What is bipolar disorder? Nikita Dragun shares diagnosis in latest video

Nikita Dragun is one of the most influential beauty creators in the world. She started posting YouTube videos in 2013 and has since amassed over 3.58 million subscribers in her 9 years of content creation.

Being transgender herself, the influencer has repeatedly shown support for the LGBTQ+ community and spoken at length about the mental pressure that comes with being a trans person. She has shared her history with various other issues like body dysmorphia and depression with her fans. In her latest video, Nikita Dragun revealed that she has been suffering from bipolar disorder and shared her experience with it.

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What we know about bipolar disorder

According to Web MD, bipolar disorder is a mental illness that brings severe fluctuations in a person's mood. It is also known as manic depression.

People going through manic depression can have periods where they feel happy and energized and other periods when they feel extremely sad and hopeless. There can also be a gap between the two periods where they feel normal.

The two poles of feeling can often be labeled "manic" and "depression." The word "manic" describes when a person with bipolar disorder feels overtly confident, accompanied by irritability and impulsive or reckless decision-making. People can also experience symptoms like hallucinations.

Some people can experience milder symptoms during their manic episodes, called Hypomania, that do not affect their daily life the way manic does.

The other pole is called "depressive," It has similar symptoms to depressive disorders or clinical depression. People with bipolar disorder tend to experience more depressive symptoms than manic or hypomanic symptoms.

There are a few types of bipolar disorder, Bipolar I disorder, Bipolar II disorder, Cyclothymic disorder, "Unspecified" or "other specified" bipolar disorder, and rapid cycling.

• Bipolar I disorder Extremely erratic behavior that can last more than a week and needs medical attention. It may often be preceded by extreme depression and can last for at least two weeks.
• Bipolar II disorder: Similar symptoms to Bipolar I but with lesser intensity.
• Cyclothymic disorder: Similar but lighter symptoms in Bipolar II. It can last for more than 2 years in adults and 1 year in children.
• "Unspecified" or "other specified" bipolar disorder: When patients experience minor bouts of moods and energy symptoms that define a manic or hypomanic episode. It also lasts for a lesser amount of time, which cannot be considered an episode.
• Rapid cycling is not a type in itself, but it is used to describe the course of illness in people with bipolar I or II disorder. It can be described as the appearance of a mood episode more than four times within a year. It is dominated mainly by depressive lows and has an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors.

While the illness can only be diagnosed with thorough testing by professionals, some symptoms spotted during the mania (the high) are excessive happiness, hopefulness, and excitement, sudden changes from being joyful to being irritable, angry, and hostile, restlessness, rapid speech, and poor concentration, increased energy and less need for sleep.

Some symptoms of the depressive episode (the low) are sadness, loss of energy, feelings of hopelessness or worthlessness, not enjoying things they once liked, and trouble concentrating.

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Nikita Dragun shared her experience of having bipolar disorder

Nikita Dragun posted a 13-minute long video with the caption:

"what happened"

The video explained her mental breakdown in December 2021, sharing how it was challenging for her to talk about her experience. She said:

"I've always said that YouTube is my diary and I've shared every part of my life and for some reason, this is one of the hardest things for me to talk about."

She explained that she had never thought about dealing with something so serious after she finished transitioning from a boy to a girl. Nikita Dragun was visiting her home in Virginia when she had the first episode. She says going through her memories could have triggered her past traumas. She shared her thoughts about the illness by saying:

"People think you're happy one second, you're sad one second. It's like you jump from mood to mood but it's so much different from that."

She added:

"It's almost like two opposite ends. You're either manic or you're depressed and somewhere in the middle of normalcy, and being bipolar you shift from one side to the other but on a really intense scales."

Nikita Dragun revealed that the illness led to a few altercations that landed her in a psychiatric facility because she was a threat to her well-being. She also further shared how her life was within that institution and described her extended stay of eight days there.

Nikita Dragun ended the video by saying that she is continuously working on her mental health and feels that everyone should care about their emotions. She thanked her family and fans who supported her through this challenging time.