I am curious as to what some of the symptoms are. I have quite a few friends that say they have one of these conditions but I'm not sure whether or not they are just saying it for attention or if they really have it.
ADD/ADHD refers to an inability to concentrate on the task at hand. People often fidget, daydream, etc instead of paying attention. The H (hyperactivity) is generally only used to describe children/teenagers, in which ADD often comes along with hyperactivity.
Bipolar disorder is one of the most misunderstood terms in psychiatry. It is not "mood swings" or "getting angry easily". It is all of the symptoms of depression, along with a mania: almost like being high amphetamines/cocaine, without the drugs. People in manic episodes often spend money recklessly, have sex haphazardly, sleep very little or not at all, talk way too fast, can't sit still, and generally think they can do anything. Episodes of mania last for weeks, and episodes of depression last for months or years. Bipolar disorder is generally a life-long illness — there are drugs that help, but it doesn't usually get cured or 'go away'. The disorder most commonly starts in the 20s. About 1% of people have (or will develop) bipolar disorder.
ADD stands for attention deficit disorder. It is a disorder that makes it difficult for the sufferer to pay attention. These are the type of people who may be smart, but don't do well in school because they have a hard time paying attention to the material. They tend to "zone out" and often need medication to stay on track.
ADHD stands of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It is much the same as ADD except the sufferer has a difficulty paying attention due to their hyperactivity. My mother had a student in her class years ago that was ADHD and without his medication he was on top of his desk, running around the classroom, screaming at other students etc. when medicated it was the difference between night and day. He was cool, calm, and collected.
In a nutshell:
ADD=hard to pay attention
ADHD=hard to pay attention because of hyperactivity
Bipolar disorder is a mental disorder that causes extreme high and lows in a persons emotion. These people will go from being happy to angry and back in a matter of minuets. we all have these tendencies to jump around from emotion to emotion but the difference with being bipolar are the strengths from these fluctuations and how frequent they are. Think about it this way; a situation that would cause a normal person to be mad would cause a bipolar person to be extremely angry, hypothetically, of course.
Hope this helped.
ADHD and ADD people cannot concentrate very well. ADD may not have high activity levels. Many ADHD people are very sensitive to outward stimuli and could be though of as bipolar, since they can be calm for a little while and then irritable and very upset, if they happen to have food sensitivities.
Symptoms of ADD are that you can get really hyper and cant concentrate
on certain things. often people with ADD talk alot.
Symptoms of Bipolar are LOTS of different mood swings, or one moment
your really happy, and then when someone says something you might get really angry for no apparent reason.
Im not sure about the ADHD though