Bipolar Disorder

Bobby Sabelhaus, who shattered Maryland high school passing records as a quarterback at McDonogh School, is withdrawing from college and ending his football career for medical reasons, he said yesterday.Physically, he is fine. Mentally, he is not, said Sabelhaus, a junior at San Jose State in California. The former high school All-American says he has a mental illness that is exacerbated by his playing football. He disclosed yesterday that doctors at Johns Hopkins University have for three years been treating him for bipolar disorder, a biochemical illness characterized by abnormally high and low mood swings.

Regarding your recent editorial on making it easier for families to commit a mentally ill relative to a mental institution against their will, Maryland's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and some state delegates apparently are missing the urgent need to clarify the state's civil commitment standards ("The tricky question of involuntary commitment," April 6). Many relatives of individuals with serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, recently testified about the consequences of the denying timely treatment under the current law. Those consequences include homicide, suicide, homelessness, job loss and permanent brain damage.

Just how long can Joseph C. Palczynski keep going? The answer, according to some doctors, may be several more days. People can function for extended periods if sleep-deprived, experts say, though they are likely to become more irritable and suspicious. But for someone suffering from bipolar disorder, going days with virtually no sleep can have disastrous consequences. Since the standoff in Dundalk began Friday night, Baltimore County police believe Palczynski has kept going with only occasional naps.

These groups meet regularly. Bereavement Support Group - Fourth Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. This group is for adults who are mourning the loss of a loved one. All are welcome. St. Francis of Assisi Parish, Room 105, 8300 Old Columbia Road, Fulton. 410-792-0470, Ext. 214. Caregivers support group - Fourth Thursday, 10:30 a.m.-noon. Winter Growth Adult Day Care Center, 5466 Ruth Keeton Way, Columbia. 410-964-9616. Christian Science Society - Wednesdays, 6 p.m. Do you have problems you can't seem to solve on your own?

Theodore David Jump, a retired Carroll County public school educator who used his struggle with bipolar disorder and alcoholism to counsel students and young adults, died of heart failure May 8 at Carroll Hospice's Dove House in Westminster. He was 74. Mr. Jump was born and raised in Little Rock, Ark., and graduated in 1952 from Central High School. After earning a bachelor's degree in the classics from Yale University in 1956, Mr. Jump began his teaching career at the Hill School in Pottstown, Pa. While serving in the Army in the late 1950s, he began graduate studies at Emory University in Atlanta, and after being discharged in 1961, joined the faculty of the Severn School.

Robert Schumann heard so much music in his head, he felt compelled to compose. "I cannot help it," he wrote to his wife, Clara, "and should like to sing myself to death, like a nightingale. " When he died at the age of 46 in an asylum, the only sounds he made were unintelligible to Clara and the doctors. It was a pathetic end to one of the greatest figures of 19th-century German Romanticism. This weekend, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will examine Schumann's troubled mind in an "Off the Cuff" presentation led by music director Marin Alsop.

Candles light the room. Orange ones, green ones, tall ones, short ones. Greg Montgomery opens the doors to the terrace that overlooks the Inner Harbor and says, "Look at the ceiling."As a soft breeze plays with the candles' flames, a golden silhouette in the shape of a flickering Aztec sun dances on the ceiling. One more warm, artistic display by this gentle man who is better known as the Ravens' sometimes goofy, always unconventional punter.It's easy to see the unconventional. When national television networks come to talk to him, they play up the bleached white hair, the tattoos, the earrings and the pranks.

Joan W. Denny, who had bipolar disorder for most of her life and was a longtime participant in Johns Hopkins University Mood Disorders Center-Symposium, died Jan. 11 of cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care. She was 79. Joan Weiskittel Denny was born in Baltimore and raised on Overhill Road in Roland Park. She was a 1948 graduate of Bryn Mawr School and studied theater at Finch College in New York City. After graduating from Finch in 1950, she worked in New York as a production assistant for several Broadway producers.

She was a national heroine and a dogged reformer widely credited with inventing the modern profession of nursing. Yet Florence Nightingale left behind a medical mystery as lingering as her legacy. At the age of 37, Nightingale collapsed in her London home and for three decades rarely strayed from couch or bed, complaining of a wide and puzzling variety of symptoms ranging from pain in her spine to "recurrent spasms of the heart." Then, when she was 68, her affliction suddenly and mysteriously lifted.

Everything about Elizabeth Burkett suggested a young woman deep in the quagmire of depression. Months went by when she didn't want to do anything but sleep or stare at her computer screen, and she couldn't bear the thought of talking to anyone. Antidepressants made her worse. Last year, though, she mentioned to a doctor that she occasionally flew into fits of rage in which she'd chase her husband around the house, shouting that she hated him. "I'd literally go from ice cold water to boiling, no middle points," said the 26-year-old rock musician from Tennessee.

Bryan Johnson didn't know he had bipolar disorder until he ended up at the emergency room, where he assaulted a police officer. His family had taken him to the University of Maryland Medical Center because he was acting strangely, staring into the distance and constantly pacing as he struggled with the death of his brother and the loss of his job. He was sent to Central Booking as soon as he was released from the hospital, and wound up with a...

A Pasadena man has been sentenced to life in prison for killing his wife as she was preparing to leave him. Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Alison L. Asti sentenced Stephen Richard Salb, 58, on Friday, agreeing with the sentence prosecutors sought for the July 2011 fatal stabbing of Jill Teets Salb, 38. "It was the ultimate in domestic violence," said prosecutor Anne Colt Leitess. "She was going to leave him and he wasn't going to have that. " Leitess said the victim had nine stab wounds, but more than 100 cuts - which Leitess said indicated that she tried to fight off her husband.

When a dozen Morgan State University students launched a theater troupe called ArtsCentric nearly a decade ago, their goal went beyond creating performance opportunities for themselves. They wanted to do work that could make a difference to people. The two goals come together this weekend with a production of the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning musical "Next to Normal," a groundbreaking show about a woman whose battle with bipolar disorder threatens to tear apart her family.

These groups meet regularly. Abusive relationships - Mondays, 7-8:30 p.m. Domestic Violence Center of Howard County, 5457 Twin Knolls Road, Suite 310, Columbia. Free child care. 410-997-0304. Adult Children of Alcoholics - Wednesdays, 7 p.m., First Presbyterian Church of Howard County, 9325 Presbyterian Circle, Columbia; Saturdays, 12:45 p.m., Serenity Center, 9650 Basket Ring Road, Columbia. 410-796-4680. Alcoholics Anonymous - Sundays, 7 p.m. Share experience, strength and hope with each other to solve this common problem and help others to recover.

"The altitude's kinda giving me a bit of a headache. Does anyone got (an), Aspen ?" Oh, Steven Tyler. It was so funny I forgot to laugh. " American Idol " travels to Aspen, Colo., for the first time, where we learn about Rocky Mountain Oysters and witness the enigma that is the Magic Cyclops guy. Let us take a look at the notable auditions, shall we? Eighteen-year-old flower child Haley Smith has three jobs and loves nature. She sang "Tell Me Something Good" and I gotta say, great control, great voice.

At a time when the government is debating which programs to cut to save money, the recent article about a Cockeysville couple coping with loss ("Parents push through the silence on suicide," Aug. 7) is particularly appropriate in explaining to the government that cutting health services, especially those that affect individuals with mental health issues, may seem to save money, but at what cost? A severe mental illness such as bipolar disorder can be helped by psychiatric rehabilitation, which provides the supports and direction that medication alone cannot offer.

Joan W. Denny, who had bipolar disorder for most of her life and was a longtime participant in Johns Hopkins University Mood Disorders Center-Symposium, died Jan. 11 of cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care. She was 79. Joan Weiskittel Denny was born in Baltimore and raised on Overhill Road in Roland Park. She was a 1948 graduate of Bryn Mawr School and studied theater at Finch College in New York City. After graduating from Finch in 1950, she worked in New York as a production assistant for several Broadway producers.

Did you know?--More than 2 million American adults (1 percent of the population age 18 and older) have bipolar disorder. - National Institute of Mental Health

Robert Schumann heard so much music in his head, he felt compelled to compose. "I cannot help it," he wrote to his wife, Clara, "and should like to sing myself to death, like a nightingale. " When he died at the age of 46 in an asylum, the only sounds he made were unintelligible to Clara and the doctors. It was a pathetic end to one of the greatest figures of 19th-century German Romanticism. This weekend, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will examine Schumann's troubled mind in an "Off the Cuff" presentation led by music director Marin Alsop.

Mental health professionals have known for years that people who suffer from serious mental illnesses are often more likely to end up in jail than in some form of treatment. That's why a new program in the Baltimore City Circuit Court to divert some seriously ill defendants to mental health programs instead of jail is a worthy effort. But to succeed, the initiative will require not only an adequate supply of mental health treatment slots in Baltimore, but also increased access to stable, safe and affordable housing for the mentally ill defendants it serves — something that has been lacking in the past.