A team of psychiatrists is getting ready to take patients to the North and South Poles, in a novel plan to raise money for research into bipolar disorder.
In a year's time psychiatrist Erik Monasterio will be dashing the last stretch to the South Pole.
He is in a team of 24 mental health workers and patients taking bipolar to the ends of the earth.
"We're taking sufferers from the illness to the poles," says Mr Monasterio. "What this expedition is trying to say is hey, even though you may suffer from a serious mental illness you can still have lofty aims, or great ideals or hopes."
It is an extreme expedition, and untreated bipolar disorder can be a severe disability. But with the right medication, it can be managed.
"There's a real lack of knowledge and all sorts of myths have gone into fill the void," says Frances Caldwell of Bipolar Support Canterbury. "People just have this idea that people are out there who are mad, and they don't see the connection with themselves."
One in 100 New Zealanders has bipolar disorder, a mental illness with fluctuating highs and lows that is often misunderstood.
"Don't be scared of us," says former patient Brenda McArthur. "We have an illness. Although we may do out of character things, that's what it is."
Ms McArthur has learnt to spot the signs of her illness.
"When I was first becoming unwell, I would talk quite quickly and I would spend a lot."
It takes an average 10 years for patients to be diagnosed and treated, and a whopping 70 percent are misdiagnosed early on.
The bipolar expedition aims to give the public an awareness of the mental illness. Left undiagnosed it contributes to the severity of the condition.
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