History
The terms used for extreme depression are melancholy (depression) and mania. Both have their origins in Ancient Greek. Melancholy comes from melas (black) and chole (bile) because Hippocrates thought that depression resulted from an excess of black bile. Mania is related to menos (spirit, force, passion) and mainesthai (to rage, go mad) and mantis (seer) which comes from the Indo-European men- (mind) which is also sometimes connected to ‘man’. Aretaeus (a first century AD physician) described a group of patients that ‘laugh, play, dance night and day, and sometimes go openly to the market crowned, as if victors in some contest of skill’ only to be ‘torpid, dull, and sorrowful’ at other times. He suggested that both patterns of behavior resulted from one and the same disorder.
Symptoms
Symptoms in bipolar depression include: depressed mood and low self-esteem, excessive crying spells, low energy levels and an apathetic view of life, sadness, loneliness, helplessness, feelings of guilt, slow speech, fatigue, and poor coordination and concentration, insomnia or oversleeping, thoughts of suicide or dying, changes in appetite (overeating/not eating), unexplainable aching, lack of interest or pleasure in usual activities. Symptoms in bipolar mania include: euphoria or irritability, excessive talking, racing thoughts, inflated self-esteem, unusual energy, less need for sleep, impulsiveness, a reckless pursuit of gratification -- shopping sprees, impetuous travel, more, high-risk business investments, fast driving, hallucinations and or delusions (psychotic features such as these may