B) Depressive episode symptoms
1. Sadness
The basic feeling of bipolar disorder patients during a depressive episode is sadness, but not every case is manifested the same way. It is not a normal feeling of sadness one might experience over the loss of loved ones and other episodes. This is extreme sadness and despair and works differently than people with depression.
In the brain, bipolar patients in their depressive episodes are different than clinically depressed patients. This is why the traditional antidepressant treatment for clinical depression does not work with bipolar disorder, and we should look for alternate ways to improve the symptoms of these patients. Similar to clinical depression, bipolar patients are unable to control or regulate their emotions, and whenever they have a bout of severe depression, they are unable to bounce back to feeling optimistic once again.
