I've been where you've been and I think it's goog that your at least reaching out and trying to find some answers on your own.
I would start by going to Wikipedia.org or www.dbsalliance.org and doing a research on Bipolar Disorder, what impact it has on one who is afflicted and the treatment. This is a very complex disorder and comes in many flavors, from minimal to severe.
What's important to understand about bipolar disorder is that it will have a sever impact on your life, from disabling depression to high risk manic behavior. The most troubling effects of this disorder is substance abuse and suicide. If you leave it untreated, it will get progressively worse and possibly come with substantially negative consequences effecting your quality of life, like holding down a job and maintaining relationships with friends, family and spouses.
Either way, it would be best to speak to a professional and learn more about what's wrong, whether it's bipolar, depression or something else. Take care of yourself as if it were physical problem and you were getting it checked out by your generaly practice Dr. Mental health is just as important and effects physical health.
2007-03-20 13:18:17
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answer #1
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answered by Altruist 3
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It is a serious mental illness which fortunately be controlled in most cases. Picture a straight line about two inches long. The left end of the line is MANIC (hyper), the middle of the line is NORMAL and the right end of the line is depression. A person with Manic depression (bipolar disorder) will swing from one side to the other through normal. When a person is manic they can do many things that are not normal.....talk very fat, very little sleep, wear crazy clothes, be hyper about everything they do, meet people at bars, think they are someone else other than themselves, see imaginary objects and people, look into the mirror and not recognize themselves, and on and on. When they swing past normal into depression they are listless. They sleep a lot. No get up and go. Crying. Feel worthless. Everything they do is a difficult task. Don not speak very much. Stare, etc. There are medications that can move a person away from manic toward normal however there is a medication (Lithium) that must be taken to keep the person in the normal position, and of course, there are meds for depression. It takes a very careful balance of these meds to maintain a person with bipolar disorder....and the person must stay on the meds otherwise they go right back into bipolar rather quickly. This isn't an easy disease to cope with but there is hope because of several excellent meds that can really help.
2016-03-16 23:37:11
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answer #2
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answered by Anonymous
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One thing that is important is to remember that the mood episodes that a Bipolar person has are EXTREME. It is not just being hyper or happy, but it Mania is above that. Depression is usually so harming that people can not move.
Also, mood episodes don't cycle minute to minute. Bipolar people are not happy one minute and sad the next. The episodes usually lasts weeks, even months. I had a depressive episode that put me in the hospital for 4 weeks and lasted almost 6 months.
Some of the classic symptoms are:
Mania:
Talking alot and fast
Racing thoughts
Not needing any sleep
Feeling great, and grandiosoue
Wanting alot of sex
Spending alot of money
Driving fast
Being out of control
Starting projects and not finishing them
Depression:
Crying all the time
Wanting to die
Hating yourself
Having negative thoughts
Eating too much or too little
Not being able to get out of bed
Each person is different, but those are some of the classic symptoms. I hope you are not Bipolar because it sucks.
2007-03-20 09:34:30
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answer #3
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answered by riptide_71 5
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Hope this helps:
How to recognise patients with bipolar disorder? These patients experience dramatic mood swings, ranging from being extremely 'high', to feeling very depressed, sad and hopeless. They then move back again to the 'high' state, often with some periods of normal mood in between. Besides these mood changes, there are also severe changes in energy and behaviour.
The periods of highs and lows are called episodes of mania and depression, which have very different and recognisable symptoms:
Symptoms of mania
Signs and symptoms of mania and/or a manic episode can include:
* An increased level of energy and activity, often restlessness
* Excessively 'high', overly good and euphoric mood
* Extreme irritability
* 'Racing' thoughts, talking very fast, moving from one idea to the other
* Difficulties in concentrating, easily distracted
* Reduced need for sleep
* Unrealistic beliefs in own abilities and powers
* Poor judgement
* Periods of spending large amounts of money
* Increased sexual drive
* Abuse of drugs, particularly cocaine, alcohol and sleeping medications
* Provocative, intrusive or aggressive behaviour
* Patients deny that something is wrong
Symptoms of depression
Signs and symptoms of depression (or a depressive episode) can include:
* Lasting sad, anxious or empty mood
* Feelings of hopelessness or pessimism
* Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, or helplessness
* Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed, including sex
* Decreased energy, a feeling of fatigue or being 'slowed down'
* Difficulties in concentrating, remembering things or in making decisions
* Restlessness or irritability
* Sleeping to much, or not able to sleep
* Changes in appetite and weight loss or gain
* Chronic pain or other symptoms that are not caused by physical illness or injury
* Thoughts of death or suicide, or suicide attempts
What is hypomania?
Hypomania means that the level of mania is mild to moderate. People with hypomania often feel good and may be associated by them with better functioning and productivity. As a result, even when the family recognises the symptoms of bipolar disorder, the person may deny that anything is wrong. However, without proper treatment, hypomania can become severe mania, or can turn into depression.
Psychosis can be a symptom of bipolar disorder
Severe episodes of mania or depression can include the symptoms of psychosis. People may have hallucinations: they hear or see or sense the presence of certain things that are not actually there. Another symptom is delusions: patients have false but strong beliefs that can not logically be explained.
The type of psychotic symptoms reflects the mood of the patients. During a manic episode, they may believe to be a person with special powers or wealth. During depressive episodes, they can believe to be worthless, or to be ruined or to be guilty of some crime.
It is important to note that people with bipolar disorder suffering psychosis are often incorrectly diagnosed as suffering schizophrenia, another severe mental illness.
Obviously, when patients suffer psychotic symptoms, urgent intervention of a doctor is required.
Bipolar disorder: mixed bipolar state
Sometimes, the symptoms of depression and mania may happen together. This is called a mixed bipolar state.
Patients often are agitated, have troubles in sleeping, sometimes even suffer psychosis or have suicidal thoughts. They may the one hand feel sad but at the same time feeling very energetic.
Read more about the Causes of bipolar disorder
2007-03-20 09:23:17
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answer #4
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answered by GD-Fan 6
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A person with bipolar disorder will go through episodes of mania (highs) and at other times experience episodes of depression (lows). These aren't the normal periods of happiness and sadness that everyone experiences from time to time. Instead, the episodes are intense or severe mood swings, like a pendulum that keeps arcing higher and higher.
Symptoms of mania include:
racing speech and thoughts
increased energy
decreased need for sleep
elevated mood and exaggerated optimism
increased physical and mental activity
excessive irritability, aggressive behavior, and impatience
poor judgment
reckless behavior, like excessive spending, making rash decisions, and erratic driving
difficulty concentrating
inflated sense of self-importance
Symptoms of depression include:
loss of interest in usual activities
prolonged sad or irritable mood
loss of energy or fatigue
feelings of guilt or worthlessness
sleeping too much or inability to sleep
drop in grades and inability to concentrate
inability to experience pleasure
appetite loss or overeating
anger, worry, and anxiety
thoughts of death or suicide.
I hope that help you.
2007-03-20 09:56:30
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answer #5
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answered by Dejla 3
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I think you are just human.
To be happy see this video;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4P5Pmdvgp4
About Psychiatry see this video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3895596783332855545&q=psychiatry+is+fraude&hl=en
Understanding Psychiatry:
"Psychiatry is not the same as neurology; whereas neurology treats diseases that have their aetiology or their physiology known and proven by medical science, psychiatry treats mental conditions where aetiology and physiology are both unknown and unproven.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_diseases
Psychiatry is not the same as Psychology; whereas Psychology studies the cognitive and subconscious mental processes of man with no regard towards physiology; Psychiatry studies theoretical mental disorder with the assumption that those disorders are based on physiological deficiencies.
Psychology develops therapies aimed to improve mans cognitive processes; whereas Psychiatry develops physiological treatments to treat theoretical physiological deficiencies where aetiology and physiology are both unknown and unproven.
The unscientific assumption that mental disorders are based on physiological deficiencies creates an arbitrary that makes any further research done by Psychiatry unscientific. You can’t base science on assumptions and arbitraries.
Psychiatry treats theoretical mental disorders with theoretical physiological treatments.
Examples of Psychiatric theoretical mental disorders:
Premenstrual dysphonic disorder (PMDD) is a severe form of premenstrual syndrome.
Gender identity disorder: If you are gay you have this disorder.
Female orgasmic disorder: Many types of conditions are under this code.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM-IV_Codes_%28alphabetical%29
As you see, these mental disorders are actually unscientific arbitraries based solely on opinion.
Examples of Psychiatric theoretical physiological treatments:
1st Example
Electroconvulsive therapy is a barbaric treatment where brain damage is induced into the patient by passing 70 to 200 volts of electricity through your brain. The electro shock and the heat further produce more brain damage by the effect decomposition and toxicity of dead brain cells. The only benefit of Electroconvulsive therapy is that it produces memory loss and amnesia. So the patient forgets its problems. Electroconvulsive therapy has caused death, coma and disabilities on patients.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2431926628202445879
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2761074183936137060
“About 100,000 people in the USA undergo ECT every year.”
“The most commonly accepted theory is that ECT's mechanism of action is similar to that of antidepressant drugs and involves neurotransmitters, in particular dopaminergic, serotoninergic and noradrenergic systems.”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroconvulsive_shock_therapy
2nd Example:
Lobotomy is another barbaric treatment developed by Psychiatry in the name of mental health. In this procedure brain damage is induced into the patient by cutting the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex or simply destroying it.
“Even lobotomy's proponents admitted that only one third of the operated patients would improve, while one-third remained the same, and one-third got worst (25 to 30 % is the proportion of spontaneous improvement in many kinds of mental diseases! Thus, a large proportion of the operated patients could have recovered without the lobotomy).
http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n02/historia/lobotomy.htm
3rd Example:
The chemical imbalance theory, this theory alleges that serotonin deficiency in the brain causes depression. The following video explains this theory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR9vtdueubc&mode=related&search=
But this theory is not based in science and experts disagree:
“I spent the first several years of my career doing full-time research on brain serotonin metabolism, but I never saw any convincing evidence that any psychiatric disorder, including depression, results from a deficiency of brain serotonin. In fact, we cannot measure brain serotonin levels in living human beings so there is no way to test this theory. Some neuroscientists would question whether the theory is even viable, since the brain does not function in this way, as a hydraulic system”
Stanford psychiatrist David Burns, winner of the A.E. Bennett Award given by the Society for Biological Psychiatry for his research on serotonin metabolism, when asked about the scientific status of the serotonin theory in 2003.
“Although it is often stated with great confidence that depressed people have a serotonin or norepinephrine deficiency, the evidence actually contradicts these claims”
Professor Emeritus of Neuroscience Elliot Valenstein
“Indeed, no abnormality of serotonin in depression has ever been demonstrated”
Psychiatrist David Healy, former secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology and historian of the SSRIs, in Let Them Eat Prozac (2004).
“A sugar pill was more effective than either St. John’s Wort or the antidepressant Zoloft in providing relief to severely depressed patients, according to a new study that is unlikely to end the debate about the role of the popular supplement in treating the disorder.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3076831/
“…I wrote that Prozac was no more, and perhaps less, effective in treating major depression than prior medications…. I argued that the theories of brain functioning that led to the development of Prozac must be wrong or incomplete”
Brown University psychiatrist Peter Kramer, author of Listening to Prozac, which is often credited with popularizing SSRIs, in a clarifying letter to the New York Times in 2002.
“Some have argued that depression may be due to a deficiency of NE [norepinephrine] or 5-HT [serotonin] because the enhancement of noradrenergicnor serotonergic neurotransmission improves the symptoms of depression. However, this is akin to saying that because a rash on one’s arm improves with the use of a steroid cream; the rash must be due to a steroid deficiency”
Psychiatrists Pedro Delgado and Francisco Moreno, in “Role of Norepinephrine in Depression,” published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry in 2000.
We must be able to differentiate real scientific research against special interest research. The fact is that the chemical imbalance theory is unfounded because:
1) A connection of ‘emotional states’ and neurotransmission levels have not been established.
2) It is impossible to measure the serotonin levels in living human beings.
3) There is no evidence that brain cells produce and then reabsorb serotonin.
In the following video two college professor explain exactly what I’m saying in Fox News: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbTqjSfMPKA&mode=related&search=
We must understand that psychiatric drugs are a multi billion dollars industry, and that careful marketing campaigns are created to push these drugs. We can even say that the whole “Chemical Imbalance Theory” was created in an effort to market these drugs. We can also say that anti-depressants are actually a marketing name for stimulants and anti-psychotic are actually a marketing name for depressants.
Three types of drugs:
Narcotics: (OxyContin, Vicodin, Percocet), also known as analgesics or opiods are drugs that are prescribed for moderate to severe physical pain. They are abused because of their euphoric, sedating, and numbing effects. Narcotic abuse causes tolerance and dependence and the withdrawal symptoms are severe.
Depressants: (Xanax, Valium, Librium) are drugs that are prescribed to treat anxiety and sleep disorders. They are abused because of their sedating properties. With abuse, depressants cause tolerance and dependence and the withdrawal symptoms can be severe.
Stimulants: Ritalin, Dexedrine, Meridia) are prescribed to treat ADD/ADHD and other conditions such as asthma. They are abused because of their energizing and euphoric effects. Stimulants do not generally cause tolerance or dependence but abuse is associated with hostility and paranoia. There is also great risk for cardiovascular failure and seizures.
-Ritalin: Prescribed for individuals (usually children) who have attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), has a high potential for abuse and produces many of the same effects as cocaine or amphetamine. http://www.streetdrugs.org
Psychiatrists are not common people. Psychiatrists have a different point of view than the rest of society:
“A recent survey in the UK found that 83 per cent of psychiatrists thought that ECT( Electroconvulsive therapy) was more likely to be beneficial than harmful – this figure fell to 69 per cent of mental health nurses and 14 per cent of psychologists.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroconvulsive_therapy
So how come Psychiatrists have such a different point of view than Psychologists and the rest of society?
Whereas Psychologists confronts the human mind or psyche and understand that each person behaviors is an evolution of his own personal experiences. Psychiatrists are unable to confront the human psyche; Psychiatrists don’t care about your emotional issues or traumas; Psychiatrists only deal with man as an object, a biomechanical machine incapable of controlling his mental processes.
How else can you explain Psychiatry barbaric treatments? Like Electroconvulsive therapy, Lobotomies, strait jackets and severe drugging of patients. For them you are not a person; for them you are only a biomechanical machine. People that join the Psychiatric profession do it in order to learn to deal with man in a mechanical way.
The real role of Psychiatry in society is that they are psyche executioners of society. Whenever a person doesn’t conform with the behavioral rules of society they can be sent to a Psychiatrist. And the Psychiatrist enforces the person to conform by the use of multiple control mechanisms; these mechanisms are drugs, electroshock, lobotomies and incarceration (When you are committed into a Psychiatric hospital against your will you are being incarcerated and your freedom is taken away from you. After this the patients are so scared that they will do anything in order to get out of that place.).
The behavioral rules of society are clearly expressed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association.
http://www.drugawareness.org/
http://www.adhdfraud.org/
http://www.escapefrompsychiatry.org/
http://www.antipsychiatry.org/
http://www.mindfreedom.org/
http://www.endofshock.com/
http://www.stopshrinks.org/
http://www.gwenolsen.com/
http://psychrights.org
http://www.prescriptionsuicide.com/
http://www.breggin.com/
http://www.healthyskepticism.org/
http://www.aspire.us/
2007-03-20 13:49:53
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answer #6
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answered by Anonymous
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