Bipolar Disorder


What bipolar disorder?

Bipolar disorder is a mental illness that has a significant effect on sleep, energy, thinking, and behavior and also brings severe high and low moods. This disorder causes changes in a person's mood, energy, behavior, and ability to perform any function in his daily routine. People who have this disorder experience intense emotional states that last from days to weeks. They categorized these mood episodes into two manic/hypomanic or depressive.



People with bipolar disorder have experienced periods in which sometimes they feel overly happy and energized. Sometimes they have periods of feeling very sad, hopeless, and sluggish. Between these periods, they usually feel normal and also act like normal human beings. We can say that these high and low periods are two "poles" of mood; that's why psychologists call it a bipolar disorder.

Manic episodes 


In "manic episodes" people with bipolar disorder feel overly excited and confident. These feelings can also involve irritability and reckless decision-making. During manic episodes, about half of people can also experience delusions (believing in things that are false) and hallucinations (seeing and hearing things that are not there).
In "Hypomania" people with bipolar disorder have milder symptoms of mania; also they do not have hallucinations and delusions. If it has high symptoms, it cannot affect their daily life activities.
When a person's mood shifts to mania or hypomania, they feel euphoric, full of energy, or unusually irritable. These mood swings can affect a person's daily life activities to perform well. The ability to think clearly also affects and disturbed sleep routines, behaviors, and judgments. Bipolar disorder can disrupt a person's relationship with his loved ones and also creates difficulty in daily life working, i.e., going to school.




Manic / mood episodes may rarely occur or multiple times a year. Between these episodes of mood swings, some people experience emotional symptoms and some may not. This bipolar disorder is a lifelong condition. People can manage their mood swings and other symptoms by following a treatment plan. Sometimes, psychologists treat this bipolar disorder with medication and psychological counseling. People also can live their lives without treating their illness.
People who do not have bipolar disorder, also experience mood swings, but these moods swings may only last for hours rather than days. And these mood changes cannot affect a person's daily life activities. One's interactions with other people as compared with the person who has bipolar disorder.
The state of bipolar disorder typically starts in late adolescence or in early adulthood; also it can show up in children and in older adults.

Types of bipolar disorder

There are 4 types of bipolar disorder which are:

Bipolar 1 disorder:

In this type of disorder, people have extremely unpredictable behaviors, not even regular patterns or movements. People with high manic periods that last for at least a week or are so severe that they need proper medication or treatment. Also, some people usually have extreme "down" periods that last for at least 2 weeks.


Bipolar II disorder:


In this type of disorder, people also have unpredictable behaviors, but they are not as extreme as bipolar 1 disorder. In this type of disorder, a person may have one major depressive episode, and at least one hypomanic episode, but he has never had a manic episode.

Cyclothymic disorder:

In this type of disorder, people have periods of depressive behaviors and manic episodes that last at least for 2 or 1 year in children and teens. But in this type of disorder, these periods or episodes are not at their extreme levels as compared with bipolar I and bipolar II disorder.

"Unspecified," or "other specified," bipolar disorder


This type of person has only a few symptoms of mood swings and energy symptoms that define manic and hypomanic episodes. These episodes or symptoms may not last long to be clear-cut episodes.