By Rosalba Mancuso

Hypomanic bipolar disorder is an underestimated and overlooked mental illness. We can say it is a forgotten mental disease. Most doctors and patients, indeed, are mainly focused on the classic symptoms of the classic bipolar disorder. But the hypomanic “variant” is more widespread and undiagnosed than you think.

In this article, I explored the abyss of hypomanic bipolar disorder to help you recognize its subtle symptoms and receive the right diagnosis and proper treatment.

Hypomanic Bipolar Disorder: What Is It?

Hypomanic bipolar disorder is classified as a second type of bipolar disorder. It is also called bipolar disorder2 or II or, simply, bipolar2.

Bipolar disorder 2, or hypomanic bipolar disorder, is characterized by phases of mild mood excitement, more often irritability, and depression; while bipolar disorder 1 has stages of high mood excitement, such as great energy and exaggerated activity, followed by depression.

Bipolar disorder 1 and bipolar disorder 2 are the main classifications of this mental disease, which, in reality, includes several variants.

There is also a third variant, called cyclothymia, and a fourth one, named hyperthymia. In the past decades, the classification of bipolar disorder also included a not otherwise specified bipolar disorder (NOS BP) that represents the fifth version of the disease.

There is also another disorder, called dysphoria, that, alternatively, may coincide with the hypomanic bipolar disorder, because it consists of alternate stages of irritability and depression.

Furthermore, there is also the mixed disorder, a sort of bipolar disorder where you have irritability (mood excitement) and depression at the same time!

The high variability of bipolar symptoms led clinicians to define the so-called “bipolar spectrum”, where over 10 different bipolar disorders may be detected.

However, the main classification is always between bipolar 1 and bipolar2, because the other variants get included in these two main types of mental disorder.

Hypomanic Bipolar Disorder Symptoms

Bipolar disorder is characterized by mood swings. The stages of high mood are defined as “mania,” while the stages of low mood are defined as “depression”.

Hence, the main symptoms of bipolar disorder are the mood swings with alternance of excitement (high mood) and low mood (depression).

Elevated mood is always defined as Mania, but in the hypomanic bipolar disorder, the elevated mood is not so intense; it is milder and characterized by excessive irritability, which is defined as “hypomania”.

For this reason, the DSM5 defined bipolar 2 as hypomanic bipolar disorder.

The symptoms of hypomanic bipolar disorder are:

  • irritability
  • intense sensation of rage and frustration
  • sense of guilt
  • lack of concentration
  • agitation
  • sudden changes of ideas
  • anxiety
  • eating too much or too little
  • sleeping too much or too little
  • lack of energy or fatigue
  • fast speaking
  • sadness, sense of failure, and emptiness
  • depression

As regards the fatigue after hypomanic and depressive episodes, it seems to be linked to the levels of cortisol (the stress hormone), which, in patients with mental illnesses, is altered and very high. This data confirms the hypothesis of a close relationship between mental disorder and other medical conditions, such as a vitamin B6 deficiency, often related to autoimmune diseases such as Hashimoto’s.

Vitamin B6 is, in fact, pivotal for the immune and nervous systems. It increases the resistance to stress and lowers the levels of cortisol, which, in turn, tends to reach high peaks during bipolar episodes. If cortisol diminishes, the bipolar episode may be less frequent.

Physical symptoms, such as stomach pain and strong headaches, may also accompany hypomanic bipolar disorder. Usually, they are triggered by the hypomanic episodes of irritability and agitation.

Often, hypomanic bipolar disorder occurs with other mental disorders, such as the already mentioned anxiety and even obsessive-compulsive disorder.

In reality, in this case, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder are not separate diseases, but symptoms of hypomanic bipolar disorder.

I came across this disorder several years ago, when I looked for help to heal my depression.

In 2008, in Catania, in the year of the awful global financial crisis, I met psychiatrist Giuseppa Salomone, who defined hypomanic bipolar disorder like this: “It is a mood disorder, based on depression, and caused by difficulty in adapting to reality.”

With these words, this doctor was able to perfectly define this mental illness, letting me understand that hypomanic bipolar disorder is a subtype of depression, rather, one of the most subtle and devastating mood disorders, also known as “bipolar depression.”

The complete article is on https://modernhealthinfo.com/hypomanic-bipolar-disorder/.

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