Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Marci Chavarria
Professor Batty
English 101
Imagine starting your day off completely great, when suddenly your mood changes. You
suddenly remember how great you felt minutes ago and now you feel irritated or just sad for no
reason. Can you also try to imagine those feelings you get on a roller coaster? Those are two
examples of what a person suffering from Bipolar Disorder experiences every day. Bipolar
depression, usually interspersed with relatively long intervals of normal mood. Bipolar Disorder
is not curable but it is controllable with certain medications given by a licensed physiatrist. One
out of many stigmas students with disabilities usually come across, are having a disability be
visible to the eye. Today I am here to prove that in fact students with Bipolar Disorder do
Colleges have many resources for students with disabilities. The main advantage would
be the SSD office, which every student with a disability should go through in order to come up
with a plan for their college/education experience. “Mental illnesses are medical conditions that
disrupt a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others, and daily functioning”
(Belch, 2011). Students who suffer with Bipolar Disorder tend to always stay up late, get no
sleep at all, and rush to get to their deadlines. These certain issues may cause college to be very
difficult. Bipolar Disorder is a common mental disorder that often has its onset during the college
year and it affects 2.6% of people over the age of 18. Studies have shown that medications,
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Bipolar Disorder has certain focuses to take in consideration for all of those individuals
dealing with it. For college students, medication, its side effects and the cost can be
overwhelming. A psychiatrist is the only doctor who has a practice or science of diagnosing and
treating mental disorders. Finding the right medication for each person is filled with a lot of trial
and error. Medication does in fact have long term effects to those who take it. It is always best to
fully understand what will be the pros and cons to each medication prescribed and its effects.
Students claim to need more sleep than the normal amount. A sedative is usually given to those
who suffer with insomnia, but a low dose can also be given to those with bipolar disorder to calm
them down. This can be a problem if medication is given to put the student to sleep. This can
create manic episodes for the student knowing they need longer hours of sleep just to function,
leaving hardly anytime for school assignments and study time. Studies show that about 86% of
students with psychiatric disorders withdraw from college (Collins and Mowbray, 2005). Faculty
may experience anxiety or fear in dealing with this student subpopulation, which in turn has an
In conclusion, I am here to prove that in fact students with Bipolar Disorder do struggle
in college when dealing with medication side effects. Medications often have different side
effects depending on each individual. It’s an everyday struggle for a college student dealing with
these side effects. That being said, every college campus has resources for students with
disabilities known as the SSD office. My name is Marci B. Chavarria, I am 28 years old, a single
mother of two amazing boys and I suffer with Bipolar Disorder. As a college student who suffers
from a mental disability, I can relate to every piece of evidence that I have provided in this essay.
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Medication, for me has been a very huge struggle and like I mentioned it can be based on trial
and error. It gets to the point where you are willing to just try every medication possible just so
you can try and feel normal. It has been a very huge struggle trying to finish school and dealing
with all the other stuff that life throws at us. There are so many stigmas that push college
students who suffer with mental disabilities away. I can defiantly relate to that, especially the
fact that people expect a disability to be visible. For many years, I felt super embarrassed
because social media has made mental disabilities look like its some type of trend to go along
with. When really its not a trend at all for those who have to deal with it every day. We are just
trying to find a way to fit into an everyday life of an average person, even if we are not average
at all.
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Works Cited
Disabilities: A Foundation for Creating Conditions of Support and Success.” New Directions for
library.lavc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ
935572&site=eds-live.
Journal of College Student Psychotherapy, vol. 25, no. 1, Jan. 2011, pp. 24–38. EBSCOhost,
doi:10.1080/87568225.2011.532471.
With Bipolar Disorder.” Journal of American College Health, vol. 59, no. 7, Aug. 2011, p. 666.
EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/07448481.2010.528100.