Bipolar disorder is a mental disease that moves you up and down between enthusiasm and obsession and even desperate gloominess.
And as though these two aren't horrible enough on their own, bipolar disorder may choose from time to time to mix them both up in your mind.
Why else do you think so many people decide to call it quits with live, midway between? Your mixed disorder episodes aren't like a relief or a balance for the symptoms of the disease.
Actually, they are periods of rapid cycling of the two far poles that characterize it, but a third party layman may not know that.
What they see is just you freaking out, and before long they freak out themselves.
You cannot - or should not - try to treat this disorder using the standard antidepressant.
That could just send you into the manic phase of the condition in a very short time.
The same works in the other direction.
The standard mania medications may just put you in a horrid depression.
That's why there must be a medication that balances both properties.
There are all kinds of medications that treat acute manic-depressive illness, but they are not drugs that you can get on your own.
As a matter of fact, most medical professionals in the field dislike prescribing and having you go buy them, and instead would rather administer them to you by themselves.
That is much safer for them because they are trying to avoid situations where you make mistakes and make the condition worse than it already is.