Bipolar Disorder

Living with bipolar disorder comes with various challenges for both you and your loved ones. These organizations and websites offer information and support.

Find out how experts distinguish between normal mood changes and bipolar disorder, when you should seek help, and tips for managing both.

Bipolar disorder is a mental health condition characterized by extreme shifts in mood and energy levels, from the highs of mania to the lows of depression. Learn more about the symptoms, causes, and types of bipolar, as well as treatment options.

Bipolar mania is often accompanied by hypersexuality, an increased sex drive that involves risky, reckless behavior. This symptom of bipolar disorder can be managed when the condition is properly treated. Learn more about hypersexuality and mania.

Medication and psychotherapy are often used in combination to treat bipolar disorder, and are essential to keep patients' moods stable. Most people with the condition lead productive lives by continuing treatment and regularly seeing their doctor.

Extreme shifts in mood, from the highs of mania to the lows of depression, are the classic symptoms of bipolar disorder. Diagnosis can be tricky but often involves a physical and mental exam, blood tests, various scans, and daily tracking of moods.

Writer Cristy Marrero recounts finding her 17-year-old sister during one of her first bipolar disorder episodes, lying in fetal position, unable to move, blink, or speak. Her sister's struggle involved multiple hospital stays and an untimely end.

There’s more than one type of bipolar disorder, including cyclothymia, which has less severe symptoms.

Lithium, which belongs to a group of medications called mood stabilizers, is FDA-approved to treat bipolar disorder symptoms.