Mania and hypomania are two distinct types of episodes, but they have the same symptoms. Symptoms can vary from person to person, and symptoms may vary over time. While the manic episodes of bipolar I disorder can be severe and dangerous, individuals with bipolar II disorder can be depressed for longer periods, which can cause significant impairment.Īlthough bipolar disorder can occur at any age, typically it's diagnosed in the teenage years or early 20s. These include, for example, bipolar and related disorders induced by certain drugs or alcohol or due to a medical condition, such as Cushing's disease, multiple sclerosis or stroke.īipolar II disorder is not a milder form of bipolar I disorder, but a separate diagnosis. You've had at least two years - or one year in children and teenagers - of many periods of hypomania symptoms and periods of depressive symptoms (though less severe than major depression). You've had at least one major depressive episode and at least one hypomanic episode, but you've never had a manic episode. In some cases, mania may trigger a break from reality (psychosis). You've had at least one manic episode that may be preceded or followed by hypomanic or major depressive episodes. Symptoms can cause unpredictable changes in mood and behavior, resulting in significant distress and difficulty in life. They may include mania or hypomania and depression. Read her other IBPF posts here.There are several types of bipolar and related disorders. Read more from Virginia at her personal bipolar blog, as well as her motherhood blog. But get to it, your fans are waiting for you! So you keep on moving, my friend, and keep making it happen. You are a survivor, and that makes you a real life, honest-to-God rock star! You live because you know that despite all the chaos and mess, despite all the anger and suffering, life is damn beautiful. You live because you know that you can’t miss what might happen later or tomorrow. You do it despite the illness, not because of it. Because of this God forsaken illness, your life carries with it endless possibility to help someone else.īecause you know just what it takes to survive and you do it every day. You have a purpose: to teach others, to inspire, to motivate. You know what matters is not the intrusive, ruminating thoughts you had all day not the voice telling you how no one likes you or that you’ll never be able to accomplish anything. You crave another moment of the sand in your toes, for the way you felt when you looked into your child’s eyes. You don’t give up because you know the sunshine you felt on your face this morning is what’s real. And this life you were given? This struggle and unpredictability? This pain? The isolation, the creativity? Do you know what it means? It means you are alive! You are breathing! You’re here! You have no idea how brave you are because you get up and put one foot in front of the other when every cell in your body is telling you “screw it, just give up.” Not you though. I know that some days you feel like you just can’t handle another person telling you to just “be happy ,” and maybe there are some of you that are still trying to grapple with the diagnosis. The meek, the bewildered and the ones on top, too. The lost, the mighty, the sullen and poor. And also to the one that rode it into the ground. I’m talking to you over there, the one who worked 80 or more hours a week thanks to mania and made your company a success. Or perhaps you’ve seen the highest of the high and had many a conversation with God or been him yourself. You’ve seen and felt the deepest and darkest of the underneath of everything. I know you’ve gone through hell and somehow, someway, were able to scrape off the remnants of that last episode or breakdown to come back. I know that you’ve seen the edges of the earth. Because, you see, I know what you have seen. My father/mother/brother/sister/entire world hates me!” Nope. I suck, I don’t have anything to show for my life, I don’t even have a girlfriend (or boyfriend). Listen, I know what you’re saying, “What? I’m not a rock star. Or when you’re so beneath the darkness, you feel like the light might burn your retinas if it appeared. I want you to think about this when you are so caught up in that hamster wheel you just can’t make it stop. I want you to remember what I am about to tell you. I’m talking to the ones who are facing hospitalization even as we speak. I am talking to you guys over there as well, family and friends, who care for and about all of us. I’m talking to the one that thinks about dying more than living, and who struggles some days even to get out of bed. The one that wonders what happened in their life to deserve this wretched beast of an illness. The one that constantly looks down on themselves and wishes they were someone else. Hey! Hey you! Yeah, I’m talking to you over there.
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