What is the difference between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder?
Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder- bipolar disorder is a mood disorder. Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia share some symptoms, but in reality are very different. When my ex partner Ivan got extremely sick in 1994 and was committed to the hospital in a manic/psychotic episode, the first step was to rule out schizophrenia as they look so similar when the symptoms are full blown. Schizophrenia is characterized by chronic psychotic symptoms whereas the psychosis in bipolar disorder is episodic.
Of course the duration of psychosis can vary in both. When a person has bipolar disorder along with chronic, stand alone psychosis, the illness is called schizoaffective disorder. Psychosis comes in two basic forms- hallucinations and delusions. Hallucinations include seeing, feeling, smelling or hearing something that isn’t there. I’ve had a lot of hallucinations over the years to seeing rats run around chairs, hearing voices that tell me to leave where I am, and seeing my wrists cut when they really weren’t!
Delusions are different- delusions are false beliefs. Such as believing a radio station is sending you private messages or that the government has planted a receiver in your brain. I have had only one delusion in my life- I thought a billboard had a special message for me. It was not fun. Schizophrenia is all about hallucinations and delusions- bipolar disorder is much more about depression and mania.
Julie
