I've been thinking about this lately, and I'm not sure if the label even really matters, but it's sort of helping me frame some things in my life. For example, I haven't worked a real job in over 4 years. I have a master's degree that I don't use because I can't be consistent with it and honestly lately it feels like my cognitive abilities have declined. (I'm even having trouble forming my thoughts into sentences as I write this). I think it's helpful for me to be able to reference my "mental illness" as the reason I can't work or have a "normal" life (and by reference I just mean in my own head, not like as an explanation to other people). Like I probably expect too much of myself, given the circumstances. I have a mental illness that prevents me from pursuing the things I once thought I "should" be capable of. I just recently had an episode of hypo/mixed followed by suicidal depression and I'm sort of newly framing things for myself. Does this resonate with anyone else?

I was diagnosed with bp2 about 6 months ago and I’m struggling to find a path forward. I’ve gone to therapy or taken meds since I was 12 (I’m 27 now) but I’ve never been able to achieve stability. But with this bp2 diagnosis, I keep switching between these two viewpoints:

 1. I have bp2 because the symptoms match clearly and my psychiatrist is confident in this diagnosis after seeing me for over a year. Receiving proper treatment is the only way I’ll be able to have stability for more than a few weeks at a time.

 2. I clearly don’t have bp2 and the treatment (meds/therapy) is making everything worse since now I just feel numb. I just need to realize I’m living life wrong and fix my problems. 

I believe #1 when I’m depressed or reach a breaking point with anger/anxiety. 

I believe #2 when I feel stable or numb (which my psychiatrist says is me confusing numbness for my baseline) or start to feel substantially better (which has always been very temporary).

I’m generally high functioning which contributes to my doubts when I’m extra productive and energetic - since it feels positive, I must just be doing better. But this always turns into intense anger (frequently over issues so small I forget about hours before I calm down) and irritability. I become overwhelmed by noises, smells, and physical sensations, and lose all my patience for myself and others. But then these issues all disappear and I convince myself it wasn’t really that bad. This cycle causes me to stop medications without telling my psychiatrist, even though once I’m back to #1 I’m confident I’ll never do that again. 

Right now I firmly believe #1 - it’s so clear that when I remember I believed #2 a few weeks ago, I feel ashamed of myself. 

My psychiatrist says this is common but I’m wondering if others personally relate - does this happen to anyone else? It’s very frustrating because I can’t trust anything I believe in and I spend too many hours doubting myself.

Does anyone else have a quirky/weird hobby that your extremely good at? I've picked up photography and drawing.

I just have a constant rerun on in my head of everything I've done that was weird or embarrassing from both being bipolar and just being strange in general. I come away from every single interaction I have with fear and anxiety and a constant replaying of what happened and I just don't know how to get it to stop. I also have OCD and PTSD so that obviously doesn't help but I just can't seem to find a way to break away from the thoughts. I was saying goodbye to some new friends of mine who are leaving the area and I just can't stop obsessing over the interaction and how it went. And I do that with every interaction I have. Being social is just so exhausting for me both during and after the fact that a big part of me wants to opt out of socializing altogether, a strategy I championed for the better part of a decade. Does anyone have any advice? I am 30F if that helps.

All medication talk is completely anecdotal of course and only discussing my experience with them, not advising people to follow my same regimen. I’m on lamotrigine and lurasidone and the lurasidone makes me insanely hungry. I gained 10lbs on it within the first two months of being on it, and I was waking up at 4am starving just about every day.

My doc started me on the lowest dose of wegovy and it’s working amazingly, but I’m only really like 40lbs over my ideal weight (marked almost exclusively by my ability to fit into the majority of my wardrobe). Everything I keep seeing about GLP-1s is condemning people who aren’t at a weight that garners a need for it, and I feel like I’m part of the problem. Realistically, I understand that it is being used to treat a problem and not really for losing weight, it curbs my hunger enough that I don’t wake up in the middle of the night but I’m eating normal quantities of food, but boy howdy is it sending me for a loop.

With wegovy, pretty much the only side effect I experience now is like an hour of nausea when I take the meds at night, which I can totally live with. The difference of quality of life between being medicated vs unmedicated is so incredible I would take these meds even with the side effects, so realistically if this one tiny pill can really curb that one major side effect I’m so down, but it’s still weird for me to be taking a med just for the side effect of another med. life is weird y’all.

Woo second post in 2 days.

Anyway, the title. It seems like I just can't go on the way others can. I can keep a job for a little over a year before things start to rapidly fall apart. I can't keep up with my own hygiene or cleaning. I wouldn't eat much if someone in my house didn't cook

I just feel at such a loss. I don't truly want to die and leave my family. But I wish I could just disappear from everything else

I'm medicated, I have regular appointments, and I have a box of coping mechanisms. I'm not in any immediate danger. Yet I find myself wishing a meteor would fall on me or something.

I was recently diagnosed with bipolar 2 and it makes sense to me but I am still in denial like whay if I am making this uo

Let me know what you think!

TW: SA

God. I don’t even wanna get into all of it. The moral of the story is I got raped last year and my entire friend group ditched me after the fact because nobody understood what happened at the time, and neither did I.

I was dating my current boyfriend at the time (he has since come to an understanding of what truly happened), and it was understood to be cheating before I realized the severity of what happened to me. I did NOT cheat. I did NOT consent. And I was heavily under the influence.

Everything is fine and dandy for everyone else now, and I’ve repaired some of the relationships I lost, but they’re all still broken in my mind. I was betrayed by the people I thought cared about me. Some of them came to find out what happened and apologized but man, it’ll never undo the damage that was caused to my psyche.

I got invited to a friend’s birthday with a bunch of the people that stopped talking to me and I was just… shocked with the audacity of it all. You fuckers left me at my worst, never asked what happened, and now everything is just fine and dandy to you? Now I’m suddenly invited again because my boyfriend says it’s okay? I’m so sick of being an extension of someone else. I’m so sick of not being seen as my own person. And Jesus fucking christ, I hate this toxic ass echo chamber of a friend group. I’m done with it. I want nothing to do with it and I want to forget it happened at all.

While everyone was out at their parties last year, I was getting beaten and violated in the worst way imaginable. I used to find myself craving an invite, but now I’m so sickened at the thought of being around these people.

I’m so tired of living in the past while everyone moves on. It’s like a part of me died last year. Not even a part, but a version of me. And I will never get her back. She was stolen from me. And now I’m left picking up the pieces of the damage caused by a piece of shit person that premeditated my downfall because she was so miserable herself.

I’m so upset.

I’m so hurt.

I’m so done.

Since I can’t say it to them, I’ll say it here:

I hope you have toothpicks jammed underneath your toenails and are forced to kick a wall.

Fuck you.

Fuck you fuck you FUCK YOU!

looking for others with bipolar i can text and chat with. I’m 34 female work remote engaged love dogs and in a depressive funk right now. idk if this is allowed or not but i need support/ contact with others.

Hey guys, I just wanted to invite anyone who needs to join. We have a bipolar (Discord) server. It’s pretty good. We’ve had it for about a year now. I’ve been running it with a few other people. We have a very, very solid group, and I’m just inviting more people if they would like to join; I sent some screenshots of the server if you’re interested. I know it’s usually really hard for people to enjoy stuff like this, but we’ve been running for over a year. We have such a healthy group and a healthy community. I would love for more people to join. If you need support, we are here for you. :) There are about 85 members right now, and we are pretty active still after all this time. Anytime I need support, this is the first place I go to. I love this community!

Dm for an invite!

PS I am the owner (along side 2 others) so lmk if you have any questions.

Context

Post 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/bipolar2/s/YrINy0m5xo

Post 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/bipolar2/s/MgfpUNdQj5

Long story short, he diagnosed me with a mixed episode and so he took anti-depressants (Lexapro) off the table. He won't up my 200mg dose of lamotrigine either. He thinks it will make the mania worse. I basically have to suck it up which is disappointing.

I don't know much about mixed episodes. From googling, it seem like there's nothing that can be done. That's kind of scary tbh. If anyone has any advice or info about managing it, please share it.

And thanks for all the comments on my previous posts. They were really helpful!

I'm not a danger to myself anymore but yesterday I went off the deep end and told my bf and my friend I was gonna eat all my pills and off myself. Nothing bad happened to make me feel that way, I just didn't see the point in living anymore.

Well I passed out and woke up to the cops at my door. My friend called to do a welfare check when I didn't answer my phone.

I'm so embarrassed and have a psych appointment tmr. I don't think there is a magic "don't kill yourself" pill but if they make one let me know.

Gahhhhh, now I have to deal with the repercussions of my actions and it just makes me want to crawl in a hole. I don't know how else to deal with this so I guess I'm posting here.

Please refrain from answering if you are a SO/just a curious lurker.

So I have nightmares every night. Without fail. Every morning my smart watch tells me I was awake multiple times and I moved nonstop. And I do not feel well rested at all. I talked to my psychiatrist at my appointment this afternoon and she suggested something called Prazosin. She said it’s something typically prescribed to patients with PTSD, specifically for trauma related nightmares.
Have any of y’all ever taken this? Did it help? I’ve had my share of trauma but I almost feel like I don’t qualify as I don’t have PTSD myself. And also since BP and PTSD are incredibly different, would it even work?
Let me know what y’all think. And thanks for letting me pick your brains. :)

Hey everyone, I’ve been dealing with depression, BPD, and anxiety for 3 years, and recently had a terrifying week of hand jitters and severe depersonalization while cross-tapering Wellbutrin, Pristiq, Lexapro, and Abilify. I saw a new psychiatrist who told me to stop that complex overlap and reset completely with Zonalta 8mg (Endoxifen) in the morning and Quetiapine 25mg at night for 2 weeks. I’m a bit panicked because I found out Endoxifen is only approved in India and not by the US FDA or in Western countries yet. Has anyone here in India been prescribed Zonalta for mood swings, BPD, or severe anxiety? Is it safe, and did it actually help calm your nervous system and brain fog without weird side effects? Would love to hear any real-world experiences. Thanks!

OK yeah title is weird but hear me out, I was diagnosed about 3 years ago, unfortunately I have no treatment in place (no money for medication), family don't actually believe in diagnosis so anyway.

i found that when I'm manic things just work out, I can actually focus and understand school, I go out more and experience life...and when it ends I'm dumb again, I still go out when I can get out of my room but damn why is the other me so much nicer, and sometimes I can feel the episode slipping through my fingers and well here i am....brain fog, zero energy just waiting for the other me to show up so I can do work

Hello all! I was finally diagnosed with BP2 almost 10 years ago now. Before then, I know my mental health was absolutely horrible but I also had a very good sex drive, regardless of whether I was hypo or depressive. Since being on medication (was on Lithium for about 8ish years, now on Latuda) I completely lost any and all sex drive/libido/etc. I’ve been with my partner for over 15 years now and horrifically, we have not had sex for about the past 10 years. It is officially taking a toll on him and his mental health. He’s not pressuring me in any way, but it is finally a problem that I have zero interest in sex. I don’t even look at anyone and feel attracted to them. It’s as if any and all sexual activity has vanished. We’re looking into sex therapists and I’m meeting with a gyno to discuss options for HSDD. My question however, has anyone gone off their meds completely and gotten their sex drive back? I’ve been in therapy for over 10 years at this point, I strength train…I’m wondering if I stopped taking my meds if I’d be able to handle the ups and downs of this diagnosis better and hopefully feel sexual again. Any and all advice is appreciated.

I was broken up with a few months ago. We were together for 2 years, I thought the vast majority of the relationship went great. The breakup was very sudden, she asked to come over, I said in a bit, but she insisted it to be very soon. She was very jokey, cracking a shit ton of jokes before doing a complete 180. She told me that I was the most selfless person and a bunch of other meaningless compliments, before trying to leave and telling me that we aren’t going to have a conversation again.

While I did really like her, she wasn’t that good of a person. She was actively rude to pretty much every person she came across, had a huge ego, and had so many morally wrong stances. I was really really upset the first 3-4 weeks after the breakup, but it did eventually get better. This month so far I thought I had been doing good getting her off my mind. I found myself in a bit of a mental flow state for a good bit.

—————————————-
Where it starts to go bad
______________________

A few days I ago I spent time with a friend, who still actually followed my ex. It was the first time we had saw each other in a while, and at first we had no mention of my ex. Then randomly, out of the blue, my friend told me my ex is in a new relationship with a “fat Mexican nonbinary puppy boy” and she is their “owner”. I never have asked anyone for updates on my ex and I didn’t want to know anything, but what I heard really shocked me. It’s exactly the kind of thing my ex would mock and make fun of when we were together.

That night, I went on her Spotify (which was still on my tv) and tried to loop this puppy tv show song to make it her top song of the year. She eventually caught on and removed my device (after trying to play meme songs + sex noises through my tv). I sent her pictures of anime puppy boys on discord and she asked how I knew, I didn’t respond.

I felt so angry and so miserable at work the past few days so I took today off in an effort to rest, but I woke up way too early and haven’t been able to sleep. I had a really messed up idea early this morning, in which I did.

I made an insta account with her first name + last name initial, named it something puppy boy related, and posted a bunch of anime puppy boy images with weird captions and such. I followed a bunch of her colleagues in an effort to embarrass her at work. I had the account up for like 30 minutes before I got a message from her demanding it to be taken down and that I was harassing her. She’s not wrong, I really was harassing her. The moment I saw her message my heart sank and it hit me that was I was doing was wrong. I deleted, I said sorry and that I won’t do anything again, and blocked her.

I feel absolutely terrible and struck with remorse. Im trying to give myself some grace because I never sought out that information in the first place because I knew I could do something stupid like this. I hate that I am like this, I wish I could just function normally. I don’t want to be with her at all. I hate that I want to get revenge on her, she really doesn’t deserve it, I just have such strong feelings.

I had a few months long rapid cycling episode thing and my speech is worse. Its worse out loud. I lose words, cant express my thoughts clearly to people, half thoughts, all that. Every conversation I leave feeling like that was not what I wanted or was trying to say. My sentences and structure and grammar were already all mixed up. I'm on lamotrigine I know that was and is definitely contributing to it. I had an underlying health issue that exacerbated the brain inflammation and extended the episode. This last episode I keep trying to describe how it was for me, what happened, apologize to people. I have all these thoughts and some of it comes out but I can't get it out at the right times before the conversations end even when I'm trying so hard. Even thoughts unrelated to the emotional stress, normal things dont come out quite right. It is easier to type, but still things are not coming out correctly. Having a longer time to pause and type helps but I can't do that with everything. I know I need time to rest and heal, but it has never happened to me to this degree and I'm just sad I cant express what is really in my heart to the people I love :(

so i myself am not bipolar, and im not looking for a guide to live with it, however my girlfriend is bipolar, and i wanted to ask if there were any highly recommended books to learn the most i can about it, however it works and what it is like to live with it?
i’m interested in both the neurological side of it, such as neuro chemistry and biology, but also just day to day experiences and what it’s like handling and living with it.

i wanted to understand my girlfriend and their condition as best as i can, and so im looking for a book that can help me in that with in depth detail and teaching.

I want to go. I’m so miserable and sad and upset all the time. I want things to end I want to never have to experience this again. But I can’t go to the hospital without triggering my parents insurence not to mention they would notice if I was gone for 2 weeks. But I want the stuff they do there, or maybe I just want the stuff I imagine they do there. Maybe in reality I just want my psychiatrist to listen and proscribe something that would actually help. I don’t think anyone is gonna help