Bipolar Disorder: Difference Between Mania And Depression

Bipolar disorder is one of the most fascinating disorders to me due to its complexity. I remember hearing people stating “you are bipolar” as a joke due to someone’s quick mood shift. As I started learning about it, I started o understand that bipolar is deeper than one moment to the next mood swings and that it actually can last elongated periods of time. I started to understand that these alternating states between mania and depression often happen months apart, I also started to understand the concept of rapid cycling which is when the episodes occur more closely together, for example, having 3-4 manic episodes in a year as oppose to one or two. The biggest concepts that are most confusing to me are the difference between mania and hypomania. Per the literature, mania consist on periods of times where the person experiences feelings of “High” of good moods, a lot of energy, engage in dangerous and risky behaviors, racing thoughts, etc. hypomania is said to be similar with the only difference being that the high risk behaviors may not have troublesome consequences. As a counselor, I would believe that pin pointing the difference between the two is difficult unless you get to really know the clients. Bipolar II is often misdiagnosed as depression due to the most prominent episodes is depressive episodes.
Shows such as Shameless where a 16 year old kid was diagnosed with bipolar and ended up kidnapping a baby and had to be hospitalized after the incident. Other shows such as Blackbox in which a doctor who is diagnosed with bipolar struggles to keep her professional life together as she often goes off the rails. One of the continuous themes throughout these series is the fact that individuals with bipolar disorder tend to be difficult when it comes to medication compliance. This often causes them to experience the manic episodes and starting the cycle all over