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Our brightest, most creative children and adults are often being misdiagnosed with behavioral and emotional disorders such as ADHD, Oppositional-Defiant Disorder, Bipolar, OCD, or Asperger’s. Many receive unneeded medication and inappropriate counseling as a result. Physicians, psychologist, and counselors are unaware of characteristics of gifted children and adults that mimic pathological diagnoses. Six nationally prominent health care professionals describe ways parents and professionals can distinguish between gifted behaviors and pathological behaviors. Features include a Foreword by Ronald E. Fox, Psy.D., Ph.D., Past President of the American Psychological Association, and: • Written for parents and professionals •

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The Brain

There is strong evidence that bipolar disorder causes have a lot to do with brain chemistry. More specifically, doctors believe that three chemicals in the brain known as neurotransmitters (noradrenalin, serotonin, and dopamine) in the brain are at least partly responsible for the disease when they are not balanced correctly. These neurotransmitters are known to affect the psychotic mood of individuals and when not working properly, can cause severe depression and bipolar disorder.

Lifestyle and Environment

Lifestyle and environment play an important role in bipolar disorder causes. For example, it is shown that children of bipolar parents and those who live through stressful living standards, alcoholic parents, and parents with severe mood swings, money problems, and abuse in the family can all contribute to brain dysfunctions including bipolar disorder.

Depression and mania

In this mental illness we describe the moods as depression and mania or low and high with hypomania somewhere in the middle.

* depression: is the experience of low feeling – to the point of depression and
* mania: is the high feeling
* hypomania: slightly less severe of the mania symptoms

Both extremes of depression and mania symptoms of bipolar disorder have a number of other associated symptoms. Unlike the simple mood swings that we go through every day, bipolar disorder extreme episodes can last a few hours to several weeks or longer. These high and low phases of the mental illness are often so severe that they interfere with the patient’s everyday life.

The pattern of mood swings also varies widely between each person going through bipolar. For example, some patients will only have a couple of what we call episodes throughout their life, and will be stable in between, while many others will go through many episodes throughout their lifetime.

Treatment

Things such as lack of sleep and unhealthy diets can also greatly contribute to the risk of developing the bipolar disorder. Treatments for the disease can be experimented with but there is no fix all cure. A healthy diet, a positive and consistent lifestyle, and even therapy can help to reduce the symptoms of bipolar disorder.

It is important to discuss any symptoms of the disease with a doctor as soon as they become apparent in order to help decrease mood swings and other problems that come along with the disease.

Manic

Manic episodes are marked by extreme highs generally or can be periods of irritability. Of course, everyone experiences times when they feel on high or a little cranky but for those struggling with bipolar these episodes will experience these emotions for an extended period of time (at least a week) and it will interfere with occupational or social situations detrimentally.  Manic episodes may be marked by:

* Grandiosity
* Insomnia
* Racing thoughts
* Extreme talking
* Distractible
* Extreme activities- sexual, shopping, thrill seeking or risky behaviour

Depressive

During depressive episodes usually last at least two weeks and are marked by a depressed mood or lack of interest in anything pleasurable. Bipolar depression will be a variance from the person's normal mood and school, work and social interactions will be negatively impacted. Signs of a major depressive episode:

* Hypersomnia – sleeping too much each day
* Insomnia
* Feelings of worthlessness
* Fatigue
* Inappropriate guilt on a daily basis
* Suicidal thoughts
* Weight loss or weight gain without effort (5% or more of total body weight)

Medication

There are several medication options for people struggling with bipolar including lithium a mood stabilizer and lamotrigine for managing depression. Lithium is one of the only drugs that has been shown to reduce suicidal tendencies common during bipolar depression. You should discuss all medications carefully with your physician and make sure you take it as prescribed. This is one very important factor of dealing with bipolar disorder. If you are having trouble with a particular medication – discusses it with your doctor so that you can adjust the dosage or change medications under their supervision.

Therapy

Psychotherapy in conjunction with medication is the most recommended treatment option. Very seldom will medication alone be effective at helping someone struggling with bipolar. The best treatment plan is one that offers you medical and psychiatric care. You will need to learn how to identify when an episode is coming on, deal with the disorder as a whole, regulate your mood more effectively and improve the relationships around you.

Conclusion

Until recently bipolar has carried a stigma. Many people delay treatment because they want to avoid being labeled as crazy, unreliable or even dangerous. New therapies and medications are slowly changing the perception of this disorder. It also helps that well-known faces are coming forward and admitting to struggling with bipolar as well, for instance it was just recently released the famous actress Catherine Zeta Jones is dealing with the disorder. You can live a healthy and relatively normal life in spite of dealing with bipolar depression and manic episodes. Work closely with your medical team and make informed decisions about your treatment plan.

Not all children who experience bipolar symptoms at their adolescent stage have the same  symptoms in their early childhood. It has only recently been revealed by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry that up to 1/3 ( one third) of the nearly three and a half million children and teens with depression in America alone may actually be going through the early stages of the disorder. Many doctors and mental health professional only recently have recognized and treated bipolar in very young children, but because of lack of good information this mental problem is still an under-recognized illness.

Those with bipolar manic disorder usually rotate between severe high and low mood swings. These shifting in moods can generate unfavorable behaviors with short spans of wellness between high (manic) and low (depression) episodes. There have been some cases when young people do go through both extremes (high and low) at the same time, but these are rare cases. Parents who have  children with bipolar manic disorder often say that their children are quite unpredictable, going between being aggressive/silly, depressed or withdrawn to very happy in a few minutes. It must be advised that children with bipolar are at much greater risk for other mental problems like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and anxiety disorders. These other disorders confuse diagnosis of bipolar and contribute to the many wrong treatment in a lot of young children.

Signs and Symptoms of Bipolar

Not all young children with  bipolar manic disorder have all the symptoms listed below.In many instances  children with the illness are likely to have come from  families with the disorder. It is important that in case a child or friend you know is trying to cope with any symptoms listed below for one or two weeks, ask them to get professional help immediately.

Bipolar Manic Disorder Symptoms

 Very high levels of energy. Little sleep without being tired.
 Severe mood swings – from very happy to angry or aggressive.
 Unrealistic self-esteem – thinks highly of oneself.
 Involvement in multiple projects and activities.
 Talks very fast and a lot – changes topics too quickly and hard to be interrupted.
 Racing thoughts or strong feeling to keep talking and  very easily distracted.
 Risk-takers – attempting daredevil stunts
 Abuse drugs and alcohol with high sexual libido

Depressive Signs

 Regular sadness or crying without any reason
 Prefer to be by themselves
 Low energy levels, no enthusiasm or motivation
 Feeling unimportant with lots of guilt feelings
 Very sensitive and does not like to fail
 Sleeps or eats a lot
 Complaints of headaches and stomach aches
 Continuous self-destructive behaviors like suicide

What Should You Do?

The good news to mothers is that bipolar manic disorder can be controlled with early diagnosis and treatment. A full treatment plan should be put up by the local relevant health professionals for family members and friends to include psychotherapy and medication.

What Causes Bipolar?

To date no one has been able to pinpoint the real cause of this mental disorder, bipolar. While studies have been made on the subject, two things mental health professionals are sure about – there is a brain imbalance and an environmental factor to this mental illness.

Mania Symptoms

People with mania have unusual increase in energy level and symptoms are:
• Little need for sleep.
• Talkative with lots going on in the mind.
• Hard to pay attention and easily distracted.
• Bad sense of judgment, going on spending sprees even borrowing large sums of cash.
• Substance abuse -alcohol, depressants, illicit drugs, sleeping pills.
• Aggressive, intolerant and intrusive behaviors which can be out of control.
• Delusional and high thinking of oneself.
• Unusually high sexual libido.

Hypomania Episode

Hypomania episode is not in itself a disorder, but a category or part of bipolar disorder. Its main recognized signs are very high/raised, extensive and also annoying temperament which can last days and nights which are distinct from the normal dispositions. Possible symptoms include:
• Inflated self-worth and high thinking of oneself.
• Little need for sleep.
• Very talkative and easily distracted.
• Full of great ideas, with so many crazy ideas.
• Abuse of alcohol, depressants, illicit drugs or sleeping pills.
• Loves pleasurable activities like buying for the sake of buying, socializing, sexual activities or getting into stupid business dealings.

People with hypomania are not serious enough to cause significant hurt in their social or work to require them going to hospital. One of the real problems with these people is they often take illicit drugs for self medication. While prescribed drugs can cause side effects, drugs that are not prescribed by medical authorities can do irreversible damage. Those who go through hippomanic episode are often clinically diagnosed with a type of bipolar disorder.

Difficulty of Bipolar Diagnosis

Even for health professionals, trying to diagnose bipolar is not an easy task, because other mental health issues can also be present. The inconsistency of the illness among patients is another depressing problem; because some patients may go through a little mania/depression others experience mostly manic or depressive mood behaviors.

Early Treatment

Bipolar, if left neglected for too long, tend to deteriorate and become severe mania or depressive symptoms. So anybody going through any symptoms mentioned above should consult their family doctor. We must always remember that early treatment is important about this mental illness.

Unipolar Disorder

This depressive mood disorders can be divided into bipolar and unipolar. Bipolar is usually marked by bipolar manic symptoms or the presence of both mania and depression episodes. Whereas, unipolar is characterized by depression only and its symptoms may include:

 Very dull, no energy, lazy and apathetic.

 Difficulty in sleeping, waking early and tired even after a long nights sleep.

 Always on their nerves.

 Feelings of utter despair, useless or hopeless of everything.

 Strong feelings of irritability and being always tired.

These disturbance is not caused by a direct physiological effects of illicit drugs abuse or of medication or a medical condition.

Bipolar Manic Depression

Bipolar depression is characterized by a disturbance in mood with varying degrees of:

 Long sadness and unexplained crying moments.

 Appetite and sleeping patterns significantly changes.

 Angry, worried, agitated, anxious and irritable.

 Indifference and pessimistic.

 No energy and always lethargic .

 Feelings of worthlessness and guilt.

 Unable to concentrate and indecisive.

 Unable to have pleasure in former hobbies.

 Being with other people becomes a headache.

 Physical pain and body pains hard to explain.

 Always thinking of death and suicide

These bipolar depressive feelings can be quite severe and may stay with the person for a long time. Daily chores can become very difficult, but mostly of the time patients may still be able to cope. For many bipolar individuals negative feelings of hopelessness can become very strong.

Bipolar Manic

The two characters of the disorder has given it the name bipolar disorder. This bipolar manic phase is marked by an abnormal severe irritable mood and lots of energy. Some other symptoms are grandiosity, unable to sleep, extravagance spending, and irrational judgment. Some patients may suffer long periods of bipolar, but bipolar manic-depressive illness is the highest suicide rate of any mental health disorder accounted for.

Bipolar Treatment – Anti-Psychotic Medication

The Two main bipolar mania symptoms are psychotic thoughts and behaviors, which comes with emotional responses, judgment errors and hard to communicate. To hold in check these thoughts and behaviors before it becomes uncontrollable, most doctors would prescribe bipolar treatment such as mood stabilizing medicines like Clorazil, Risperdal and Zyprexa. Some of these anti-psychotic medications help to control the opposite side of the bipolar depression.

Therapy – Family

Effective for bipolar patients – family focused therapy can help bipolar manic patients. Bipolar manic victims can cause a lot of problems in relationships among family members. With this type of therapy, all members of the family can give something to help control the patient’s behaviors by helping cutting down stimulus and boundaries. The main aim of this therapy is to help everyone notice the signs and learn how to better handle the symptom when it arrives.

The Use of ECT – Electroshock

Electroshock (ECT) was first introduced in the 30s, but due the bad publicity of ECT therapy, and the negative portrayals in movie, electroshock therapy frightened so many people after that and has come to be used as a last resort for bipolar treatment. Today, however, ECT has been refined and is becoming very popular.

Treating patients with ECT treatment is quite useful when:

1. Bipolar medication is not working.

2. There is an urgent needed to intervene, e.g. suicide risk or severe cases of psychosis.

3. The use of bipolar medication may be too risky, e.g. women who are pregnant.

With the use of modern ECT techniques, the risk of memory problems has been reduced significantly. The only drawback with this type of treatment is, it is quite expensive and often requires more treatments.

Anti Convulsant Drugs

• Valproate (Depakote): is and anti-convulsant medicine and used as a mood-stabilizer.

• Depakote: first approved in 1995 by the Food and Drug Aadministration (FDA) for treatment of mania. Doctors use this medicine on stubborn mania symptoms.

• Seroquel: brand name for Quetiapine was approved by the FDA to treat both bipolar mania and bipolar depression. The only problem with this medication is the side effects, which many people find difficult to tolerate.

• Prozac and Lexapro: increasingly unpopular because it is both dangerous, ineffective and can trigger bipolar mania symptoms.

Using diet – as  Bipolar Treatment

With the problem of fast foods and what have you in our food; diet and nutrition has been increasingly recognized as an effective way of treating bipolar depressive symptoms. You can discover for yourself the power of using diet for stabilizing moods and weights. Some proven natural supplements in managing bipolar depression symptoms are:

1. Fish oil: A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that – Omega-3 fatty acid which is found in fish oil, is good for treating bipolar depression.

2. Folic acid: For building white blood cells – These acids can be found in leafy vegetables, certain fruits, liver, liver products, baker's yeast and some breakfast cereals.

3. Inositol: member of the vitamin B complex and high concentration of inositol can be found in grains, beans, nuts and fruits.

Transcranial (TMS) magnetic stimulation.

Magnetic stimulation (TMS) is when strong magnetic pulses are induced with weak electric currents on specific parts of the human brain tissue. Not like the ECT method, patients always remain awake and alert because there is no use of anesthetic. The benefits of this type of treatment is, the magnetic pulses are not strong enough to cause seizures, and secondly memories are not lost.

Bipolar treatments for bipolar

When on a bipolar treatment always consult your doctor for anything, from changing your bipolar medication to even changing your doctor. There are lots of bipolar treatment available but what may work for some may not work for others. The word we always emphasize is be PATIENT and be HONEST with your medication.

Bipolar disorder symptoms which are psychotic can be present in bipolar one. It must be noted that when psychosis symptoms are present, it automatically rules out bipolar II disorder. But before we dwell into the finer detail of Psychotic symptoms, I think that it is important to define what psychosis is. It is the loss of contact with the truth, which includes delusions and hallucinations.

Psychosis

The symptoms of psychosis is mostly associated with bipolar mania, bipolar 1, schizoaffective and schizophrenia disorders. There are other conditions where this psychosis symptoms can be present and this includes  dementia, postpartum psychosis,  Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and depressive episodes. While this has not been proven, it is believed that the use of certain illicit drugs, like methamphetamine, can bring about a psychotic episode.

Hallucinations

Many people associate hallucinations (hearing inner voices or sounds that are not real) with schizophrenia. While visual hallucinations is quite a common type, it is usually not associated with bipolar. Hallucinations can be experienced by individuals with bipolar disorder symptoms especially when in a depressive or mania episode.

Delusions – pronounced = de-LOO-zhuns

When people are deluded because of bipolar they are simply believing in something that is in fact not true. Some types of delusions and their information may include:

·     Delusions of grandeur – believing that they are both famous and quite important and that they are a god.

·     Delusional jealousy – this jealousy arises in the belief that their partner are not faithful when in fact it is not the truth.

·     Paranoid or persecutory delusions – it is the belief that someone is following, spying and secretly listened to you.

·     Delusions of reference – Strongly thinking that proceeding events have a special meaning only for you.

·     Other "unusual" delusions – believing they are a lion, your partner is an cat, or that big giant worms make big tunnels for trains to go through.

·     Delusions are just one aspect of the psychotic features of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. Also included are some other psychiatric and medical conditions.

The Link Between Bipolar and Psychosis

Usually the same psychotic symptoms that appears in bipolar I disorder can be found in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders.  It has been observed that physical illnesses that can imitate bipolar disorder symptoms do cause psychosis.

Catatonia

While catatonia is firstly a schizophrenia symptom of schizoaffective disorder, it can be noticed although rarely as a psychotic symptom of bipolar disorder symptom. A lot of people think of catatonia as catatonic stupor, where victims sits absolutely motionless and doesn't respond to anybody and anything. There are many symptoms and different forms of catatonia, which we will not try to go into detail.

Seek Help

If anyone you know is showing psychosis symptoms mentioned above, please do not hesitate to ask for help because it may be a mental health problem related to or not related to bipolar disorder symptoms. The very fact that the person is showing psychosis symptoms is good enough reason for us to do something fast because it is serious.

The word depression is the hindering of a person’s moods, marked by the different levels of their feelings of loneliness, sadness, disappointment, hopelessness, guilt and self-doubt. These depressive feelings can be quite severe and may continue for a long time. Daily functions may be hard, but most patients are able to cope with their depression. For those experiencing severe depression – hopelessness can become so intense that ending one’s life can occupy the person’s thoughts. These mood disorders or affective disorders occur in two flavors, namely “unipolar” and bipolar depression.

Unipolar Depression

Bipolar depression must be differentiated from unipolar depression. The most permanent feeling is the sense of anxiety, despair, being hopeless and useless in about everything. The mental disorder is not caused by the abuse of illicit drugs or medication. This unipolar depression only manifests depression and its symptoms are:

· Extreme lack of energy

· Disturbance in sleeping patterns

· Waking up early

· Difficulty in going to sleep

· Waking up tired even after long hours of sleep.

Severe Bipolar Depression

Bipolar is a serious disorder in the brain chemistry, causing severe mood, energy and functioning which shifts to high, low and back again. In very severe cases of bipolar depression, pain can be so great that patients are even scared they may not get out alive because the thoughts of suicide are constantly on their mind. For these people when in these mood stages, there is never a good day, remember the good times and sometimes in their pain they are praying to die. While depressed victims want to die most would not have a good reason to end their life.

Feelings of Hopelessness

While the feeling of hopelessness is part of depression, in severe cases, patients sometimes just don’t see much hope in their depression getting any better. With this lack of hope is the fear of not being able to come out of bipolar depression, which can lead ultimately to the idea that life is not worth living and ultimately end it all.

Bipolar Treatment

While many can lay claim to the effectiveness of bipolar treatment drugs, there are others who can also say that the use of bipolar medication not only gives side effects it makes bipolar depression worse. With no effect of medication and very low energy level, severe cases of bipolar depression can only remember or are preoccupied with their emotional pain.

Ray of Hope

While the future may look bleak for most of these severe cases of bipolar depressed victims, there is a ray of hope and it is their family. A family that is loving and supportive can do wonders to these patients. Bipolar treatments can only do so much, but where it fails it is the immediate families that can help the person continue on with life despite the odds.

Bipolar disorder is also known as bipolar manic depression affective disorder. This manic disorder is sometimes described as a category of moods with one or more abnormal moods. The three main bipolar categories are mania which comes under the raised or elevated moods, depression the opposite and hypomania the middle ground or the milder form. No one can pinpoint the real causes of this disease, but there are contributing factors like genes, environment, diet and lifestyle.

Bipolar Manic

Bipolar mania which is part of bipolar manic depression illness has some warning signs or red flags of incoming moods. It is good to know some of these manic symptoms so you can have an early diagnosis and these are:

• High levels of Energy.

• Not sleeping enough or unable to sleep

• Not tired even though they are doing too many things all at once.

• Full of big plans with increased activities.

•Very restlessness and uneasy

• Talkative and speech disruptions

Bipolar Depression

The Signs and symptoms of bipolar manic depression illness are usually shown in its low energy phases with negative emotions. These include consistent feelings of being sad, anxious, feelings of guilt, anger, isolated, or no hope. They can spend long hours of sleep, always tired, loss of appetite and no interest in enjoyable activities. Bipolar depression is usually referred to as the opposite of bipolar mania symptoms.

Hypo manic Moods

With mania on the high energy and depression on the low, hypomania is generally seen as a milder or moderate level of the mania episode. The main characteristics of hypomania are: being talkative with increased activities and less need for sleep. Those with hypomania show MANIA symptoms but a milder form. One of the main difficulties with diagnosing hypomania is it can be seen as mere happiness and secondly it is sitting on the borders of mania and depression.

Other Divisions

The manic and depressive episodes are separated by  "normal" mood periods , but in some victims these two symptoms, depression and mania may rapidly interchange, which is sometimes also known as “rapid cycling”. Severe manic moods can sometimes create psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions. These bipolar manic disorder can be subdivided into bipolar disorder I, bipolar disorder II, cyclothymia , (short periods of hypomania and mild depression episodes), and other types. “Bipolar Spectrum,” or (BS) is based on mood disorders that show abnormally high mood. These are bipolar I symptoms, a full-blown manic episodes, short periods of hypomania and a mild depression (cyclothymia).

Bipolar Diagnosis

Bipolar manic depression disorder is much more common today than had been thought.  It is believed that only one third of those affected are diagnosed accurately. Especially with children, when doctors are making a diagnosis, it is important that they rule out other mental conditions first.

Medications and Difficulties

Difficulties in diagnosing a patient with bipolar manic depression symptoms are:

•Symptoms are similar to other mental illness – in some cases wrong medication is given.

•Not all medications will work – what works for some may not work for others.

•Because of each person’s makeup – some patients will have side effects.

Final Words

All medications must be taken strictly as prescribed. If at any time you as a victim of bipolar manic depression patient feel that the medication prescribed is not working or is too strong, please consult your doctor. It is extremely important that you a bipolar manic victim be patient with your bipolar medications, because many drugs take some time to work in your system.