In a continuation of the 3 New Things series, this week follows up on the British Psychological Society’s critique of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, version 5 (DSM-V), talks about irritable mood in bipolar disorder and expresses my general disdain for people who can’t report about mental health accurately.
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As I mentioned, mixed moods are technically considered part of the manic phase of bipolar disorder and thus, by definition, are only a part of bipolar disorder type 1. However, those of us with bipolar type 2 can tell you we mix it up with the best of them.
So, in part II of this series on mixed moods in bipolar disorder, I look at mixed moods in bipolar type II.
Mixed Moods in Bipolar Type IINow that we’ve wandered into Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)-free territory, definitions on mixed states get a bit looser.
Mixed mood states may be, in fact, the most common way of experiencing bipolar type II. I find most people have a hard time distinctly separating “depression” from “hypomania” from “normal” moods. There is just too much crossover.
Additionally, considering mixed moods to be part of the manic phase of bipolar disorder becomes useless when looking at bipolar II. As an article in Psychiatric Times suggests, there are really two types of mixed moods in bipolar disorder:
Those two mood types better reflect my own experience and I think the clinical experience of other patients and doctors.
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As one of the Burble’s commenters mentioned, there seems to be a lack of good information on mixed moods available. After some Googling, I would tend to agree. While mixed mood episodes are pretty common for us bipolar folk, few people seem to be discussing it.
This is the beginning of a four-part series on mixed moods in bipolar disorder:
As requested, I’m going to provide the details on the custom mood / variables I use in the T2 Mood Tracker. These are just my variables, they certainly don’t have to be yours, but they might be good to glance over.
As I mentioned, the difficult a case you are, and boy am I difficult, the more challenging the patterns can be to find. This is why I’ve included these extra variables. Custom moods / variables include:
OK, you’ve sold me as to why I should track my mood (part 1); so just how do I track my mood?
Obviously, the simplest form of mood tracking is just recording depression and mania on a scale, say, of one-to-ten. You could use a “paper” and “pencil” (look it up on Wikipedia).
You might still notice mood trends but that type of mood tracking is not nearly as helpful as it could be. And the more complicated your case, the more you already know, the more subtle your shifts may be and the less you’ll see using simple methods.
There are far more useful, not to mention easier, options.
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If you’ve been around for the last couple of weeks either at the Burble or at Breaking Bipolar, you know it’s been pretty much all suicide all the time. And there will probably be more to come on suicide as it’s an awfully big topic.
But I do have a question for everyone:
In part one I discussed the details of a study about 100 people who attempted suicide in Florida. Part two outlines the predictive factors for suicide attempts identified in this study and how we can use this information to predict who will attempt suicide.
And perhaps more importantly, how you can prevent a suicide attempt in a loved one.
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Some of us in the mental health field have heard the suicide warning signs so often it’s practically tattooed on the back of our skull: suicide note, suicide plan persistent thoughts of suicide, previous suicide attempt and so on.
But if you think you know the warning signs for a suicide attempt you’re probably wrong, at least according to a study out of Florida. For example, fewer than 1-in-10 people leave suicide notes and fewer than one-third of people have persistent thoughts of suicide before their suicide attempt.
Read MoreAs I mentioned, people with bipolar type II spend 35X more time depressed than hypomanic, and yet there are very few treatments available.
As we discussed last time, the neurotransmitter glutamate and the inflammatory complex are two new, badly-needed areas of bipolar depression treatment research. Here are three additional bipolar depression treatment areas you probably don’t know about: diet, antioxidants and modafinil.
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