Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder (formerly known as manic-depressive illness or manic depression) is a lifelong mood disorder and mental health condition that causes intense shifts in mood, energy levels, thinking patterns and behavior. These shifts can last for hours, days, weeks or months and interrupt your ability to carry out day-to-day tasks.
There are a few types of bipolar disorder, which involve experiencing significant fluctuations in mood referred to as hypomanic/manic and depressive episodes. However, people with bipolar disorder aren’t always in a hypomanic/manic or depressive state. They also experience periods of normal mood, known as euthymia.
Symptoms of Bipolar I Disorder
Manic Episode
A manic episode is a period of at least one week when a person is extremely high-spirited or irritable most of the day for most days, possesses more energy than usual, and experiences at least three of the following changes in behavior:
- Decreased need for sleep (e.g., feeling energetic despite significantly less sleep than usual.
- Increased or faster speech.
- Uncontrollable racing thoughts or quickly changing ideas or topics when speaking.
- Distractibility.
- Increased activity (e.g., restlessness, working on several projects at once).
- Increased risky or impulsive behavior (e.g., reckless driving, spending sprees, sexual promiscuity).
These behaviors must represent a change from the person’s usual behavior and be clear to friends and family. Symptoms must be severe enough to cause dysfunction in work, family, or social activities and responsibilities. Symptoms of a manic episode commonly require hospital care to ensure safety.
During severe manic episodes, some people also experience disorganized thinking, false beliefs, and/or hallucinations, known as psychotic features.
Hypomanic Episode
A hypomanic episode, or hympomania, is characterized by less severe manic symptoms that need to last only four days in a row rather than a week. Hypomanic symptoms do not lead to the major problems in daily functioning that manic symptoms commonly cause.
Major Depressive Episode
A major depressive episode is a period of at least two weeks in which a person experiences intense sadness or despair or a loss of interest in acivities the person once enjoyed and at least four of the following symptoms:
- Feelings of worthlessness or guilt.
- Fatigue.
- Increased or decreased sleep.
- Increased or decreased appetite.
- Restlessness (e.g., pacing) or slowed speech or movement.
- Difficulty concentrating.
- Frequent thoughts of death or suicide.