...we used to call this "manic depression"
This is an illness that has depression as feature, but also periods of the opposite mood - pathologically elated states where the sufferer is literally too high in mood and recklessly happy! This you may be thinking would be great, a really desirable place to be, but in reality it is actually incongruous and can lead to extremes of behaviour, financial and sexual recklessness, excessive risk taking and so forth. This is called mania, or milder variants are hypomania.
In mania, the sufferer may display:
- elation, sustained and incongruous or decoupled to reality
- or instead very severe sustained irritability
- accelerated thoughts
- fast, loud "pressured" speech, jumping from topic to topic rapidly
- very high energy levels and activity but often failing to finish any one task
- markedly reduced need for sleep - may not sleep at all for days on end with no let up in activity
- grandiosity and egotistical thoughts and behaviour not usual for their character
- sexual and financial recklessness, over spending
- delusions of grandeur and also hallucinations in severe cases
under construction