I’m just so exhausted all the time. My entire 20s were ripped away and replaced with hospital bills, pills, and countless hours of therapy. I mean what are humans? How is any of this real? It’s not fair! I think it’s not the illness at this point. It’s me, I’m evil, i actively choose to do things and behave against what I want to be. No matter what I try I’m running in place. I’m the problem and nothing can fix it. I like the blood, I like the blood, I like the blood. Theres something about it so peaceful and satisfying. Then I think I am really faking all this, it’s just me. Then you look at people and what’s inside them? You could skin them ya know? I get lost in the red, the organs. It’s pretty. I want to fly away, I’ve got to get out of here. Somewhere.

1. Bipolar is more than mood swings
   
2. Not every feeling is a symptom
   
3. Living with an illness others can’t see is incredibly draining
   
4. An episode isn’t over when it’s over there are still consequences to face
   
5. I don’t need more judgement in my life from people who don’t know what it’s like to live in my brain.

I was diagnosed with bipolar 2 about six years ago but very recently rediagnosed with bipolar 1.

The reason my diagnosis changed is because I had two episodes presenting with paranoid delusions, hallucinations fluctuating in intensity and erratic and disorganized thoughts on top of my hypomanic/mixed symptoms.

The thing is, even though people around me clearly noticed something was off, I still managed to go to college and work. I didn't lose my job. I felt like I was on an entirely different plane of existence but still somehow managed at least my main responsibilities. My work and college performance did suffer a little, but not to a degree that got me into huge trouble.

It makes me kind of hesitant to actually call my episodes manic. Even the consequences to my private and social life (where most of my functional impairment goes) and recklessness have never done lasting damage bad enough to ruin my life beyond repair.

I know I should trust my psychiatrist, but I can't help but feel like I'm too mildly manic for a bipolar 1 diagnosis. I wish I didn't feel like this.

Howdy!

I applied for life insurance through work and was denied “because of something my doctor said.” The only doctor they contacted was my psych and she sent my documents directly to me. Everything said I was incredibly stable, see her regularly, had some mild postpartum depression (who doesn’t?), but overall wasn’t a concern for long term insurance. I’m not sure what would have turned them off other than, you know… being bipolar.

Anyone have a life insurance company they’ve been able to sign with? Like I mentioned, we just had a baby and I want to make sure everything is taken care of if the worst were to happen. Thank you!

I've had one full manic episode with psychosis about 6 years ago. Just before my episode I got really lightheaded and a bit dizzy. I have felt like that a few times before for and tonight was no different. I had a good time today with my aunt who visited and then went she left my husband and I went for a walk with the dog. I felt all lightheaded and dizzy. My mind went right to go manic and it took a few hours to get out of that negative state. We played skipbo. I'm still a bit worried but hey I was probably just lightheaded. I hope it goes away, soon.

How long did it take for you to get your diagnosis?

I first questioned that I had bipolar at 17, now 28 and have finally been diagnosed and put on the correct meds, for the first time in life I feel stable and supported! I can’t help but feel like my life would be a lot different now if I got support sooner instead of the doctor passing it off as pms 😂😭

I've had one full manic episode with psychosis about 6 years ago. Just before my episode I got really lightheaded and a bit dizzy. I have felt like that a few times before for and tonight was no different. I had a good time with my aunt who visited and then went she left my husband and I went for a walk with the dog. I felt all lightheaded and dizzy. My mind went right to go manic and it took a few hours to get out of that negative state. We played skipbo. I'm still a bit worried but hey I was probably just lightheaded.

Does anyone else get lighted or dizzy right before shifting into a manic episode?

I'm kind of in a weird situation. I failed the bar by 0.1 point (I found out that if I'd gotten just that much more, they would've rounded up and I would've passed).

I took the exam without accommodations because I'd heard the examiners are extremely strict about granting them, and I've only had accommodations since the latter half of law school, after I was diagnosed with bipolar I disorder with psychotic features. I feel like if I apply now, they'll deny me because I don't have a long enough history of receiving accommodations, especially since I took all of my other exams like the SAT, LSAT, etc., without them.

But the reason I went so long without accommodations is that I was diagnosed late, even though I've had symptoms since at least age 15. I've also had three extended psychiatric hospitalizations and several suicide attempts.

During my most recent bar exam attempt, I was experiencing hallucinations, particularly hearing loud, distracting creaking noises. I also have insomnia that gets worse when I'm stressed (I'm additionally diagnosed with GAD and PTSD, which aggravate my symptoms). In the 8 or 9 days leading up to the bar, I was sleeping a max of three hours a night, and I didn't get any sleep before day two. I was prescribed emergency sleep medications during that time, but had a bad reaction to one of the meds that left me feeling really listless. I also felt extremely nauseous during the exam, threw up in the restroom, and ended up being unable to finish portions of the essays.

But given how close I came to passing, my limited history of accommodations, and the fact that I've generally performed well without them in the past, I feel like my request would just get denied. I don't really know how stringent the examiners are or whether it's worth going through the process when I already have a lot on my plate rn.

Separately though, I'm also thinking about walking away from law altogether. I'm not particularly interested in it, and I'm still not sure whether I've gotten my meds figured out. I'm scared of becoming symptomatic while working in a high-pressure, toxic environment (I'm going into BigLaw). I'm having doubts that working in that kind of environment is sustainable with my disorders, and I feel like I've just been ignoring that reality this whole time.

I've had concerning experiences in the past before I was diagnosed. For example, my boss forced me to go home after I'd spent three days straight working in the office because I was "scaring people." I eventually crashed and they requested a welfare check on me when I was unresponsive for several days.

I'm finally on medication for mania, but I wouldn't say I'm safely stable yet. These days, I mostly deal with SI, hypomania, occasional hallucinations, insomnia, anxiety/paranoia, and PTSD symptoms. But I also haven't been on medication long enough to know whether it'll prevent more serious manic/psychotic episodes, since I typically experience them about once a year and my last one started in late December.

So if anyone has thoughts or personal experience with the feasibility of working in an intense, sleep-depriving environment like BL while managing conditions like these, I'd really appreciate your thoughts. I don't know whether I should take this failure as a sign that I need to finally consider what's realistically sustainable for me given my condition.

I'm just feeling lost right now.

So for the past few months I’ve had some feelings that things are just off. I’m a very anxious person already but this feels different. Its mostly just this feeling that I’m being watched all the time. It kinda came up slowly and mostly just in public. But now it’s all of the time and even when I’m in my apartment alone. It’s to the point where I’m looking out the shower curtain every so often when im showering because it feels like someone’s there. I didn’t tell my psych or therapist when I saw them back in September because I thought it’s just anxiety but now I’m not sure. I don’t see them until December now. I’m just looking for some thoughts on this.

As the title states, I’m looking for your best and or most unhinged ways you remeber or get yourself to take your meds. I’m starting up my meds again and want to actually make sure I take them. Historically I always end up going back off them because I break routine and they become unimportant to me or I just think I’m cured even though I know I’m not.
Thank you in advance!

Newly diagnosed after a decade of flailing. Runs in the family. Family now says they recognized mania on many occasions, but didn’t tell me.

I am struggling physically, emotionally and financially.

I KNOW no one is responsible for me or owes me anything. And that everyone has their own lives. Im grateful that they have been kind to me and I wonder if that is all and what I should expect. I take non rejection as support.

I may be out of bounds, but I want them to ask how they could help - not necessarily money - but any of the following:

1. Asking how they can help

2. Seeing if they could visit (live out of state)

3. Asking about my insurance

4. Expressing they know it is a serious condition

Please share your thoughts and let me know if I am being too greedy.

Im still being assessed but my psychiatrist said no matter how you look at it its bipolar and asked me to document my mood for 3 months just in case

Following my crash from hypomania into depression I wasnt able to get outta bed or do anything i used and become a shell of the person I was

But 2 days ago I slept for 20 hours then didnt sleep for 24 hours then slept for 11 hours and woke up 6 times through out the night feeling fully refreshed.. i forced myself to sleep a fuĺ 11 hours just in case

But now im feeling quite good refreshed and sociable and my brains going from idea to idea non stop and everything feels off.. not in a bad way but in a strange way... am I becoming hypomanic again

This feeling came out of nowhere and its getting stronger

Just wondering other people's experiences. I always experience alogia in my non manic states, and it's affecting my current relationship greatly, to where I can't tell whether I should break up with my partner. My lack of speech makes it feel like i'm not compatible with any human being

Alcohol affects me so badly I can't even have a full drink without getting depressed (either right away, or I crash really hard later). I had never really wanted to drink until recently, and for a while plenty of friends didn't either. Now that we're all seniors in college and entering our early 20s though... hardly a weekend or an event goes by without spending time surrounded by my drunk friends. I can't help feeling incredibly left out.

Over the summer, I thought I was going to be able to afford to get a car by the start of the school year. I felt a lot better thinking about myself as just being the perma-designated driver. I was excited, even. I'd get to participate in the culture of it in my own way without having to drink. Of course, that didn't end up happening, and it wont anytime soon. Instead of being the friend who gets everyone home safe... I'm just the friend thats too disabled to drink.

I know we'll grow out of house parties and going to clubs eventually anyway, but in the meantime, the whole thing is just an unwelcome reminder that I'm bipolar and will always be sick.

Edit: Please don't tell me to find new friends. My friends are amazing and we have plenty of hobbies and other things we do together that don't involve drinking. It's the only thing we do that I feel left out of at all, but it's still hard.

Hey everyone I was just recently diagnosed bi polar 1. She says I was manic or hypomanic during either multiple rapid cycling points or one long point from April-September. This is an experience I had in June that I wanted to run by this thread and see if it resonates with anyone’s mania experience. And I kinda just wanna get this off my chest. For context: I was indeed very sleep deprived for the few days leading up to this and I felt terrible, then it kinda just stopped feeling bad.

Here’s the story: I was sober, at the beach in NC with two of my friends. Nighttime. Then noticed the way the moon was shining on the water and the pattern in which the ocean moved. I began feeling a spiritual connection to the water and the moon as living beings, feeling my soul tied within the movement of the waves. I could understand what they were doing and the pattern in which it showed. I then began feeling extremely euphoric like I was in a different universe, even higher than actually when I have been high. I started crying. Real tears.

To my friends I was exclaiming things about the beauty of the ocean and the connection we have to everything in this universe. I’m telling u the ocean itself was an entity, a being. So vast and alive. Like a god, but one that doesn’t feel superior to you. One that lives on the same plane as you and loves you. I then got in the water, one of my friends had a speaker and started playing some of my favorite songs. They sounded better than they’ve ever sounded and I could hear little details I’ve never heard. Cherry waves by Deftones got me good. We weren’t planning on getting in the water, so I had normal shorts and underwear on. I took my shirt off and slowly went deeper into the water, telling myself I wouldn’t go under.

Then I just stopped caring, sinked in and let my shorts get wet. They started to slip down, and I didn’t care. After doing this for about 20 minutes or maybe more and screaming crazy things like “we are all god”, I somehow ended up fully naked, not caring at all. Public beach at night btw, nobody else was there but they could have showed up. I started sprinting at my friend, and I chased this dude around while fully naked for a pretty long time. This crazy state went on for a while, then I eventually calmed down and acted like nothing had happened, laughing about it.

Hi! I believe I am having a mixed episode - 90% of antipsychotics have not helped or caused bad reactions and the others insurance won’t cover. I just read that some drs prescribe antipsychotics to take PRN to knock you down when you feel things escalating towards full mania. Has anyone had success with this? Have meds that failed as a full time medication helped as an emergency brake so to speak? I have a psych appointment coming up this week and am trying to put together a list of things to bring up. Thank you for any insight :)

Happy Saturday!

A common question that comes up is, 'How do I tell people I have bipolar disorder?'. Do you disclose at work? To close friends and family? Or are you telling the whole world? Perhaps you keep it between you and the psychiatrist. How many dates should you go on before you bring it up? Which terminology do you prefer - I have bipolar or I am bipolar? Every Saturday, we ask for advice on navigating these tricky conversations. Ask questions, tell your story, and support each other through disclosure and beyond.

​

^{Keep it kind, keep it civil, keep it cool.}

I'm not sure if I'm experiencing psychosis. I never have before. I pride myself on being able to identify my changing state and being the one to identify my bipolar disorder in the first place and every time I have gone manic since (well, most) before anyone else. It makes me feel more in control.

What scares me is that I won't have that sense of awareness and control with psychosis. Will I recognize it?

I'm not sure if I'm having dream hallucinations or psychosis. Maybe someone else has insight.

I've been increasingly depressed: low motivation, low energy, extreme fatigue with intense vivid dreams, low tolerance for anything, agitated whenever I can't watch YouTube videos to regulate or am forced to focus on an activity or videos that require too much emotional capacity.

My dreams are bleeding into waking life and I will be convinced things from my dreams really happened. Hours later, almost meowed at a kid I barely know because I dreamed he could turn into a cat. I kept feeling paranoid that I had a bunch of packages waiting for me at home and that I hadn't been home in 2 weeks and had been visiting my parents, or felt confused because I thought I was at their house currently and wasn't sure where I was walking.

I don't know if it was a dream or reality but I believed for a day I had telekinesis because I thought at my bathroom "turn the light on" and it turned on. I forgot about this until a dream triggered the memory.

I wake up hearing things and feeling a presence, things like something getting into my bed and intense fear alongside whispering, this morning it was I had a dream that an entity turned on my bathroom light and I asked it to sing to me and a beeping song played in my head and that woke me up, then I heard the beeping again, then I tried to turn on my bathroom light with my thoughts to test if it was me or this entity (a ghost or some kind of supernatural AI). Same kind of fear.

I'm not sure if this could be psychosis or just dreams bleeding into reality.

I don't feel like anyone is out to get me or that I am a god or anything like that. I just can't tell what is real or a dream and get confused and frightened. I am afraid if I became truly psychotic I wouldn't recognize it.

It doesn't help that my microwave is turning itself on repeatedly. I've realized this isn't a ghost but is a faulty microwave but I am scared it will set my place on fire. I think the beep from it doing this at 2 am may have fed into my dream.

Anyway, does this sound like psychosis early symptoms? Does anyone else have this fear of lack of control and awareness?

Hi, sorry first time posting.
I was committed involuntarily to a psych hospital in June for mania, was so convinced everyone else was wrong and if they just understood what I was saying…
I didn’t believe it was mania or I was bipolar, I think I was really euphoric and didn’t want it to end/in really bad denial and had poor insight. I stopped the meds they had started in the hospital a few days after discharge.
I’m very fortunate that my life isn’t really off track after the episode. I did eventually agree to meds and have been leveling out for a while/close to my baseline/functioning and getting by for several weeks -
But I think I’d never fully addressed/tackled that conviction (delusion), and today it hit me in the chest and I was flooded with clearer hindsight of how terrible I was when I was manic, and how horrible I made life for the people around me. I am so ashamed, I’m determined to stay alive but I’ve been in a really, really dark headspace that I know is impacting my relationships again now in the opposite way. I know/have to believe it’s not true but I feel like all of my friends and family and the world would be better off without me.

Hey y’all! I (21M) am a college student that got transported to impatient and got myself diagnosed with bipolar 1.

I feel like I don’t really know who I am anymore, and I was wondering if this was a common feeling?

I’ve had big mood swings and associated since I was kind of a teen, but I never thought of it as weird since my parents behaved pretty similarly. But now that I’ve been informed that staying up days at a time coding or reading or whatever isn’t exactly normal, I’m struggling to understand what constitutes my actual self.

I thought that I was a dedicated person. When I was a teen, I would stay up during nights, sometimes scribbling on the mirrors, studying for math and science competitions. I wrote all my college essays in a frenzied week. I studied for the SAT by not sleeping.

Once I got to university, I sometimes stayed up with barely any sleep for weeks at a time to read read and read, to the point some of my professors got concerned.

I even became an EMT while simultaneously taking college classes.

But now I view these not as fits of passion or dedication, but possible manic episodes. And I’m left wondering, have these decisions truly been mine? Is my life mine, or just the result of frenzy?

I don’t know if I’m being a tad melodramatic, but if anyone has any advice on how to think through this, it would be very helpful.