The heart that is soonest awake to the flowers is always the first to be touched by the thorns. The terms may be used interchangeably. Bipolar disorder is a mental illness, but it is more appropriately described as a neurobiological brain disorder involving extremes in mood.
Most medical researchers believe that bipolar disorder is genetic.
Click here to read the ICD-10 Classifications for Bipolar Disorder, from the World Health Organization. The DSM or ICD criteria are merely guidelines, sort of like a check-off list of symptoms. Newly-diagnosed people will sometimes go to the library or bookstore to learn about bipolar disorder. This is because bipolar disorder may be quite complex in its variations, a fact that the popular literature doesn't always address. Each individual has her or his own unique form of the illness.