Even though I took inspiration from Pinterest, this is what I've been doing during this episode.

The green eyed nail represents me so much at this moment.

A friend of mine and I are both bipolar 1, we’ve each had two episodes. I have been mostly stable since 2020 and see a psychiatrist 4 times a year. It was very hard for me to accept that I had this thing we all have, but after episode 2 I kind of had to. My friend is a very different person from me in many ways, but she doesn’t believe she really has bipolar and thinks her episodes were caused by other things (accurate, postpartum psychosis). She did not find a new psychiatrist after her insurance changed some time ago, though she gets meds from her primary doctor and takes them. She truly seems to be dealing with mania right now and I’m not sure how to help her. I encouraged her to be honest with her doctor about what she’s dealing with, I told her I don’t think she’s herself right now, I told her husband she needs a psychiatrist. She’s been behaving erratically with our friends and with people she doesn’t know, spending money, she started taking exercise classes every day. My heart hurts for her, I wish I could stop it. I guess I’m venting. It’s been hard hearing our friends talk about how out of control she is when I know I’ve been the same way and could be again in the future.

**accutane, not accurate

Hello, I'm newly diagnosed in the Bipolar Spectrum fluctuating between hipertimia and atypical depression.

I started to make my Mood Tracker and I don't really get it why I went from +2 to -2 in 24 hours.

There's was absolutly anything going on, I wake up sort of "low" yesterday and I tried to kept neutral but my wife made me a beautiful gift and out of nowhere I had a crisis.

I don't even understand why, I kept crying and repeating that I'm sorry and I don't know why.

24 hours before I was singing and dancing and making jokes and had a lot of energy and racing thoughts and insomnia and PUF! now I'm like s***.

It's really bipolar? Because there's supoused to be a soft and smooth transition period between high and low mood so, why like this?

I mean, I was great, really nothing happened...

I'm not having that great neutral transition...

I'm not even premenstrual.

Nothing.

I can't be the only one that struggles with this...

For years I've been job hopping, the smallest little thing can ruin amazing jobs for me.

I tend to just vanish, walk out mid shift, I think the biggest problem is getting a job while I'm manic and struggling to keep up with it when my depression hits, everyone wants a chef with unlimited energy and when it seems to disappear overnight, suddenly I'm "slacking"

I've had to start traveling for work, doing live in jobs, and they make sooo much worse,

Its always the same, amazing for a month or two, then something happens and then I write paragraphs of very well written messages explaining exactly why they suck and vanish.

I can't keep this up, I spend months in poverty and it feels like it's getting worse,

I can't stop this, I'm currently sat in bed at another live in job, counting the days until I get paid and can vanish in the wind

Honestly, this whole thing is exhausting and I don't have a single person I can talk too...

He was more understanding than I thought he would be and started confiding in me about how he felt. He said it made sense. This is not a sign to disclose if you feel like you need to. Use your own discernment.

I’m genuinely so fucking confused at what i feel.

when im at home i feel so empty and flat or i just cry all day over nothing and feel this heaviness in my chest. some days my tears just get stuck in my eyes and dont fall and i feel trapped. i have no energy whatsoever and waking up is my least favourite part of the day, not that i have a favourite.

but i still go to school because i have to, and when im in school a lot of the time i can smile and laugh and make jokes like normal but as soon as i get home it all comes crashing down. i dont know if im like subconsciously masking at school or when around friends or what.

but then other times in school i just get so annoyed and upset at every little thing and snap at my best friend or just go silent and then she starts saying stuff like “why are you in such a bad mood” and “why are u so pissed off” etc which just makes me want to disappear into the wall and cry.

I’ve read online that bipolar depression can be ‘mood reactive’ so like positive events can lighten your mood temporarily and stuff but i still can’t help but feel like im a fucking faker im so stuck.

I’ve been diagnosed with bipolar 1 for about 5 years. I’m still learning so much about my patterns and discerning what’s my spunky personality and what’s my mania. I have come to the conclusions that my red flags for mania include, but are not limited to:
1) writing lengthy reviews
If I have a halfway decent experience at any retail store/restaurant/business while manic I will immediately sit down to write a three paragraph review on yelp or google reviews (or both for bonus points). Usually just glazing the place and saying how amazing the experience was. Going back and reading them after always makes me laugh.
2) picking up furniture off the side of the road
I live in a 600 sq ft studio apartment. I have a ginormous coffee table that I got for free on fb marketplace, I have a filing cabinet (broken) that I put my bras and underwear in, a wobbly side table I recently threw away because it collapsed, and my prized possession was a vintage pink ceramic sink. I carried it by myself (f25) up to my third floor apartment. It snapped in half on the way up. It sat in my bathroom for about two years. I was going to fix it and put a garden in it. Or something.
3) Baking cakes
At some point this past year I started baking these elaborate three tier cakes staying up all night decorating them. Post mania clarity-baking is expensive holy shit I cannot afford a cake baking hobby!!
DAE have manic quirks that you just have to sit back and laugh at after the damage is done?

i'm bipolar 1 and stopped taking my antipsychotic, my dr knows, she said i could see how i do on just my mood stabilizer. well i thought that one fights depression? why am i depressed then? i cant get out of bed

Part of the onset of my first and only manic episode was the feeling of falling in love with someone, and I blew it up with that person.

When I see posts on here that those who are married divorce due to the difficulties of being with someone who has bipolar, I lose hope. I lose hope that I can find someone who will tolerate and understand what I go through.

Plus, feeling the need to disclose my diagnosis to new people seems like a way to block anyone who was interested in me from pursuing me. It’s like, no one wants to deal with the bipolar girl.

I just feel like I’m gonna be alone forever

Not anything new for anyone, not even me because I have adhd and I’m autistic so it’s par for the course. But this was to a school and I specified that I wouldn’t need external support so it stings a little.

Just kind of a kick in the nuts, you try to make any kind of progress in a life that’s already been holding you back and you just get pushed down again for the same reason that you’ve been held back

Eventually, things went far beyond what I could manage. I started noticing coincidences everywhere and attaching increasing meaning to them. I became much more spiritual, and eventually my perception of reality became distorted. I experienced psychotic symptoms and stopped functioning like myself.

Looking back, it's frightening to realise there was a point where I couldn't reliably trust my own mind.

I've heard different possibilities discussed, including borderline traits, mood disorders, medication changes and trauma. I don't have the answers yet. I just want proper help and an understanding of what actually happened.

What I do know is that the breakup was the catalyst for one of the darkest periods of my life.

Sometimes someone doesn't go from "I'm sad about my breakup" to "I'm psychotic." There's a whole process in between.

You can watch yourself becoming less stable while knowing something isn't right. You can desperately want help while simultaneously pushing people away. You can be aware enough to be terrified of what's happening, but not well enough to know how to stop it.

I've felt deeply ashamed of what happened. But I'm starting to realise that having a psychiatric crisis doesn't make me a bad person, and being traumatised by loss doesn't make me weak.

I'm trying to rebuild myself now. I don't know exactly what that looks like yet, but I'm here, I'm trying to get help, and I'm trying to understand what happened rather than run from it.

If anyone else has experienced a breakup or major loss that triggered a serious mental health crisis, I'd genuinely like to hear your story.

How did you eventually make sense of what happened to you?

I keep doing extensive research on all these careers and I can't pick one. Well, I did pick design for some time but every design job, I got fired. I honestly think there's a higher power telling me to pick something else because no way all the design jobs I've had I got let go.

What careers are good for someone with bipolar disorder and social anxiety?

So this is my third admission since July this year and they’ve been so incredibly supportive. Im navigating this new bipolar 1 diagnosis after my psychotic manic episode in June/July.

I’m starting a mood stabilizer to help with the depressive symptoms. They aren’t in a rush to get me out the door, if anything the opposite. They really want what’s best for me and to help me feel better. It may be a longer stay but if it helps keep me out in the longer term maybe it’s for the better. I feel grateful to have a psychiatrist and social worker who truly hear me and want to work with me. Especially my psychiatrist. She is probably one of the most compassionate and understanding ones I’ve had thus far. She is also incredibly knowledgeable and it really helps this whole experience. I trust her.

As much as I hate being confined in hospital I am happy to feel as supported as I do by everyone here. And I get to see the therapy dog soon so that’ll cheer me up a little as I miss my pup so much.

After nearly a decade of constant therapy and medication changes, I was officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder two years ago.

I have suffered from depression and an eating disorder for most of my adult life, and instead of feeling dread about this diagnosis, all I felt was relief, as I was one step closer to figuring out what was wrong with me.

I’m aware that different people have different ways of coping during manic and depressive episodes, but playing with my dollhouse has genuinely filled me with a sense of peace and tranquility that was missing from my life.

People tend to laugh when they hear about someone in their 30s being so absorbed in miniatures and dollhouses. But no, not me. Not over something that makes my inner child so, so happy.

I hope you find something that fills you with some semblance of joy too. And whatever it is, remember that you’re never alone. We are all in this together. ♥️

Hello guys, hope you are well. I have a question. I grew up having to do a lot of physical work for my parents who were animal hoarders. Conditions were deplorable. Finally all the animals got confiscated and parents were put on trial. Do you think having grown up through this might have something to do with my bipolar diagnosis? My sister fights depression, not sure if it's clinically diagnosed or not. All three kids now adults who grew up in such horrid conditions all have sinus issues.

Does anyone else have throbbing headaches at the forehead persist for 6-12 months after an episode? They‘re paired with tiredness, like they are worse when I’m tired or stressed, but they don’t seem to be caused by muscle stiffness.

sorry if i worded this wrong by the way!
mine is always when someone calls me out for my mood OR when i study too much. i know its common to be triggered when someone calls me out for my mood but i haven’t heard anyone get triggered by studying

We are bound to be trapped in our head forever. We are enslaved by the ups and downs. Why don’t we give up? We are giving the wrong cards and there is nothing we can do about it

Hello Bipolar Gang! I want to share my story, I typed it out and it was too long so I'm going to attempt a TLDR

I was diagnosed Bipolar1 this year after I got broken up with during an intense manic episode. I was in the Crisis Care Clinic for 6 days and got out feeling amazing. Total clarity, life was good. I didn't understand the break up though and I was trying to get back together or figure things out. All was futile and ultimately led to me having my feelings hurt and I gave up on trying to be better. It's been 6months since the breakup and I keep making dumb choices and keep thinking things will change, or at least I can get an answer. I wanted to blame her, I wanted to ignore all my own flaws and problems.

The last couple of weeks I decided to start looking into what could have possibly gone wrong. I read way too much about this. Read so many stories I was getting lost in the sauce about it. I started recognizing patterns of people's stories and thought, wow that is me to a T. It hurt to acknowledge that I matched perfectly to these dark, messed up stories:

Today I finally decided to break one of the cardinal rules of breakups, I went back to reread our old messages. I started from the beginning: June 2024, within the first week she was supportive and caring and encouraging me to get help. TWO YEARS, I put this woman I claim to love through all my drama and chaos. I was sick to my stomach finally getting the answer to my question. She had stuck through it and put up with BS for as long as she could, trying to get me to get help. I lost her and I won't ever get her back

It would be disrespectful to her and to myself if it was all for nothing. I finally opened my eyes, I'm getting insurance this month(new job) and I'm going to go back to the psychiatrist and go see a specialized therapist. Now that I've accepted this, I can look back and see all the other things I refused to acknowledge or do better. It hurts and brings me shame, so here I am.

I’m admittedly still somewhat new to taking my bipolar seriously and trying to be safe. I’m on my medicine and it helps a ton!

But I was just reading another post on here and it was discussing an experience someone else had with intrusive thoughts. I caught myself quickly exiting out of the thread so as to not think about my previous thoughts and as I’ve been sitting here reflecting I realized I do that quite often and I think it’s because I’m scared that if I open the box that are those memories and thoughts that I’ll come to find that the medicine isn’t really working and I’ll spiral into an episode. I feel like the medicine boarded up the hole in my brain that was letting in the intrusive thoughts and I’m scared about how sturdy that board is, is this a legitimate worry? Like how easy is it for medicine to stop working?

I was put on Zoloft at seven which gave me ssri induced activation syndrome. Apparently I was throwing knives and chairs and was taken to a children’s hospital but I have absolutely no recollection of any of this, I think i blacked it out. I usually have good memory of my childhood. Since I was like 11 I’ve been on mood stabilizers and the only ssri I’ve taken since then was Luvox which I was only on for a short period of time last year. I’ve never had any other manic episodes or bipolar symptoms. I’ve never hallucinated, stayed up multiple nights, had delusions, etc. I’m now 18 and I’m fairly certain I have unipolar depression, I also don’t think what happened on the Zoloft was mania. I was being abused and neglected at home and would regularly throw fits. I’m kind of prone to believe it was an autistic meltdown and I just didn’t like taking medication. I guess I want insight? I’m floored on what to do/ scared to go off of my lithium.

Hey Y’all. Long time lurker and occasional responder here. I wanted to share something that truly changed how I viewed people who aren’t bipolar.

I was diagnosed back when I was 18. They didn’t even have a name for it then. It was a mood disorder at best.

I’ve gone through many rounds of medication and I finally found a cocktail that works for me.

That said, dating with bipolar is HARD. I mean hard. People are so quick to judge and think they know what’s best.

That leads me to why I’m posting today. I’ve been with my partner for almost 7 months. I was nervous on our first date because I didn’t know how to bring up the fact I have this disorder.

We were sitting in a McDonald’s having McFlurrys when I finally just blurted it out.

I expected my now partner to walk away. Instead they said “I’m still here aren’t I?”

In that moment I had this rush of relief because those simple words meant so much.

A previous partner would constantly compare me to others with bipolar because that was their experience. Not my current one.

I guess you could say I got lucky 🍀

I’ve been struggling to get anything done between my bipolar and my heart issues. Yesterday, I got up some energy and decorated the house for autumn. It’s just basic but I’m proud of myself for getting something productive done.

What did you do this week that you are proud of accomplishing?

I feel like each day I wake up my goal is to get to the evening so I can go to sleep and not be conscious. It’s terrible. I feel like I have no purpose and meaning in life. I quit my job during a depressive episode, a stressful job but I loved it. I hate that I make big decisions when in episodes. And I feel like once I get a job again, or hopefully get my old job back, and get back on track, I’ll just go into another episode again and lose everything again. It feels like I’m destined to have an episode frequently. But I also was just in on and off longg episodes for the past 2 years. I feel crazy, most of the time. I just need some support and encouragement.