4 Things about Bipolar Anger You Might Not Know

By Tanya Hvilivitzky







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Defining the link between anger and bipolar disorder isn’t straightforward. Here are four things to learn:

#1 Effects Are Significant

Bipolar anger or rage is a side of the disorder that has long passed under the radar screen. This uncontrolled anger has destroyed the marriages, families, and personal relationships of many people with bipolar. It has ruined their careers and left them emotionally isolated.

#2 Mild to Wild

Anger stemming from bipolar disorder can range from “mild to wild” … and, many times, there is no great trigger—or only a disproportionate trigger that wouldn’t typically set off most people. For example, in a situation that people without a bipolar diagnosis would consider only an irritation, people experiencing bipolar anger will react with significant and extremely angry behaviors.

#3 Defining What Anger Really Is

Experts are careful to distinguish between the odd angry outburst and the long-simmering anger and rage of bipolar anger, sometimes lasting over several days during both manic episodes and irritated states of depression. When someone is in a manic episode, mood changes can swing from irritability to euphoria to depression—all within less than a half hour. Many times, people will just wake up with a feeling of anger that they can’t explain or shake.

#4 “Anger Attacks”

In 2005, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston found that 40 percent of patients with bipolar had experienced significant levels of irritability within a one-week period. In 2004, a study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders reported that at least a third of bipolar patients described angry outbursts called “anger attacks.”



Resource:

MentalHelp.Net