Читать книгу Welcome to the Jungle, Revised Edition - Hilary T. Smith - Страница 16

Believe it or not, bipolar disorder doesn't have the market cornered on things like insomnia, grandiosity, and suicidality. Here are just a handful of conditions that share these symptoms:

Condition: Aspergers/Autism Spectrum Disorder

Bipolar-esque features: Depression, anxiety, obsessions, socially inappropriate behavior, periods of intensely focused activity, social burnout and withdrawal, loneliness, hypersensitivity, suicide attempts, seeming “grandiosity.”

Condition: Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Bipolar-esque features: Bouts of paranoia and confusion, overwhelming ecstatic/spiritual experiences, depression, hallucinations.

Condition: Anxiety Disorders

Bipolar-esque features: Paranoia, panic, restlessness, obsessions, fear, worry, insomnia, depression, strange behaviors, self-medicating with alcohol/drugs.

Condition: Primary Insomnia

Bipolar-esque features: Inability to sleep with seemingly no cause; can lead to hallucinations, agitation, depression, suicidality, self-medicating with drugs/alcohol.

Condition: Chronic pain

Bipolar-esque features: Depression, suicidality, insomnia, anxiety, self-medicating with drugs/alcohol.

Condition: Seasonal Affective Disorder

Bipolar-esque features: Marked changes in mood and energy levels, insomnia, anxiety, hypersensitivity.

Condition: Spiritual Experience

Bipolar-esque features: Intense energy, feeling like God or talking to God, seeing lights and colors, “grandiosity,” desire to talk to strangers or make big gestures. Other times: depression, suicidality, guilt, agitation, dissociation. (People on meditation retreats experience this stuff all the time.)