Everyone is subject to mood swings from time to time. It is a normal part of being human, especially if you are female and affected by the monthly rise and fall of female hormones. But although we all have days where we don’t feel like dragging ourselves out of bed, the mood swings experienced by a bipolar patient are far worse and much more erratic.

What are the symptoms of manic depressive disorder/bipolar disorder?

The symptoms of bipolar disorder fall into two main categories: depression and mania. The depression stage of the illness is the “low” phase, whereas the mania stage of the illness is the “high” phase. Each stage can last for a few weeks, or sometimes longer, and the patient can cycle between depression and mania without warning. In some cases, the patient will revert to normal in between stages, but in the more severe cases of manic depression, the patient will be in a constant cycle between depression and manic behavior.

During the depressive stage of bipolar disorder, symptoms include all of the classic symptoms of depression. These are typically feelings of sadness, hopelessness, guilt, worthlessness, despair, and pessimism. The patient will lack energy and start avoiding other people. They may also cry all the time and have suicidal thoughts.

During the manic phase of the illness, the patient is euphoric and happy, full of energy, cannot sleep or eat, is agitated, distracted, and full of grandiose ideas about things they want to do. They are also more likely to make reckless decisions and embark on crazy schemes.

What is rapid cycling?

There are several different ways in which bipolar symptoms can manifest themselves. In some people, the symptoms of manic depression are characterized by more episodes of depression than mania. In others, the stages of depression and manic moods are interspersed by long periods of normal mood. But a small sub-section of patients will experience what is referred to as “rapid cycling”. When this occurs, the patients experiences dramatic mood swings alternating between depression and mania, with no respite period in the middle.

How severe can the symptoms of manic depression be?

There are many different levels of severity of bipolar disorder and at the extreme end of the scale a bipolar patient can experience the symptoms of bipolar psychosis, including hallucinations and delusions. Such symptoms will typically occur during episodes of mania and depression, and once the episode is over, the patient will probably have no recollection of their behavior.

Are the symptoms of bipolar treatable?

There are lots of medications available to those suffering from bipolar disorder, so if you or someone you know might be experiencing the symptoms of bipolar disorder, it is very important that you seek medical help as quickly as possible.

The onset of this disorder usually occurs in the mid twenties. There are some different theories that might explain the development and the early onset of the disease. As mentioned, it seems that manic depression has a genetic link. This means that the chance to get this disorder is bigger if your parents also have this disorder. Researchers don’t know exact how to explain the extreme mood changes that occur with these patients, but it has a lot to do with the brain chemistry not functioning as it is supposed to do.

A genetic link is not enough to explain why some people will get a manic depressive disorder and other don’t. It seems that important life events that create a lot of stress or anxiety are important in the development. This is also called the threshold theory. Some people inherit a very high threshold and this means they need a lot of stress and bad things in their life’s to get manic depressed. Others will have a very low threshold and they only need a few bad life events to develop a manic depressive disorder.

So what are life events? A bad life event is not losing your football match on high school. Important life events that could trigger a depression are often: when one of your parents dies, when you are confronted with a lot of failure in your life, a traumatic accident, getting handicapped, abuse, rape and more very bad things you don’t want to confront. The threshold and life event theory does not explain everything as it is a very simple way to explain how it works. This theory is also used to explain why some smokers develop cancer and others don’t. In short, it is a very common theory.

Now let’s explain a little more on brain chemistry and the causes of manic depression/ bipolar syndrome, as this sounds a bit like physics to some people. The brain is a very organized and complex organ and one of the most important one of our body as we can not live without it. The organization of the brain is controlled by many different things. Some we don’t understand exactly and some we do. Into the brain you can find a lot of small hormones that will influence your behavior. You could compare this to females getting there period (no offense). In this time a month, the mood and behavior of a female can change a little. These hormones in the brain are called neurotransmitters. The best known are: Dopamine, serotonin, noradrenaline and many more. Maybe you heard of some of these hormones as they are very common to influence some mayor disorders or diseases. Serotonin is mostly associated with sleeping disorders and Dopamine is associated with dementia and Parkinson disease.

Most of the cells in your body will react when some hormones reach their cells. With other words; they have a standard job to do when these hormones reach the cell. A possible cause of manic depression is that cells in the brain don’t do their standard job anymore when these hormones reach the cell. They will overreact or sometimes do nothing. This imbalance of how they are reacting could be a explanation of the extreme mood changes. Off course this explanation is very basis as it is more complex.

When you had some serious mood swings, there is a chance that your doctor will diagnose a bipolar of manic depressive disorder. How many mood swings you had and how fast the cycle between the mood changes are is a good indication of the severity of the disorder. Just like depression, every cycle of depression and in this case also mania, will increase the chance of a new cycle.

In this article we explained some causes of manic depression and how they influence the development of the disease. The best known causes are the threshold theory combined with the life events theory. Another theory is the brain chemistry theory.