As many as 2,400,000 people in the UK today are affected by bipolar disorder. On average it take 10 years to obtain a diagnosis, some people live a decade without knowing what is wrong while many never get a diagnosis.
Bipolar disorder is a serious mental health condition, it often occurs as a reaction to a trauma or when work, study, family or emotional pressures are at their greatest. Bipolar disorder is an illness characterised by extreme shifts in mood from depressive lows to manic highs. Without treatment these periods of mania or depression have a major effect on daily life. It is a condition which can devastate lives, not just sufferers but their loved ones too.
It is no respecter of class or background; Stephen Fry has it, Spike Milligan had it and Virginia Woolf died from it – history is littered from famous people afflicted by this condition, but this extraordinary illness touches the lives of ordinary people too.
Self-management is the first step to recovery and is designed to provide people diagnosed with bipolar disorder a thorough and comprehensive understanding of their own condition and the concepts, tools and techniques involved in learning to self-manage extreme mood swings. Research indicates that learning to manage the condition is invaluable in stabilising this bipolar diagnosis
Our ten year training programmes have ensured that no course participants have been readmitted to any acute psychiatric hospitals in Somerset.
The Somerset Bipolar Organisation are here to help support sufferers of bipolar and their friends and families. We offer free advice, workshops & courses.
