Mania- Tons of energy, lack of sleep without feeling tired, 'pressured speech' aka you can't stop talking even if you want to it just keeps coming out, and thoughts flying through your head at warp speeds. It's hard to pay attention and get things that are important done. My most hated part of mania includes the lack of ability to control my actions due to a lowered ability to make rational and reasonable judgements. So, people with mania can spend all the money they have on everything and anything and not think of any consequences, heightened sex drive can cause unsafe situations and relationship problems. You also have more than one type of manic path... you have those who feel a 'high' and 'euphoric' feeling and seek to keep those great feelings going. You also have those who get angry and paranoid and go into major bouts of uncontrolled rage and anger. Some people turn to drugs during manic episodes and some people have psychotic breaks while manic. Psychotic breaks are a major determining factor between true mania and hypomania aka hallucinations and delusions. Plus there's a large inability to sit still and stay put. Doing just one thing gets too boring too fast. All in all, mania is an extremely elevated mood. Lasts for at least one full week.
Hypomania- slight to moderately elevated mood is the player here. Unlike mania, hypomania allows for the bipolar to maintain levels of functionality that cannot be cannot be maintained during a full blown mania. They may seem very productive, high energy, irritable, talk more rapidly with increased rates of thoughts, hypersexuality, and lessened need of sleep. In hypomania NO delusions or hallucinations exist. Lasts at least in general 2 weeks.
Depression- low moods, sadness, anger, guilt, isolation, hopelessness, loneliness. Suicidal ideation may or may not be present. Fatigue, loss of appetite, loss of interest in things they were passionate about, pain, irritability, social anxiety, anxiety in general, increased/decreased sleep. Lasts at least 2 weeks.
Mixed episodes-when mania/hypomania occur at the same time. Can be any mixture of above symptoms, some reports have shown suicidal ideation and other issues occurring is higher during mixed episodes.
Rapid Cycling-having 4 or more episodes a year. An episode is a manic/hypomanic episode, or a depressive episode.
Ultra Rapid Cycling- Episodes last days at a time.
Ultra-Ultra Rapid Cycling- Episodes that cycle throughout the day.
So, basically what happens is a bipolar person will switch between these mood sets. So now that we have the definitions... for the types of bipolar disorders:
Bipolar I- One or more manic episodes. A depression episode and a hypomanic episode are not required for diagnosis.
Bipolar II- No manic episodes, but one or more hypomanic episodes and one or more major depressive episodes. Hypomanic episodes appear as a period of high productivity. Functioning is generally maintained.
Cyclothymia- A history of hypomanic episodes with periods of depression that do not meet criteria for major depressive episodes. There is a low-grade cycling of mood which appears to the observer as a personality trait, and interferes with functioning.
Some bipolar persons due to the depressive episodes may self injure or threaten or attempt suicide. Take all of these seriously and not as a joke. Get help as soon as you can, even if you think they are just manipulating the situation. They may not see it as a manipulation or a joke.
*Bipolar is very stigmatized*
Be wary when you make jokes concerning bipolar. For example, people you know may be bipolar and properly medicated, so when you make off handed comments like 'oh, Barb must have had her bipolar-o's this morning, or oh, Sue is being so bipolar nice one minute a jerk the next'. Take in mind, people with bipolar cannot control their emotions it's a mental illness and can be treated, but not cured. Making fun of bipolar is like making fun of a cancer patient. It's rude and uncalled for. So please think twice before joking about a serious illness.
Thank you for reading this.
