreds or millions
of years, they may have evolved significantly actually from their
ancient ancestors and may not be the living fossils we
thought they were scientists that thought that shark gills were
an ancient system that predated modern fish. However, a newly
discovered fossil of a shark that dates back million years,
(35:56):
so it's a remarkably different gilt skeleton than modern shark. Uh.
This fossil provides evidence that shark gills have evolved over
time and that it is actually modern day fish that
may be the ones with the old GIL systems. The
new GIL system may have changed over time to help
sharks sprint after their prey or pry open their jaws
to eat larger things. So uh, he said, he just
(36:20):
came across this article and I saw it all over
the place. Of course, like you know, two weeks after
we recorded. I think it was even like a day
or an hour or something. Yeah, I think you're right,
But it's pretty cool info. And that is uh. Once again,
Jay Hayes from New York City. Nice, thanks a lot, Jake.
We appreciate you. And I think a few other people
(36:40):
let us know about it too. Yeah, um, but none
but Jake was from New York City, so we selected him. Uh.
If you want to let us know you're from New
York City, we want to hear about it. You can
hang out with us outside of the podcast on Twitter
at s Y s K Podcast. You can hang out
with us on our Facebook page, Facebook, dot com, slash
(37:00):
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Welcome to you. Stuff you should know from house stuff
works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
(00:28):
Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant that makes this
stuff you should know. I'm Jerry's here too. So it's
all good. The original gang. That's going pretty good. Man,
How are you? I'm great? Good, Okay, then let's get
to it. Yeah, do you have a good set up
for this one? It's sorry now, No, I think it
kind of speaks for itself. I mean it's bipolar disorder.
(00:50):
Like we it's been around long enough, and I think
it's been um exposed enough. People have been educated enough
that you know, anything I do would just seem jackasses. Uh.
While we were just talking before we hit record about
whether not we know anyone who has bipolar disorder, and
I think most people probably know someone. You might not
(01:12):
even know it, but um, I definitely like I had
a very specific friend in college. You had it, and
that was you know, it was like twenty, so it
was you didn't know about that stuff when you were
twenty at least I didn't. So it was very weird.
And that's first time I've ever heard the term. And uh,
you know, he fit the profile as far as being
(01:34):
super up and uh, full of life and energy one
moment and then super down and very troubled to say
the least. And this was these are words I'm using
from my twenty year old self. You know, I just thought, man,
he's like he's super super happy or now he's super down.
But that's this sort of a rudimentary way to describe it. Yeah, yeah,
(01:58):
I mean, I mean that is bipolar to order in
a nutshell, And that's why they used to call it
manic depressive disorder too. Yeah. When did they stop that?
I think maybe in the nineties. It seems like to
me it sounds about right. Um, and you're you're not
too far off from everybody knowing somebody with bipolar disorder,
because apparently about five point seven million adults in the
(02:19):
US are diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and I think three
percent of the population worldwide is estimated to suffer from it. Yeah,
and you said adults. Um, it can manifest itself in children,
but generally, UM, teenage, mid teenage years and up is
when you're going to first start seeing signs of it. Yeah,
(02:40):
fifteen to twenty five from what I understand in general. Um,
And as you said, Chuckers, like the the condition of
bipolarity UM is characterized by intense, frequent swings from very
very happy to very very sad. And it's much beyond
(03:03):
the average person's mood swings. Because I mean, like if
if you're fifteen years old and you're listening to this
and you're like, well, sometimes I'm unhappy and then other
times I'm said, that's normal. Um, this is far beyond normal.
Like where you are in either case, like you say,
super up or super depressed. Um, it's nowhere near what
(03:26):
you are normally. And in some cases of the most
severe bipolar disorder, there is no normal. It's either totally
one way or totally the other, and the person suffering
from it to swings back and forth, maybe over the
course of a couple of weeks, UM, and lives like that. Yeah.
(03:46):
Uh sadly, UM, Like we have a couple of stats
about the effects. We'll get too early here. H you're
less likely to have a job if you are bipolar.
That seems really high. Yeah. Um, ten times more likely
to abuse alcohol or drugs, which is as a cyclical
effect because alcohol and drugs are really rough on you
(04:09):
if you have bipolar disorder. Well, yeah, they can trigger
a swing one way or the other. Yeah. I saw
that in my friend actually in college fu. Yeah, and
of bipolar patients, uh successfully commit suicide out of who
try it, and those numbers are startingly high. Yeah, yeah,
that's very high. That's start startlingly startling. Okay, um, so
(04:35):
let's talk about this. What's the what is I've already
kind of given a rough overview, but let's dig into
the symptoms of bipolar disorder. Yeah. They're basically, um, they
characterize two swings, mania and depression. If you're having a
manic episode, you're gonna be a great mood, You're gonna
(04:56):
be high on life, you're gonna have a lot of energy.
You're probably gonna be talking really fast. And it's called area.
So what log area? What's that excessive talking? Talkativeness? Oh yeah, um,
just really fast thoughts like everything. What was that movie
with brad Cooper and de Niro, Oh, Silverlings Playbook? No,
(05:21):
the other one, and you're gonna say that, although that
is what other movie of those two been in together,
the one with um where you take a pill and
you can like tap into more of your brain, which
is de Niro. Isn't that too? Yeah, I don't know
the name of that movie. I know what you're talking about.
It wasn't a very good movie, but exceptional or amazing
or I can't remember. This is at the point when
(05:41):
people are yelling into their car stereo, including Bradley Cooper. Yeah,
he's like, you idiot. Yeah, And I can't believe I
just forgot about Superlians Playbook because that directly covers this. Yeah,
but what I was talking about was the manic He
was almost mannek in that other movie where just ideas
all that I'm at a hyper speed and he just
(06:01):
couldn't do them fast enough. So that's characteristic of a
manic episode. Sorry, Bradley Cooper. Uh, you're distracted, you don't
maybe need as much sleep, you're restless, you're puritable, you
might want to have a lot of sex. Like everything's
just uh, magnified, I think, yeah, and with a manic episode,
(06:22):
they're often like all of this is often accompanied by
a sensation of euphoria. So most people who suffer from
bipolar disorder don't go seeking treatment when they're in a
manic state, right, because they can like that. Yeah, for
some people a manic state, you can have all these things,
but it's instead of accompanied by euphoria, it's accompanied by irritability, uh,
(06:45):
quickness to anger. So it's not all it's not all
fun and games for everybody. But for the most part,
if you're in a manic episode and you're bipolar, you're
you enjoy the manic episodes way more than you enjoy
the depressive eppisodes. Yeah, and I think both are super
rough on friends and family because in the manic state,
you you don't know quite what you're gonna get, you know, right, well,
(07:09):
like you may you engage in um very risky behavior.
You may make a bunch of risky investments, may buy
a lot of stuff. Um, it can go so far
as to uh, you can have psychotic symptoms. So in
a manic episode where you're displaying psychotic symptoms, you may
think you are God or totally UM, infallible, untouchable, can
(07:33):
do no wrong, and then that can feed into the
symptoms of you know, engaging in very risky behavior. You
can even hallucinate like full on see things. Yeah, you
can suffer from delusions and hallucinations. So the d s
M says that if you have a certain number of
manic symptoms UM for at least one week, then that
(07:53):
is considered a manic episode. So that has kind of
changed apparently with the d s M five. This is
ds M four stuff. With the d s M five,
they um really kind of they I think that the
prevailing idea was what's with this whole um bipolar other
(08:13):
otherwise specified, not otherwise specified. It's just a total cop out,
which we'll get to in a minute. But the idea
that there's like this, you don't fit this one or
this one, so you fit this generic third. Actually I'm
glad that's changed. I think they've kind of dug into
diagnosing even more. We changed some of the thresholds and
exclusionary criteria and now um it's a it's supposed to
(08:36):
be a little more laser guided UM. But one of
the ones, one of the things they did change was
that for example, UM, I think as little as five
days of an episode is enough to constitute a diagnosis
rather than like a week or two weeks or something. Right,
that makes sense, yeah, um. And then you have hypomania,
(08:56):
which is sort of like mania light UM, just a
less intense version of mania. UM. So that's the mannic swing.
The depressive side of the coin uh is exactly what
you think, but like amplified by a million. Like you're
not just sad, you feel despair, and your sluggish and
(09:17):
you can't focus, and you're restless and you're irritable. Um.
These are where the suicidal thoughts are coming. So it's
it's not your garden variety depression that you might feel
on a day to day basis, because we all feel
that that's right. And you might also experience UM mixed symptoms,
which is called a mixed episode. So for example, you
(09:40):
might have UM like a lot of intense energy, but
you might also be suffering from feelings of utter despair,
which sounds like a horrible combination. Um. And basically you
can take stay any mania and then add um just
some some of the depressive like suicidal thoughts managed suicidal thoughts, right,
(10:03):
that would be a mixed episode, right, and then you
have something called rapid cycling, which is uh, when these
swings are presenting themselves. Do you know what d S
M Five says? Like, Uh, I couldn't find that it
had a lot of um changes to the rapid cycling.
I think that what they found was that UM drugs
(10:24):
that doesn't necessarily respond to drugs very well. And they've
they've kind of started to understand rapid cycling a little more.
But I don't know what they changed with the diagnostic
criteria for that. Well, here they characterize it by a
year of at least four episodes of mania, hypomania or depression. Right,
so like if you have four episodes in a year,
you've you've got rapids. Apparently that's rapid. I think it
(10:47):
can be a lot more rapid than that. I think
like that's the minimum to be considered rapid cycling. Alright,
So what are the different types of bipolar disorder today?
There's definitely bipolar one, which is essentially your your life
is going from one end of the spectrum to the other.
(11:07):
There's not periods in between really where you're um, where
where you're stable. Right, that's the most severe obviously, Yeah,
you have bipolar to which um the sequel that's right. Uh.
That means you have at least one episode of depression
and one at least one hypomanic episode, but you could feel,
(11:30):
you know, somewhat stabilized in between, which is a big
differentiation apparently between one and two. Um. And then, like
we said, there used to be bipolar disorder no, not
otherwise specified the cop out right, and it was there
was a lot of people who were just kind of
fitting into this and weren't necessarily getting the right diagnosis.
(11:51):
And I guess they've expanded the criteria um for bipolar
one and two, and then they've also kind of looked into, um,
massive depressive disorder uh and then said, well, you you,
this has some aspects of mania as well, and that's
technically a bipolar disorder too. So they kind of did
away with it a little bit, I think as they
(12:11):
thought they were looking bad. Yeah, it's so hard to
category I mean, I know, they take a lot of heat.
It's tough to categorize mental illness because it's so different
for everyone, and well, a lot of people criticize the approach.
The basis of the d s M is tell me
how you're feeling, which is flawed in and of itself
to begin with, because subjective reporting is just completely unreliable. Yeah,
(12:32):
but you can't take a blood test. And and then
secondly to to to further subjectively interpret those subjective self
reports uh into supposed you know criteria and then saying well,
you have XX and X, but you don't have X,
so technically you're not bipolar, which means you don't have
your insurance won't cover these meds that you need. The
(12:55):
whole system is very screwed up, which is why they're
hoping to do things like create blood test that's say, ah,
you have bipolar one, and it's because of this UM,
these neurotransmitters are messed up, so you will respond very
well to this specific dose of this medicine. I don't
think we're more than ten years fifteen years away from it,
(13:15):
but it's it's gonna be a long, horrible ten or
fifteen years for people who are suffering the most from
bipolar disorders. That can't come fast enough. Uh. And then
the final um unless that's gone away, to psyclothymia, is
that's still around, that is the least severe, and that
is um at least two years of hypomania and milder
depression swings. And I think also that's I believe it's
(13:38):
still around, but I think it's um it's changed a
little too. And I think that um. Apparently the child
psychologists of the field said, you guys, there's a lot
of um exuberance and even mania symptoms that are totally
normal in adolescents. So let's let's tighten this up a
little bit because we don't want kids to be diagnosed
with bipolars because their parents think that they're hyper. Right.
(14:01):
Put my fifteen year old on lithium exactly. Yeah. So
I think that they managed to kind of change the
criteria for cyclothymia, saying this is just above the normal
threshold of mood swings. Yeah. Um. So, like we said,
they don't know or I don't know if we did,
they don't still know what causes it directly, um, nor
do they know how the drugs that treat it are. Yeah.
(14:24):
I mean there's a lot of like try this out.
It's like we know spaghetti will start to stick to
a refrigerator. We don't know exactly why, but let's strow
it at the side anyway, but what they do know
is that genetics can play a role. You are gonna
have an increased likelihood to develop it if someone in
your like if your parents had it, let's say, but
(14:45):
they also have these odd outliers, like you could be
a twin and your twin has bipolar disorder, but you don't, right,
So it's just sort of a mystery still. But yeah,
it seems like they that it does have people are
genetically predis post and then an environmental factor can trigger
their bipolar disorder, like a really rough childhood or a
(15:08):
bad life event or something really really good. But a
sudden swing in normalcy and a person that is genetically
predisposed um to bipolar disorder is what can kick it
off in your life. Yeah. Um, other we already talked
about drugs and alcohol that can definitely trigger um seasonal changes.
(15:30):
I think we've talked about seasonal effective disorder SAD. Yeah, SAD,
which I think I think most people experience a little
bit of that, right. But again, if you're genetically predisposed
for the way I see it, and this is totally unscientific,
but just from researching this, it seems like you you
have there's a normal baseline for brain chemistry. Uh. And
(15:51):
it's not a thin line. It's like a pretty good
sized block. And it's easy to also get outside of
that one way or the other right, and when you
are outside of it, you have the symptoms of bipolar disorder.
And if you're bipolar one, you're just constantly going from
the top to the bottom of that block. And that
sounds very scientific and needs to understand the block. Well,
(16:13):
I mean maybe not scientific, but easy to understand, okay.
And then if you if you say, have bipolar two,
you can exist within that normal range, but you can
be knocked out of it, but your brain chemistry is
already predisposed to having bipolar disorder by virtue of being
able to overproduce or underproduce certain neurotransmitters. That's it, I
(16:34):
think will ultimately be the understanding of it. Well, I know,
they definitely tie a lot of mental disorders to either
too much or not enough uh dopamine and serotonin. Like
it's it's definitely brain chemistry going on, yes, you know,
and that's yeah, they think that that's the basically the
(16:54):
basis of it is just fluctuations in brain chemistry like
super low serotonin during manic and depressive episodes is charted. Yeah,
and apparently sarotonin's one of the brain one of the
narrow transmitters that are like, everybody calmed down, let's just
keep things stable here. That's what sarotonin is. And you
can have too much dopamine, which can result in both
(17:16):
mania and depression. Yeah, and I think too much is
also present in psychosis too, so hallucinations delusions, that's why
you can have those during such a tough thing to
try and study, you know. Yeah, I'm reading that. I
started that book. John Ronson, the great John Ronson, who
listens to our show, by the way, writer of Men
(17:37):
who Stare at Goats, oh neat. Yeah, he's a fan.
And hey John Ronson his his book The psychopath Test.
Let's started reading that. Yeah, it's super interesting. So far.
Is it uh, semi historical fiction? Is it nonfiction? Is
it totally fiction? It's sort of a look at how
the industry, the mental health industry, tackles mental health. So
(17:59):
it's not fiction. Yes, that sounds like it's up my alley. Then, yeah,
I should have said nonfiction right off the bat. You're like,
I'm gonna make you guess. Yeah, I will let you. Uh,
I'll let you borrow it after a fenshion Actually how
about that? Okay, and then I will take you up
on that right after these messages. All right, So I
guess we can talk a little bit about how it
(18:21):
has treated medication wise. Um, it is a long term
illness that is is basically looked at as a uh
even a lifelong illness for most people, something you have
to deal with, uh forever. Yeah, Um, medication wise, lithium
since the nineteen seventies has been the go to. Uh
(18:43):
it still is. It's a mood stabilizer and it's gonna
help out with both sides of your mood swings and
apparently which it works for you, right, And I like,
like you said, that's the go to and it typically
like people tend to respond to that. Yeah, it's it's
a go to for a reason, not just because it
was first or that there's a Nirvana song he he
(19:04):
was bipolar, right, sure? Um, and uh, there are alternatives
to lithium because not everybody responds to it. Not everybody
has a good reaction to it. With even somebody who
does respond well to lithium, UM, they have to keep
a pretty good eye on your lithium levels in your
(19:27):
blood stream, so you have to visit the doctor quite
a bit. The whole point of I guess the rigamar
role that you will go through when you're diagnosed with
bipolar and say I want to combat this with meds
UM is basically shooting blind and using a pragmatic approach
(19:47):
to medicating you into saying, Okay, you're reacting well to
this one, Let's try a slightly lower dose and see
what happens. And with lithium in particularly, they keep an
eye on it through through blood tests. But with all
meds using used to treat bipolar disorder, they're going to
really kind of like, um, try everything. Yeah, and it's
still like how you feeling, Yeah, tell me how you're feeling,
(20:11):
not let's do this uh test to read on the
screen how you're feeling still yeah, you know uh. And
again part of the reason why is because they don't
quite know how some drugs work. They just know that
they do work for some people, but not everybody. Yeah.
Anti convulsants is another UM another one that they use,
and it's also a mood stabilizer and I think that
(20:34):
calms down the when your brain is the parts of
your brain at least that are ramped up and overacting. Right.
One of the ways that it affects that is by um,
increasing the amount of GABBA in your brain. You know,
gabba kind of What does that stand for? Again, it
(20:55):
stands for gamma amino beautyic acid. Obviously, well done, thank you,
It's been a while since I tried to pronounce something hard. Uh. Well,
you can use the anti convulsants sometimes, even with lithium. Again,
it's can be a cocktail of drugs that you're on. Right,
depending on what works for you. A typical anti psychotics
(21:19):
can help. Um. They usually use those after they've tried
the lithium. I think they tried lithium first, unless you're
a teenage girl or a pregnant woman, right. Um. And
then uh, the antipsychotics work because um, they affect the
amount of dopamine in your brain. And again, high levels
(21:41):
of dopamine can lead to psychotic symptoms, which is why
they call the drugs that treat those anti psychotics, right. Um.
And then benzodiazepine a k A. Relaxants. I think those
are used less, probably because uh, they're addictive or can
be addictive. Yeah, and then least the short term used
(22:02):
and they yes, they use them to promote healthy sleep.
To um, Like you said, one of the symptoms, especially
of mania, is just going without sleep, like you got
too much to do and you don't even need it,
so you don't sleep. Um. And one of the I
guess the presence of gabba or low amounts of gabba,
(22:25):
which is a neuro transmitter that's involved in getting sleep.
I believe staying asleep too, um kind of underlies this
idea that your sleep cycle is off and it's either
the result of your bipolar disorder or it's helping to
cause your bipolar disorder. Either way, they found that promoting
healthy sleep. For example, there is a thing called dark therapy,
(22:48):
which is no exposure to artificial light after dark for
a certain amount of time can help promote healthy sleep
and can help stabilize bipolar disorder symptoms. All that makes sense, Well, yeah,
the like it always kills me when I see people
on Facebook at like three am saying on Facebook that
(23:08):
they have insomnia, Like, well, you've got a little shiny
bright screen in your face, start by putting that down
and see what happens. Um. So yes, So with there's
all these little clues out there, Chuck that, like so
many pieces of the jigsaw puzzler on the table, they
just haven't been fit together yet, you know. But it
(23:29):
seems like there's, um, there's a kind of a hornet's
nest out there. I wondered, can you live with bipolar
disorder without medication? And apparently there's a big divide in
the bipolar community, like there's pro med and anti med
And I've seen comparisons between talking about like religion or
(23:49):
politics or meds with bipolar people. It's all the same,
like you want to avoid those things to keep things friendly. Um.
But I've seen that some people are like, yes, you
can live without meds, but you probably can't get too
stable without meds. And you get the stable, then maybe
you can. But um, there's practically no way to get
(24:13):
the stable without the help of medications. So people who
have bipolar story will be like, I've been med free
for a year, which is great because it means that
they have managed to fight off episodes and triggers, but
they've done that through other therapy to not just avoiding treatment.
Because if you avoid treatment, not only does the does
(24:35):
does your condition get worse, it gets harder to treat. Yeah, yes,
the episodes supposedly definitely get worse. Yes, you go. Uh. Well,
there are all kinds of therapies that you use along
either in place of your medications or along with and
we won't get too much into these because we've gone
through most of them before, but cognitive behavioral therapy of course,
(24:59):
family therapy, group therapy e c T. We did. We
did a whole show on e c T, didn't we. Yeah,
we did. That was a good one. Yeah, electro convulsive
therapy and UM. One that I hadn't heard of, social
rhythm therapy. I hadn't heard about this either, but it
makes utter and complete sense. Yeah, and that has to
do with UM. I think getting your yourself and your
body on a set schedule is much better for you
(25:23):
if you have bipolar disorder, not only just sleep, but
just regular regulating your your day and your schedule. Yeah.
And I don't think anybody's suggesting that bipolar disorder is
a mind over matter type situation, like I think there
are very few mental illnesses that are that more clearly
(25:43):
demonstrate the brain based understanding of mental illness than bipolar disorder.
Like your neurotransmitters and the chemicals in your brain are
out of whack. It's as simple as that. UM. What
these other non medication therapies seek to do, especially the
UM the interpersonal and social rhythm therapy and coignitive behavioral therapy,
(26:05):
is to get you to confront this thing, to confront
your condition and learn to understand it. Like, understand what
your triggers are. Understand that you have to have X
amount of hours of sleep or night or else you
may end up in like a manic episode. Understand that,
like you just can't drink whiskey. Maybe you can have
a beer like every couple of weeks or something, but
(26:27):
you can't touch whiskey because you'll end up in like
a manager a depressed Like, there are triggers out there
and for you personally, these are your triggers and if
you avoid them, you can stay in that stable range
and and learn to live with bipolar disorder. Yeah, you know,
super interesting. Yeah, alright, so right after this break, we're
gonna talk about whether or not there's a link between
(26:49):
creativity and bipolar disorder. Hey, Chuck, we've got a pretty
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(28:14):
u f F. Alright, buddy. There has long been um
debate on whether or not creative people are either more
likely to be bipolar or bipolar can lead to creative genius. Yeah,
didn't we talk about do we do an episode on that?
It wasn't in a Thinking Cat? I think it was
(28:35):
in Can this Thinking Cat Make Me a Genius? Episode? Yeah?
Trans magnetic stimulation Yeah yeah, yeah, Um, yeah, there's there's that.
It's that latent inhibition kind of thing for schizophrenia and creativity. Yeah.
I mean, there's definitely like a laundry list of very
creative people throughout the years that suffer from bipolar, from
(28:57):
Beethoven to Jimmy Hendrix who wrote Manic Depression, Sylvia Plath,
at Garlin, Poe excel Rose is on the list. Yeah,
Graham Green Dickens, did I say, Dickens, No, but you
just did Francis Ford Coppola, Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys. Yeah,
he he really had a terrible episode after um did
(29:21):
Smile ever get released and it it just flopped? Well,
it got released recently. I never got released at there,
So something happened that set him off. I guess the band,
the rest of the band members wanted to go in
a different direction. Well, he was obsessed with the Beatles too,
and trying to be better than the Beatles. And I
(29:42):
mean Smile was up there was pretty good. But yeah,
I guess it never got released in maybe that's what
triggered his episode and started the dark years. Yeah, and
this was long before anybody understood anything like this. Is
prior to the advent of the use of lithium for
bipolar disorder. Oh yeah, they didn't come around to the seventies. Uh. So,
(30:04):
I have a thing that I like to read. It's
a little long, but there's this great article from Slate
called what does it feel Like to Have Bipolar Disorder?
And it was written by someone named Mills Baker. Uh
And it kind of backs up a lot of what
we're feeling here, but gives you just a little insight
since uh, we're not. Since we can't talk firsthand, we'll
(30:26):
let Mills Baker do it. See mine please. I think
only in their extremes, armenia and depression actually unintelligible to
ordinary folks. That is, at their utmost intensity, they're unlike
anything a normal person experiences. UM, But at most times
they're not at all so different from the maximally intense
(30:46):
moods that everyone knows, just more so, longer lasting, and
disconnected from normative causes. And that seems to be one
of the big points. Is basically what he's saying is
that it's not so different maybe than feeling manager depressed yourself,
but it's way more intense, it lasts for way longer,
and there's may not be a cause, right and not
(31:08):
to I don't have bipolar sort of, but it would
seem like it's too a debilitating degree, like it affects
the rest of your life negatively. Yeah. Um, bipolar is
less about short term mood instability than about long term
mood cycles. Uh. Instability is a part of it, but
not the only part. Second, the cumulative effected these cycles
on the formation of a personality significant, so after a
(31:31):
childhood of radically of radically changing interest and attitudes. On
such a timeline, one develops a certain excitability, flightiness, distractability,
or perhaps that's just me again. It's different for everyone,
but it is a major part of being bipolar, the
personality that is shaped by a lifetime of intense, fluctuating moods.
(31:51):
So he's taken just a more macro approach. It's gonna
make you who you are. You can't just look at
the bad mood or the upmood. It's gonna basically form
your personality over the years. Yeah, I would imagine. Uh.
To know what it feels like is to know the
quality of that uh phenomenon logical experiences a bipolar person
(32:11):
encounters that an unaffected person does not. I don't think
there are many of these going berserk, being creative, having
an awful temper, not being able to trust my own
emotional reactions. These have a certain weight when I list
them out. Uh, they can even sound unique. But everyone
loses it. Everyone has moments of charisma and creativity and success,
strength and achievement, and everyone struggles with himself. You may
(32:33):
not hallucinate, which this guy does, by the way, but
I can bet you understand what it's like for your
mind to misbehave and react insanely. If you haven't yet
lost control of your life, just wait. Uh. And for me,
the most enduring way that bipolar feels different is in
how I cannot trust my reactions. I thought this part
was really interesting. When someone says something to you and
(32:54):
you recognize it as an insult, for instance, as abuse
or abuse, you your react to anger is appropriate and
you can commit to it, or you can make some
determination based on your values and your reason and choose
a different course of action. I can't even trust the
person in that the person even insulted me, So I
can't trust my emotional perceptions or reactions. So that's got
(33:16):
to make you just feel way out of sorts if
you can't even you know, feel like you're trusting your
own emotions, right like if you that's one that's the
one thing that you have is your how you're feeling
about any given situation that makes up your personality and
large part and if that seems flawed to you, that untrustworthy. Uh.
(33:37):
And then finally, that is the strangest thing about how
it feels after the dust of the actual disorder settles
more than a decade in Uh, this guy is talking
about his twelve year I think since he was diagnosed
after more than a decade in the open, insanity has
abated and visits only briefly. The idea that I'm a
secret artist is absurd. What's left is a more less
(34:00):
normal life in which I have to emphasize mental hygiene
like prioritizing regular sleep, for example, and which I always
feel doubt about what I think and feel, as we
all probably should anyway. Yeah, so he seems and he's
on medication, and uh, it seems like he has a
healthy attitude about it. I think it's interesting to hear
people talking first person about mental illness. Well, it's I'm
(34:24):
sure it's a lot easier for him to talk about
it now too, that he's got it licked. Yeah, or
you know, coping with it at least. So you got
anything else? I got nothing else. This is a good one.
Hopefully it helps some people. Yeah, thanks to Mills Baker
for being open to Slate about the disorder. Thanks to
Slate and Mills, Mills and Slates. If you want to
(34:47):
learn more about bipolar disorder, you can type those words
into the search part how stuff works dot com. Uh,
it will bring up a very good article and a
bunch of other stuff too. Uh. And since I said
very good article, that means it's time for listener mail. Josh,
I'm gonna call this a shark correction. Really. Yeah, remember
how we um talked about sharks basically perfected themselves and
(35:10):
haven't changed in millions of years? Yeah? Oh yes, yes,
I was like, we haven't talked about sharks forever, Now
I remember yet. Yeah. Well, there's some brand new findings,
which is pretty excited in Jake Hayes from New York
City Sitnizsen. I really enjoyed the Darwin in Natural Selection episodes, guys,
and thought you might find this recent study published in
the journal Nature. Uh. That is interesting given the example
(35:33):
you gave about sharks. Apparently, contrary to the theory that
they have barely changed over the past hundreds or millions
of years, they may have evolved significantly actually from their
ancient ancestors and may not be the living fossils we
thought they were scientists that thought that shark gills were
an ancient system that predated modern fish. However, a newly
discovered fossil of a shark that dates back million years,
(35:56):
so it's a remarkably different gilt skeleton than modern shark. Uh.
This fossil provides evidence that shark gills have evolved over
time and that it is actually modern day fish that
may be the ones with the old GIL systems. The
new GIL system may have changed over time to help
sharks sprint after their prey or pry open their jaws
to eat larger things. So uh, he said, he just
(36:20):
came across this article and I saw it all over
the place. Of course, like you know, two weeks after
we recorded. I think it was even like a day
or an hour or something. Yeah, I think you're right,
But it's pretty cool info. And that is uh. Once again,
Jay Hayes from New York City. Nice, thanks a lot, Jake.
We appreciate you. And I think a few other people
(36:40):
let us know about it too. Yeah, um, but none
but Jake was from New York City, so we selected him. Uh.
If you want to let us know you're from New
York City, we want to hear about it. You can
hang out with us outside of the podcast on Twitter
at s Y s K Podcast. You can hang out
with us on our Facebook page, Facebook, dot com, slash
(37:00):
stuff you Should Know. We also have Pinterest, Instagram, the
whole Jam. You can send us an email to Stuff
Podcast at Discovery dot com, and, as always, join us
at our home on the web. Stuff you Should Know
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
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