0
Depression and Bipolar Disorder
Questions and answers about Depression and Bipolar disorder, including symptoms of the illness, and how to help those who suffer from it.
2,793 Questions
How hard is it to work 40 hours with bipolar disorder?
Lots of people who have a bipolar disorder still work a 40 hour week or more; the illness can be controlled by mood stabilizing drugs. And even if it is not controlled, a person in the manic phase of the disorder has enormous ability to work, even beyond that of a normal person.
What happens if your bipolar and schizophrenic?
If you have symptoms of both the correct diagnosis is schizoaffective disorder.
Is bipolar and intermittent explosive disorder the same?
No, they are not the the same, however, they share many similarities. I am very well informed on both the symptoms of Type 1 Bipolar Disorder and those of IED. I myself suffer from IED, and my girlfriend suffers from bipolar disorder. The symptoms are very similar, as well as the patterns and neurological conditions that exist in the disorders. This is why both can be treated with Lithium Salts and various Anti-Convulsants.
The similarities vary, as the symptoms and cycles of bipolar disorder and IED often vary from patient to patient. Both are expected to quickly enter aggressive behaviors when having an episode, even if they would not be violent when in a neutral state. However, a person with bipolar disorder will already appear very volatile and unstable before a violent outburst, as the symptoms of bipolar mania are very present during an explosion. However, a person may appear very calm and neutral before and IED explosion, and only sometimes can an explosion be predicted. When manic, a bipolar person will often experience racing thoughts as increased physical strength and energy. Some people who have IED experience episodes in clusters, experiencing several episodes of varying intensity through a period of a few weeks, returning to normal for several months afterwords, in a similar pattern to the manic "phases" of a person with bipolar disorder.
There are several differences too. While the level of mania fluctuates during a manic period, it is nearly constantly apparent in the patients thoughts and behaviors for the duration of the manic period. A person with IED may be "rigged to explode", but during this period their thoughts and behaviors are entirely normal, until a small trigger releases the explosion. This is often very shocking to the patient and cannot be followed as easily as the cycles of bipolar mania and depression. After major explosions, people with IED often experience depression and exhaustion, however, it is never clinical and is quickly overcome, unlike the major episodes of bipolar depression. Bipolar mania and depression is also much more long lasting, and where a bipolar person may be exerting mania for several weeks or months, and then depressed for several more, a person with IED will only be altered for 10-40 minutes before "coming down".
It should also be noted that Intermittent Explosive Disorder is often comorbid with bipolar disorder, as well as other mental illnesses. Because of this high rate of comorbitity, as well as the many similarities, a psychiatrist must first rule out bipolar disorder before diagnosing a patient with IED.
Hope I helped.
Yes, inability to cope with everyday life is a common symptom of ADD.
Every family member of a bipolar has wanted to try this, but 1. Once you are legally adult, you cannot be forced to take care of yourself. 2. Making someone get help never works - they just quit as soon as they can.
What Types of brain scanning imaging equipment used by Scientists to find bipolar disorder?
None are diagnostic of the disorder, but PET scan and FMRI scan can show differences in metabolism. These differences can sometimes identify different moods.
Psychosis caused by severe alcoholism over a long period of years.
Are there lists of people who have committed suicide?
No. Statistics on 'births and deaths', including 'causes of death e.g. natural, accident, suicide, homicide, the so-called NASH classification, are normally kept in each state/country. This can assist in social policy, crime prevention, etc. Refer to the World Health Organisation (WHO) website for more. i recently killed myself and i am not listed so i believe there isnt a list
How do you fix a depression patient without antipsychotic drugs?
Actually antipsychotics are usually unnecessary for the treatment of depression, unless psychotic features are present. Antidepressants are normally used.
Which statement about lithium as a treatment for bipolar disorder is NOT true?
It interferes with the effectiveness of antidepressant medications.
What chat rooms are available for those who suffer from depression?
Depression-Chat-Rooms is a website dedicated to depression and anxiety peer support. They offer support through their chat rooms, forums and blog session related to depression and anxiety.
Are there known links between bipolar disorder and borderline personality?
No they have nothing to do with each other.
Is manic episodes similar to impulse control disorder?
In the physical sense, there are similarities. The causes are thought to differ.
Is depression a psychotic or non-psychotic illness?
Usually it is non-psychotic, but severe depression can cause psychotic symptoms. Psychotic means having hallucinations and/or paranoia.
What is Given to bipolar patients?
Deppending on how suvior there BiPolar is sometimes nothing. some people are described anti-depressants. some just have counselling.
What symptoms do ADHD and bipolar disorder share?
Some estimates suggest that bipolar disorder occurs in about 1% of the population, with perhaps 4-6% of the population meeting the criteria for a "soft spectrum" bipolar variant. Almost certainly, the uptick we've noticed in bipolar diagnoses over the past several years is due to multiple factors. First, we are likely identifying bipolar disorder that we were missing before. Additionally, however, many clinicians suspect that the bipolar disorder diagnosis is being misapplied and over-applied.
Not so long ago, clinicians were hesitant to offer a diagnosis of bipolar disorder in patients younger than 19 or 20 years of age. But it turns out that sixty percent of adults who have been accurately diagnosed with bipolar disorder report that they recall symptoms prior to that, and as many as 40% may recall prodromal symptoms such as hypomania as early as age 13.
One of the most helpful things we can do is to help the young bipolar patient avoid manic episodes or avoid having a second manic episode. On the other hand, we want to avoid inappropriate medication and treatment. So getting this diagnosis right is important! And to confound the issue, many of you have noted the symptom overlap between ADHD and Bipolar Disorder in children. Mood instability, complaints of cognitive inefficiency, and irritability - these may be part of the ADHD presentation, or part of a Bipolar client's experience, or simply a normal part of child and adolescent development. The DSM-IV-TR is the professional manual that guides our diagnostic thinking, but even a careful review of DSM description reveals remarkable overlap. The Manual suggests, for example, that manic experience might be associated with "pressured speech," while the client with ADHD might demonstrate "talking too much." Similarly, manic episodes are marked, according to the DSM,by "psychomotor restlessness" and the diagnostic criteria for ADHD include "runs about or climbs excessively."
For many of our clients and families, reviewing the chief complaint does little to help determine whether this might be a clear bipolar variant or, on the other hand, might more accurately be identified as an ADHD symptom constellation.
Rather than focusing on the frustrating symptom overlap, then, we might look for that clinical presentation which is clearly "non-overlap." That is, can we identify symptoms that appear in only one, not both, clinical conditions? Let's walk through a mnemonic for looking at the "non-overlap" between bipolar disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder:
ADHD is not FRED-PG13
Yes it looks silly but bear with me here. The "F" and "R" in our mnemonic refer to flight of ideas and racing thoughts. These are experiences fairly specific to the manic or hypomanic client. When it comes to the Bipolar/ADHD diagnostic dilemma, then, these are "non-overlap" symptoms: they occur in one, but not the other, of the two disorders. Folks with ADD/ADHD typically experience their thoughts as moving at about the same speed as the non-ADHD clients. Certainly, these thoughts may "bounce around" from topic to topic, may be tangential, and may be disorganized, but they are not likely experienced as uncomfortable or painful. A way of testing this distinction out in the clinical setting is to gently interrupt your client during conversation. The client with ADHD features will typically tolerate the interruption, regard your comment or question, and continue to move along in the usual fashion. The Bipolar patient, on the other hand, will have some difficulty tolerating interruption. It's as if by interrupting them you've done them harm; as though she can barely keep up with her thoughts as it is, so please don't interrupt her attempts to manage them or give voice to them!
Let's move on to the "E" in our mnemonic - referring here to euphoria. ADHD clients typically have the same type of mood variability as the rest of us, with good days and bad days, and do not as a rule demonstrate a "happier than happy" affective experience. Euphoria is fairly specific to mania in clients with euphoric mood, demonstrating symptoms more consistent with a bipolar variant than an ADHD-type symptom constellation.
Decreased need for sleep (that's the "D" in the mnemonic) is fairly specific to the manic phase of bipolar variants. While our clients with ADHD may demonstrate poor sleep hygiene, and may have difficulty honoring a bedtime, and may find multiple interesting and rewarding things to do well past their bedtime, and they will "pay for it" the next day like the rest of us. On the other hand, bipolar patients in a manic or hypomanic state may demonstrate a decreased need for sleep - they actually need less sleep than others of the same age.
And "P" refers to periodicity - having a periodic quality, or cyclical changes over time. ADHD is a fairly steady state disorder which is not associated with cycles. If your client (or his parents) note periods of irritability and impulsivity lasting for several weeks at a time followed by a depressive crash, we can be fairly certain that it is not primarily an ADHD symptom constellation.
Grandiosity is a classic symptom of hypomanic patients. It can be a challenge to determine psychological grandiosity from the "normal grandiosity" associated with children. A 7-year-old, for example, who announces that she plans to be "an actress, an astronaut and a dinosaur" might not be pathologically grandiose. On the other hand, a middle school student who insists that her peers take part in a fantasy football league about which she makes rather excessive and lengthy lists of details, or a student who insists that he has advice and teaching tips that his teacher absolutely needs to review might be perceived by the clinician familiar with students of that age as demonstrating grandiosity.
The number 13 in our mnemonic, obviously, is to call to mind the movie rating system's "PG-13" classification. That's just to make the mnemonic stick. The point of having a number here is to remind ourselves of the age of onset associated with these two very different disorders. Bipolar disorder is classically associated with onset in very early adulthood but may, as is increasingly demonstrated in clinical experience and research literature, have its onset in adolescence and even younger. On the other hand, ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder and has, by definition, onset in very early childhood. Features of ADHD can typically be identified between the ages of 5 and 12. When a 35-year-old client reports that he has had symptoms of inattention and distractibility and mood instability for 3 years or so, we can be fairly certain that this is some condition other than the neurodevelopmental condition we refer to as ADHD. In this case, we would be considering not only mood disorder but traumatic brain injury, substance abuse, trauma-related anxiety disorder, Lyme disease or some other condition that might be associated with adult onset rather than childhood onset. The 16 year old who presents for the first time with disorganization, frustration, and difficulty following conversations might well have an ADHD symptom constellation that has flown under the radar - we've simply missed it all these years. On the other hand, that age of onset makes us at least raise some questions about other etiologies of inattention and distractibility. Is there marijuana use, for example? Any changes in the home setting or school environment? Any trauma-related anxiety or depression?
So there you go -- ADHD / Bipolar symptom overlap in a nutshell.
How can we help our son with his depressed girlfriend?
The parents of your son's girlfriend need to get involved. If your son has confided in you about his girlfriend being depressed then have a talk with him and let him know this is something that her parents should be aware of so she can get some professional help along with medications from a family doctor. If your son is in agreement perhaps you could talk to her mother. Most types of depression can be controlled by psychologists and medications. Although psychologists can't prescribe medications they most certainly can contact the patients family physician and general both doctors will work together. Teen depression and those that go to college have a high rate of depression. Depression in young people is growing. If your son's girlfriend has no one to turn too then perhaps you and your son can sit and talk to her and try to get her to see a doctor and let your son go with her. If she refuses help there is nothing much more you can do. Let her know she needn't suffer the way she is and there is lots of help out there. Depression is not something to be embarrassed or ashamed of.
There's a few things that can make a man unhappy. Mostly will be if his wife or girlfriend do not meet his needs in bed. Men grew up knowing that God made man first, because of this myth it made them feel that they are better than woman.
Bad home environment . Bad work environment. General feelings of insecurity. You guys need to talk. Men forget sometimes that people are not psychic. Tell him in a caring way that you see he doesn't seem happy, and what can you do to help ?
How do tell your mom that you might be bipolar?
If you think, or feel like something is different about you, that you are bipolar tell your mom. Get a list of symptoms and show her which symptoms you think you have. If she doesn't seem to hear you talk louder. If she still can't hear you, take her face gently in your hands and say "Mom there is something in my head that doesnt feel right" Give her time to think, she might be afraid of what you are saying. If that still doesn't work tell your Dad, your sister, your school teacher, counselor, minister, the busy body who gets into everyone's business.Someone. Hopefully someone you like and can talk to. They need to get you mom to listen. If all that doesn't work, then call a psychiatrist, make an appointment- and keep it. If you must lie about your age, do it, once you get to the appointment he will listen. If you have bipolar then you need someone to help you. You need medication.Bipolar is FATAL. My son took his life last April 24, 2008. because of it. I didn't listen. Now I won't see him ever again. And I cry everyday, I miss him so much. If you can't do this for yourself, then do it for her. Please. Don't be scared- bipolar is fixable. If you want to e-mail me, it's bernaden2@aol.com. Not everyone who is bipolar commits suicide, but without professional help and possibly medication-you chances of killing yourself get higher and higher. I will pray for you. Tell someone, anyone until they listen and help you. By the way, a lot of very, very creative people are bipolar. You could be a great artist, or singer or whatever you want. If you want to e-mail me, it's bernaden2@aol.com. Kassy
