Sign and symptoms of clinical depression and bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness)

Dear Friends,

Thanks for stopping by this Mission 4 Monday post.

I am thankful to God that I can continue to serve Him through this blog.

One of the missions of my blog is to share with others God's goodness and mercies to me in managing clinical depression and bipolar disorder, as well as to share resources that will benefit a person with a mood disorder and information for their family and loved ones.

There is still a wide misunderstanding about depression in our society and even among Christians. Many still mistakenly think that all depression is due to a weakness in a person's character or a lack of faith in God. But in reality depression is complex (read more on The Complexity of Depression).

There is a form of depression which is clinical and due to changes in the brain or body in which a person is not able to think or function as per normal. There is also a form of mental illness or mood disorder in which a person alternate between 2 extreme mood swings ie mania and clinical depression.

What are the signs and symptoms of clinical depression or bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness)?

How can one differentiate between spiritual depression and clinical depression or bipolar depression?

Clinical depression and bipolar depression are real medical conditions that can be treated. Different from the normal ups and downs that everyone goes through, the symptoms are severe.

The following is an excerpt taken from an article on the website of National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). (NIMH said "NIMH publications are in the public domain and may be reproduced or copied without the permission from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). NIMH encourages you to reproduce them and use them in your efforts to improve public health. Citation of the National Institute of Mental Health as a source is appreciated.")

Introduction
Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in a person's mood, energy, and ability to function. Different from the normal ups and downs that everyone goes through, the symptoms of bipolar disorder are severe. They can result in damaged relationships, poor job or school performance, and even suicide. But there is good news: bipolar disorder can be treated, and people with this illness can lead full and productive lives.

What Are the Symptoms of Bipolar Disorder?
Bipolar disorder causes dramatic mood swings—from overly "high" and/or irritable to sad and hopeless, and then back again, often with periods of normal mood in between. Severe changes in energy and behavior go along with these changes in mood. The periods of highs and lows are called episodes of mania and depression.

Signs and symptoms of mania (or a manic episode) include:
• Increased energy, activity, and restlessness
• Excessively "high," overly good, euphoric mood
• Extreme irritability
• Racing thoughts and talking very fast, jumping from one idea to another
• Distractibility, can't concentrate well
• Little sleep needed
• Unrealistic beliefs in one's abilities and powers
• Poor judgment
• Spending sprees
• A lasting period of behavior that is different from usual
• Increased sexual drive
• Abuse of drugs, particularly cocaine, alcohol, and sleeping medications
• Provocative, intrusive, or aggressive behavior
• Denial that anything is wrong

A manic episode is diagnosed if elevated mood occurs with three or more of the other symptoms most of the day, nearly every day, for 1 week or longer. If the mood is irritable, four additional symptoms must be present.

Signs and symptoms of depression (or a depressive episode) include:
• Lasting sad, anxious, or empty mood
• Feelings of hopelessness or pessimism
• Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, or helplessness
• Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed, including sex
• Decreased energy, a feeling of fatigue or of being "slowed down"
• Difficulty concentrating, remembering, making decisions
• Restlessness or irritability
• Sleeping too much, or can't sleep
• Change in appetite and/or unintended weight loss or gain
• Chronic pain or other persistent bodily symptoms that are not caused by physical illness or injury
• Thoughts of death or suicide, or suicide attempts

A depressive episode is diagnosed if five or more of these symptoms last most of the day, nearly every day, for a period of 2 weeks or longer.

A mild to moderate level of mania is called hypomania. Hypomania may feel good to the person who experiences it and may even be associated with good functioning and enhanced productivity. Thus even when family and friends learn to recognize the mood swings as possible bipolar disorder, the person may deny that anything is wrong. Without proper treatment, however, hypomania can become severe mania in some people or can switch into depression.

Sometimes, severe episodes of mania or depression include symptoms of psychosis (or psychotic symptoms). Common psychotic symptoms are hallucinations (hearing, seeing, or otherwise sensing the presence of things not actually there) and delusions (false, strongly held beliefs not influenced by logical reasoning or explained by a person's usual cultural concepts). Psychotic symptoms in bipolar disorder tend to reflect the extreme mood state at the time. For example, delusions of grandiosity, such as believing one is the President or has special powers or wealth, may occur during mania; delusions of guilt or worthlessness, such as believing that one is ruined and penniless or has committed some terrible crime, may appear during depression. People with bipolar disorder who have these symptoms are sometimes incorrectly diagnosed as having schizophrenia, another severe mental illness. It may be helpful to think of the various mood states in bipolar disorder as a spectrum or continuous range. At one end is severe depression, above which is moderate depression and then mild low mood, which many people call "the blues" when it is short-lived but is termed "dysthymia" when it is chronic. Then there is normal or balanced mood, above which comes hypomania (mild to moderate mania), and then severe mania.

In some people, however, symptoms of mania and depression may occur together in what is called a mixed bipolar state. Symptoms of a mixed state often include agitation, trouble sleeping, significant change in appetite, psychosis, and suicidal thinking. A person may have a very sad, hopeless mood while at the same time feeling extremely energized. (read the full article)

(Note: This blog is for me to share my experiences and information I have found, or resources I have found useful. This is not a place for self-diagnosis. But if you recognize some of these signs and symptoms in yourself or your loved ones or friends, you/they may need medical attention, please consult the medical physician.)

I hope to share more from this article and other resources on the diagnosis and treatment of depression and bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness).

If you are keen to read more, you can also read my previous posts:

About depression, bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness) and mental illness or mood disorders:
1. About bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness)
2. Myths and Facts on Mental Illness
3. Treatment of bipolar disorder
4. Various pamphlets and articles on bipolar disorder for sufferer and carer

For friends and carers:
1. Helping someone with mood disorder
2. Family and Friends' Guide to Recovery from Depression and Bipolar Disorder
3. How Carers and Friends can help

Other recent related posts:

1. Trust during rough times
2. Finding meaning in a life with bipolar disorder
3. Mental illness (depression, bipolar disorder, etc) is an illness like any other
4. Video on "Depression - A Stubborn Darkness"

For more Mission 4 Monday posts, visit Peggy.

Thanks again for stopping by! Thanks for all your prayers and encouragements!

Take care and God bless :)

Praise ye the Lord for it is good (Scottish Metrical Psalms - Psalm 147)

Dear Friends,

Thanks for stopping by my Fearfully Fabulous Friday and Then Sing My Souls Saturday.

For Fearfully Fabulous Friday I am sharing this wonderful verses from Psalm 147 and a very encouraging commentary from Matthew Henry on these verses:

Psalm 147:1-11

1 Praise ye the LORD: for it is good to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and praise is comely.
2 The LORD doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel.
3 He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.
4 He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.
5 Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.
6 The LORD lifteth up the meek: he casteth the wicked down to the ground.
7 Sing unto the LORD with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God:
8 Who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.
9 He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry.
10 He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man.
11 The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.

The following is an excerpt taken from Matthew Henry's Commentary:

Psalm 147:1-11

Here,

I. The duty of praise is recommended to us.

II. God is recommended to us as the proper object of our most exalted and enlarged praises, upon several accounts.

1. The care he takes of his chosen people, Psalm 147:2. The Lord builds up Jerusalem. The gospel-church, the Jerusalem that is from above, is of this building (the church and all who truly trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ is the spiritual Jerusalem). He founded it by the preaching of his gospel; he adds to it daily such as shall be saved, and so increases it. He gathers His people by giving them repentance and bringing them again into the communion of saints.

2. The comforts he has laid up for true penitents, Psalm 147:3. They are broken in heart, and wounded, humbled, and troubled, for sin, inwardly pained at the remembrance of it, as a man is that is sorely wounded. Their very hearts are not only pricked, but rent, under the sense of the dishonour they have done to God and the injury they have done to themselves by sin. To those whom God heals with the consolations of his Spirit he speaks peace, assures them that their sins are pardoned and that he is reconciled to them, and so makes them easy, pours the balm of Gilead into the bleeding wounds, and then binds them up, and makes them to rejoice.

3. The sovereign dominion he has over the lights of heaven, Psalm 147:4, Psalm 147:5. The stars are innumerable, many of them being scarcely discernible with the naked eye, and yet he counts them, and knows the exact number of them, for they are all the work of his hands and the instruments of his providence.

4. The pleasure he takes in humbling the proud and exalting those of low degree (Psalm 147:6): The Lord lifts up the meek, who abase themselves before him, and whom men trample on; but the wicked, who conduct themselves insolently towards God and scornfully towards all mankind, who lift up themselves in pride and folly, he casteth down to the ground, sometimes by very humbling providences in this world, at furthest in the day when their faces shall be filled with everlasting shame.

5. The provision he makes for the inferior creatures. Though he is so great as to command the stars, he is so good as not to forget even the fowls, Psalm 147:8, Psalm 147:9. Observe in what method he feeds man and beast.

(1.) He covereth the heaven with clouds, which darken the air and intercept the beams of the sun, and yet in them he prepareth that rain for the earth which is necessary to its fruitfulness. Clouds look melancholy, and yet without them we could have no rain and consequently no fruit. Thus afflictions, for the present, look black, and dark, and unpleasant, and we are in heaviness because of them, as sometimes when the sky is overcast it makes us dull; but they are necessary, for from these clouds of affliction come those showers that make the harvest to yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness (Hebrew 12:11), which should help to reconcile us to them. Observe the necessary dependence which the earth has upon the heavens, which directs us on earth to depend on God in heaven. All the rain with which the earth is watered is of God's preparing.

(2.) By the rain which distils on the earth he makes grass to grow upon the mountains, even the high mountains, which man neither takes care of nor reaps the benefit of. The mountains, which are not watered with the springs and rivers, as the valleys are, are yet watered so that they are not barren.

(3.) This grass he gives to the beast for his food, the beast of the mountains which runs wild, which man makes no provision for. And even the young ravens, which, being forsaken by their old ones, cry, are heard by him, and ways are found to feed them, so that they are kept from perishing in the nest.

6. The complacency he takes in his people, Psalm 147:10, Psalm 147:11. In times when great things are doing, and there are great expectations of the success of them, it concerns us to know (since the issue proceeds from the Lord) whom, and what, God will delight to honour and crown with victory. It is not the strength of armies, but the strength of grace, that God is pleased to own.

(1.) Not the strength of armies - not in the cavalry, for he delighteth not in the strength of the horse, the war-horse, noted for his courage (Job 39:19,. etc.) - nor in the infantry, for he taketh no pleasure in the legs of a man; he does not mean the swiftness of them for flight, to quit the field, but the steadiness of them for charging, to stand the ground.

But, (2.) God is pleased to own the strength of grace. A serious and suitable regard to God is that which is, in the sight of God, of great price in such a case. The Lord accepts and takes pleasure in those that fear him and that hope in his mercy.

Observe, [1.] A holy fear of God and hope in God not only may consist, but must concur. In the same heart, at the same time, there must be both a reverence of his majesty and a complacency in his goodness, both a believing dread of his wrath and a believing expectation of his favour; not that we must hang in suspense between hope and fear, but we must act under the gracious influences of hope and fear. Our fear must save our hope from swelling into presumption, and our hope must save our fear from sinking into despair; thus must we take our work before us.

[2.] We must hope in God's mercy, his general mercy, even when we cannot find a particular promise to stay ourselves upon. A humble confidence in the goodness of God's nature is very pleasing to him, as that which turns to the glory of that attribute in which he most glories. Every man of honour loves to be trusted.

Thank and praise God that He has called us to Himself and place us in the church which is the body of Christ that we can worship Him, grow in Him and enjoy His love through the fellowship of His people. As we converse one with another and recount God's goodness and mercies to us, we shall find many reasons to praise the Lord!

God heals us when sin broke us by sending His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ to die for us on the cross and wash away all our sins. He reconciled us to Himself and bless us with every spiritual blessings and provide also for our temporal needs. Though in this life, we have our portions of ups and downs, being sinners saved by grace and still living in a fallen and imperfect world, God is showering His love and mercies to us daily that we may know His love and know that He is working all things for our good (Romans 8:28).

Thus afflictions, for the present, look black, and dark, and unpleasant, and we are in heaviness because of them, as sometimes when the sky is overcast it makes us dull; but they are necessary, for from these clouds of affliction come those showers that make the harvest to yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness (Hebrew 12:11), which should help to reconcile us to them.

For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18

For Then Sing My Souls Saturday I am sharing this video on Psalm 147:1-11 posted on Youtube:

Psalm 147:1-11

1 Praise ye the Lord; for it is good
praise to our God to sing:
For it is pleasant, and to praise
it is a comely thing.

2 God doth build up Jerusalem;
and he it is alone
That the dispersed of Israel
doth gather into one.

3 Those that are broken in their heart,
and grievèd in their minds,
He healeth, and their painful wounds
he tenderly up-binds.

4 He counts the number of the stars;
he names them ev'ry one.
5 Great is our Lord, and of great pow'r;
his wisdom search can none.

6 The Lord lifts up the meek; and casts
the wicked to the ground.
7 Sing to the Lord, and give him thanks;
on harp his praises sound;

8 Who covereth the heav'n with clouds,
who for the earth below
Prepareth rain, who maketh grass
upon the mountains grow.

9 He gives the beast his food, he feeds
the ravens young that cry.
10 His pleasure not in horses' strength,
nor in man's legs, doth lie.

11 But in all those that do him fear
the Lord doth pleasure take;
In those that to his mercy do
by hope themselves betake.

May God enable us to sing praises unto Him daily as we remember and experience His goodness and mercies.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you have a blessed weekend!

For more participants of Fearfully Fabulous Friday, do visit Jill.

For more participants of Then Sing My Souls Saturday, do visit Amy Wyatt.