Even confusing these disorders may be more common than one imagines. Do they really look alike or does one trigger the other?
To answer this question we must start from the most basic, Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are two different chronic mental disorders; however, in some cases People can confuse their symptoms because they have some aspects in common.
To learn to differentiate them better, we are going to describe the main symptoms of each one below:
Bipolar affective disorder (BAD):
This disorder mainly affects people’s mood, causing it to oscillate between states of very strong depression and states of extreme energy (known as episodes of mania or hypomania). These changes can influence people’s functionality, making living their daily situations complex. Furthermore, in some very particular cases, people with BAD may present other symptoms such as hallucinations.
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Schizophrenia:
This disorder, for its part, is a condition that affects people’s sense of reality and causes them to have hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that are not there) and delusions (generation of beliefs that are not true) or disorganized thinking.
Now, on paper, making a differentiation is easier than in practice, since in some cases there are symptoms that can occur in both cases; For example, Schizophrenia can also affect people’s mood.
To achieve differentiation, it is essential that a mental health professional perform a detailed evaluation using diagnostic tools that allow them to differentiate between each disorder.
Here we leave some signs that are key to differentiating one from the other:
To be diagnosed with schizophrenia, a person must have at least two of the following symptoms significantly for at least one month:
- Hallucinations.
- Hectic movements.
- Disorganized speech and behavior.
- Withdrawals or cognitive alterations.
On the other hand, the diagnosis of bipolar disorder requires:
- Frequent manic and major depressive episodes occurring within a week.
- Daily mood disturbances for at least a week in which the person engages in risky behavior, experiences lack of sleep, and/or has feelings of confusion.
So, returning to the question at the beginning, can bipolar disorder turn into schizophrenia? The answer is no, one does not develop a schizophrenia disorder from a bipolar disorder; however, Yes, they are mental health conditions that can share some characteristics and that; Furthermore, in cases in which severe symptoms occur, These can get confused. Furthermore, it is possible that, particularly in situations in which the person has a history of substance use according to what clinical evidence has shown us, they occur simultaneously, but it definitely does not happen that one becomes the other.