Bipolar disorder is often a misunderstood disease that is used in popular language to describe somebody who changes their mind quickly. However, this couldn’t be further from the reality of the disease. Bipolar disorder is a serious, debilitating mood disorder that affects up to 1% of the population and includes extensive periods of certain moods for several days or even weeks, rather than quick mood swings on a daily basis. There are two types of Bipolar Disorder, Bipolar Disorder I and Bipolar Disorder II. Bipolar disorder I patients experience full-blown mania while Bipolar disorder II patients usually experience hypomania, which is a version of mania that lasts for a few days. There are two main symptoms of Bipolar disorder which define the disease’s name, these are Mania and Depression.
Depression
Depression in bipolar disorder is not unlike unipolar major depressive disorder. It is characterized by extreme sadness, low self-esteem, and a general dissatisfaction and melancholy with life. Depression can lasts several weeks or even months in bipolar patients, and this similarity to the other psychological disease of Major Depressive Disorder leads many bipolar patients to be misdiagnosed.
Mania
Mania is little understood and can be quite surprising to notice. Considered the exact opposite of Depression, Mania is a period of extremely elevated mood and periods of liveliness, excessive happiness, and belief in one’s own abilities to the point of self-delusion. Mania can be just as dangerous, if not more so than depression since manic individuals are more likely to participate in unsafe behaviour, spend excessive amounts of money, and experience delusions of grandeur or importance. Mania proves that too much happiness can be just as bad as too much sadness.
Other symptoms
Aside from mania and depression there are various other symptoms that bipolar patients experience including paranoia, anxiety, and in some cases even hallucinations. These symptoms are what make bipolar disorder similar and often confused with schizophrenia.