bipolar

anyone else bipolar on WSO? how has it affected your life and any specific advice for someone who was diagnosed pretty recently? I went through a mental health crisis that was tough a couple months ago and sent me to the ER and then to a mental hospital for a little while where I was diagnosed with bipolar 1. I said a lot of hurtful things to people when I was going through this mental health crisis and was in a manic state and I keep thinking about hurtful things that I said to people when I was going through this mental health crisis and I feel terrible. I've already apologized to a lot of the people who I said these hurtful things to but I still feel terrible about the whole situation and I feel like I pretty much ruined at least one personal relationship by saying so many hurtful things to the person and just freaking out on them generally speaking. I'm on some meds now but it sort of (not totally) happened out of no where a couple months ago so part of me is worried about the future since it happened sort of out of no where last time so I am worried that it could happen out of no where again. also sort of tough to just know that you have a disorder that could totally screw up your life if you enter a manic state and make reckless decisions or that you are 10-30x more likely to kill yourself than a person without bipolar is. just as worried as I am about reentering a manic state I am also worried about entering an extreme depressive state where I want to kill myself. I don't know if I wanted to kill myself because I'm not really sure what wanting to kill yourself is supposed to feel like exactly but when I was in the mental hospital there were a couple times when I was dealing with totally unbearable agitation and had to either get a sedative after freaking out or just lay there in extreme agony until the unbearable agitation subsided but these are situations that I see as having potentially escalated to trying to hurt myself and I am worried that I might feel that way again. feel free to ask me any questions about bipolar while we are here.

 

pretty good song about bipolar: "There's a chemical in your brain
It's pouring sunshine and in rage
You can never know what to expect
You're manic, manic"

 

but yeah in case anyone is curious it was an extremely scary experience, I unreasonably thought that there was some sort of conspiracy going on and was afraid that I was going to get assassinated when I was in the ER. I barricaded the door to the isolation room when I was in the ER to try and make it harder for someone to enter the room and kill me and then when I was being transported to the mental hospital I was crying saying that I needed a bulletproof vest because I thought that someone was going to try and snipe me when I went outside. yeah it was scary.

 

Also just being strapped down or whatever and having people stick needles in you to sedate you while you are scared and begging them not to stick stuff in you but they do it anyway was scary to go through even though I understand why they had to do that

 

So I have dated girls in my past who were bipolar. Also had other relationships with other, light or more severe disorders. With all due respect to her and others in her position, I think it is something I wouldn't want to do again. As a boyfriend all I wanted was to help, support, love her and be there for her. Medical conditions like mood disorders or personality disorders can be severe and very difficult to handle. They may have a heavy impact on all lives around the person and it really requires a lot of time, effort and external help (ie support groups and therapy).

For younger men, this is unlikely to yield a happy relationship, if I am honest. Not sure if the efforts will have an effect or if the couple will make it.

About half of my ex's had a mood or personality disorder, not sure how/why so many. could be a coincidence though.

 

Thanks for the response. I have never been in a relationship however I could see how being bipolar could make a relationship more challenging, especially considering that when I was going through my mental health crisis the people who were impacted the most in a negative way were the people who I cared about the most.

 

I am in no way saying that people with personal challenges don't deserve to be in a relationship. But the vast majority of users on here seem very young and male (high school/college years or early in their career). That demographic may not necessarily be the best to handle relationships with enormous challenges.

Older men, more mature men or people in general could make it work.

Boyfriends or girlfriends want to help and support, but they are not therapists and would often not know what to do or how to react.

best of luck to you and thanks for sharing.

 
Most Helpful
kodi

So I have dated girls in my past who were bipolar. Also had other relationships with other, light or more severe disorders. With all due respect to her and others in her position, I think it is something I wouldn't want to do again. As a boyfriend all I wanted was to help, support, love her and be there for her. Medical conditions like mood disorders or personality disorders can be severe and very difficult to handle. They may have a heavy impact on all lives around the person and it really requires a lot of time, effort and external help (ie support groups and therapy).

For younger men, this is unlikely to yield a happy relationship, if I am honest. Not sure if the efforts will have an effect or if the couple will make it.

About half of my ex's had a mood or personality disorder, not sure how/why so many. could be a coincidence though.

There is a big difference between someone who is bipolar and can’t handle it versus someone who successfully manages it.

You can’t stereotype a whole group of people just because they were diagnosed with a mental disorder.

There are in general three categories:

a) Undiagnosed and not managed well

b) Diagnosed but not managed well

c) Diagnosis and responsive to therapy/treatment 

I have been successful with behavioral and chemical therapy since 2013 and generally feel I am much more tuned in than the average person who doesn’t know their coping mechanisms or support systems. By now, for me any drugs I take have been tested out successfully, even to which I know the doses to take for every scenario that comes up. When you break psychologically a few times, you learn to see the signs and signals that put you in a manic state and learn to avoid it the next time as going into full blown mania isn’t healthy. 

So overall, don’t stereotype people with certain mental illnesses, because there are a large number of people who have something and deal with it successfully.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

well, I wasn't referring to you or people who do manage it. The girls in my life never wanted the help they needed.
Also, when I said "younger men" I meant me, not people who are affected. should have clarified. What I meant was that I am not mature enough to be a boyfriend to girls who are affected. That is on me, not her.

 

thanks for the question. my last and only extreme up (manic state) was in march and extreme enough to send me to the ER like it mentioned. during it in the beginning I felt great and even said that it was the happiest I've been in my entire life, I felt like my mind was on overdrive and I was thinking 100x faster. you think it's great at first in the moment but it causes a lot of destruction and then you have to live with your decisions after the fact. I might have experienced lesser forms of ups in the past but I'm not exactly sure since bipolar wasn't on my radar before march, I haven't experienced another up since march. in terms of downs I would say that I've dealt with manageable bouts of depression for a long time but my experience is probably pretty similar to others who have dealt with depression and nothing that extreme. I was never so depressed that I wanted to kill myself or anything but I was very sad, sad is not the right word though, more just totally apathetic, wanting to lay in bed all day every day and finding it hard to get up and do anything, a lot of people have dealt with similar experiences to this based on what I've read. when I got out of the hospital I spent pretty much all the free time I had just laying in bed not wanting to do anything, once my outpatient program was over and I didn't have anything to do during the days I would lay in bed all day every day for days on repeat. I would say that the lows that I have dealt with have been relatively mild but still sort of challenging because they can persist for a long time to the point where feeling totally apathetic and like nothing is enjoyable starts to become baseline.

 

I would also say that the feeling of mania is extremely bittersweet. Imagine you deal with depression for years then you experience a manic phase where you feel like you have figured everything out and finally are just happy only to learn that your elated mood was just the result of a manic state. if you have never experienced mania you might not be able to relate unless you've done coke or something what it feels like to be in this kind of manic state. I've never done coke so I don't know if it's similar or not but I just wanted to be awake all the time and legitimately felt like some kind of god. even when I was not doing much during this manic state just going on a walk or something I felt amazing. I didn't understand properly what was going on at first because I didn't know that I was bipolar so I thought that I had unlocked happiness and was just going to feel like that forever or something. So it's bittersweet when that ends even though it was destructive you felt like a god at least in the beginning before you got paranoid and angry, you lose those negative aspects which is good but you also lose that amazing euphoria.

 

Had a co-worker who very very likely was bipolar. During his manic phases, he was killing it and was one of the top revenue earners for the firm. As a result, people put up with his crap when he swung to the other end. Kind of an interesting dynamic but strangely enough, it worked for him at the firm.

 

interesting. maybe he was experiencing more of a hypomanic phase when he was killing it. full on mania oftentimes puts you in a hospital or jail. when you experience hypomania, your energy level is higher than normal, but it is not as extreme as mania. what kind of crap did he pull when he 'swung to the other end'?

 

As you can see, the way you write can be used to identify you ;)

 

Also maybe if I wanted to be anonymous you shouldn't have called me out but I don't care that much

 

I have been diagnosed with severe manic depression and have been through it all, but finally stabilized and on meds since 2013, so don’t go through mania or severe depression anymore. 

I eventually want to write a book about dealing with the bipolar illness - sort of like a handbook. Similar to “An Unquiet Mind:”

https://www.amazon.com/Unquiet-Mind-Memoir-Moods-Madness/dp/0679763309

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

This is another book that looks good - sometimes I have artistic tendencies.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/068483183


Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

touched with fire is kind of a boring book. I want to write a movie that is just about bipolar I only have the first 7-8 pages of the screenplay written though.

 

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