Brugh, there are times I get up in the morning and not say a word (for reason of not wanting to hear it) and all hell breaks loose with no reason for it. There is no hostile enviorment around here until she goes bananas over the most minor thing. She pisses off everybody in the house and the next minute she want's to hug and be lovey dovey the next minute...only everybody is in a fucked up mood for the rest of the day.
When i say enviroment, i dont mean "in the moment". There are several things that can trigger someone to go hi of low. Maybe she has something on her mind and it escalates to where it needs to be released. Just becuase YOU see her moods swings as unprovokved, in her mind, it may be a different scenario. Something that happend the week before could be lingering in her mind and that can set it off.
There are also different extremes if bipolar disorder...some have it mildly while others experience it in extreme form.
My friend has biploar disorder and he can be set off by something and he will completely fly off the handle to the point of pulling guns out. I have sat and talked to him about it and he does nto realize it gets that bad, becuase for him is it normal. But many times, he'll tell me that something set him off in his head...whether it be a bad conversation with his mom days prior, or a fight with his girlfriend/something she did a week ago. Other times, he will get irritated with someone and he will fly off the handle.
This is what i mean by "trigger". This is not to say that every mood swing is triggered by something, and that is not always the case, but we are NOT in these folks' heads.
Bipolar disorder is catergorized a as
MOOD disorder
And like "azryda420" said, there are no good meds for it (unless your seeking suicide).
Medication ALWAYS works differently with everyone, so it may work well for others and not work at all for some. Some people have it so bad that they have to be in a controlled environment. There is an apartment building a few blocks from my house that houses people that have mood and other mental disorders who can actually function in every day life, they just need constant monitoring. An old friend of mine had a buddy that lived there who suffered from mania, or manic depression as most call it. You would never know it if you met him, one of the most solid and kind people I have ever encountered.