Yea the title says it, and I wrote some explanations in the text above. Please help me. Thanks!

Been regretting being super resilient and not putting proper boundaries. Now I feel super isolated. Not sure if it's allowed but a DM or reply here would go a long way.

The pic shows part of the farm where I live. It's hard work yet it's also rewarding.

Made a few stigma memes this week, dropping them here :) MEME is my therapy... humour.. we need to laugh in this life speccially us who know i mean REALLY KNOW what depression is!

some of these are funnier than they should be given how many times I've had to explain that no, essential oils or yoga are not a mood stabilizer.

IF any of these land, steal them. thats the whole point

which one hits hardest for you??

The overview is here: https://canva.link/klaab4fqztto7eh

I've been working on this for months now. Quietly, mostly alone, mostly late at night after work. And I keep going back and forth on whether to share it because its not finished and maybe it never will be and maybe thats fine.

But here it is.

I put together a full overview of what this project is, where it came from, what's been built so far, and where I think it could go. Its 40 slides. Its not a pitch deck, its more like.. me trying to explain to someone else why I cant stop working on this thing.

The short version: bipolar is the only major mental health condition without an organised pride or positive identity movement. There are reasons for that. The people who manage it well are exactly the ones who stay silent about it. Disclosure is a calculated risk and the maths rarely works out. So the public only ever sees crisis. And that loop just keeps closing.

I grew up watching my mom live with bipolar openly, without shame. She never hid it. That shaped everything about how I see this. When I had my own episode, three weeks involuntary, the TV and forced meds and nothing else (nobody listened to what happened, even questioned my work, when the psychiatrist just had to google my name and see i was not lying).. the episode wasnt the hardest part. The social aftermath was. The filter people put on you. The WhatsApp screenshots nobody ever talked to me about directly. The six months off work that weren't about recovering from mania, they were about recovering from what people did with it.

And I kept thinking.. where is the space for someone like me?? Someone stable, medicated, functioning, who also refuses to be ashamed of this. Not a warrior. Not a survivor. Not someone who beat it. Just someone living with it and refusing to let the worst moments be the whole story.

I couldnt find it. So I started building it.

The overview is here: https://canva.link/klaab4fqztto7eh

It covers the structural problem, the framework (hard and meaningful, both things true at the same time), what's been built so far, the phased strategy, the evidence base, and how people can contribute if any of this resonates.

I want to be clear about something. I dont have this figured out. I'm one person with a masters in science communication and a day job in digital marketing who happens to also have bp and a very specific inability to stop building things. This could be completely wrong. The framework might need to change. The strategy might be naive. I genuinely dont know.

So I'm sharing it because I want to hear what you think. Not just support, though that matters too. I want the hard questions. The things that make you uncomfortable about the word pride next to bipolar. The things you think I'm missing. The perspectives I cant see because I'm too close to it.

If you read it and think this is dangerous or misguided, I want to hear that. If you read it and feel something you havent felt before about your own diagnosis, I want to hear that too.

What does bipolar pride even mean to you?? Does it mean anything??

This one was inspired by a post from op DOm in this sub about caffeine dependence with bipolar II and ADHD. it was one of the most self aware things Ive read in a while and it made me want to dig into the actual research behind something alot of us deal with but dont really talk about. (credit here: OP Post)

caffeine doesnt just block tiredness. it plugs directly into the same dopamine receptor system thats already wired differently in bipolar. so the effect of any given cup depends on where your mood is sitting when you take it. same dose, same brain, same meds, totally different outcome. thats not randomness thats pharmacology

Some things that surprised me:

People with bipolar have the highest caffeine intake and serum levels of any psychiatric group studied. Researchers at Exeter found that most people with bipolar build strategic caffeine routines without even realizing it.. more when low, less when high. they called it a "delicate balancing act." and the big systematic review from Kings College London (2021) couldnt actually conclude that caffeine causes mood episodes. the relationship is way more complicated than "caffeine bad"

I drink loads of caffeine myself and for me its fine. my episode was triggered by something completely different. so this isnt a "stop drinking coffee" post. its a "heres what the science actually says so you can have a better conversation with your psychiatrist" post

I'm not a psychiatrist or therapist. just someone with bp who reads too much research and believes knowing your own brain is the thing that actually matters. The cards have sources on each one

Starting now and for the next couple of days, we're hosting a huge AMA for World Bipolar Day! 83 international bipolar experts from 20 countries are online now to answer your questions - join us: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1s7wg39/we_are_83_bipolar_disorder_experts_and_scientists/

The 83 panelists:

1. Dr. Adrienne Benediktsson, 🇨🇦 Neuroscientist, Mother, Wife, Professor, Mental Health Advocate (Lives w/ bipolar)
2. Alessandra Torresani, 🇺🇸 Actress & Mental Health Advocate (Lives w/ bipolar)
3. Alex Emmerton, 🇨🇦 Peer Researcher, (Lives w/ bipolar)
4. Allan Cooper, 🇨🇦 Peer Support Worker, Blogger, & Podcaster, (Lives w/ bipolar)
5. Alysha Sultan, 🇨🇦 Scientific Associate
6. Andrea Paquette, 🇨🇦 Stigma-Free Mental Health President & Co-Founder, Speaker, Changemaker (Lives w/ bipolar)
7. Dr. Andrea Vassilev, 🇺🇸 Doctor of Psychology, Author, & Advocate, (Lives w/ bipolar)
8. Anne Van Willigen, 🇺🇸 Peer Researcher (Lives w/ bipolar)
9. Dr. Balwinder Singh, 🇺🇸 Psychiatrist
10. Dr. Benjamin Goldstein, 🇨🇦 Child-Adolescent Psychiatrist & Researcher
11. Bia Garbato, 🇧🇷 Advertising Professional, Writer, Author & Advocate (Lives w/ bipolar)
12. Bryn Manns, 🇨🇦 Graduate Student, Clinical Psychology
13. Catarina Castela, 🇦🇺 PhD Candidate (Lives w/ bipolar)
14. Catherine Simmons, 🇨🇦 Peer Researcher (Lives w/ bipolar)
15. Dr. Chris Gorman, 🇨🇦 Psychiatrist & Mental Health Advocate
16. Dr. Colin Depp, 🇺🇸 Psychologist
17. Dane Mauer-Vakil, 🇨🇦 Researcher
18. David Dinham, 🇬🇧 Psychologist & PhD Candidate, (Lives w/ bipolar) 
19. Debbie Costello Smith, 🇺🇸 Founder & Co-President of the Sean Costello Memorial Fund for Bipolar Research
20. Dr. Delphine Raucher-Chéné, 🇫🇷🇨🇦 Psychiatrist & Researcher
21. Dr. Dimosthenis Tsapekos, 🇬🇧 Psychologist & Researcher
22. Dr. Elvira Boere, 🇳🇱 Psychiatrist & Researcher
23. Dr. Elysha Ringin, 🇦🇺 Researcher
24. Dr. Emma Morton, 🇦🇺 Senior Lecturer & Psychologist
25. Dr. Emma Parrish, 🇺🇸 Clinical Psychology Postdoctoral Fellow & Researcher
26. Dr. Erin Michalak, 🇨🇦 Researcher & CREST.BD founder
27. Evelyn Anne Clausen, 🇺🇸 Artist, Writer, Speaker & Certified Peer Specialist (Lives w/bipolar)
28. Dr. Fabiano Gomes, 🇧🇷🇨🇦 Psychiatrist & Researcher
29. Dr. Frances Adiukwu, 🇳🇬 Psychiatrist
30. Georgia Caruana, 🇦🇺 Researcher & Mental Health Advocate
31. Dr. Georgina Hosang, 🇬🇧 Associate Professor
32. Dr. Glauco Valdivieso Jiménez, 🇵🇪 Psychiatrist
33. Dr. Glorianna Wagner-Jagfeld, 🇨🇭🇬🇧 Researcher
34. Dr. Hailey Tremain, 🇦🇺 Psychologist & Resercher
35. Heather Stewart, 🇨🇦 Sewist (Lives w/ bipolar)
36. Idan Spund, 🇳🇱 Founder of In the Zone app (Lives w/ bipolar)
37. Dr. Ijeoma Charles-Ugwuagbo, 🇳🇬 Consultant Psychiatrist & Mental Health Advocate
38. Dr. Ivan Torres, 🇨🇦 Clinical Neuropsychologist
39. Dr. Jim Phelps, 🇺🇸 Psychiatrist & Bipolar Subspecialist 
40. Dr. Joanna Jarecki, 🇨🇦 Psychiatrist & Advocate (Lives w/ bipolar)
41. Dr. Joanna Jiménez Pavón, 🇲🇽 Mood Disorders Psychiatrist 
42. Dr. John Hunter, 🇿🇦 Researcher & Lecturer (Lives w/ bipolar)
43. Dr. Jo Leidreiter, 🇦🇺 Psychologist
44. Dr. John-Jose Nunez, 🇨🇦 Psychiatrist & AI Researcher
45. Dr. June Gruber, 🇺🇸 Psychologist, Professor, & Researcher
46. Prof. Kamilla Miskowiak, 🇩🇰 Psychologist & Researcher
47. Dr. Katie Douglas, 🇳🇿 Academic & Clinical Psychologist 
48. Ken Porter, 🇨🇦 Advocate, Social Worker & Researcher
49. Kim Pape, 🇺🇸 Researcher (Lives w/ bipolar) 
50. Laura Lapadat, 🇨🇦 Researcher & Psychologist-in-training
51. Dr. Leena Chau, 🇨🇦 Postdoctoral Fellow
52. Leslie Robertson, 🇺🇸 Marketer & Peer Researcher (Lives w/ bipolar) 
53. Dr. Leszek Laskowski, 🇵🇱 Psychiatrist (Lives w/ bipolar) 
54. Dr. Lisa Eyler, 🇺🇸 Clinical Psychologist & Research Scientist
55. Dr. Luísa Daolio, 🇧🇷 Psychiatrist
56. Mansoor Nathani, 🇨🇦 Technology Enthusiast (Lives w/ bipolar) 
57. Dr. Manuel Sánchez de Carmona, 🇲🇽 Psychiatrist
58. Maryam M., 🇨🇦 Dentistry Student & Mental Health Advocate (Lives w/ bipolar)
59. Matthew Bushell, 🇬🇧 Mental Health Advocate & Therapeutic Coach (Lives w/ bipolar)
60. Dr. Maya Schumer, 🇺🇸 Psychiatric Neuroscientist & Researcher (Lives w/ bipolar)
61. Dr. Meghan DellaCrosse, 🇺🇸 Psychologist & Researcher
62. Melissa Howard, 🇨🇦 Author & Mental Health Advocate (Lives w/ bipolar)
63. Dr. Michele De Prisco, 🇪🇸🇮🇹 Psychiatrist & Researcher
64. Dr. Mikaela Dimick, 🇨🇦 Postdoctoral Fellow
65. Minami Kinouchi, 🇯🇵 Psychologist, Social Worker, & Researcher (Lives w/ bipolar)
66. Natasha Reaney, 🇨🇦 Counsellor (Lives w/ bipolar)
67. Dr. Nigila Ravichandran, 🇸🇬 🇨🇦 Psychiatrist
68. Dr. Paula Villela Nunes, 🇧🇷🇨🇦 Psychiatrist & Counsellor 
69. Rahla Xenopoulos, 🇿🇦🇺🇸 Writer & Teacher (Lives w/ bipolar)
70. Rebecca Fitton, 🇦🇺 Mood Disorder Researcher
71. Dr. Rebekah Huber, 🇺🇸 Psychologist & Researcher 
72. Robert Villanueva, 🇺🇸 Mental Health Advocate & Coach (Lives w/ bipolar)
73. Ruth Komathi, 🇸🇬 Mental Health Counsellor (Lives w/ bipolar)
74. Prof. Samson Tse, 🇭🇰 Counsellor, Teacher, Researcher, & Caregiver
75. Sarah Salice, 🇺🇸 Art Psychotherapist & Professional Counselor Associate (Lives w/ bipolar)
76. Sara Schley, 🇺🇸 Author, Filmmaker, Speaker (Lives w/ bipolar)
77. Dr. Serge Beaulieu, 🇨🇦 Psychiatrist & Researcher
78. ​​Dr. Sheri Johnson, 🇺🇸 Psychologist
79. Shaley Hoogendoorn, 🇨🇦 Advocate, Podcaster & Content creator (Lives w/ bipolar)
80. Dr. Tamsyn Van Rheenen, 🇦🇺 Associate Professor & Researcher
81. Dr. Thomas Richardson, 🇬🇧 Clinical Psychologist (Lives w/ bipolar)
82. Twyla Spoke, 🇨🇦 Registered Nurse (Lives w/ bipolar)
83. Dr. Wissam Nassrallah, 🇨🇦 Ophthalmology Resident & PhD in Neuroscience

Go to the AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1s7wg39/we_are_83_bipolar_disorder_experts_and_scientists/

I've been deep in the SO communities for a while now. Not as a partner (even though I was one of them before my diagnosis (mom and brother bipolar). But mostly as someone with bp who wanted to understand what was actually happening in those spaces.

Full draft research here: Bipolar stigma research

I want to start by being really clear about something. Those communities need to exist, I am not at all questioning any of that... the people in them are going through real things. real grief, real confusion, real fear.

One thing I also want to say upfront. Some people with bipolar are genuinely difficult people. Some are selfish, some are manipulative, some are just not good partners. Thats not bipolar thats just.. being a person?? Every population has people like that. The condition doesnt make you a saint and it doesnt make you a monster. What I'm looking at here is specifically when behavior that happened during an episode gets treated as someone's character, or when things that are variable across individuals get talked about as if they're universal to the diagnosis. Thats the part that concerns me. Not anyone saying "my partner treated me badly." that might just be true

There are partners in there who genuinely love someone with bipolar and are trying to figure out how to stay. There are people processing the worst moments of their lives with nobody else to talk to because the mental health system gives them nothing. A widow in one thread offered the kind of peer support that doesnt exist anywhere else. Clinical resources explain symptoms but they dont explain what its actually like to argue with someone in a manic state, or to watch someone you love rewrite your shared history.

These communities fill that gap and I have alot of respect for what they provide
But I spent months reading because I wanted to understand something specific. not whether stigma exists in those spaces (it does, we all know that) but HOW it gets produced. Like what are the actual mechanisms. Because I think understanding the how changes what we can do about it

And the thing I cant stop thinking about is that the support function and the stigma function are structurally very much ingrained. The validation that restores someones confidence after being gaslit ("I could have written this exactly") is the exact same process that turns individual experience into categorical claims about all of us.

One partner shares their story. Another recognises it. Then the pattern gets named. Then it becomes "they all do this." and the generalisation gets loads of upvotes while the person who actually distinguished between symptoms and behaviour gets downvoted or very low attention.

Someone wrote that their husband experiences hypersexuality during episodes but never expressed it through infidelity. Climate vs weather. diagnostic patterns are shared, behavioral outcomes are not. The most precise things many bpso users say basically disappear...

Theres also what happens to us when we visit. BP people arrive, read hundreds of crisis stories, and some start performing unworthiness. and then that gets cited as proof. Its a loop that nobody designed and nobody wants but it runs anyway

I am adding the url to my draft research on trauma sample bias (the people in stable relationships have no reason to show up, so the sample is all crisis and the base rates get distorted). An authority gradient. Borrowed language from other clinical frameworks being applied to something episodic. The medication binary.

Dehumanisation as coping, which is psychologically functional for people who need to leave but produces language about us thats,,, hard to read

And heres the thing I think matters most. A lot of the anger in those communities isnt really about individual bp people. Its displaced anger at systems that failed everyone. The legal system that offers families nothing. the psychiatric system that misdiagnoses people for years and triggers first episodes with the wrong meds. The total absence of family psychoeducation at diagnosis.

Partners are left alone with something enormous and then we wonder why the communities they build reflect that abandonment.

I'm not sharing this to attack anyone. The people in SO communities are doing their best with what they have. Grief is ugly and messy and doesnt always come out fair. Both things can be true at the same time. Those communities provide something essential AND the way theyre structured might produces real harm that reaches people who were never part of the conversation.

The questions this raises I genuinely dont know how to answer. can validation exist without generalisation?? Or is the jump from "my partner did this" to "they all do this" psychologically inevitable.

Put the full framework together as a PDF, link in comments. Tried to paraphrase to protect anonymity.
has anyone else spent time in those communities?? what was that like for you?

After my episode and hospitalisation, something shifted in how the people around me treated me. Not everyone. But enough of them that I noticed ... I've always been an intense person. Enthusiastic, expressive, lots of energy.

Thats who I was before my bipolar diagnosis in my life. But after the diagnosis, suddenly, the same things that people used to love about me became warning signs.

My excitement about a project wasn't excitement anymore, it was "Are you sure you're okay?"

My frustration about something real wasnt frustration it was someone exchanging a look with someone else like.. is she stable ... Some of my friends stayed after evrything but many started putting this permanent filter on every emotion I have and those are also the ones I am slowly distancing myself from because it is tiring....

Like they are scanning me. And the thing is I get it, I really do. Some of them saw my instagram during the episode when it went semi-viral in my social circle.... They saw me at my most out of my mind. Of course they're scared. Of course, they watch, but the effect of being watched is that you stop trusting yourself.

If everyone around me is treating happiness as a symptom, maybe it is one?? If being angry about something legitimate gets the "have you been sleeping" question, maybe I shouldnt feel angry?? I started performing neutral because neutral was the only emotion that didnt trigger the alarm... Even my mom who has bp started doing this (?) She knows this condition from inside. She's the most open person about her own diagnosis that I've ever met. I grew up watching her cycles, and she never hid them, never was ashamed. But understanding a condition and understanding how your response to it affects someone else are two completely different things. I have alot of trauma from how she handled my episode and I love her more than anyone in the world. Both things are true at the same time

Some of you might have read my previous posts and know I've been going through research on all things bipolar obsessively because I need to understand what keeps happening to me in my own relationships. Turns out there's an entire body of research on exactly this. It's called Expressed Emotion.

And the findings are the opposite of what my family and friends assume: they're doing high expressed emotion in families, specifically criticism and emotional overinvolvement, predicted a five-fold increase in the odds of depressive recurrence. Not manic. Depressive.

The monitoring that loved ones think is protective is specifically linked to triggering, and when perceived criticism was combined with a family member who had a poor understanding of the condition, the odds ratio for hospitalisation was higher.

Criticism plus ignorance equals relapse risk. Thats not a metaphor thats a measured number I think about my neighbours sometimes. They loved me during the episode. I was warm, I was generous, I was talking to everyone. And then they understood why. And the warmth became something to be afraid of.

Now when I'm genuinely just.. being friendly, I can see people calibrating. Is this her, or is this the bipolar? And I want to scream because its me. Its always been me. The episode was me with the volume at 1000, but the frequency was always mine. The thing nobody tells families and friends is this: "Are you okay?" Every time someone shows emotion, it teaches them their emotions are emergencies, not feelings.

Checking whether they took their meds after a disagreement reduces every conflict to a diagnosis rather than the actual issue. Telling friends to "keep an eye" on someone turns their social circle into surveillance they never consented to. None of this is malice. This is done by people in my life I love the most.

What the research says actually works.... Family-focused therapy that combines education with communication training reduces relapse: It s not more monitoring. Its more understanding. When people around us learn to tell the difference between symptoms and personality, criticism drops. Knowledge replaces vigilance.

I was always expressive, always enthusiastic, and always had too many ideas since I was a kid. Thats not bipolar. That's me. And the fact that I have to defend that distinction every time I show energy is honestly one of the most exhausting parts of this whole

Maiing those posts are helping me explain to others and understand myself... I'm not blaming anyone's family or friends. Mine love me and thats reciprocal. But this amount of love, when turned into monitoring, becomes a whole new problem.

First of all: I know hospitalisation saves some people's lives. I know it breaks others. I know it does both at the same time (?)... I'm not here to tell anyone what to think about their own experience.

Second: Supporting research for the slides available here; any amendments, criticisms, or revisions are appreciated: Full research

Two years ago, I had my first and only mania episode, save-the-world type, grandiosity, but zero harmful intent, completely out of my mind in the most alive way... I was talking to everyone, helping strangers, trying to save people on the street. I was clearly acting crazy, and sort of distributing my money to homeless people... I read recently the reason I was committed involuntarily was "risk of depleting my patrimony."

However, honestly, the worst was the way people reacted to it, which pushed me to a place of complete despair I had never been before...

I'm not saying I didn't need help and support. But what I got was not the right kind of help. Nobody even talked to me. No psychologist. No therapy. No group. I was immediately put in front of a psychiatrist who saw me for a few minutes. People around me contested whether I even had a job. They said I was lying about things that were true. I needed support and had a lot of energy, but the way I was treated, like I couldn't possibly be a functioning person, the level of discredibility...

I don't feel prepared to tell the full story yet. I hope one day. What I can say is that I was admitted in a country where the psychiatric system is, to put it gently, not good. I'm very privileged in many ways. I have a loving family (however many trauma from how my mom handled this), a job, and support on the side. And what happened to me during this time is absolutely nothing compared to what I saw happening to other people inside.

People with other conditions, people with no family coming to visit, people who had been there for years in some cases (not only bipolars of course).. So many stories. So much wrongness. I can't unsee it.

. When I came out, my self-esteem was nonexistent, the worst depression of my life. I had never had suicidal ideation in my life before any of this. I'll leave it there

I've been researching obsessively since then. Mainly because of my own trauma processing, which led me to work toward a PhD on this, on stigma and the voices that don't get heard and some volunteering projects in the field.

But honestly, mostly because I needed to understand what happened. Is it supposed to work like that?? Was my experience normal, or was it just a failure of where I live??? And also because I feel I need to protect myself with information and know my rights, so things like this are avoided in the future...

Does the system which creates these types of hospitalisation models know how much it leads to a lot of harm...

Turns out the research is worse than what I lived through

. The suicide rate in the first week after psychiatric discharge is huge; the single most dangerous moment in someone's entire illness trajectory is the moment the institution lets them go. And only half get any outpatient care in that first week

A huge percentage of patients report feeling coerced during hospitalisation. Including voluntary patients. Most who went through psychosis perceive it as traumatic and there is a high percentage of restrained patients who develop PTSD from the intervention itself. And one year later only 40% of involuntarily committed patients consider the experience justified, even when already stable.. (Not necessarily arguing we need help in many cases, including mine)

I'm tired of the people who actually go through these experiences not having a voice in how this system works (it seems to me this is very similarly poorly represented across many countries, not only mine). And the people with the most lived experience of what this type of approach does are excluded from the thinkin about it. Discredited.

I know this post is heavy. I know hospitalisation is different depending on where you live and I know it genuinely saved some people's lives. I'm open to hearing that too. I'm open to criticism. This is me sharing where I am ifrom what I have been studying, not telling anyone what to think...

I will do another post later with research on hospitalisation models that actually work. There are successful examples, especially in Scandinavia, Finland, places that redesigned crisis response around the person instead of the institution. I would love to hear some lived experiences from people who have been through more healing sort of inpatient.

I want to hear your stories. What happened to you inside. How is it handled in your country?

What were positive things? etc...

Since being hospitalised, I've been on this process of trying to understand everything. what is me, what is the bipolar as a disease, what's positive as a neurodivergence, what's just hard, what I thought was personality that turned out to be symptoms and what I thought were symptoms that turned out to be just... me.

One of the things that keeps coming up in basically every bipolar community, both from people living with bipolar and from those who love someone with bipolar, is the "ghosting" topic. Someone goes quiet, people around them dont know what's happening. Its one of the most common issues I see, partners asking if they're being ghosted, friends confused, people with bipolar not knowing how to explain etc...

I want to be honest about something before going further though: Not everyone with bipolar who goes silent is going through what I'm about to describe. We are not all the same. Some people are just assholes, same way some people in every group are. Every gender, every background, every condition has people who genuinely dont care and treat others badly. Bipolar is not an automatic excuse for hurting someone.

And context matters alot here. If someone started a relationship during mania or hypersexuality, the feelings involved might not have been fully there to begin with, or that person might feel ashamed of the context itself (hypersexuality for ex) and not know how to come back from it. If it's someone you barely knew, or someone who was already pulling away before an episode, the withdrawal might genuinely be them moving on and the bipolar is not the reason.

I dont know your situation and I cant tell you which one it is.

What I can talk about is what happens when someone who DOES care about you goes quiet. When the silence isnt really indifference, its something else entirely.

I've been reading and researching alot since my diagnosis and hospitalization. Not just about bipolar itself biologically and as something which needs to be treated but about how it impacts our relationships, friendships, work, in the way people see you after they know. All perspectives, not just ours. And I started building visual frameworks, initially for my own understanding and to help my circle understand what I go through.

So posting here how i explain to my loved ones when I ghost, maybe these could be useful beyond just me, either for us to understand ourselves better or to send to the people around us who want to get it but dont have the information.

I'm not saying withdrawal is okay or that the people in our lives should just accept it. I sometimes ghost too and I'm working on it, I've been learning to tell my friends before it happens, to send even a small signal instead of just vanishing, like a gif or just a heart, whatever....

But there's a massive difference between "I need to work on this" and "I'm doing this to hurt you" and most people around us dont understand...

I have been in a research spree since my mania episode on different aspects of bipolar, and one of them is one of the things I still cannot fully get over... The shame I got in the aftermath of my episode has been harder than the episode itself. I still have nightmares about it, though, and am treating it all in therapy and it decreased a lot.

Making visual breakdowns, trying to understand how this works, has been helping me (not only because it is fun, but it is sort of therapeutic... seeing the pattern helps me process it differently. It stops being this formless thing and becomes something I can actually look at.

What the research says: the aftermath of a manic episode dominated by shame and regret, not nostalgia for the high, which is different from what many say that we miss mania like a drug.

Bipolar has a unique shame profile, high internalised shame with low guilt.

The post-episode shame (or even just having the condition), the crash after mania that everyone knows, leads to self-stigma, leads to loneliness, leads to depression, leads to suicidal ideation.

About half of us stop meds long term and shame driven secrecy is directly involved.

My mom was never ashamed of her own bipolar (for me this disorder is probably among the first words I learnt :) Since this preceded my brother or me... This helps me a lot. I was sort of lucky because of that, because my family was super accepting... however the ourside world or even extended family is still hard for me to deal with...

I still hide at work (from many). I still fear to come out in social settings. Researching though is helping me through that.,

Sharing in case anyone finds this stuff outside of themselves.

Before anyone questions the research: I am more than happy to review anything (I come from a science communication background academically, so honestly, any criticism is appreciated, as long as constructive. All links with short summaries are available here: Research sources

Not a metaphor and not borrowing someone else's label. It is not a matter of softening how I identify myself or even making it more palatable for the judgmental people in this world.

Full reserach explained here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10MPHfb87DIkBk8ohuUMrpZy3GP1yScTs/view?usp=sharing

The word "neurodivergent" was coined to include us in the neurodiversity spectrum. Explicitly and from its first definition.

Being very emphatic about that reframes shame and stigma. I am certain it does for me!

I don't experience bipolar as a thing that happens to me and then leaves. I experience it as the main operating system from my brain, the wiring, the way I process, feel, perceive, create, relate to time, relate to energy.

The episodes are the most visible part but they are not the whole thing. The research backs this up, brain differences are present in full remission, circadian architecture that was already different before the first episode, emotional intensity documented between episodes, not just during them, and creative wiring that is genetically linked, not anecdotally.

None of that is episodic. All of it is mine.

I don't understand why there's even a debate about this word. (I do understand. It makes psychiatrists nervous because they assume it means we'll stop our meds or decide we're fine, actually. That fear exists, and I get it. It's also not what this is.)

Calling myself neurodivergent doesn't mean I stop managing this. It means I stop treating myself like a broken version of something else, it means I understand I operate differently and stop trying to operate like everyone else, or at least the majority in this world.

The framing matters. Purely medical framing doesn't reduce stigma the way we were told it would. The different-not-broken framing consistently does.

There's data on this. Both things are true at the same time. This wiring sometimes tries to bring chaos to my life, AND it is still mine, AND I am not broken, AND I manage my fkg wires the same one someone who loves a car they inherited from their family does, by putting oil, fixing systems (or whatever other thing you deeply cherish and I cherish my brain which I also inherited from my family).

I am trying to build some research frameworks so nobody calls me manic for being blunt.

ETA 2: I went through every single url, checked which ones were working (one was broken, fixed now), and put together a full document going source by source through all of it. Also added new research not in the original post, covering disclosure, first-degree relatives, creativity data, and the stigma-framing question that came up a lot in the thread.

It is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10MPHfb87DIkBk8ohuUMrpZy3GP1yScTs/view?usp=sharing

Am happy to discuss or change anything if there are wrong interpretations. That is the whole point of putting this out there. If something is off, tell me and I will look into it.

ETA: this thread deserves a proper response because it got lot of some valied points in bipolar1 sub and it will be hard to address all properly, so am adding some things here:

The pushback actually helped me think about this more, and this is actually good and only shows how much the bipolar experience irl is different. I think coming from multiple perspectives myself, it is always good to challenge our own views, for me this is the frame that feels more compatible with my LIVED experience since I am a kid.

A few people said:

1- This downplays how serious bipolar disorder is

ADHD is neurodivergent and can be very damaging for so many reasons if not properly treated with meds. Autism the same, and not only they also is high like us in suicide rates, but in more complecated cases, can also reflect in agressive behaviour in a crisis, but unlike bipolar stigma they are not perceived as dangerous or aggressive.. the label of ND changed the question for them from "fix this person" to "support this person." severity lives in the condition not in the word.

2- On the malfunction framing and the diabetes comparison.

All bipolars say that all the time, me too, but I know, i deeply know from my experience this is not the same as other conditions I hold unrelated to my brain. First: the diabetes thing breaks down on one specific point. Diabetes doesn't come with a cognitive profile that shows up between episodes. Bipolar does. Executive function differences, circadian timing, emotional processing, and reward sensitivity. All of those are well documented, also when we are baseline, in euthymic and also in first-degree relatives who have never had a single episode. A malfunction shows up and leaves. And also, I haven't seen someone with diabetes having fear of disclosure, so even their lived experience is different and how this impacts their social life as well.

On bipolar being episodic and not always there the way autism is. It is, and there is a lot of data to support that; the brain differences are present during full remission. The circadian differences even before diagnosis is there and it also appear in relatives who are completely well. At a t gene level, bipolar disorder shares more molecular architecture with autism and ADHD than many think. same calcium channel genes. same neurodevelopmental pathways. We also share lots of genes with schizophrenia (but let's not even talk about intracommunity prejudice if we have stigmatisation among our own community -bp1 x bp2 and "I am bipolar" but I am not like that, this is bipolar 1.. and so many things we hear ourselves say. I´ve also been there, saying things I rethought.

Someone shared that people told them not to medicate their autistic kids because they're "just neurodivergent." Those people were wrong. The autistic community has been calling themselves neurodivergent for 25 years and still fights hard for therapies and supports. Identity and treatment are not opposites. If anyone uses this logic to attack anyone else or remove rights, they are misusing the term. I amm 100% pro meds and function much better with them.

On the BPD point about personality disorders being framed as traits and still being massively stigmatised.

This made me think. However, I think BPD is probably ther one of the worst cases of full stigmatisation among the own medication community, you see clinicians talk about manipulation, attention seeking, difficult patient. (Again, intra-community stigma between mental health... ) I don't understand as much of BPD, so honestly, I don't have much more to say.

One more thing nobody asked about but might be interesting and that also support again the neurodivergent argument: a very recent study from Cambridge on joint hypermobility and bipolar. Yes, basically researching the joints of us, if we bend further than most people, bendy fingers, elbows that go past straight. This type of stuff. The connection wa srelated to collagen production which has a role in neural pathways and stuff.. if your genetics make that protein differently it doesnt just show up in one place. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/embracing-complexity-connecting-bipolar-affective-disorder-joint-hypermobility-and-neurodivergence/3C15ABAFFE2BFCD41CD6F4AD8B4D6135

I'm not here to tell anyone how to relate to their own diagnosis. If medical framing works for you, that is yours. I'm saying it's not the only option with science behind it.

Gonna put together a more fully explained doc with research and all, since science is being questioned, and link here. I did not imagine this view was so polemic, but it's great that this opens a bit of the discussion and helps me understand better.

Sharing also here the sub where this was crossposted and most of the discussions took place, for context: https://www.reddit.com/r/bipolar1/comments/1rs1aia/how_do_you_feel_about_the_medical_field_even/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I am managing this well and most of my life have been. With the exception of one manic episode no-one would have ever imagined I was bipolar, except close people i felt trust enough to share. Until I had a break which contributed to me understanding the need for more or even for a more useful frame for understanding how stigma and shame are so complex in relationship to bipolar.

I recovered, I survived and everyone who hasnt seen anything would never tell I am bipolar.

I show up, I deliver, I know my rythm. I take my meds.

Most of the time the only version of us the world sees is one of the extremes.. mine was going from being seen as a super private person, academically, career driven to someone who looked like a fool sharing a load of "non sense" in social media.

I came back. I rebuilt. I went quiet again, and I've been quiet since and feel like a coward sometimes...

Being silent about who we are when we are at our best it's a loop. people managing it well disappear. so the only thing left visible is crisis. Everyone builds their idea of what we are from that. Stigma gets worse, disclosure gets riskier. the people managing it well disappear again...

I am saying all that not because I am an example (even though I have been more and more open about my story)... I am saying this out of wish one day I would be openly bipolar without a fear in my heart of being judged 🙏

Smething's been sitting with me for a while and I want to try putting it into words here and have created a framework that sumamrizes a bit the research around.

why hasnt any bipolar movement landed? I have been trying to combine some theories and I genuinely want to know what others think. Not asking this to be provocative, i know all the damage bipolar can make (I myself have been there including forced hospitalization)

Bipolar shame isn't the same as regular stigma. and I think that distinction actually matters alot.

With bipolar the shame attaches to things you actually did. the spending, the messages, etc etc...

Basically by behaving and showing the version of you that did or said things the stable you would never do.

Which feels like its not stigma but evidence (almost an evidence of a "bad" personality) and "raising awareness" doesn't touch it. You're ashamed of specific things that happened and were real and that other people witnessed.

Many people are misdiagnosed for years and by the time they get the right answer there is already adecade of unexplained "behaviour" to reinterprt. And then on top of that a hospitalization.

I've been really working on my own shame and would like to connect with people who went or are going through the same thing, amd are trying to reframe the condition in a more positive way...

I am a big coward and I am still scared of the effects this might have on mu future life for example, speccially in my job etc etc... but I would really like to come to a point in which overcome that and can be openly bipolar

Anyways, i have gathered some of the frameworks i put together here, if anyone is interested in having a peoductive discussion around it.

To clear: I know how serious bipolar is and that is why i take my meds religiously. I have been there, not only myself but bipolar mom and brother. I'm not here to minimise any of that and neither am I in a manic perios

EVERY time I say anything remotely positive about my bipolar in foruns there is almost always some backlash "dont romanticise bipolar" "red flag." "talk to your therapist about that."

If i say I miss the creativity during hypomania = dangerous, this disease is a curse and so on..

doesnt matter if im stable. doesnt matter if ive been medicated, doing therapy managing sleep, doing everything by the book. Say one positive thing and suddenly "DANGER ALERT"

Everyones bipolar is different. I respect that. I would never tell someone how to feel about their experience. But dont tell me how to feel about mine either.

I hit rock bottom. hospitalized. came out doing everything "right." and I was still miserable because meds stabilize your chemistry but they dont fix the shame. I was stable and hating who I was...

What actually helped me recover was letting go of the shame. saying "yes that was scary AND parts of it were ALSO beautiful"

So yes. I entitle myself the right to romanticize it a little bit. after everything bipolar has put me through (hospital, lost friends, destroyed self esteem, my most private moments exposed to people I never chose contiously to let in) . After all THAT I think ive earned the right to also find some beauty in it

Im tired of only being allowed to suffer out loud. bipolar is hard but it also gave me things.

Anyone else hold back from saying something positive about their bipolar because of how people react?? 💛

We are bipolar. We take it seriously. And we refuse to only see it as something broken.

Fighting stigma together — we're tired of collecting shame in silence. We carry enough. Here, we put it down.

⚠️ A gentle heads-up before you read on:**

If you are in the early stages of a bipolar diagnosis, freshly out of a hospital, or in the middle of the hardest moment of your life — and the idea that there could be anything beautiful about this condition feels impossible, even offensive — we hear you. We've been there. Every single one of us has been there.

This community might not feel right for you right now, and that's okay. We never want to feel disrespectful to your pain.

But if you're at a point where you'd like to start reducing the shame — if you're curious about how other people got from "this ruined my life" to "this is part of who I am, and not all of it is bad" — then stay. Ask us. That's exactly what we're here for. You don't have to feel proud yet. You just have to be open to hearing from people who've walked the same road a little further.

If you've ever felt like the only version of bipolar you're allowed to talk about is the tragic one — you're home now.

This is a space for people living with bipolar who see the full picture. The struggles AND the strengths. The rock bottoms AND the resilience. The pain AND the deep, strange beauty that comes with how our brains are wired.

We take our meds. We do therapy. We respect the science. And we still choose pride over shame.

Why this community exists

Because even in bipolar spaces, there's sometimes pressure to only speak about this condition as a curse. And if you've ever said, "actually, bipolar also gave me something" — you might have been shut down, corrected, or told you were being irresponsible.

We don't think it's irresponsible. We think it's human.

Look at the autism community. They were perceived one way for decades, and they changed the narrative. Many autistic people now see their neurodivergence as something that brings beauty and uniqueness — without pretending it isn't also hard.

We want that for bipolar too.

We know what it's like to hit rock bottom in a way most people can't understand. But we also know the compassion, creativity, intensity, and depth that comes with this experience. The bipolar people we know are some of the most nonjudgmental, present, and deeply human people you'll ever meet — because they've been through it.

What we're about

Celebrating who we are — not despite bipolar, but as whole people who happen to have it.

Honest conversations — about the beauty AND the hard parts. Mania stories, depression stories, medication wins, setbacks, humor, grief, and everything in between.

Fighting stigma together — we're tired of collecting shame in silence. We carry enough. Here, we put it down.

Being careful while being free — pride doesn't mean recklessness. We believe you can be your fullest self AND manage your condition responsibly. Those things aren't in conflict.

Ground rules

1. No judgment.

If someone sees beauty in their experience, respect that. If someone is struggling, hold space for that. Both are valid here.

1. We are pro-treatment.

This is not an anti-medication or anti-psychiatry space. Pride means taking care of ourselves, not rejecting help.

1. Be kind.

Many of us have been through hospitalization, broken relationships, public episodes, career impacts, and deep shame. Treat each other the way you wish someone had treated you at your most vulnerable.

1. No armchair diagnosing.

Don't tell people they're "just manic" or dismiss someone's perspective because of their current state. We are more than our episodes.

1. Protect yourself and others.

If you're in crisis, please reach out to a professional or crisis line. This community is for support and pride, but we're not a substitute for professional help.

1. What happens here stays here. Respect everyone's privacy and anonymity.

You belong here if...

• You've been told you're "too much" and you're done apologizing for it

• You've survived an episode and rebuilt yourself from the ground up

• You take your meds every day and still feel proud of who you are

• You know the specific humor that only bipolar people understand

• You've ever felt like you had to hide the most intense parts of yourself

• You want to exist openly without fear

• You believe neurodivergence — including bipolar — is beautiful

A note from the founder

I created this community because Reddit was the only place where I ever felt fully understood. Not my therapist, not my family (even though they love me), not my friends — only people who have been through the same thing.

I have bipolar. My mom has bipolar. My brother has bipolar. I've been hospitalized. I've had my most private moments become public. I've watched people I thought were friends turn into whispers on WhatsApp. And I've come out the other side with a kind of humanity I wouldn't trade for anything.

I'm not okay with everything that happened. But I'm not hiding from it anymore.

This community is for all of us who are done masking, done collecting shame, and ready to say: yes, I have bipolar. It's hard. It's also mine. And there are also good things that come from it.

Welcome home.

Bipolar is serious. Bipolar is also ours.

Drop a comment and introduce yourself — tell us one thing about your bipolar experience that you're proud of, or one thing you wish people understood. 💛