There is nothing quite so frightening as being diagnosed with a mental disorder. However, millions of Americans are being diagnosed with bipolar disorder every day, people who are part of loving families, respected in the workplace and live full and rich lives.

Bipolar disorder is a condition that is still being explored by scientists and doctors around the world. As a brain disorder, it is often hard to diagnose and can present itself in many different ways depending on the patient’s past history, lifestyle, temperament and behaviors. The disorder can strike male or female, rich or poor and young or old.

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Also known as manic-depression, bipolar disorder is a mental illness, characterized by powerful changes in mood, energy level, and behavior. At one extreme lies mania, usually manifested as extreme restlessness, inability to sleep, irritability, poor judgment, and impulsiveness. Depression is at the extreme end of the other pole, and is distinguished by helplessness, hopelessness, fatigue and suicidal thoughts.

Bipolar disorder begins in early adulthood or late adolescence, therefore teen bipolar disorder is seen often; the challenge lays in recognizing the symptoms early enough to seek help. As anyone who has gone through adolescence can attest, in teenagers, irrational behavior is fairly normal, as are mood swings from very high to extreme lows; consequently, recognizing teen bipolar disorder can be

difficult. Also, teenagers can be uncommunicative with their parents about their activities and friends; this makes it problematical for family members to monitor their mood.

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Depression is one of the most crippling, but misunderstood disorders ever encountered. Research has come up with several different types of depression now, each with it’s own unique characteristics and symptoms. However, they’ve also found that some types of depression actually overlap into other kinds too and that they’re original diagnosis of a patient could be wrong.

One of the types of depression that is extremely difficult to diagnose is called “bipolar disorder”. Unfortunately, new studies have found that because of these new overlap theories that it can now actually take up to five years (yes, five years) before a person could possibly be correctly diagnosed as “manic” or bipolar.

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Am I Bipolar? - this is one perplexing question a person, constantly experiencing dramatic mood swings in each and every single day of his life, would like to answer. In a year, one percent of Americans with ages 18 and above suffer a manic-depressive illness called Bipolar Disorder. How does one really know if he or she suffers from Bipolar disorder?

Bipolar disorder, which is formerly called manic-depression, is a diagnosed psychiatric disorder that causes abnormal shifts in a person’s everyday mood, liveliness, and capability to perform. The person experiencing such illness may feel very much ecstatic, then extremely bad-tempered an hour after and then back again to feeling overly ecstatic with a short span of normal mood

in between both contrary tempers. Am I Bipolar if get mood swings? The answer is no. Since a condition such as Bipolar Disorder is seemingly different from a person experiencing the usual mood swings because in Bipolar Disorder, the symptoms are evidently severe. If such brain disorder is left untreated, it may lead to effects such as dreadful behaviors, inadequate performance in one s job/studies or worst; it may even lead to suicide.

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The primary goal of a bipolar disorder research is to determine the genetic and other factors that cause people to experience manic and depressive moods. Most individuals know that bipolar disorder tends to run in families and involves many environmental factors. Research aims to enable doctors and patients to have a better understanding of mood swings, to establish better treatments, and to provide better medical advice to sufferers.

Bipolar disorder is a serious disorder of the brain. Abnormalities in the brain biochemistry are mainly responsible for the extreme shifts in mood, thought, energy, and behavior. Since people experience mood swings from high (mania) to low (depression), bipolar disorder is often referred to as “manic-depressive illness.” The illness normally begins

in late teenage years or early adulthood, but in some cases it emerges earlier. The major treatments for this disorder involve a combination of medications and psychotherapy.

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