The illness is mostly depression. Its public image is mania.
That mismatch is the stated reason diagnosis takes years. Nearly every decision on this page follows from it.
Start with the question in front of you.
Bipolar disorder: what it is and what treats it
Where the symptomatic weeks actually go, and what treats them.
02The two formsBipolar I or bipolar II?
Why bipolar II is not the mild one.
03The delayWhy does bipolar disorder take so long to diagnose?
The real figures, why screeners fail, and six things to bring.
04AntidepressantsDo antidepressants help bipolar depression?
What the largest trial found, on both of its questions.
05TherapyTherapy for bipolar disorder: what actually works
Four approaches, and what each one was actually tested on.
06In childrenCan a child have bipolar disorder?
Episodicity against chronic irritability, and why it matters.
07FamiliesLoving someone with bipolar disorder
Family work is part of the treatment, not a side activity.
08PrintableThe mood and sleep log, and the relapse-prevention plan
Daily rows, early-warning signs, and a plan agreed while well.
Most of the excess mortality is natural-cause.
Cardiovascular and metabolic illness, not suicide, accounts for most of the shortened life expectancy in bipolar disorder — and a national cohort found the gap narrows where ordinary physical care is delivered. Blood pressure, lipids, weight, smoking and diabetes screening belong in the treatment plan, not outside it.
Read the mortality section in full →No screening quiz that returns a diagnosis, and no round number that no study supports.
These pages help you prepare a history a clinician can use, tell two illnesses apart, read a treatment claim, and hold a plan agreed while you were well. They do not diagnose. Where a widely repeated figure is not supported by the meta-analyses, the page gives the supported one and says which is which.
See how evidence is checked →