Scientifically..
Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, is a serious brain disease that causes extreme shifts in mood, energy, and functioning. Men and women are equally likely to develop this disabling illness. The disorder typically emerges in adolescence or early adulthood, but in some cases appears in childhood. Cycles, or episodes, of depression, mania, or "mixed" manic and depressive symptoms typically recur and may become more frequent, often disrupting work, school, family, and social life.
Depression: Symptoms include a persistent sad mood; loss of interest or pleasure in activities that were once enjoyed; significant change in appetite or body weight; difficulty sleeping or oversleeping; physical slowing or agitation; loss of energy; feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt; difficulty thinking or concentrating; and recurrent thoughts of death or suicide.
Mania: Abnormally and persistently elevated (high) mood or irritability accompanied by at least three of the following symptoms: overly-inflated self-esteem; decreased need for sleep; increased talkativeness; racing thoughts; distractibility; increased goal-directed activity such as shopping; physical agitation; and excessive involvement in risky behaviors or activities.
"Mixed" state: Symptoms of mania and depression are present at the same time. The symptom picture frequently includes agitation, trouble sleeping, significant change in appetite, psychosis, and suicidal thinking. Depressed mood accompanies manic activation.
Especially early in the course of illness, the episodes may be separated by periods of wellness during which a person suffers few to no symptoms. When four or more episodes of illness occur within a 12-month period, the person is said to have bipolar disorder with rapid cycling. Bipolar disorder is often complicated by co-occurring alcohol or substance abuse.
Severe depression or mania may be accompanied by symptoms of psychosis. These symptoms include: hallucinations (hearing, seeing, or otherwise sensing the presence of stimuli that are not there) and delusions (false personal beliefs that are not subject to reason or contradictory evidence and are not explained by a person's cultural concepts). Psychotic symptoms associated with bipolar typically reflect the extreme mood state at the time.
And now for my own interpretation..
Bipolar for me is like having two persona or identities in one body, and no, its not the same as having an identity crisis in adolescence,and hell yes, its completely different. You dont know the half of it.. Its like walking on a very thin line seperating the two identities. Its like walking through an unknow path, without you knowing what would happen next. Its like waking up each and every morning, and you dont know what will your mood be for the day unless you encounter a person, its like he/she will be the barometer of how your mood will be for the ret of the day, as for me, id rather go to the manic stage of the illness.. Wherein somehow you could still function somewhat normally, but a little bit on the hyper side, but hey, its more fun than being the killjoy of the group.. But unfortunately, ive been more on the depressive side of the illness, and honestly its draining me out, its sucking the life out of me. Eversince ive felt this feeling a few years ago, ive never been the same again. I miss my old self where i was a happy go lucky person, no worries, not much of a problem person, but now, it changed dramatically, now am a gloomy, very moody, loner, DARK person.. Though i may seem ok when am with my friends, it just a mask, so that they wont inquire what is bothering or happening to me.
Dont get me wrong when i say that i dont want to talk about whats bothering me, it doesnt mean that i dont want to share it but i say that because even i dont know whats wrong, its like am clueless and helpless and am in darkness.. You know the feeling of being alone though you are surrounded by family and friends, yet you get the feeling that nobody is around you. to catch you if you fall, to dry the tears that fall down and help you pick up the pieces when your world crumbles down at your feet. There was a time in my life that i was suicidal (well, maybe up until now), shocked, well i cant blame you for that, maybe if i were you, i would also be shocked, but i am speaking about myself, my depressive self, so why should i be shocked.. And yeah, im also a bit of a masochist, id inflict physical pain rather than feel the emotional pain, its so much painful to feel emotional pain than physical pain, cause physical pain doesnt last but emotional pain does. And its so much hard to cope up with it, damn, am really at a lost, i cant seem to decide on things i want to do, im always confused, when am not like this in the past. So please do understand, when i say that i dont want to talk about it, i just want to have some space and time to think on things that are bothering me and eventually ill be alright.
