Gossip magazines especially enjoy speculating which celebrity might have symptoms of bipolar disorder. Britney Spears shaves her head, and immediately the magazine’s psychologists go into town and speculate on what they think she might have. Every time something happens to a celebrity, they all jump into action. They do this because the general public likes to stereotype what happens when people have mental illness. Of course, the reality of a mental illness, such as a mood disorder, is not simple enough to be stereotyped. Especially bipolar disorder, it can be incredibly difficult to diagnose or define. If you are really wondering how you can tell if someone has bipolar disorder, you should keep an eye on the following symptoms.

The most essential symptoms of bipolar disorder have to do with having episodes in which one is up or down in turn. During an upturn, a manic patient can be extremely happy, extremely energetic, and seem a bit out of place. In some people, the manic phase is so high that it leads to a state called hypomania; that’s when they get so hyperactive, completely lose touch with reality and act crazy. If that sounds like a painful state, it is not really true. People in this state can be really happy. If they are artistic, they may experience some of their best creative moments during periods like these, like Van Gogh, for example.

And then there’s the other side, when they actually lose their exuberance and sink into a black hole of depression. What does it feel like to be depressed when you are bipolar? It generally feels the same as anyone with regular depression. You know that a depressed person is experiencing the other side of bipolar disorder, when regular antidepressants do nothing for him. In any case, antidepressants cause oscillations from side to side more frequently, or cause them to separate completely from reality. So there is mania and depression – do these bipolar disorder symptoms always occur one after the other? There comes a time in the lives of many bipolar patients when, in a disconcerting way, they can experience both states at the same time. They look a bit cranky when they’re like this. Since they don’t seem terribly euphoric or terribly depressed when both symptoms collide head-on at the same time, it can be difficult to tell that that person is bipolar. They just look like someone who has a bad temper in general.

For the next one, you will probably have to know the patient quite well. The most surprising part of all bipolar disorder symptoms is the inability these people have to complete whatever they start. Go home and you will see that they have been extremely productive in starting new projects. Yet somehow they find it difficult to stick to something. His whole life is a catalog of great work, all half done. It is in your nature to want to keep moving towards something new.

And then, of course, there are the common problems that people with any type of mental disorder often have: problems with drugs and alcohol, and the inability to perform reasonably well at work or school. Neither of these symptoms can point to bipolar on its own. If you know someone who has any of these symptoms, you will probably need to do more research to find out how many of them they have.