In simple terms
Bipolar 2 is similar to bipolar 1 except that mania is replaced with something called hypomania. This is hard to explain (my psychology professor thought it was too confusing for a college psychobiology course), but I'll try. It's basically like mania only less so (actually, the prefix "hypo-" just means "less"). During a hypomanic episode, people don't seem out of control like if they were manic, and it doesn't interfere with their daily life, but they have more energy than normal, sleep less, and have higher self-esteem. It's sometimes hard to decide where to draw the line between "normal," and "hypomanic," so bipolar 2 is often misdiagnosed as depression, or depression is sometimes misdiagnosed as bipolar 2. So the idea is that people with bipolar 2 will swing between "down," and "up," but the "up" isn't as extreme as with bipolar 1, and it's not that much more "up" than normal.
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Schizophrenia is characterized by visual, auditory, and olfactory hallucinations. What that means is people will see, hear, and even smell things that aren't really there, but they can't tell that they're not there. They'll think that there's someone standing there next to them that they're having a conversation with, but really there's no one there. Schizophrenia is also typically includes paranoia, so the hallucinations often involve someone being out to get them. A lot of times they'll incorporate things they hear in the news, and believe that some collection of 'bad guys' from the news (terrorists, communists, etc.) is out to get them personally, and it's up to them to stop whoever it is.
