Today, doctors consider this disease a mental pathology. Manic psychosis occurs paroxysmally, with a manifestation of both manic and depressive nature.
Between attacks, intervals are noticeable at which the person seems completely healthy and adequate. The onset of symptoms is primarily due to the constitutional conditions of the person. In addition, heredity should be taken into account, since depressive-manic psychosis is a hereditary disease.
Symptoms are expressed in mood swings. Depressive-manic psychosis is revealed as depression, slowness of movements and general intellectual processes. Perhaps a state of sadness, hopelessness, longing, constant unreasonable tension, indifference to loved ones, detachment from previously interesting, enjoyable things.
In this phase, the patient is often motionless (or inactive), gives vague short answers or is silent at all. Life in this period seems to him hopeless, unnecessary, aimless and stupid. Signs of such a psychosis can also appear in self-humiliation. All this is explained by the patient's own unnecessaryness and bankruptcy.
With a depressive attack, there may be a loss of interest in food, which becomes as unnecessary and uninteresting as life in general. There is a possibility of developing suicidal tendencies and attempts to implement them. In women in this phase of the disease, the menstrual cycle may stop (or malfunction). Manic psychosis of a superficial nature is expressed, first of all, in a sharp change in mood.
For example, in the morning a person wakes up with a terrible mood, feels depressed and tired of life, and by lunchtime suddenly appears cheerfulness, attention to others, a desire to communicate. The patient is cheerful, jokes, feels a sharp surge of vigor, takes on some business, but usually does not complete it. By evening, the mood changes again. Anxiety, anxiety, unreasonable foreboding of something bad appears. This is manic psychosis, in which reality is different from the patient’s inner vision of the world.
In the manic phase, the patient is confident in his features, in his superpowers, in the glory awaiting him, etc. That is why he can even quit with "inappropriate" work. Even with appetite, a person continues to lose weight, spending a lot of energy. Night sleep can be intermittent or generally limited to three to four hours. And during this time a person feels sleepy.
Manic-depressive psychosis in most cases has only one phase, alternating with intervals of recovery, but the risk of developing another phase remains always. Depressive attacks very often coincide with a change in season or weather. Among patients, the percentage of more women (although slightly, the difference is about 10-15%).
Treatment is prescribed only by a doctor. As a rule, we are talking not only about a wide range of medicines, but also about the help of psychotherapists, psychologists. The participation of relatives who are close by, capable of protecting the sufferer of psychosis from suicide attempts, and seek the help of a specialist if necessary, is also very important. The main thing is to remember: a complete cure is possible.