Depression or bipolar? difference?

You have to experience EXTREME highs, not just days/weeks of "feeling better." Things have to exhilirate you to an extreme, life becomes amazingly complex and abstract but so understandable. You feel like you're on a constant IV-feed of Rockstar, and sleep is a non-issue... you can go days without a blink of it. Sometimes the two extremes clash and you get what is called a "mixed episode," where your mind stays dark but has all of the energy of a hypomania/mania, only far more agitated, hostile, and irritable. Those suck the worst.

I am Bipolar and I suffer from Clinical Depression so I'm very happy to help you. Depression is being sad all the time. Sadness that you just can't snap out of. Depression is part of Bipolar Disorder. Bipolar people swing between depression and mania. When you are manic you are in a very up mood. You are hyper, don't sleep, you have racing thoughts and rapid speech, you feel as if you are driven by a motor. When I'm manic I go on spending binges. It's good that you are going to see a doctor about it. I would tell your doctor that you are worried about your depression being part of Bipolar disorder. Tell him everything that you are feeling and then he should be the one asking you questions. That's what you are paying him for. Good luck.

Bi-polar is the new name for "manic depressive".

Some people are chronically depressed - always feeling low - can't deal with life.

Some are dysthymic - not fully depressed, but not hitting any highs either.

Manic-depressive was a term for people who were alternately extremely juiced up (manic) or deeply low (depressed). It was renamed to bi-polar, but it basically refers to encompassing the two emotional extremes. Pure depression just lives in one extreme and never travels to the other.