Bipolar disorder specifically refers to the cycling between high and low episodes or poles with psychotic symptoms such as delusion, hallucinations and risk of suicide.
This usually can be controlled by medication.
However, quite frequently after taking medication, a patient will start to feel much better, stop taking their medication and experience delusion or have a psychotic episode with thoughts of suicide.
This can be a terrible cycle for the patient and family.
When doctors hear of a patient talking about suicide, they refer to these thoughts as suicidal ideation and divide them into 2 categories.
The first ideation is when someone wants to die and has a plan to carry it out.
The second ideation is more passive, where someone feels suicidal, but without a plan to end their life.
Even worse is when the patient is so strong willed they refuse to take the medication.
Loved ones are usually torn in two directions; either put up with the vicious cycle of unstable behavior (sometimes risking a family's safety) or apply tough love and risk the unthinkable outcome.
Under California laws you cannot force someone to go to the hospital unless there is proof they are going to hurt themself or others.
When Ronald Reagan was governor of California he systematically began closing down mental hospitals, and later as president he cut aid for federally-funded community mental health programs.
Most of the homeless people you see on California streets are mentally ill, that is before the great recession occurred.
The intent of this article is to bring additional awareness to this often misunderstood illness.