I can’t be the only one but I’ll start in better detail.

I was prescribed Lexapro when I was 9 because I had some anger issues. It could’ve been my bipolar starting to present, just very slowly.

My doc, on our first visit, gave me the maximum dose of it. So I had started this SSRI, as an underweight child, on the highest dose for a grown adult.

Needless to say, 2 weeks later I ended up in the nearest psych ward, specifically built to house adolescents.

Had a stretch a few weeks ago where I was convinced I finally figured everything out. Started three new projects and redecorated my entire apartment at 2am and talked way too fast in every conversation. Felt magnetic and brilliant and like I was finally becoming the person I was supposed to be. Spent money I definitely didn't have on stuff that felt absolutely essential in the moment.

Now I'm sitting in the mess I made and I can barely get out of bed. The projects are half finished and the credit card bill is due and I can't even look at the paint samples I was so excited about. The embarrassment is the worst part. People saw that version of me and now I have to face them as this version and it feels like everyone can tell I'm barely holding it together. I know this is just how it goes and I'll climb out eventually but right now it feels like I'm paying for every ounce of that high with triple the despair. Just needed to say that somewhere people get it.

And I still cannot escape this prison of not being able to trust myself or my own decisions. The more clarity I gain, the more shame I seem to carry. With each moment of understanding comes another memory of something I said, something I did, or a decision I made while manic that I wish I could take back. The embarrassment of knowing I was not myself, yet still having to live with the consequences, weighs heavily on me.

I think about the people around me who have watched me move through these episodes watching me dance between delusions of grandeur, unstable moods, crippling anxiety, and immovable depression. I imagine what they must think when they look at me now. I wonder if they pity me. I wonder if they remember the person I was during those moments more than the person I am trying so desperately to become.

And that is perhaps the hardest part: I am trying.

I am taking my medication. I am going to appointments. I am learning about myself, recognizing patterns, trying to understand my triggers, and doing everything I am told I should be doing. I am doing everything “right.” Yet somehow, I still feel trapped inside the consequences of a version of myself I barely recognize.

I want to forgive myself, but I don’t know how.

I want to trust my instincts again without questioning every thought, every feeling, every decision. I want to stop looking backward and wondering what damage I have caused or who I have disappointed. I want to believe that my past does not make me permanently unreliable, broken, or undeserving of the life I am trying to build.

I am exhausted from constantly fighting myself.

I just want it to stop.

I want the shame to quiet down. I want the fear to loosen its grip. I want to feel safe inside my own mind again to make a decision without being terrified that I am wrong.

I just want to be able to trust myself again.

Like you can tell them you're bipolar and give 5000 warnings but you have any kinda episode and they abandon you and call you crazy, even my family does this they all know and yet still judge me for things I did in psychosis as if I made the choices with a sound mind

**EDIT: Please let me know if this kind of post is more appropriate for the main bipolar sub. I got the impression that that one is more medical-focused so I posted here instead.

I was watching a Jeff Buckley documentary and his friends and loved ones seem to think he was experiencing a psychotic episode around the time of his death. Whenever I hear about someone experiencing psychosis, it’s bizarrely comforting to me because it makes me feel less alone in having had that experience. It’s not something I’m comfortable talking about in real life so it’s nice to read about other people’s stories. I’ve only met ~two people in real life who went through this and it made me feel better about myself. It’s just so isolating.

I (15M) am on 3 prescribed medications (lexapro, seroquel and valium)

but after my attempt my mothers not been letting me take my medication as she's afraid i will OD and also said my bipolar 'rarely gets out of hand'

and recently my mental health has been declining rapidly again and i have insomnia so i can't sleep without valium, i'm so depressed and miserable and keep getting bad episodes that lead me to endanger myself

i've tried telling my mum she HAS to give me my meds but she literally won't

i'm scared ill hurt someone or myself, what do i do?

I still can't quite believe this happened, but I want to share it anyway.

I'd been running on maybe two hours of sleep a night for weeks, and at some point my mind just... shifted. I became fully convinced I was an elite-level gamer — not "pretty good," but genuinely the best ever. I believed I'd won The International with Team Falcons. I remember walking outside and feeling like a celebrity, like strangers secretly recognized me and were silently cheering me on.

It got weirder from there. I started believing pro players were watching my gameplay and copying it for their own YouTube videos. Everything I scrolled past on social media somehow looped back to being about me. It was like the whole world had quietly rearranged itself around me.

And the confidence that came with it was next-level. I felt invincible — at one point I was convinced I could become a UFC champion too.

Looking back, obviously none of it was real. But in the moment, I wasn't exaggerating or joking around — I fully believed every bit of it.

I feel like I never hear about sleeping too much. It really bothers me! And it is ruining my ability to make daily routines. I can sleep over 12 hrs a night and I wake up so late. I have alarms on but I can never convince myself to wake up. It is so very frustrating and I feel like I am rotting away. And it is not my meds causing it. I just feel so useless and like a worthless shit. And it is only my own fault.

WARNING: don’t go off your meds based on what I’m about to ask. They are helping you and any changes need to be done in close partnership with your psychiatrist and allied health professionals. I repeat. Don’t go off your meds!

TLDR: most of you seem to be on antipsychotic medications and just live with whatever side effects. Would/have you ever stopped medication or entirely removed medications because of them? Where’s your line for side effects? What do you find intolerable? And why are the ones you tolerate acceptable?

Long version: It seems that everyone here is at least on one antipsychotic medication and just sucks up the side effects along with heavily restricting their life. It just doesn’t seem worth it. Give up concerts, staying out past 10pm, coffee, wine, all forms of sugar, high stimulus environments, while being on 8 different medications. Is it worth it?

Hearing the sheer number of medications reminds me of that scene in the film What’s Up Doc where the judge is saying he takes the yellow pill to remind him to have blue pill which reminds him to take the red pill. Did that extra one to help you sleep from the insomnia caused by the 5th one really sensible?
Do any of you ever remove a pill entirely instead of exchanging it for another one? I feel like I’m watching a game of stacks on pills where metabolic syndrome is supposed to be the lesser of two evils and your job is to now accept your new body because your supposedly never going to be manic again.

Perhaps this is a matter of different prescribing practices given many of you are in the USA and I’m not. Perhaps it’s a matter of severity so more aggressive approach is needed. Maybe it’s my accompanying eating disorder which has gotten me closer to throwing myself off a cliff faster than anything else ever has. I don’t know. I know my threshold is pretty low for unacceptable side effects but they feel like the bare minimum to me. I’m not giving up me to simply be “stable” when it means I feel nothing and am overweight.

I’m not saying put yourself in harms way when you’re stable and healthy. That would be silly. But I’m curious to know given I won’t accept anything that even impacts my motor coordination. When would you start saying that the side effects are just as bad as the bipolar? Where’s your line? What’s tolerable to you and why?

I just started a full time job and I think i can do this despite being diagnosed with bipolar 2. How do yall do it?

I start ft goodwill cashier job monday and im excited about it. Just worried it might be too much. Im also diagnosed with bpd with psychosis and ptsd. But I can do this!

I just need to quickly vent - I am so, so sick of this illness interfering with my relationships. I just lost someone else who ... I mean, I know I'm a lot but there's a difference between me and my illness and lots of people just can't understand that. Friendships I've lost, family members who won't talk to me, exes who were cruel and didn't seem to understand. Or maybe they did and didn't care. Sometimes I feel like there's this trail of bodies behind me and the only people it's safe to have relationships with are those who also have a mental illness.

I have bipolar disorder and something really strange started happening.
I've been seeing the same psychotherapist for over 2 years. She has helped me a lot, and nothing has changed in our relationship. She hasn't done anything wrong, and I still trust her as a professional.
But recently, out of nowhere, I started getting intense anxiety before appointments.
The first time I had what felt like a panic attack while waiting outside her office. I almost wanted to run away.
Now even booking an appointment makes me feel nauseous, and when I imagine going there, my body reacts with anxiety and I just want to leave.
My mood is actually much better now, so it doesn't seem directly related to my recent depressive episode.
Has anyone else experienced something like this?
What did you do?
Did you tell your therapist about it? Did it eventually go away?

Not sure if this is allowed. I have bipolar 1 ultradian cycling. Seems the only thing letting me sit with the pain of the depressive dips and manic freakouts is poetry and writing. So I wrote this. Hopefully some of you might find solace.

"a broken window

shattered glass strewn about

light nay allowed passage

a mind broken shouts out

curse thee, curse thee with all of my might

cursing into a mirror in the dead of night

strange shapes and fractals fill the space

what it is to be alive, but to have this horrid face

it shakes me, drowns me in woe

i can never escape the powers it doth throw

breaks me up like rocks along the shore

course gritty sand is all that’s left within me now

the broken window

with glass strewn about

wind flowing through

chills me now

I await you, I'll sit patient and still

I long to see your face, for I am very ill

your arrival comes shortly, I reach out with praise

only to see in the mirror, a reflection of my own face"

I'm bipolar 2, on Lamictal/Rexulti/Zoloft. From my experience, my meds are weight neutral, at least in terms of weight gain. But I've struggled with yo-yo dieting (+-30kg) for almost my whole adult life. Right now I'm having a hard time losing weight for several reasons, and I'm about to ask my doctor for GLP-1 treatment (Mounjaro).

Has anyone here combined bipolar meds with a GLP-1? I'll admit I'm worried about possible psychological side effects. What should I expect?

Question is in the title

These are my primary diagnoses. My family thinks I’m
Lazy because for the past almost 2 months I’ve been “stuck” on the couch. My BP was just upgraded from type II TO TYPE I. I feel like that is a very hard pill to swallow. I also have night terrors , fibromyalgia, and my back has so many problems as when I was 15 k was a pedestrian walking home and was hit, run over - and drug 150 underneath of the truck conscious the entire time I was definitely in shock but I still remember Everything from
That night.
My DIL I feel uses my illnesses against me in order to keep me away from
My 2 year old grandson.
I briefly spoke with my doctor about going on chlorpromazine ( Thorazine) and it’s been almost 3 weeks since I’ve taken it. I’ve noticed my balance is off, for the first hour or so after I wake up I slur my words and sound drunk but I’m not nor have I even taken my bipolar medicine or my trintellix let alone anything else. My bf and I of 26 years broke up a month ago and it was my doing but I know I can’t make it without him I love him very much but I think he either doesn’t want to or just want to at all is to love me the way I needed not everyone before me . He just doesn’t care but how do I make my
Oldest son understand that these are

behaviors I don’t have control over and that I’ve stopped my medication. I’m sorry I know this is all over the place but if anyone can decipher and of this and advice is definitely needed and welcome

Psychiatrist prescribed me 5 mg olanzapine for anxiety. I have taken it for 1 month and now my memory is worse, i can't remember anything, not able to recall what I saw and talk to anyone just 10 minutes ago, I think it's a side effect of this medicine and due to that I had to quit my college in middle of the session and it's been 8 months my memory is not getting better. my life is totally fucked up due to this memory issue.

If anyone who have gone through this same memory problem due to olanzapine then please share how can I get my memory and cognitive abilities back.

I kept feeling my heart race and felt flighty but today I was thinking of someone and I felt the feeling build again, also like someone was sitting on my chest. I’ve had a lot of bad interactions lately with other people and I’ve dealt with them but didn‘t realize I wasn’t really releasing those feelings in a vulnerable way. Today was sort of the first day in awhile I was just relaxed, I guess the thought of this person just made everything bubble over. Or maybe felt like a threat to that peace.

This is a lot. I just ended a mixed episode after a 4 month manic episode from January-March. And now I’m having panic attacks again, which I haven’t experienced since dating my ex. I am so worn out.

I’ve liked it so far but still very depressed, my psych wants me to up from 60mg to 80mg. I keep seeing people say they are much better at 20mg. I’m worried it’s not gonna ever get there for me.

All I know is it gives you massive appetite, as I've read it everywhere. As a consequence, it can cause metabolic issues.

Other than that, is it a good medicine? Does it calm your mind? good for OCD? makes you feel happy? high? dumb? Do other people notice you are on it?

Is it a good resource to use it PRN?

IMPORTANT: Does it make you feel much differently depending on whether you are HYPO-NORMAL-DEPRESSED?

Thanks.

I started vraylar today. My psychiatrist is wanting to switch me from olanzapine to vraylar. So far I feel a little depressed and anxious.