Bipolar disorder is often confused with Major Depressive Disorder, ADHD, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), and Schizophrenia, because their symptoms overlap, like mood swings, irritability, and impulsivity, with Bipolar patients often seeking help for depression rather than mania, making accurate diagnosis difficult and requiring careful history-taking.
Several mental health conditions share overlapping symptoms with bipolar disorder, making misdiagnosis relatively common. Disorders such as ADHD, major depressive disorder, and borderline personality disorder can all involve significant mood shifts, impulsivity, and emotional instability.
Cyclothymia symptoms alternate between emotional highs and lows. The highs of cyclothymia include symptoms of an elevated mood (hypomanic symptoms). The lows consist of mild or moderate depressive symptoms. Cyclothymia symptoms are similar to those of bipolar I or II disorder, but they're less severe.
The main symptom of bipolar disorder is extreme changes to your mood. You sometimes have either: high moods (mania or hypomania) – for example, feeling very happy, excited or energetic. low moods (depression) – for example, feeling sad, tired or hopeless.
What types of bipolar disorder are there?
Five key signs of bipolar disorder involve extreme mood shifts, including manic symptoms like inflated energy, reduced need for sleep, racing thoughts, impulsivity (spending, risky behavior), and irritability, alongside depressive symptoms such as profound sadness, loss of interest, fatigue, significant sleep/appetite changes, and suicidal thoughts, all lasting for extended periods and impacting daily life.
Cyclothymia is a mild form of bipolar disorder. Most people's symptoms are mild enough that they do not seek mental health treatment, or the emotional highs feel nice, so they do not realise there's anything wrong or want to seek help. This means cyclothymia often goes undiagnosed and untreated.
The first red flag of bipolar disorder often appears as significant changes in sleep patterns, mood instability (irritability/euphoria), increased energy/agitation, and rapid thoughts/speech, frequently mistaken for unipolar depression or normal moodiness, with sleep disruption (insomnia or oversleeping) and heightened irritability being very common early signs, notes Better Mental Health.
We found that bipolar patients present higher levels of novelty seeking, harm avoidance and self-transcendence and lower levels of self-directedness and cooperativeness than healthy individuals. In bipolar patients, self-directedness decreased as the depression severity increased.
Factors that may raise the risk of getting bipolar disorder or cause the first episode include: Having a first-degree relative, such as a parent or sibling, with bipolar disorder. Periods of high stress, such as the death of a loved one or another traumatic event. Drug or alcohol misuse.
How many hours should a bipolar person sleep? People should try to sleep at least 7 hours per night, regardless of whether they have a condition such as bipolar disorder.
According to studies, approximately 70% of bipolar patients are initially misdiagnosed, with the most common false diagnoses being clinical depression or an anxiety disorder. Typically, an accurate diagnosis is only confirmed after 5 to 10 years from the first manic or depressive episode.
Borderline personality and bipolar: These two disorders are often confused. They both have symptoms of impulsiveness and mood swings. But they are different disorders and have different treatments.
Mood stabilizers like lithium are often considered the most effective treatment for bipolar disorder, particularly Bipolar I. Lithium not only helps manage manic episodes but also significantly reduces the risk of suicide, a common concern with bipolar patients.
Thinking patterns during manic episodes may become rapid and scattered. In contrast, depressive episodes can slow down thought processes. This fluctuation in thinking can contribute to erratic behavior and challenges in daily life. Early detection and comprehension of these symptoms are critical.
Unipolar mania involves having manic episodes and periods of normal mood without the depressive symptoms that typically occur in bipolar disorder. Mania is defined as periods of elevated mood, excitement, grandiosity, impulsivity, irritability, and exaggerated activity.
Symptoms of bipolar disorder
The Big Five personality comprises independent traits of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness (McCrae and John 1992) and forms the basis of several personality inventories (Costa and McCrae 1992).
Bipolar Disorder: Helping Someone During a Manic Episode
People with bipolar disorder often experience periods of extremely “up,” elated, irritable, or energized behavior (known as manic episodes) and very “down,” sad, indifferent, or hopeless periods (known as depressive episodes).
To diagnose bipolar disorder, a doctor performs a physical exam, asks about your symptoms, and recommends blood testing to determine if another condition, such as hypothyroidism, is causing your symptoms. If the doctor does not find an underlying cause of your symptoms, he or she performs a psychological evaluation.
The person who prescribes it may be your doctor (GP). Or it could be another specialist healthcare professional, such as a psychiatrist.
Symptoms of BPD can include:
A pattern of intense and unstable relationships with others. This is where feelings can change quickly from love and closeness to hatred and anger. chronic feeling of emptiness. Impulsive or reckless behaviour, such as shopping sprees, gambling, substance abuse or unsafe sex.
Can a person living with bipolar disorder live a 'normal' life? Once treatment begins, many people living with bipolar disorder find that they can effectively manage their symptoms with a combination of therapies and lifestyle adjustments.