Is it Anxiety or Bipolar Disorder or Both?

What does it mean to have bipolar disorder or anxiety?

Bipolar disorder is a life-long mental health condition. It can cause extreme mood swings that can have severe highs to severe lows. A person with bipolar can face major changes in mood, activity levels, and energy.  

Everyone experiences some kind of anxiety from time to time during different phases of their lives. However, people with anxiety disorder experience more than short-term worries. These people struggle with anxiety that is not limited to life events. Anxiety makes it difficult for people to run their lives normally. The various types of anxiety include –
  1. Generalized Anxiety
  2. Panic Disorder
  3. Social Anxiety Disorder
Connection between anxiety and bipolar disorder

Anxiety disorder mostly co-occurs with other mental conditions, such as -
  • Depression
  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
  • Bipolar Disorder
Symptoms of Anxiety that can co-occur with bipolar disorder
  • Panic Attacks
  • Nervousness
  • Difficulty sleeping
  • Compulsive and obsessive thoughts

Treatment

Bipolar and anxiety disorder are challenging to treat. A mental health professional will work with the patient so that they receive the best possible care.

Bipolar and anxiety disorders are typically treated with a combination of –
  1. Medications
  2. Individual Psychotherapy - Some common types of therapy used to treat anxiety co-occurring with bipolar disorder include:
  • Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
  • Family therapy
  • Relaxation techniques
  • Interpersonal and social rhythm therapy

Doctors usually treat co-occurring anxiety and bipolar disorders with medication first. They may initially prescribe a mood stabilizer to address bipolar disorder.

bphope.com is an online, award-winning magazine that focuses on bipolar, anxiety, the symptoms of depression, and more. They offer their readership dozens of thoughtfully-written articles that address the topics of kids and bipolar, treatments, symptoms, hope and inspiration.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Symptoms to Recognize in Teenagers with Depression and Anxiety

Both anxiety and depression conditions can be improved, but more than 80% of the kids with anxiety disorder and 60% with depression are not getting proper treatment according to the Child Mind Institute Children’s Mental Health Report.  Anxiety is a normal phase of childhood and each child experiences it at some point. It is usually temporary and harmless, but children with an anxiety disorder experience nervousness, fear, and shyness, and they start isolating themselves socially and look for ways to not get involved in any kind of activity.  A child or a teenager who sees a scary movie and then has trouble in falling asleep can be comforted and reassured. But this is not the case for a child with anxiety; they don’t get past their fear and anxiety. Anxiety disorders affect about 1 in every 8 teenagers. Research shows those teenagers who do not seek help are at a higher risk to being socially isolated, will be more likely to perform poorly in academics, and will often en
Read more

What Depression Feels Like

At BPHope.com, they offer help and inspiration for those with depression and bipolar disorder. The two are intimately entwined, and yet are not the same. Depression involves unabating feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness, while bipolar disorder is marked by depression with alternating feelings of dangerous euphoria. Many people ask, what is depression? Learning about depression is the first step for people who feel they are suffering from it and want to get help. So what does depression feel like? For some, it feels like this: “It feels like someone is pressing down on my chest with an army boot.” “It’s like trying to run up a hill of mud, just to keep sliding back down.” “It’s like trying to get out of the chair to make myself something to eat and feeling like the task is equal to climbing Mt. Everest.” “It’s like instead of moving through air, I’m moving through syrup.” “It’s like being on fire while I’m drowning. It’s confusing and exhausting.” At BPHope.com, they o
Read more

Depression in Children – Digging into the Symptoms

Image
The fact that a child feels lonely or irritated that doesn’t mean he or she has childhood depression. Depression is different from the everyday blues that most of the kids develop at different times growing up. Depression in children is a persistent feeling of sadness, and when it occurs, the child feels alone, hopeless, and worthless. When this kind of sadness is unending and disrupts every part of a child’s life, from daily activities and schoolwork to friendships, it could be depression. Along with the child’s life, depression also affects the life of every family member. Distinguishing between normal behavior and true symptoms of depression in children is not always easy. Here are some of the symptoms that you should look for to detect depression in children. Anger or irritability Though it is a very common symptom of sadness or depressed mood in a child, they can also externalize responses, such as frequent temper outburst and aggressive behavior. Depression in younger ch
Read more