What is Schizoaffective Disorder?

By Julie Fast

Bipolar Disorder Symptoms plus Schizophrenia Symptoms equals Schizoaffective Disorder.
There is a lot of confusion surrounding Schizoaffective disorder.  This is probably because schizophrenia itself is so hard to understand when you only have knowledge of bipolar disorder.
What is the difference between bipolar disorder and schizophrenia?
There is a big difference between bipolar and schizophrenia. Bipolar is a mood disorder where a person has trouble regulating their emotions. It's episode, which means it can come and go- some people have chronic symptoms as I do- others can literally go for years without an episode. For example, my former partner Ivan who has bipolar I (one) went 12 years between manic episodes. Stress is often a factor in when a person has episodes. Bipolar disorder can definitely have psychosis- but it is not usually chronic. And most importantly, psychosis with bipolar almost always comes with other mood swings such as psychotic depression or psychotic mania.
Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder which means its main symptom is psychosis. People with schizophrenia can be chronically psychotic or experience episodes, but the psychosis is persistent if a person doesn't get medication treatment.
Both illness are difficult to treat- but schizophrenia is more difficult as there is not enough information on how it affects the brain- which means the medications are more limited.  Bipolar treatment focuses on mood stabilizer medications where the focus for schizophrenia is antipsychotics.
What is Schizo-Affective Disorder?
The schizoaffective disorder diagnosis means that a person has bipolar mood swings along with discrete psychosis. In other words, the psychosis can be present with mood swings, but it can also exist alone.  This is not the case with bipolar where the psychosis almost always attaches itself to a mood swing. This is why is why a different diagnosis is used for people who have the symptoms of  bipolar combined with the more chronic psychosis of schizophrenia.  Schizo affective disorder is naturally much more difficult to treat than bipolar.  But there is hope as new medications come on the market and the illness is more researched and understood.

JULIE A. FAST, best selling author of Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder, Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder and Get it Done When You're Depressed is a critically acclaimed six-time author, national speaker, and sought after expert in the fields of bipolar disorder and depression. Julie was diagnosed with rapid cycling bipolar disorder in 1995 at the age of thirty-one, after she had unknowingly lived with the disorder for over fourteen challenging and chaotic years. She regularly experiences mood swings, especially depression and uses the same treatment strategies she writes about in her books in order to continue her outstanding success as an author- even while struggling with bipolar disorder daily. Julie thrives on helping people with bipolar disorder (and those who love them) manage mood disorders so that they can live well in spite of the illness. To learn more about effectively managing bipolar disorder visit: http://www.bipolarhappens.com

5 Surprising Things About a Spouse With Bipolar (That the Doctor Never Told You)

By David E. Oliver

There are many issues you have to deal with when you are trying to cope with a spouse with bipolar disorder. There are some issues that your spouse's doctor told you about; however, there are some things that the doctor never told you. In this article, we will discuss 5 surprising things about a bipolar spouse that the doctor most likely didn't tell you.
Following are 5 surprising things about a spouse with bipolar that the doctor never told you:
1. They can reject you.
When your spouse with bipolar is in a manic episode, they can have all kinds of grandiose ideas, thoughts, and plans, and they expect you to go along with them. If when you don't, they will reject you. If they do this, don't take it personally - it is just part of their bipolar disorder. They believe that their irrational thoughts and plans are totally rational, and they just expect that everyone else thinks so, too, so they believe that everyone should go along with them, and will reject anyone who doesn't. When your spouse with bipolar is in a depressed episode, they may reject you because they just want to be left alone. Again, don't take this personally, as it is part of their bipolar disorder.
2. They can fight over nothing.
Many people erringly believe that manic episodes are always of the happy kind; however, that isn't always true. In many cases, mania can be manifested in agitation and irritation. Then it can cause your spouse with bipolar to fight with you, many times over nothing (or at least nothing that you can put a finger on). It may be over something you did or didn't do; however, many times you may not know the exact cause for your spouse's picking
the fight with you. The best thing you can do is to walk away from the fight and just not engage in it, hoping that they will not continue it on their own. If this is not possible, or if they follow you, then just stay calm and don't fight back, and try to end the fight as quickly as possible.
3. They can lose interest in sex.
It may come as a surprise to you when your spouse with bipolar loses interest in sex, but this is actually a very common problem among people with bipolar disorder. In many cases, it is because loss of interest in sex is one of the side effects of bipolar medication, so this may be what is affecting your spouse. Another reason that could have to do with their medication is weight gain. They may have decreased self-esteem because of the weight they've gained because of their bipolar medication, and thus have less interest in sex. However, one of the biggest reasons why someone with bipolar disorder would lose interest in sex is that they are depressed, as with depression comes a decrease of interest in those things that were pleasurable to the person before the depression.
4. They can change moods at the drop of a hat.
One of the basic features of bipolar disorder itself is the extreme mood swings, and your spouse's doctor probably told you about that; however, he/she probably didn't tell you how quickly those mood swings can take place. Your spouse with bipolar may be perfectly fine one minute, and then be totally "off" the very next minute. It could be that something "triggered" them into the mood swing. One of the biggest triggers is stress, so you need to watch out for that, and try to keep their environment/life as stress-free as possible for them. For some people with bipolar disorder, this quick changing of mood swings is a type of bipolar disorder called rapid cycling bipolar disorder.
5. They can kill themselves.
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) states that up to 20% of people with bipolar disorder will kill themselves. That's 1 in 5 people! A frightening statistic. What this means to you is that your spouse with bipolar may very well get into a bipolar depressive episode so deep that they begin to feel so totally helpless and hopeless that they threaten to commit suicide. If they do, you need to be prepared. The most important thing is that you take every single threat of suicide seriously. You just never know when they might actually go through with it.

David Oliver is the nation's leading experts on helping and supporting a loved one with bipolar disorder. You can get learn about many of David's little known, yet effective strategies to cope and deal with your loved one's bipolar by click here.