An Understanding of Manic Depression

It has always been like this for you. You can't remember the last time when something good has happened to you. You have always been feeling blue. Nothing goes right. You hate all those people who are always so excited about everything. Are you the only one who God has been so unkind to? If your answer is a yes to most of these questions, then you are suffering from a psychiatric disorder known commonly as manic depression. It is a mood disorder wherein abnormally elevated energy levels can be found. Depression, mania, hallucination and delusions are some of the common things which can be associated with. Don't feel like you are perhaps the only one with this disorder. Did you know that Vincent Van Gogh was believed to suffer from this bipolar disorder?

Symptoms of manic depression

Manic depression is also known as bipolar disorder. It is a challenge and a serious life long struggle. This psychotic disorder can be identified in three stages; Bipolar I, Bipolar II, cyclothymia, and major depression. This illness damages the person's ability to work, sleep eat or function normally. Moods vary from periods of elation an edgy behavior and periods of depression. When one feels so severely depressed, he or she gets prone towards more irresponsible and improper behavior. From poor judgments to wild spending sprees to extreme irritability, provocative and aggressive behavior all these are various symptoms of the bipolar disorder.

On the other hand, depressive disorder is characterized by some distinct behaviors. The person concerned is almost always in a state of hopelessness, guilt, worthlessness, irritability, suicidal, loss of interest in pleasurable activities and so on. They like to be left alone and not bothered at all. At times they also have been found to lose sleep and change their food intake patterns. These mood swings have been very difficult to understand by psychiatrists all over the world. bipolar disorder symptoms cannot be classified in watertight categories as the symptoms vary from person to person.

Diagnosis of bipolar disorder

Before moving on to the diagnoses of manic depression or bipolar disorder, it is important to understand the disorder correctly. A lot of symptoms of this mental disorder look similar to other brain diseases like schizophrenia or major depression. Incorrect diagnosis of the disorder has been found generally in cases where children are the patients. In case of schizophrenia, the patient display symptoms of hallucinations or delusions only but they are nor manic or depressive. Whereas it is not so when it comes to bipolar disorder symptoms. In this case he patient remains depressive or manic for a considerable period of time along with having hallucinations and delusions.

There is also a difference between bipolar and psychosis; another mental disorder. Bipolar disorder or manic depression may include a kind of psychosis. However several different brain disorders may cause psychotic disorder in a person like brain tumor, strokes, traumas etc. Bipolar may include a form of psychosis and so doctors take a considerable amount of time to come up with the correct cure. The symptoms of bipolar disorder may be pretty obvious but it is not caused by some other factors is not quite obvious.

The author is a doctor by profession and deals with different type of depressions like maniac depression [http://www.paindepression.info/], clinical depression, how to overcome depression etc. He is also a specialist writer and is writing articles on stress and depression [http://www.paindepression.info/about-us/] since a long time.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.