Bipolar disorder vs. brain trauma

[Genecks]

I've been attempting to understand some differences between bipolar disorder and brain trauma.

 

In bipolar disorder, people have mood swings; they can feel as though time has passed and they have not recognized that time has passed; they can be somewhere different than they were before, thus having a form of dissociation.

 

However, this is similar to brain trauma. People have mood swings (their behavior is different than it was before the trauma). They'll have some form of amnesia that can alternate and be indeterminable. Time can pass without understanding why or noticing, thus dissociation.

 

It appears that the major difference between trauma and bipolar disorder is the depression and suicidal idealization. However, with trauma, I could see the person wanting to commit suicide from all of the confusion and suffering they begin to experience in life from forgetting the past, their personhood, and having lost many social relationships and knowledge of social relationships.

 

Another thing that is common between bipolar disorder and brain trauma is confabulation.

 

As such, I'm having difficulty understand what the STRONG differences between bipolar disorder and brain trauma are.

 

Thus...

 

What are the strong differences between bipolar disorder and brain trauma?

 

I've been reading up on brain trauma and bipolar disorder.

 

For instance, there is an article that is entitled "

Study suggests bipolar disorder may cause progressive brain damage."

source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-05/uoc--ssb050603.php

 

It seems like there is the hypothesis that bipolar disorder causes progressive brain damage.

 

However, I'm starting to believe that bipolar disorder does not exist.

 

What I'm starting to think exists is that there is compounding damage to the brain over time, along with plasticity over time, that eventually leads to structural changes in memory and personality. As such, that is later translated to psychiatrists labeling someone with "bipolar disorder." In trauma, the individual plasticizes from the trauma and eventually adapts. However, there can be behavioral changes with the
adaptation to the trauma.

 

In other words, imagine that there is some external influence, such as a virus, that can cross the blood brain barrier, cause damage to the brain, thus causing damage to memories and personality, thus influencing the individual's behavior. If an individual gets this trauma, which then affects short-term, working, and long-term memory, the individual has a higher probability of dissociating at times, because of trauma to the brain, and appear to have a "mood swing."

 

However, I hypothesize that is not really a "mood swing."

 

I hypothesize that in fact the situation is that the individual has dissociated due to brain trauma to memory and personality, thus leading them to have a form of temporary insanity from their baseline personality.

 

You see, the article says BIPOLAR DISORDER LEADS TO BRAIN TRAUMA.

I argue that BRAIN TRAUMA LEADS TO BIPOLAR DISORDER.

 

Get it?

 

The article argues that X --> Y.

While I argue that Y --> X.

 

Brain trauma and bipolar disorder seem similar.

 

However, I'm starting to think that people are wrongfully being labeled as bipolar. Instead, I think the medical community needs to label individuals as amnesiacs who are susceptible to behavioral changes and further trauma due to a psychoneuroimmunological deficiency in the CNS and/or PNS. For the CNS, that would more than likely be the peripheral nervous system.

Edited March 15, 2013 by Genecks

[Tamorph]

I'm starting to believe that bipolar disorder does not exist.

 

Then you have certainly never met anyone suffering from it.

 

We all have highs and lows in our lives. Times of feeling good and times of feeling down. When we are up, our body stops us feeling we are invincible by chemically bringing us down to earth. When we are down, our body stops us feeling suicidal by chemically lifting our spirits.

 

These chemical reactions keep most people just slightly higher or lower than average.

 

In bipolar disorder this controlling mechanism is defective and the mood swings are much greater than normal.

 

In a manic phase a sufferer can rationally give up work because they 'know' they are going to win the lottery, or they can take on the world knowing they are 'right' and the rest of the world is wrong.

 

In their depressive state a sufferer can feel personally responsible for all the worlds ills. They 'know' the world will be a better place without them.

 

So bipolar disorder is the normal feelings of life, but taken to extremes. At either extreme the consequences for the sufferer, and their families, can be devastating.

 

Thankfully the chemical imbalance can usually be countered effectively via medication. Why medication sometimes doesn't work is because the sufferer doesn't see the need to take it. When they are manic, they don't think they need to be cured. When they are depressed, they don't think they deserve to be cured.

[Genecks]

I see what you mean, but I think small amounts of brain trauma can be miscategorized as bipolar disorder and give the symptoms you describe.

The reason I say that, is because a person who has brain trauma may have those feelings and be diagnosed as bipolar.

 

The ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY feeling is part of a confabulate line of thinking.

Both are found in brain trauma and bipolar disorder.

 

Then again, it would appear that psychoneuroimmunology in relation to something like this would be cutting edge.

I have not read nor looked for any research related to this issue of people misdiagnosing brain trauma as bipolar disorder.

 

I assume individuals could be gathered who kept daily diaries of their lives, who were later in life diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and that no biological or chemical pathogens were encountered before or during the symptoms of bipolar disorder, then I could believe that bipolar disorder is not an immunological disorder caused by trauma to the brain from pathogens.

Edited March 15, 2013 by Genecks

[the guy]

The truth is, the exact cause of conditions such as bipolar disorder is not known. The reason being that they are mental disorders.

 

Huge leaps and bounds in the name of discovery have been made in the field of psychology; but when compared to other fields of medical science they are minuscule. Our understanding, and therefore treatment in, psychology is extraordinarily basic. Though we can look at and understand the mechanisms and chemical interactions involved in neurological activity, we can no more use this to understand the workings of the human mind and consciousness than an understanding in electrical semi-conduction can make one proficient in computer programming.

 

This is simply because the human mind is so vastly complex and so much of it is, for want of a better word, 'virtual', that scientific investigation of it is extraordinarily difficult.

The very fact that there is so much to the mind, and each 'section' of the mind is so intimately related, connected and affected by every other part, makes pinning down the exact point(s) of origin of a 'virtual' outcome in such a vast web of interconnected 'virtual' processes practically impossible.

 

The fact is, bipolar disorder may be caused by one distinct 'pathological error' or point of damage to the neurological make-up; or several; or slight emotional and cognitive anomalies; or, more likely, a multitude of seemingly unrelated problems of all kinds which, when acting together, produce the outcome of what is known as 'bipolar disorder'.

In such a vastly complicated system, any one outcome could have countless possible combinations at its source.

 

Manic depressive symptoms in one sufferer may well, indeed, be the result of some brain trauma whilst in another, it may be the result of a combination of chemical imbalances and life experiences.

[Michael Lee]

I suffer from Bipolar I and it's not much fun. I once had a serious delusion that Queen Elizabeth was trying to communicate special messages to me in the news. I booked a last minute flight to London and discovered I'm wrong and got arrested trying. I think it's funny now but it wasn't when I was there - all I had for money was my credit card. Great God that was horrible experience.

[PrettyinDixie]

You are an idiot. Bipolar disorder and brain trauma may have a few similarities, but are NOT the same thing. You obviously do not know anyone with the disorder. I went three months without sleep, was the happiest anyone had ever met... then couldn't drag myself out of bed to save my life for months... that is just the beginnings... until you have experienced it, you have no idea.

[swansont]

!

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