DID vs bipolar

What is the diffrence between DID and bipolar. Cuz if you have bipolar mania, can´t you act sort of childish then? But with DID one if your alter can be a child right? And do diffrent alters really have to have diffrent names? Cuz if they have to, then i quess that is away to tell them apart.
So what is the diffrence and how do you tell them apart?
And i also wonder why you think it takes so long to get a DID diagnos? Why is it so hard to notic. Cuz does you not act alot diffrent from time to time and by that they may figure it out? And it says that alters have diffrent names so does that not mean that when you switch, you start introducing yourself in a new name, or don´t react very good when people call on your usall/host name. Should that not e an easy thing to notic? So why does it take so long time?

Sorry if i said something in a weird way. Im just intrested in how diffrent mental ilnesses work. Aint nothing wrong with that right?

You can do a general search online and find out all this information. Just Google DiD vs. bipolar.

Bipolar tends to be a more genetically inherited disease IIRC and as was the case with my grandmother also occurred alongside psychotic episodes...buying cars with bad checks, CIA was out to get her et cetera.

Manic depressive disorders generally tend to take a longer time to diagnose, because a physician has to very thoroughly document any possible factors contributing to the symptoms present and DDX other disorders out. The medication can be very harmful if misdiagnosed (or even correctly at times when it's lithium bicarbonate).

DID would also likely have to be DDX'd against psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, and...others...(drawing a blank right now, sorry) because the way the symptoms present (psychoses in alters, delusions, and how advanced they are) can resemble other disorders. So it's another judgement call for a physician to decide if their patient needs to go on a risky antipsychotic med like Haloperidol or Risperidone, or, if DID with psychotic symptoms can they take an atypical antipsychotic like Seroquel, anxiolytics / SSRIs OR if they would best benefit starting therapy first.

tl;dr misdiagnosing a severe psychiatric disorder can have lethal results so MDs take their time

Concerning the "difference," people suffering from bipolar disorder can go from disturbingly active and delusional / overzealous in their activities, ambitions and plans, to completely despondent, cold, mean, angry or violent and usually if they are not taking their medications like they are prescribed, it can be a really harmless, innocuous event that sets them off (stuck at a red light leads to hospitalization or worse). And sometimes psychiatric episodes accompany either stage. It doesn't have to be anything in their environment that has a relation to a traumatic event in their past.

DID CAN have the same polar extremes with behaviors but alters perceive different cues differently and can react unpredictably to those cues, sometimes getting angry, sad, fearful, delusional or paranoid. Their triggers are much more nuanced than, say, exploding on the waiter at a restaurant for overcooking your steak and then ending up in the ER 20 minutes later.

ringkichard0811 wrote:Concerning the "difference," people suffering from bipolar disorder can go from disturbingly active and delusional / overzealous in their activities, ambitions and plans, to completely despondent, cold, mean, angry or violent and usually if they are not taking their medications like they are prescribed, it can be a really harmless, innocuous event that sets them off (stuck at a red light leads to hospitalization or worse). And sometimes psychiatric episodes accompany either stage. It doesn't have to be anything in their environment that has a relation to a traumatic event in their past.

DID CAN have the same polar extremes with behaviors but alters perceive different cues differently and can react unpredictably to those cues, sometimes getting angry, sad, fearful, delusional or paranoid. Their triggers are much more nuanced than, say, exploding on the waiter at a restaurant for overcooking your steak and then ending up in the ER 20 minutes later.

I don't mean to be rude, but I don't think you have a good understanding of bipolar or the differences between the two. Bipolar is serious, but not so serious as this; cycling usually takes days or weeks to ramp up, not a waiter inconveniences you and then you are immediately manic enough to be hospitalized. Some people have fast cycling (although some would say that many of these fast cycling cases are misdiagnosed cases of something else,) but most cycle over a period of weeks and months. It's a much slower disorder than DID or a PD; it's a disorder of not being able to regulate mood. Imagine if, something exciting happens to you on Friday. With bipolar, this could trigger a mania because your mind isn't able to regulate the upwards shift. So instead of naturally getting worn out of being activated and excited, it stays on, for long after Friday has passed. Which is quite exhausting for the brain and leads to progressively worse and worse symptoms - until you crash because it is too much and your brain finally gets the signal it needs to do something, and so then your brain is finally able to return to a normal (or depressed, overcompensating is the norm after a mania) baseline. There is a difference between regulating mood and regulating emotional reactions (people with BPD, for instance, struggle with the latter, which is where the hair trigger temper symptom comes from.)

PTSD fluctuations can look like bipolar. If you, for instance, have a trauma anniversary for December during the days you would have been off school for break, the PTSD overactivation that is sustained over this time can look like mania and even have some symptoms in common (insomnia, executive functioning decline due to being too overactivated for too long (like not being able to focus,) strong trauma-related affect, PTSD-related paranoia, etc..)

PTSD/DID vs bipolar is quite different, but superficially can look similar in some regards. The internal experience of the two is whats' the most different, I would say. People with bipolar can't talk to their mood episodes, and their mood episodes aren't likely to come and go at only certain times of the day or for only a part of the day. Mood episodes take some time to get ramped up, and they also tend to take some time to dissipate; DID switching is often very on/off, you are that alter or aren't (of course, blending and slow switching exists but still isn't long compared to how long a mood episode lasts.)

wow! melting clock! excellent.

to really understand these things is quite a journey. there is in depth research among the various disorders, their causes, evident behavior, and described internal experience. over time you are able to merge your researched knowledge with anecdotal observations of persons you have known.

comorbidity is also an issue. so someone with bipolar could fly off the handle over a small event. even if it is only a perceived injustice. but that does not make it a significant feature of the disorder.

research is your best tool.

DID concerns identity. Bipolar concerns mood. there in lies the essential difference.

I did a web search on this question and really did not find much good information. So I spent hours pulling together some links and a little content and now I have made a new thread:

DID Forum: DDx DID vs Bipolar esp Bipolar II

The idea is put technical information there, to refer to, but not make that thread about posters' own experiences.

Flying off the handle is a sign of hyperarousal. It is very non-specific, meaning it occurs in many diagnosable disorders and also outside of any diagnosable disorder.

It can get dissociated an identity acknowledgement of that identity. If you sing a song that says I am such and such rapper then you might be that introject alter when you discover it in a therapy way. Alot of my musical gifts started out with alters just being in our headspace during the songs, that tells me I sing the lyrics listen that is some our beginning reflection with our map etc. Alters mostly use the host name because they have been there all the time. What a world it would be if you came into therapy and used several names about the past it wouldn't even be grammatically correct not in the context of proper DID. There would have to be education on the topic they would have to see things from a different perspective to know why we need to unpack differences.

I've been diagnosed with both bipolar 1 and DID and believe me there is a world of difference between the two. Before i was diagnosed with DID i had a manic episode that lasted 2 YEARS. Can you imagine just constantly going and going and going, i never slept for more than an hr a night and even then it was like i was closing my eyes so lightly. And by the way this was me being on medication (seroquel) and i just kept getting worse. I've talked to my therapist and she says that she thinks i have an alter that is manic which was why it was so bad and meds couldn't control it. So that is another possibility as well.

RainbowUnicorn331 wrote:I've been diagnosed with both bipolar 1 and DID and believe me there is a world of difference between the two. Before i was diagnosed with DID i had a manic episode that lasted 2 YEARS. Can you imagine just constantly going and going and going, i never slept for more than an hr a night and even then it was like i was closing my eyes so lightly. And by the way this was me being on medication (seroquel) and i just kept getting worse. I've talked to my therapist and she says that she thinks i have an alter that is manic which was why it was so bad and meds couldn't control it. So that is another possibility as well.

My mania was pretty similar, lasted years and meds did close to nothing. One day it just vanished.

I'm still trying to figure out the puzzle, though.