What is bipolar disease?

Bipolar disease is a type of psychiatric condition which can severely affect the life of anyone suffering from it, and the lives of those close to them. Mood plays a key role in bipolar disease as the condition presents itself in extreme mood swings. Those people who have a diagnosis of bipolar disease often find that they experience tremendous highs and crushing lows, which occur without any warning. These exaggerated moods are interspersed with times when the bipolar disease sufferer feels quite ‘normal’ and can function quite happily.

When the person with the bipolar disease diagnosis feels particularly happy, only intensively so, medical professionals term this is being in a ‘mania’ period. This can last from minutes to hours to even days and whilst the bipolar disease sufferer is in the middle of one of these episodes they can experience hallucinations and delusions. However this type of behaviour is at the more extreme end of the bipolar disease spectrum. On the flipside when a bipolar disease sufferer is feeling low it is known as a ‘depressive episode’ and this can also last for some time.

It is easy to say when hearing about bipolar disease, that everyone feels extreme highs and lows during their life and it is something that should be dealt with. However this is easy to say if you are not someone with bipolar disease as these manic highs and depressive lows can actually affect the quality of life of sufferers.

For instance when someone with bipolar disease is having a manic episode they can become very restless, their mind will race and they might exhibit strange behaviours. Many bipolar disease sufferers find that they do highly uncharacteristic things such as spend huge amounts of money or turn to drugs and alcohol. Delusion can also take hold and reality and fantasy can easily become blurred making it very hard to deal with someone in the middle of a bipolar disease episode.

When a bipolar disease sufferer is going through a depressive episode they can feel an overwhelming sense of guilt, sadness, anxiety, hopelessness and even anger. They might also find that they are unable to sleep and so may rely on sleeping pills, sexual activity might take a back seat as their sex drive is lost and severe apathy can take hold. When a person is in the middle of any episodes it can be distressing both for them and for those around them.

In certain cases when the person with bipolar disease has very increased mania or depression they can become psychotic and this can be very serious indeed. Some people may even require hospitalisation as they need specialist treatment to overcome the manic or depressive episode. Hospitalisation, however is only performed when there is a real concern about the wellbeing of the bipolar disease patient. Otherwise prescription drugs are used to control the symptoms and episodes of bipolar disease and this works very well for many sufferers worldwide.