Dr. Jameca Cooper explains why bipolar disorder goes undiagnosed in men: mania's hallmark symptoms like elevated energy, reduced sleep, and grandiosity overlap with male stereotypes. Clinicians may miss the disorder when these signs look like culturally normal male behavior.
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Hi, this is Dr. Jameca Cooper Cooper. Thanks for tuning in to my channel. Make sure you subscribe, make sure you keep up with all the videos that have to do with mental health, reality TV, and a little bit of everything. Today we are talking specifically about bipolar disorder, but Let's look at bipolar disorder in men. There is one really big reason that makes it very difficult to diagnose bipolar disorder in men sometimes, and I'm not saying all the times, but sometimes depending on maybe the age of the practitioner and the, um, worldview of the practitioner, how they see gender stereotypes and gender roles Those things matter. So there is one main factor that makes it sometimes difficult to diagnose men with bipolar disorder, and it all goes back to gender stereotypes and gender roles and how we see men and women is different really in this country. So that one factor is mania. What does mania look like? First of all, what is mania? Mania is really this intense period of a person being a little bit— how would we say this— amped up or hyped up. Sometimes if you were watching a person, they may appear to be— they may appear to look like they are driven by a battery, like they're on speed. They're just going, going, going with no end in sight. They might not sleep during this time, or they might have very little need for sleep. They could also engage in risky behaviors during this time— drinking, substance use, sex, shopping, porn, anything, gambling. All those things would be something that is a typical behavior for a person who's experiencing a manic episode or a person who's experiencing, experiencing mania. Other things that accompany mania are these maybe grandiose sense of self. So the person could be very bold, maybe louder than usual, maybe quite confident, uh, could be arrogant. They might think that they are strong and powerful, they can do so many things, they're so much smarter than other people during this time. So what makes it difficult to diagnose men with mania is that in this society, in the United States, we see men as having those traits normally. Right? So normally when we think about men and some of the traits that we consider to be normal, typical traits of men, some of those might be arrogance, it might be boldness, courageous, could be confidence, could be loud, it could be outspoken. So these are the traits that we normally attach to men in this country. So therefore, as a practitioner, when you see someone like that in your office who displays these symptoms, maybe speaking a little faster than normal, it doesn't automatically ring a bell as saying this is a manic person or this is a person that's experiencing mania. That is a problem, of course, for practitioners because the one thing we don't ever want to do is miss something. We don't wanna misdiagnose people. We don't wanna overlook things that are there. But in this country, this is the one thing that's gonna make it difficult to diagnose men with bipolar because they appear in a way that our society sees as normal. Sometimes. So that is my one factor, my one reason why it can sometimes be hard to diagnose men with bipolar. Make sure you tune in to this channel for other videos and information on mental health and reality TV, celebrities, and a little bit of everything else. Make sure you subscribe. Thank you. This is Dr. Jameca Cooper.
