![]() ![]() “But at the same time, they feel sad and blue, they’re beating themselves up in their head, their self-worth is down.” Dr. Speaking generally, “This is a person who is really ramped up, their thoughts are racing, they’re talking a mile a minute, they don’t need as much sleep-mood elevations symptoms,” Dr. “Bipolar is not an alternating disorder of mood, it’s a dysregulation of mood,” Dr. This will typically depend on which mood episode is the predominant one-for instance, are you having a manic/hypomanic episode with symptoms of depression, or having a depressive episode with symptoms of mania? In some cases, a person presenting mixed features may be in a full mania and a full depression at the same time in other cases, a person may be experiencing all of the symptoms of mania/hypomania and only a few depressive symptoms (or the other way around). So what does a mixed episode look like exactly? And it’s worth noting that episodes with mixed features can present in both bipolar I and II. You can find a list of diagnostic symptoms for mania/hypomania and depression here. So, for instance, you may have a week-long manic episode with at least three symptoms of a depressive episode for five of those days. So it makes sense to me that many people only associate it with two sort of categories of mood, those being mania and depression,” Wendy Marsh, M.D., director of the Bipolar Disorders Specialty Clinic and an associate professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, tells SELF.Īccording to the latest edition of the DSM, a bipolar episode may be clinically classified as having mixed features if a person is experiencing one mood episode along with at least three symptoms of the opposite mood episode for the majority of the time. “Bipolar historically was known as manic depression, and some people will still call it that. Before we get into mixed episodes, let’s go over what constitutes a standard episode of mood elevation (mania or hypomania) versus a depressive episode. A mixed episode signals that the person is experiencing both aspects of mania or hypomania as well as symptoms of bipolar depression. ![]() Many episodes that people with a bipolar diagnosis experience are considered “mixed” episodes, sometimes also described as “switching” episodes, or manic/hypomanic or depressive episodes with mixed features. For starters, people with bipolar disorder are not always experiencing symptoms, known as bipolar “episodes.” Plus, these episodes aren't always as simple as high or low. But a common misconception about bipolar disorder is that a person with the diagnosis only experiences two distinct moods: either really high highs (mania), or really low lows (depression). Bipolar disorder is a condition in which a person experiences dramatic shifts in mood and energy, but at severities that are different from the mood changes the average person goes through. ![]()
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