Recently, I was asked by my patient to watch Love is Blind Season 3.

And yes, when it's reasonable, I will follow up on a request by a patient or listener.

There is a pivotal scene between one couple, Cole and Zinnib, in which during a disagreement,

Cole asks, are you bipolar?

You'll hear my opinion on that in a minute.

But since many of my listeners also email me asking about this often mentioned in pop culture,

but rarely understood disorder, I wanted to take this opportunity to lay down some facts.

Welcome back to Savvy Psychologist, I'm your host, Dr. Monica Johnson.

Every week on this show, I'll help you face life challenges with evidence-based approaches,

a sympathetic ear, and zero judgment.

Let's make one thing clear, it's not okay to use mental illness as an attack against

another person.

I'm doubtful that you would go up to your grandmother and say, are you senile with a look of judgment

if she was having a forgetful moment?

To be fair, if you throw someone into a situation where they have to get engaged to and live

with a person they met two weeks ago, they're going to have some wonky moments and height

in the motions.

But seeing this interaction on TV inspired me to teach you a little bit about bipolar disorder.

There are actually two forms of bipolar, which we call bipolar one or two.

Bipolar two is a milder form of the disorder.

For the purposes of this episode, we are going to focus on bipolar one.

According to the DSM-5TR, bipolar disorder occurs in about 1.5 percent of the population,

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