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Originally Posted by David
The desire to forgo sleep is indeed one of the classic symptoms. That's what I was interested in hearing about. I don't follow the Britney news, so I wanted to know why the diagnosis of bipolar disorder, presumably based on symptoms. Is there bipolar disorder in the Spears family? Are there periods of normal mood & functioning in between dips in mood? Is there a mixed-state diagnosis? Is there a personality disorder? Not everyone who drinks booze & does drugs & then goes on benders has a mood disorder, psychiatrists insist.
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Signs of mania include: lack of sleep, excessive spending, excessive drinking, excessive drugging, sexual promiscuity, delusions of granduer, extreme agitation, general reckless behavior that puts themselves at risk, insistance that they have "never felt better in their life", and the list goes on.
Normally if people die during a manic phase it is because of reckless behavior that could be caused by delusions of granduer or from an excessive amount of alcohol or drugs.
The problem with bipolar is that if you give a normal SSRI anti-depresant to a bipolar person, it will likely create a manic state. This is exactly what occurred with my ex. Bipolar is not easy to diagnose and usually involves outlining an historical accounting of mood swings and possible triggers to the mood swings. My ex was triggered by the change of seasons (depressed in fall and winter; mania starts around May) and by the pressure from his Ph.D. dissertation.
Because there is no cure, it is rough going in the beginning because you have to try different medication combos to attempt to control the swing.