Also known as manic disorder, bipolar disorder is a health issue that leads to extreme mood swings that include lows (depression) and highs (mania). During the low phase, you feel hopeless and lost as your ability to derive pleasure from most activities goes away. During the mania or less extreme hypomania phase, you are full of energy, euphoric, and you might be more irritable than usual.
The constant mood swings caused by bipolar disorder can affect your ability to think clearly as well as your behavior, judgment, activity, energy, and sleep. These episodes of mood swings might be a rare occurrence, or they might occur frequently. They might also be accompanied by emotional symptoms.
Bipolar disorder is typically a lifelong condition for most people, but the mood swings and other symptoms that accompany the condition can be treated with psychotherapy and medication.
There are different types of bipolar disorders and they might come with symptoms like depression, hypomania, or mania. These symptoms can lead to unpredictable changes in a person’s behavior, negatively impacting their relationships, professional life, and quality of life.
The condition can develop at any age, but it is typically diagnosed during a person’s teenage years. Let us take a close at the symptoms of the different stages of a bipolar episode:
These are two distinct types of bipolar episodes, but their symptoms are the same. Mania is the more severe of the two, and it is more likely to affect a person’s behavior at school, work, or social activities. Mania can also lead to a person losing touch of reality, requiring hospitalization.
Hypomanic and manic episodes are often accompanied by symptoms like:
A depressive bipolar episode comes with symptoms that are severe enough to impact a person’s regular activities like school, work, relationships, and social activities. A major episode comes with at least five of these symptoms:
The symptoms of some types of bipolar disorder might include other issues like anxiety, psychosis, melancholy, or distress. Identifying symptoms of bipolar disorder in children and teenagers can be challenging since these symptoms sometimes manifest themselves differently. Diagnosing teenagers in particular since it is hard to differentiate between the normal ups-and-downs of being a teenager and the symptoms of bipolar disorder and other health issues.
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