Ø     Bipolar Disorder / Manic Depression: 

Bipolar disorder consists of terrible lows that alternate with unexplainable highs. 

• Bipolar disorder is characterized by cycling mood changes: severe highs (mania) and lows (depression).
   
• Sometimes the mood switches are dramatic and rapid, but most often they are gradual.
   
• This condition is characterized by mood that alternates between two emotional extremes, or poles: the sadness of depression and the euphoria of mania.
   
• Between these emotional swings, there are periods when a person's mood is quite normal.
   
• When a person is in the depressed phase of bipolar illness, he or she will have the same symptoms as those found in major depressive disorder. The depressive episodes can often be severe.
   
• While in a manic phase, a person experiences mood that is extremely elevated, expansive, or irritable.
   
• Mania can seriously impair one's normal judgement. When manic, a person is prone towards reckless and inappropriate behaviour such as engaging in wild spending sprees or having promiscuous sex.
   
• He or she may not be able to realize the harm of his/her behaviour and may even lose touch with reality.