Bi-Polar Symptoms

Bi-polar Disorder, also known as Manic-Depressive Disorder, is a mental illness which affects 3 out of 10 adults in the United States.  It's a serious mental illness because of disruption it causes in the sufferer's life.  Depending on the severity, manic-depressive people are also at risk of personal injury and even suicide.

Most people have bouts of depression from time to time so simply having low, sad moods does not in itself indicate bi-polar disorder.  In fact, not all manic-depressives spend a lot of time in the depression state. Those that do however, have extremely low energy. They speak and move slowly and sleep a lot and often lose touch with reality.  These people are at high risk of suicide during this phase of bi-polar disorder.   

People are usually diagnosed with bi-polar disorder as a result of the opposite end of the mood spectrum, the manic phase.  During mania, bi-polar sufferers are full of energy. They often have delusions of grandeur, hallucinate, have difficulty focusing on one idea for very long, and/or speak in rapid, incoherent sentences.  They report extreme euphoria and often engage in reckless, irrational, and impulsive behavior. Some of these behaviors include compulsive gambling, spending sprees, inappropriate and promiscuous sexual activity, lying, and they might exhibit irrational, self-destructive behaviors.  

Bi-polar sufferers generally cycle between 4 mood stages and don't require a stimulus to move them from one mood to the next, where as those without bi-polar disorder remain "even keeled" unless an event triggers a mood swing.  The four stages are depression, mixed emotions, hypomania, which is characterized by being high energy and in an exceptionally good mood and finally mania.  Researchers believe that bi-polar disorder is caused by an imbalance of the chemicals, seratonin and dopamine, 2 neurotransmitters, responsible for conveying messages to the brain.