Bipolar disorder is classified to be a mental disorder which will have symptoms included rapid mood swings and depressive episodes. At times the person could feel great and then all of a sudden feel really terrible and the whole switching between moods could last for hours or even weeks per episode. Quite a few people likely experience rather short depressive episodes from the bipolar disorder and never really notice that it is actually from having the bipolar disease and are fully unaware that there is even a chance that they have it because everyone gets depressed at times and a lot of people (even without mental illnesses) do think about suicide in their life at some point and time.

The most common episodes of bipolar disorder are the manic and depressive episodes and both have different but damaging characteristics. Manic episodes are where the person is very excited, happy, active, and thoughts race through their mind like crazy and they usually are speaking really quickly. The other is the depressive episode and this is where the person in mention is depressed, out of energy, fatigue, and cannot be happy about anything in life or enjoy anything that they used to. With this particular episode, the person will feel useless, worthless, and helpless.

You have the two extremes of course (manic and depressive) but in between them, there are also other episodes which rest there. The severely depressive episode happens when there are at least five common symptoms which relate with the bipolar disease and this regularly occurs over a fourteen days.

During this period, the person will be severely depressed and have no interested at all of doing anything throughout the day. A big weight loss could occur from the person not eating (or the opposite if they cope with the depression by eating), loss of energy, fatigue, insomnia, and strong feelings that they are worthless, useless, and helpless, and various other symptoms. A lot of people will also not be able to focus on one thing and often think about death or suicide and may even plan out their death and attempt suicide or succeed in doing so as well.

Another can be where you have a mixture of episodes where you will feel really happy and then really depressed all in the same day and it will change quite a bit throughout the day. Most likely, it will be needed for the person to be placed in the 24/7 watch unit of your local hospital to prevent any harm to themselves or anyone else if they are going through this particular episode. You should know that this is not directly related to taking any types of drugs or medication at all or related to any other type of a medical illness but rather it is just from the bipolar disorder alone.

There is also the hypomanic episode where the person is the opposite of the more severe depressive episodes as they will have a huge self esteem and doesn’t need much sleep, keeps energized, talks a lot, always has a lot of thoughts going through their mind, vivid imagination, unable to focus on stuff for very long (kind of like a kid in a way), likes to play a lot, gets distracted quickly, and likes to participate in various activities with other people regularly. This may just seem like a little kid in a big persons’ body but it could actually be someone suffering from bipolar disorder instead. These people generally enjoy themselves but may have a hidden depression layer in there sometime and may have a different episode someday spontaneously.

The episode could go on for even four days and for it to be the correct diagnosis; at least four of the mentioned characteristics or symptoms must occur. This episode is different from the other ones though as the person can still be social with other people and will not have to go to a hospital.

Usually psychosis is related to bipolar disease and this is where the person could even hallucinate and have weird visions of things that are not actually in front of them. They may even hear voices in the background or visualize people which are not actually around but think that they are. As well, there will be the paranoia affect where the person will believe that they are being watched and/or followed and with this in mind it is definitely important that you seek medical attention immediately.

There are a lot of different severity levels of the bipolar disease and it varies from person to person. There are the bipolar I, bipolar II, and the cyclothymic disorders. With bipolar I and II, the main difference is that it is either a manic or depressive episode that they will have and it is just one that dominates the persons’ mind and a study also discovered that around 65% of the time, an episode will go right after a depressive episode. Usually bipolar I will last for about a week but bipolar II will be stronger and at a less period of time.

The other (cyclothymic disorder) isn’t nearly as bad and just has a little irritation which could last on the person for a few years and each episode possibly lasting up to two months even.