I wonder what causes Bipolar? - Bipolar Disorder Message Board

windimeria2000 · 05-06-2009, 04:50 PM

My childhood wasn't good and I got molested as a child. My parents did the best they could I suppose with what they knew and what was socially acceptable at the time. However, I am wondering if life could prove so stressful that one day a person just snaps and there brain chemicals are never again stable?

I honestly think that is what happened to me. I started having flashbacks of my molestation from a child that I had buried deep and on top of that the world was slowly weighing on my shoulders. One day after a dental surgery I was never again the same. The dentist had not numbed my mouth enough cause I started feeling the pain in my mouth before I left his office...By the time I got to the pharmacy I was hurting so bad I became angry as Hades. Directly after that I started having panic attacks and anxiety, Hives...Depression followed...then bipolar diagnosis...

Just wondering if environment can cause bipolar?

dreams in neon · 05-06-2009, 05:42 PM

Environmental factors can definitely trigger bipolar.

I experienced 4 different traumas from age 7-18. I was sexually, physically and emotionally abused by my father. My mother emotionally abused me for the same period of time and my life was threatened at knifepoint by a stranger when I was 9 years old.

In 1991 I started hearing voices, experiencing severe depression as well as showing other clear signs of bipolar such as mania and hypomania (although I didn't know what they were at the time).

My pdoc and tdoc both think that the traumas I experienced contributed to my bipolar although there were other factors as well including the death of my mother, side effects of anethesia (since anesthesia can cause mania) following bilateral cochlear implant surgery, sensory deprivation (i.e. the loss of my residual hearing following cochlear implant surgery) and being unmedicated.

Sometimes bipolar has a genetic basis to it, but environmental factors can certainly contribute to its' development as well.

Llama · 05-06-2009, 08:23 PM

Dreams is right. Environment can trigger bipolar in people who are pre-disposed to it. It is also highly genetic. I have a heavy family history of these sorts of problems.