Mia Hodgkinson
Mia Hodgkinson is head of Consumer PR at Sway PR and she has bipolar. You can ask Mia all about bipolar, including what the symptoms are, what causes it, what happens once you get ...
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What is bipolar?
Bipolar is a mental health condition where people experience extreme mood swings that kind of go far beyond what the general population would experience. There are two types of bipolar, so there's bipolar one where people will probably have experienced a full manic episode in their lives along with a major episode of depression. There's also bipolar two where people are more likely to experience periods of depression as well as hypermania, which is a slightly less intense form of mania. There are also mixed states as well where people can experience both mania and depression at the same time. There are over a million people in the UK that live with bipolar currently.
How does bipolar affect people?
Bipolar affects people in many different ways. I would say that there are no two people living with bipolar who experience it in the same way. It can affect people from the extremes of finding it really difficult to function on a day-to-day basis and find it very hard to manage their emotions. But similarly, there are a lot of people living with bipolar who live, they manage their bipolar very well and can stay stable for very long periods of time without falling into a depressive episode or experiencing mania or hypermania. So I would say that it's very much individual to that person and there's no one size fits all regarding bipolar.
How do I know if I have bipolar?
It is really difficult to know if you have definitively got bipolar. There can be some warning signs, so if you do experience heightened emotions, extreme mood swings, these could be indicators that you have bipolar. However, it's recommended that you use a mood tracker app or use a mood scale in order to monitor your moods over a period of time. This would be several weeks to probably more likely a month, two months. And if you keep a diary of these moods and fluctuations in your moods, then go and see a GP or a health professional and speak to them about it and show them your mood diary. This could then lead you on a path towards diagnosis of bipolar, or at least get you some support in the meantime until the health professional is able to support you towards a diagnosis of whatever it might be. But really, these fluctuations in mood and keeping a diary of these moods is the first step towards getting a diagnosis of bipolar.