Mood definition… a disorderly description by a bipolar disorder manager

You wake up one morning.

  • you feel happy,loving, humorous  optimistic.
  • Your confidence and self worth are high.
  • You are motivated.
  • Your body feels healthy and energetic
  • You are  thinking is clear, focused,  positive.
  • You are not concerned witht bad thoughts.
  • Your impulses are strong and up mind/body feel crisp.
  • You  look outside your window and everything appears crisp , bright and colorful.

You are  in a “good mood”or an up mood.

You don’t need all these attributes to be in a “good” or “up” mood, when you wake up. You may be happy and thinking positive, but not feeling energetic…. You might feel very energetic a little confident and optimistic  and not particularly impulsive.
However, these attributes are loosely tied together… or appear commonly together in feelings … and we describe them as “being in a good mood”.
An Up mood.

You wake up one morning,

  • You feel sad, lonely, or pessimistic.
  • Your confidence and self worth low.
  • Your body feels, detached, achy, and slow. Your  thinking is disinterested and unfocused .
  • Your  thoughts are  self defeating..
  • You feel detached.
  • You look outside you window  and everything looks hazy and dull.

You are feeling down or in a down mood.

Just the same as an up mood, not every trait is necessary to “feeling down” or “feeling low”. You may have mildly self defeating thoughts, your body may feel achy and slow, you may feel extremely detached and disinterested…. and may not feel sad at all.
but your mood  is still described as down.

When  your over- all mood is very up… its referred  manicy and when it is really down your mood is depressed.

The word “mood“, much the same as the word “mind” is an abstract description.. It is an organization (or integration) of traits that are otherwise difficult describe. their no exact physical or concrete  thing called “mood”.

Even more difficult to describe is a mood disorder diagnosis. a diagnosis, such as “Bipolar disorder , “is made by matching a person’s intrusive traits with criteria in the DSM- IV . A mood disorder is not something you can see with an x-ray such as a spine injury. However, “mood disorder“is description is as real as description as  “mind”… and it is a diagnosis to be taken as serious as any medical diagnosis that is easier to see wit an X-ray or MRI.

For someone  diagnosed with a mood disorder…
These mood traits and the  behaviors linked to them are pushed to further extremes, until they become extremely intrusive in their life.

  • An extreme up mood or “manic mood” for example may lead an individual to have super- high  self esteem in denial of any consequence and lead to reckless behavior.
  • An extreme down mood or “depressed mood”  may have lost all self worth , have intense self defeating thoughts leading them to suicidal behavior.

These is usually a periodic conditions.. but it requires a life time of management.

The exact cause of Bipolar disorder and other mood disorders is not entirely understood yet. Western medicine and scientific evidence strongly supports that  they are biological, in origin.

From a Holistic point of view… we may say that the body, mind, mood, behavior, interaction with people and environment, all are components that act in an integrated fashion as whole of us.
When I, consumer who  manages Bipolar disorder , has these mood traits that are very intrusive at a given time, the mood distortions can throw all  integrated parts of me  off. In periods when this happen  I am described as being “symptomatic“… the symptoms being the intrusions. Each  consumer who manages a mood disorder has a unique  set of symptoms.

Sound complicated? no real concrete definitions?
Defining “Mood, “mood disorder and Bipolar disorder… just a simple component to integrated with the whole of “Living with Bipolar Disorder”.

There  is  wisdom to be  gained:. Our perception of reality and our perceived personality  are all determined by the all the components of us in an integrated fashion.
Just as my choice words to describe “mood”.


About chris

3 Responses to Mood definition… a disorderly description by a bipolar disorder manager

  1. crayzys says:

    Could you say the VOLUME level to receive input is set TOO HIGH?

  2. chris says:

    I think that is how many would describe it.

    There is a recent hypothesis in neuroscience that schizophrenic symptoms and the Mania of mood disorders maybe brought on by to much perceptual information than the brain can filter.

    I find this idea counter-intuitive, though. In the past, for me, its the whole internal thinking process that seemed liked the volume set too was to high… so high that it was hard to pay attention to anything but thoughts, like an inner machine was on overdrive.

    So I’m not quite convinced.

    Thanks for your comment crayzys

  3. Pingback: Planting Potatoes and Paternal Wisdom « Pennsylvania Echoes

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