Manic Depressive Disorder has evolved to the more common name bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is a mental health issue that controls your mood in an extreme fashion, changing the patient from extreme manic phases to intense depressive phases. These divergent episodes consist of moments of pleasure, jubilation, and exhilaration or periods of crippling unhappiness and hopeless depression. These quick shifts of moods obstruct the process of everyday living and make it more challenging. Only until the late 1990's has bipolar disorder has been considered for diagnosis in adolescence. It was, and still is sometimes, common that many mental health counselors would misdiagnose teens of bipolar disorder for depression or major depressive disorder. " The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reports that up to one third of the 3.4 million children andadolescents with depression in the United States may actually be suffering from the onset of bipolar …show more content…
Depression is one of the most common mental health disorders in the US. It affects about 1 in 5 people at some time in life" (Kindersley, 2004). Depression is so common that bipolar disorders falls in its shadows which can completely misguide an adolescent causing more stress to an already fragile emotional state. Bipolar disorder is confused with depressions because it is a factor of the mood swings. Bipolar disorder is highlighted typically during the depressive stages thus it is assumed to be depression. (Mental Health Weekly Digest,2015). Depression is in 1-5 people, as stated above, but bipolar disorder is in 1-100 people and 1-3 people obtain proper treatment (Friedman, 2005). Due to the pleasure and euphoria during the manic stages in bipolar disorder, many patients do not believe there is a problem, therefore they do not notify their psychiatrist of this extreme mood change. (Friedman,