Bipolar 101: What It Is and What It Isn’t with Ana Marie Cox & Dr. Ken Duckworth

No, bipolar disorder doesn’t mean that you’re kind of cheerful
one day and a little bit glum the next. Those are just moods.
That’s not a disorder. The Mayo Clinic says of bipolar, “When you
become depressed, you may feel sad or hopeless and lose interest
or pleasure in most activities. When your mood shifts to mania or
hypomania (less extreme than mania), you may feel euphoric, full
of energy or unusually irritable. These mood swings can affect
sleep, energy, activity, judgment, behavior and the ability to
think clearly.”


We unpack what bipolar means from the perspective of our friend,
Dr. Ken Duckworth, medical director for the National Alliance on
Mental Alliance. He’s a psychiatrist and also grew up with a
bipolar father. Writer and pundit Ana Marie Cox is in recovery
from drug and alcohol addiction and she deals with what’s known
as bipolar II, a variation on the disorder, that comes with
symptoms that can be subtle but powerful.


Visit the National Alliance on Mental Illness or NAMI here.


Visit Ana Marie Cox's website here. Listen to her podcast With
Friends Like These on the podcatcher of your choice. Follow
Ana Marie Cox on Twitter @anamariecox and on Instagram
@anamariecox.


Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly
members of Maximum Fun. 


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what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you
like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at
depreshmode@maximumfun.org.


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available
here. https://read.macmillan.com/lp/the-hilarious-world-of-depression/


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