bipolar vs. manic depression ?
Q.I just stayed awake late to finish reading "Unquiet Mind" by Kay Redfield Jamison. At the end of the book she goes into how the newer term "bipolar" was invented in order to take away some of the stigma of these disease...the term bipolar does not adequately describe the disease. I know these seem like a frivolous post but I am curious about how others take this. Bipolar does not exactly offend me but I prefer manic-depression. To me the name of this disease should describe in more vivid terms..and if we make the name softer and more "politically correct" then people won't realize the hell it is to deal with this disease.
A.Personally, I prefer Bipolar Disorder. The Manic-Depressive term has a lot of very negative connotations with people. Like the term, 'maniac.' I just don't like it. Bipolar Disorder sounds more like a medical condition (which it is) than some bizarre form of mental illness, which is how people tend to perceive Manic-Depression. People tend to be a lot more accepting of my condition if I tell them I'm bipolar than if I tell them I'm manic-depressive. Manic-depression sounds scary and dangerous. Bipolar disorder sounds a little safer to 'normies,' and allows them to interact with you without fear. I've run into so many people who think that all manic-depressives run around with guns, commiting random acts of insane violence. I feel the same as you! Not many people know, or even seem to care about this illness. Maybe someone changed it on the account of that. I wonder who changed it, being a doctor, or something else. Everytime I tell someone I'm Bipolar, their like, "What's that?". Then I say manic-depressive. Anyway, I feel the same! I think that bipolar does have less stigma associated with it than manic depression. In part I think that when people don't stigmatize it as much it is because they just ignore it because they don't understand what is being said. In the long run, I believe name jumping to prevent stigma is not the solution - the stigma must be fought at its root. For myself, I prefer bipolar as when that term is used there seems to be less of a focus on depression. Often, I have felt that manic depression was treated as a special "adaptation or alternative" of depression, a depression, like some of the other modified depressions. This is problematic for me as with eight years experience of this disease I have not experienced a depressive episode - manic depression, manic only sounds weird. In some sense I view my "poles" as mania and hypermania/"normality", which is a better fit in terms of terms. Even so, I sometimes use manic depression also. Before the response comes. Let me say that I understand that longer term I may suffer a depressive episode and I know that this is one of the unknowns with the illness.
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