30. A Kickboxing Actor Has Rapid-Cycling Bipolar
Jean-Claude Van Damme is an actor and martial artist whose film career rivals that of legends like Jackie Chan. Before coming forward with his mental illness, his life went into a tailspin. He was addicted to cocaine and had been divorced four times.
It turns out, Van Damme’s biggest enemy wasn’t hiding in the shadows on the screen. It was rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, a condition in which a person has frequent bouts of mania and depression. Whereas diagnoses of bipolar I and II require only one episode of mania and one episode of depression, rapid-cycling bipolar is characterized by four or more incidents each year.
