While many bipolar disorder triggers center around stressors, goal attainment and other positive events can also elicit mood episodes, particularly mania or hypomania. Events such as winning an award, getting a promotion, falling in love, or even going on vacation may act as triggers, initiating a dangerous cycle.
Let them know you're worried
If you're worried that your friend or family member is becoming unwell, try to address this with them gently. Don't criticise or accuse, and stay calm and non-confrontational. Explain that you've noticed changes in their behaviour and why it concerns you, and ask if they've noticed it too.
Mania and hypomania are symptoms that can occur with bipolar disorder. They can also occur in people who don't have bipolar disorder.
Environmental factors like trauma and stress: A stressful event, such as the death of a loved one, a serious illness, divorce or financial problems can trigger a manic or depressive episode. Because of this, stress and trauma may also play a role in the development of bipolar disorder.
Early signs (called “prodromal symptoms”) that you're getting ready to have a manic episode can last weeks to months. If you're not already receiving treatment, episodes of bipolar-related mania can last between three and six months. With effective treatment, a manic episode usually improves within about three months.
There are three stages of mania: hypomania, acute mania and delirious mania. Classifications of mania are mixed states, hypomania and associated disorders.
There's little or no self-awareness during mania, so you may not realize the consequences of your actions or how you have affected others until you come out of the episode. When you start to notice these symptoms, seek professional help before you slide fully into a manic episode.
Cyclothymia symptoms alternate between emotional highs and lows. The highs of cyclothymia include symptoms of an elevated mood (hypomanic symptoms). The lows consist of mild or moderate depressive symptoms. Cyclothymia symptoms are similar to those of bipolar I or II disorder, but they're less severe.
Both a manic and a hypomanic episode include three or more of these symptoms: Abnormally upbeat, jumpy or wired. Increased activity, energy or agitation. Exaggerated sense of well-being and self-confidence (euphoria)
Detection of mania, or at least of brief hypomania, is required for diagnosis of bipolar disorder. This diagnosis is often missed or not remembered as an illness. People close to the patient may recall episodes, however, and patients who do not remember episodes of affective disturbance may recall their consequences.
Bipolar Triggers and Warning Signs
Bipolar disorder features extreme shifts in mood that are unpredictable and often disruptive to daily functioning. Changes in sleep patterns, eating habits, emotions, and behaviors accompany the mood swings.
Mania in particular tends to trigger aggressive emotions and anger. The racing thoughts and high energy levels you experience can leave you feeling angry, irritable, and frustrated. Those angry emotions, in turn, can cause aggressive and inappropriate behaviors.
Signs and Symptoms of Mania. Signs and symptoms of mania include having high energy, being talkative and talking fast, having racing thoughts, being easily distracted, engaging in risky behavior, and not getting enough sleep.
People with bipolar disorder do better when they have support from family members and friends. They tend to recover more quickly, experience fewer manic and depressive episodes, and have milder symptoms.
Common warning signs of an impending manic episode include the following: Increased energy or a sense of restlessness. Decreased need for sleep. Rapid, pressured speech (cant stop talking)
When a person is in a full-blown manic and psychotic episode, memory is greatly affected. In fact, it is rare for someone who is is a deep episode to remember all that happened. This is why it's called a blackout. The average person in this situation remembers maybe 50% in my experience.
Mania is an emergency. It can cause long term psychiatric issues as well as a variety of legal, financial and social situations that can be extremely distressing. As such, you should seek to intervene as early as possible to prevent longer episodes.
Untreated, an episode of mania can last anywhere from a few days to several months. Most commonly, symptoms continue for a few weeks to a few months. Depression may follow shortly after, or not appear for weeks or months. Many people with bipolar I disorder experience long periods without symptoms in between episodes.
The results showed that manic episodes led to decreased volume in certain areas of the brain. Bipolar disorder has been linked to various structural brain changes, including most notably progressive grey matter loss in the brain's frontal regions.
Signs a Manic Episode Is Ending
Feeling more tired and getting more sleep. Being able to think more clearly, even if your memories of the manic episode are fuzzy. Making fewer impulsive decisions. Feeling overwhelmed by all the projects you've taken on.
Bipolar episodes decrease brain size, and possibly intelligence. Grey matter in the brains of people with bipolar disorder is destroyed with each manic or depressive episode.