Individuals experiencing bipolar disorder will experience extreme manic highs and extreme depressive lows. The mood swings experienced in individuals suffering from bipolar disorder can last for weeks or even months, and inhibit the ability to function and maintain relationships.

Bipolar disorder symptoms commonly expressed by patients include:

• Extreme highs or optimism, followed by despair, sadness, or emotional numbness
• Severe irritability and/or angry outbursts
• False, unrealistic, and inflated beliefs about one’s talents and capacities
• Increased rates of speech and thoughts
• Trouble focusing on tasks or concentrating
• Diminished capacity for judgment
• Uncontrolled spontaneity without a sense of consequences
• Delusional thinking and hallucinations
• Inability to experience pleasure
• Tiredness
• Physical and mental laziness
• Appetite/weight changes
• Trouble sleeping or extreme changes in sleeping patterns
• Inability to remember things
• Feelings of despair, insignificance, unworthiness, or guilt
• Preoccupation with death or ideas about suicide

Individuals experiencing the above symptoms should seek professional help to see if their condition is, in fact, bipolar disorder and how they can regain control over their lives.