You may not fully grasp what my fear is like, but picture having acne and being treated for herpes. I don’t much think it is something you will feel like laughing about. There are many types of depression, and they all manifest themselves in different ways. Sure it is a state of unhappiness that is often accompanied by hopelessness, but it is also a whole lot worse.

Depression is also a psychiatric condition that gives off symptoms such as persistence of that hopelessness, accompanied by dejection, poor concentration, lack of energy, inability to sleep, and sometimes, suicidal tendencies. Now there are types of depression such as clinical depression, bipolar disorder, major depression, seasonal affective disorder, and dysthymia; and they very easily can be mistaken one for the other by an unseasoned psychiatrist if they aren’t careful enough.

Bipolar disorder is also called the manic-depressive illness because it can have you either manic or depressed at any specific time. The manic phase of bipolar disorder is characterized by psychotic symptoms such as intense elation and inappropriate happiness, excessive energy, and self-importance. You get racing thoughts and talk in rapid-fire verbal communications, and you get these horrible delusions of grandeur. These symptoms tend to make you irritable and impatient with other people.

When you are depressive in bipolar disorder, the symptoms are hardly any different from those of regular depression. You get the same painful sadness, the negative thinking, and the indifference to things that used to make you happy. And yes, you get the suicidal feelings too. Work, activities and people tend to turn you off; you lose sleep and appetite; you get worthlessness, helplessness and pessimism as added feelings; and then may come the delusions and false sensory perceptions that look like genuine psychosis.

You see, if you treated a bipolar disorder patient only for the manic symptoms, you could set of a very severe depressive episode; and if you treated only for the depression, you could trigger some major mania that may not be very easy to come out of. Worse than either of these situations, you could cause a rapid-cycling manic-depression that could permanently fracture the mind of the patient.

Yep, all of these forms of depression have a lot in common and they are closely related. They all leave you dejected and with suicidal tendencies, to mention but a few. You don’t want to be too rash with the diagnosis so that you don’t end up catching the wrong condition. You want to take your time observing so that if it is bipolar disorder, it can be properly diagnosed, and the patient who is suffering from it can be accorded the best bipolar disorder treatment you can get your hands on.

When you are in the depressive phase of bipolar disorder, you tend to feel intensely sad or profoundly indifferent to work. Added to that, you will find it hard to partake in the activities of people around you, and of course folks that once brought you pleasure are totally revolting at this time. Imagine the turnaround when it is mania! Not very flattering for your mind at all.

It is normal to think slowly, concentrate poorly, and feel tired all of the time when you suffer from bipolar disorder. These are symptoms of the depressive phase of the disease, and you may find that you are in bed a lot of the time without being able to sleep, whereas you are eating more and more. Yet this is just phase of it.

Some of the symptoms of bipolar disorder involve your appetite and sleep patterns. Whether you are depressive or manic, you are sure to have trouble sleeping. When you are manic, you are sure not going to have a lot of time for food, and when depressed, you will likely gain a few pounds from eating too much.

When you begin to feel that overwhelming sense of worthlessness in everything that you do, you may want to be careful. It is a symptom of major depression, but it certainly also features very strongly in bipolar disorder. Of course, the helplessness that tends to come with it is not something you want to be flattered about.

There are times when you suffer from bipolar disorder that you will feel as though nothing can go wrong with life. You can’t seem to understand why everyone else around you is so slow about things because life is just so irrationally great. That, I will have you know, is a symptom of mania in bipolar disorder.

The part of bipolar disorder where you may feel pessimistic or hopeless about the future is depressive. If your suffering is the rapid cycling type, you may switch between that feeling and great but meaningless exhilaration within a matter of days or even ours. Symptoms like this may cause you to think about or attempt suicide.

Even though doctors recommend exercise and stress management to treat seasonal affective disorder, they also advice that you allow yourself to experience as much outdoor sunlight as possible, and that you take light therapy treatment in addition to the rest of the medications you are taking for the bipolar disorder condition.

You cannot be too carefree about your bipolar disorder medications because the wrong type will really hurt you more than it would help. It is dangerous to use the medications for depression and mania at the same time because it could actually result in outright madness.

The latest addition to the treatment of bipolar disorder is the medication Risperdal that was only approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the year 2006. The first of its kind, it is great for treating irritability, which you may experience when you are in the manic phase of your bipolar disorder.

Otherwise, you may want to try a mood stabilizer like lithium, and a number of other lithium salts that can keep your mania or your depression at bay. Lithium is good because it is a medication that can help you such that you may never even experience the episodes as long as you are on the pills.

Doctors often prescribe Valproate when you suffer from bipolar disorder and also have kidney problems. Because Lithium can affect your kidney adversely, you can take Valproate as the medication of choice. Valproate can be very helpful in either mania or depression, but often it is better in dealing with manias.

In Europe, Carbamazepine is extremely popular for the treatment of bipolar disorder. Again, it is a medication that works best for dealing the manic phase of bipolar disorder, and not as good for depression. As can be expected, it has not yet received global approval.

Indeed, the reality is that in treating bipolar disorder, you have to be very careful with your medications. Since the treatment of mania alone can cause you to slip into depression, and the treatment of depression alone can trigger of mania or a rapid-cycling manic-depression, you have to see that you get the best medication all the time. Speaking to a qualified psychoanalyst may just be your best shot at curing the syndrome.

By and by, you are going to have to blend your bipolar disorder medications with a better grip on your mental state and thought processes, a better feeding diet, and a lot more exercise than you are doing already.

When bipolar disorder finally shows itself, it usually happens in teenage or adolescence – sometimes in your early twenties. Even then, if you are not careful you could miss its diagnosis entirely, mistaking it for a personality trait, or any of the other types of depression that there are. It could be years later before someone is sensitive enough to have you go in for a test or diagnosis.

In simple terms, you don’t want to be ignorant of the symptoms of bipolar disorder so that when you find that you are experiencing strange phenomena in your daily living, or if you suddenly ran into an adult around you who seems to be acting strange, you’d know what to think and what to do.

Bipolar disorder is also called the manic-depressive illness because it has two phases – one of mania and one of depression. It occurs about equally in both men and women although with a slight variation. Often when it is a male patient in question, their suffering begins with a touch of mania in which they act all obnoxious and overconfident and become very hard to be around because they are irritable. Women tend to start up with the depression – most likely because of their hormones. But after the start, they tend to alternate between both phases over a long time.

The depression in bipolar disorder is not necessarily the mild type, especially adults. It may appear like a clinical form of the disorder such as dysthymia or seasonal affective disorder; or it could appear more severely as a form of major depression. When you are depressed in bipolar disorder, you tend to experience painful sadness, negative thinking, and indifference to things that used to bring you happiness.

You feel woebegone but cannot bring yourself to d

Below are the three major types of bipolar disorder that there are.

Type I bipolar disorder – This is also referred to as classical bipolar disorder or bipolar disorder I. In this condition, you experience long spells of mania followed by long spells of depression. You could say that when you suffer from bipolar disorder I, you have equal spells of mania and depression. One form of the disease that falls in this category is the Seasonal Affective Disorder, SAD, in which you are affected by the seasons and they come and go. During winter, you are gloomy, sad and depressed; and during summer you are excited, bright and” well, excited.

Type II bipolar disorder – This can be simply shortened to bipolar disorder II, it is one in which the manic and depressive episodes are not equal. You often tend to suffer longer spells of depression when you have bipolar disorder II, and shorter spells of mania, in what professionals call a hypo manic episode. This type of bipolar disorder is closely related to cyclothymia, but they aren’t exactly the same thing.

Cyclothymia, you see has more of equal but mild forms of mania and depression characterizing it. You may consider it a precursor to full-blown bipolar disorder.

The symptoms of bipolar disorder aren’t so straightforward because you have to consider both the symptoms of mania, and those of depression otherwise you’d get them wrong. For instance, when you are depressive, you would eat too much, sleep too much (hypersomnia) or too little (insomnia), you would be in constant fatigue, and things that made you happy would mean nothing to you all of a sudden.

When you are manic in bipolar disorder, you are excessively and unreasonably happy, over energized, irritable, and often physically abusive. You will tend to be cantankerous too, and wasteful because of the pointless activities you would be engaging in.

In all forms and types of bipolar disorder, all of these symptoms are present but to varying degrees. Diagnosing a patient own your own is possible, but it is best done by a medical professional such as a psychologist, a psychiatrist, or a psychoanalyst. You see, there are lots of treatments and medications that can be used in helping bipolar disorder, but you cannot afford to have them applied wrongly.