Bipolar Disorder / Manic Depression

Mental health professionals categorized mental health disturbance by Major Depression, Dysthymia, and Bipolar Disorder .

Bipolar disorder or Manic Depression always includes one or more episodes of mania, characterized by high mood, grandiose thoughts, and erratic behavior.
It often includes episodes of depression. During a typical manic episode, you would feel terrifically elated, expansive, or irritated over the course of a week or longer.


You would also experience at least three of the following Manic Depression symptoms :

Grandiose ideas or pumped-up self-esteem
Far less need for sleep than normal
An urgent desire to talk
Racing thoughts and distractibility
Increased activity that may be directed to accomplishing a goal or expressed as agitation
A pleasure-seeking urge that might get funneled into sexual sprees, overspending, or A variety of schemes, often with disastrous consequences.


Between episodes, you might feel completely normal for months or even years. Or you might experience faster mood swings (known as rapid cycling).
Bipolar disorder actually takes many forms. For example, symptoms of depression and mania may be mixed during cycles. Or you might not have full-blown mania; instead, you could have a milder version known as hypomania.

Bipolar disorder usually starts in early adulthood. It's equally common among women and men, although certain variations of it strike one sex more than the other. Hypomania, for example, occurs more often in women. Women are also more likely to experience major depression as their first episode and to have more depressive episodes over all. Men, on the other hand, typically experience manic episodes first and tend to have more of them than depressive cycles.

Bipolar disorder is a recurring illness. Nine out of 10 people who have a single manic episode can expect to have repeat experiences. Suicide rates in people who have bipolar disorder are higher than average.
Successful treatment, however, can cut down on the number and intensity of episodes and reduce suicide risk.