Conclusion

Approximately 1/3 of people that answered the questions were boys with the other 2/3 being girls and of that make up, 32 of the 99 surveyed strongly agreed that people diagnosed with a mental illness should be able to do the same things others would do. Another 25 simply agreed, but 30 were neutral. Those statistics all add up to 87 of the 99 people surveyed. This shows that people generally do believe that there should be no discrimination against people with mental illnesses. The 30 people that were neutral were most likely didnt care about the mental illness or didn't know enough about it to agree or not. These results show that the people that feel a certain way about Bipolar, whether it may be strongly agreeing or disagreeing, let that awareness they have affect them and their actions.

Survey Results

Out of the 99 respondents of the two survey questions I asked were 36 male (about 40%) and 63 female (about 60%.) 35 out of the 99 were black and 49 of the total 99 were white. 2 were Asian and 1 was Latino. 7 were mixed, and lastly, were another race.

Summary of New Hope for People with Bipolar Disorder

The book I read part of was called New Hope for People with Bipolar Disorder. It consisted of non-bias information on the inner conflicts and feelings people deal with as caregivers of people diagnosed with Bipolar. The main message of the section went as quoted: "Our reactions to other people give us more insight to ourselves than to others. If we choose only to focus on the behavior of others, we will get to know how the behave. If we focus on how we are influenced by others and still look further inward, we will more clearly recognize our inner self." It went on to explain how although that message can be directed to anyone, more specifically, it's related to caregivers of people diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. Even more specifically, teens in close relationships with these people have to battle to focus on how to find out about themselves, and letting all the caring they do define who they are.

Fawcett, Jan, Bernard Golden, Frederick K. Goodwin, and Nancy Rosenfeld. "Living With People With Bipolar Disorder."New Hope for People with Bipolar Disorder: Your Friendly, Authoritative Guide to the Latest in Traditional and Complementar y Solutions, Including: Proper ... Depression & Manic-Depressive ... (New Hope). 1 ed. new york: Three Rivers Press, 2000. 264-265. Print.

Topic Question

If you are a caregiver of someone with bipolar disorder, how does it affect the other aspects of your life and the insight you have about yourself?

Intro to the Influence of Bipolar Disorder on Teen Siblings

This topic is very important, personal as well as sad to me. I chose it because my older sister at the age of 23 is diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. I, being 15, have learned so much about the disorder through this highly influencing experience, yet, I have so much more to learn. This illness is very present in the lives teens and can be extra hard to cope with as they go throughtperonal conflicts as well. I hope to investigate the effects on the teens as caregivers and how they cope and live with this irremovable label that changes lives drastically.