What is the difference between bipolar disorder and, for example, borderline presonality disorder?
One is a mental illness, the other a development disorder. Mental illness, as with other illnesses are caused by one or more of the following
1 – Injury, which includes traumas, emotional and physical, as well as stress as well as medical conditions such as type II diabetes and vascular diseases
2 – Infectiona for example, encephalitis, HIV, and cerebral malaria
3 – Poisoning, usually by drugs, legal, prescribed or illegal
4 – Vitamin and mineral deficiencies, especially
5 – Degeneration and disuse, including conditions such as dementia,
Mental illness may be intermittent, potentially treatable if not curable and is generally acquired later in life. Depression, anxiety, psychosis and bipolar disroder are the commonest examples of mental illness. Schizophrenia and schiz-affective disorders are also mental illnesses. For many people, correctly diagnosed with bipolar disorder, lithium and other mood stabilising drugs can be a lifelife,
Mental illness is largely related to stress, bereavement, trauma leadiing to post traumatic stress disorders, life events, drugs and other poisons prescribed and non-prescribed. Culprits include alcohol, nicotine, recreational drugs and psychiatric medications, especially anti-depressants such as high does pf amitriptyline and fluoxetine, steroids Larium and other anit-malarials, as well as the legal and illegal ‘highs’ such as crack cocaine, crystal meth, synthetic cannaboids and cannabis.
Anxiety, depression and selfharming, which affect up to one in five American teenagers and University students. Almost certainly the hypersensitive hyper fragile snowflake generation owe a lot of their sensitivity to smart phones and social media which came to dominate their early teenage years.
By comparison, personality disorders are lifelong, and are the result of genetics and epigenetics. that is a combination of nature combined with nurture that can lead to life long problems with social interactions, difficulty achieving goals, difficulty with personal organisation and planning, a lack of insight and personal reflections and difficulty reacting appropriately in the moment. Some studies have suggested that it is possible to identify children with potential personality disorders by the age of seven.
Personality disorders, in the absence of a Damascene moment and signiificant personal development, are largely untreatable and is likely to follow the individual to the grave. Personality disorders relate to extreme personality traits, talents and skills.
People with personality disorders can be highly successful, but often at the expense of those around them. In contrast, mental illness, is rarely associated with worldly success, instead, is associated with povery and downward social mobility.
Where does the confusion come from? First and foremost from psychiatrists, who do not make a clear distinction in their own minds between the two. A personality disorder is not a flattering diagnosis, whereas bipolar disorder has a certain romantic flavour to it.
Secondly, changing fashions in psychiatry. Celebrities, when their wheels come off and they go into meltdown, would far rrather be diagnosed with a mental illness than an enduring personality disorder .