Short answers, pulled from the story.
Bipolar disorder is a mental condition characterized by episodes of mania or hypomania alternating with periods of depression, each lasting days to weeks or longer. Unlike ordinary mood shifts, manic episodes last at least one week and impair the ability to work or socialize; depressive episodes in bipolar disorder often include thoughts of death or suicide and significant changes in sleep, appetite, and functioning.
Bipolar disorder has a lifetime prevalence of about 1 to 3% in the general population and is the sixth leading cause of disability worldwide. In 2017, the Global Burden of Disease Study estimated 45.5 million total cases globally and 4.5 million new cases that year.
Genetic factors are estimated to account for 73 to 93% of the risk, making bipolar disorder strongly hereditary. Environmental factors, including childhood trauma, long-term stress, and sleep deprivation, also play a significant role and may interact with genetic predisposition through mechanisms involving the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.
Lithium is the most established treatment, with over 40 years of evidence supporting its effectiveness in reducing mania, depression, and suicide risk. Other commonly used medications include the mood stabilizers valproate, carbamazepine, and lamotrigine, as well as several atypical antipsychotics approved by the FDA for bipolar depression, including lurasidone, quetiapine, and cariprazine.
People with bipolar disorder are 11.7 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population. An estimated 34% attempt suicide during their lifetime, and the annual suicide rate among those with the condition is 30 to 60 times greater than that of the general population. Lithium treatment has been shown to reduce this risk to close to general population levels.
Jean-Pierre Falret described circular insanity in 1850, and Jules-Gabriel-Francois Baillarger described a biphasic mental illness he called la folie a double forme to the French Imperial Academie Nationale de Medecine in 1854. German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin later developed these concepts and coined the term manic depressive psychosis.