Bipolar disorder, historically known as manic depression, is a serious and chronic condition that involves extreme shifts of mood, energy and functioning that typically profoundly affects a patient for a lifetime. The National Alliance for Mental Illness specifies that around 10 million Americans have this illness, which tends to manifest during adolescence or young adulthood. The term "bipolar" emphasizes the contrast with unipolar or single-pole affective disorders, such as depression; specifically, this disorder consists of two extreme phases or poles of affect disturbance (mania-depression).
Energy and Activity Changes
Bipolar disorder is characterized by manic episodes that typically cycle in and out with phases of depression. Other symptoms related to this phase include: high energy with little need for sleep; increased psychomotor activity, which means acting hyper, on a "high" or "bouncing off the walls"; increased talkativeness with fast speech; racing thoughts (flight of ideas) that quickly jump from one to another without connection; heightened distractability and poor judgment; grandiosity with an inflated ego, and an increase in goal-related activity, such as taking on too many tasks.
Mood and Cognitive Changes
Changes in affect or mood are a major domain of symptoms in bipolar disorder. In a manic phase, the patient's mood shifts into an extremely exuberant and elevated mood or into an intensely angry and irritable mood that lasts longer than one week. The shift into a depressive phase is no less difficult or painless, with feelings of profound sadness, emptiness and hopelessness. As the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) indicates, typical signs of this episode involve diminished energy and activity with periods of irritability or restlessness. Also, there is a noticeable loss of interest or enjoyment in things previously enjoyed and a general inability to focus and complete a task. This diminished cognitive capacity also decreases one's ability to make decisions, even regarding uncomplicated day-to-day judgments. During this phase of prolonged sadness, behavioral disruption of eating and sleeping patterns will be apparent. Overwhelming feelings of guilt with anxiety can occur with substance abuse behaviors during this time. Also, thoughts of harming oneself can extend to thoughts of suicide; according to the JAMA, bipolar disorder is associated with high levels of suicide.
Risk-taking Behaviors
A common behavioral characteristic of a patient with bipolar disorder is engaging in reckless and impulsive behaviors, such as gambling, substance use or speeding. Other reckless actions might be making impulsive major decisions, entering into flawed business ventures or excessive spending. Hypersexuality can occur during manic phases, involving risky, unsafe sexual activity and sexual promiscuity.
