Excerpt

"... behaviors like not wanting to get out of bed, being irritable and short-tempered, being 'hyper' and reckless or overly critical and pessimistic. Our first reaction to these sorts of behaviors and attitudes is to regard them as laziness, meanness, or immaturity and be critical of them. In a person with bipolar disorder, this almost always makes things worse: criticism reinforces the depressed patient's feelings of worthlessness and failure, and it alienates and angers the hypomanic or manic patient."

From Bipolar Disorder; A Guide for Patients and Families by Francis Mark Mondimore, M.D.