Manic Depressive

Posted by Rinda on 14/07/2009

What Is Manic Depressive Illness?

By Rinda Ismar

Manic depressive is someone who cycles between being manic and depressed. Being manic depressive is a psychiatric condition called bipolar disorder. The term “bipolar” supposedly makes this more clear. Manic depressive is delusional and may even experience psychosis. There are various levels of being manic depressive with varying intensities of bipolar disorder symptoms. These symptoms would generally be characterized as alternating patterns of emotional highs and lows - the mania and the depression. Anyone suffering from these kinds of symptoms should seek psychiatric help.

Causes

Experts seem to think that the causes of bipolar disorder is through genetics or hormone levels, but this hasn’t yet been fully established. In our daily lives, we all experience different events that give us emotions, some of which can at times, trigger mood swings. In some cases acquired illnesses in a person have contributed to them getting a bipolar disorder.

Signs and Symptoms

Manic depressive is called bipolar 1, the less severe form of bipolar 1 is bipolar 2.  The designation bipolar I disorder is synonymous with what was formerly known as bipolar disorder - a syndrome in which a complete set of mania symptoms occurs during the course of the disorder. A manic depressive patient is generally incredibly irritable and will get irritated and react violently to simple normal things. Another major manic depression symptom is delusional or grandiose notions that can include believing that one has super powers or extreme importance. In addition, a manic depressive will have disconnected and racing thoughts that can manifest themselves with increased talking speed or volume. These thoughts will seemingly be completely unconnected and random, but to the manic depressive they make perfect sense.

Treatment

The treatment of patients with mood disorders must be directed toward several goals.

First, the patient’s safety must be guaranteed.

Second, a complete diagnostic evaluation must be carried out.

Third, a treatment plan.

Current treatment emphasizes on pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy addressed to the individual patient. Stressful life events are also associated with increases in relapse rates, thus, treatment must reduce the number and severity of stressor in patients’ lives.

Conclusion

Manic depressive is now known as bipolar affective disorder, a mood disorder of which there are millions of sufferers. Having to cope with happy, joyful moments and then unpleasant, sad times can threaten to cause depression or a manic episode. Sufferers experience extremes of low depression and high moods of elation or mania, and the frequency varies from person to person. Manic depressive is definitely not something that should be taken lightly. There is treatment that can help them and many manic depressives have gone on to lead completely normal lives.

You may also be interested in my other post Psychiatric Nursing.

The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide: What You and Your Family Need to Know
Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder
The Bipolar Workbook: Tools for Controlling Your Mood Swings