I have lived with Bipolar II for as long as I remember, I just didn’t have the diagnosis until recently. I lived in hypomania for years, being very creative and a great multitasking career person. When the depression hit, I could call it PMS, stay in bed for a while and then it would be gone. Three years ago after a terrible loss I went into a depression that left me unable to work, unable to care for my child. I was hospitalized- they would release me when my mania clicked in because I could convince them for 48 hours that I was good. Revolving door of hospital, home, hospital went on for 2 1/2 years. Finally I went onto a medication that I had been tried on with a cocktail of others- it was a guessing game which one was working and which one wasn’t. Now on this medication for 9 months I have remained out of the hospital, have been able to begin the battle to get my son back, and have found true enjoyment in being a ‘housewife’. I still do get spells of hypomania- I am safe, I don’t take risks, and I just use it to be creative and productive with my crafts. The depression hits here and there, but I am coping, lowering my expectations (the whole house won’t be as clean, etc.). When I feel that I can’t stay in control I have a great therapist that I can e-mail(sometimes just ‘venting’ helps). I have a psychiatrist who will always return my call the same day, or there is someone on call to speak to. I can now see a future that may be less ’successful’ than I once thought it would be, but I have learned to be content where I am, and to fight to be better where opportunity arises.

For me, I knew something was wrong for quite a while but I just thought it was depression. When I was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder 2 years ago at age 24 it was like someone set off a bomb in my surrounding world screwing up everything I knew and loved. Internally I was confused and disoriented, while all that was left of my life was the shell of my old me. I even looked different, my eyes were sunken and my skin was dull. I lost 40 pounds (wasn’t big to begin with). I was in the hospital 2 different times in 2008 and that was extremely demoralizing for me as it took me from the role of nurse to the role of patient and I’m not good at that.

For me depression has always been the major issue. When I’ve been what I would call hypomanic, I am just irritable and anxious. For me Lithium has been helpful, allowing me to obtain the most control I’ve had in years. There are periods of like 2 months a a time where I have a neutral mood and that’s helpful but just as I begin to see glimpses of the old me, another bout of depression hits reminding me that I will never be the same. Bipolar disorder has tauht me that life sucks sometimes, and sometimes it’s normal. It is teaching me to embrace the normal times and adapt to the abnormal times. I am learning to be gentler with myself and accept the fact that I won’t ever be exactly the same. It’s lessons like that that I a greatful for because without the diagnosis I would not have ever changed my harsh inner critic. It’s also made me a better, more emotionally connected nurse, as I’ve seen how vulnerable being a patient really is. Of course I am still angry when I think about how much more difficult my life is right now than it was before. I continue to be compliant with meds and work hard in therapy so that I can maximize the good times and minimize the bad times. Thanks for this blog.

I have lived with Bipolar I now for four years. I was diagnosed my last year of college. At first I hated myself. My marriage fell apart and I am on the credit card companies most wanted. Things have changed. With treatment, I am in a healthy relationship and getting better every day. I have learned to accept the fact that I will have missteps.

Since I don’t remember ever NOT being bipolar, I guess my experience is a little different. I didn’t have a time when the future seemed clear, or goals seemed reachable, and I still don’t. The only difference now is twelve pills a day. Oh, and I can’t drink. And my medications is making me fat so I have to limit everything I eat and sometimes I binge uncontrollably and then feel horrible about it. And I can’t form coherent sentences during conversations that would otherwise interest me and come off as mildly retarded (which I suppose is accurate). Also, no one in my life understands what is happening to me and I don’t want to explain it to them or ask them for help because I am afraid of losing my independance (or what is left of it at this point).

YAY BIPOLAR!!!

I guess that means I’m angry and bitter, lol.

My sister has bipolar and have I always had a hard time understanding the struggles she went through. A book I came across titled, “Blessed With Bipolar,” by author Richard Jarzynka, helped me understand a lot more. He speaks about how it is a gift rather than a weakness.
http://www.bipolarman.org/AbouttheBook.html

After reading his book, I truly believe that God is not screwing with my sister. He will use bipolar for her absolute best. When we are weak, Christ’s strength is made perfect in us and His grace is sufficient.

I realize from talking with my parents that I was born bipolar and have exhibited symptoms all my life. I’ve fought with depression more than mania, but I’m type I due to some severe risk-taking during manic episodes.
The worst part of being bipolar for me has been the trial-and-error of finding meds that work. After 9 years of trying different combinations I’m relatively stable, but I’m still trying to find a cocktail that doesn’t make me fat and stupid.
I’m not sure that being diagnosed and put on medication (not to mention the ECT I underwent when they thought I “just” had depression) have been beneficial. Like Bobbi J, I was creative and able to multi-task; now I’m lucky if I remember to feed the chickens. I live my life through to-do lists and post-it notes. I simply have no short-term memory left.
I’m unable to work due to a co-existing anxiety disorder, and I’m not much of a housewife. Finding things to bolster my self-esteem is very difficult and I spend a lot of time beating myself up over the things I can’t do anymore. I’m working on acceptance but it’s difficult.
Thank God I have a supportive husband. Without him I think I would have committed suicide years ago.

Hello,

Bipolar has always been a issue for me. I have had it for as long as I can remeber, although I can’t remmeber my early childhood of birth to almost 10 years old. It’s like I started living at age 10 on. Which is where some of the depression comes from. I have a long list of diagnoses and have done the meds and all that. Hospitals and me have never been friends. It often feels like I am a abuse magnet when it comes to seeking help at hospitals (either ER or psychiatric). I was diagnosed PTSD from the abuse. (Spinal injury from a staff member. Locking in solitary for 14 hour with no food, no water and laying in a pool of urine for not wanting to strip search for a gay staff member. When I was 16, locked in a solitary room for 13 hours overnight in the dark leaving me terrified of the dark. That kind of stuff.) The nightmares and flashbacks seem to fuel the fire of depression for me. So fighting bipolar has been a kind of one person venture. I have way more depression than manic. When I am manic I find it’s useful to try to use that what seems like never ending energy to catch up on the housework and other things I let go during the time I was depressed. Then it feels like I hit a brick wall when the depression comes back around. It makes me so angry when someone who doesn’t have bipolar says they know how I feel. Same with people who say they know how it feels to have PTSD when they have never dealt with it. Sorry, kind of get ranting about things. It’s been alot to handle. And it all seems to fuel the depression. As far as suicide, I have been down that road MANY times. Attempted at least 6 times. But I can say having close friends and family helps to not make the choice to end your life so easy. It’s like a force that keeps you from pulling the trigger so to speak. I lastly wanted to say, hang in there everyone reading this article. The thing about bipolar, there is always a up/high coming after the depression. So try to hold hope that the highs last longer than the lows. Take care.

-Stanley

Bipolar is not a gift, don’t think that. People who have this brain disorder can be gifted but it is a disease & not a gift. I’ve had it since I was born. My parents were horrified with a baby that never slept, cried 24/7. My brother & sister were not like that. I have always had super manias, to the point of hallucinating, especially in Spring/Summer. Depression came out as anger. My father had rage seizures & is a very high-functioning manic. I also have seizures & OCD, managed by meds. Meds help but they are not a cure. I had to quit working, slowly. Was working (high achiever) 40-60 hours/week. Down to PT (30-35. Then my neurologist & MD told me I’d have to quit working (I was only 53). I was furious & kept working for another year but the stress kept causing manias & OCD fits. I’d worked hard since age 15. So that was the worst problem. My husband is great. I enjoy writing & have had numerous poems published, one in a journal that was on the NY Times “Best of the Small Presses.” Since I’ve been this way all my life, I can’t say how it’s changed me altho’ it got worse as I got older. Without meds, I’d be in a locked ward. I consider myself blessed b/c of science. By the way, I am a “Jesus Freak” but I do not believe prayer cures this. Tried that for 25 years & had devout people praying for me. Find a GOOD p-doc & get an MD who will work with you & your p-doc. Get on good meds (it takes time, took 5 years to find the right combo for me). Enjoy life. Do things even when you don’t feel like it. Senior Centers have lots of free events, so do schools. Everyone has something wrong with them. RA, cancer, MS—all those scary diseases affect families. It’s odd that people can’t deal w/ bipolar as easily as they can about a person with cancer. People act afraid. People I haven’t “come out” with this, I’ll hear them say “That murderer was probably bipolar! Bipolar people are dangerous!” OMG, so I “come out” & they say things like, “NO, you are creative, there is no way you are crazy.” Sheesh

It is really amazing and supportive to read all of your stories. It takes courage. I don’t have bipolar, but I am in love and live with a man who has Bipolar II. He is the love of my life, and best friend. Where to really begin I will never know the feelings he has as I lay peacefully asleep at night, and he can’t sleep if he had the zoo keeper give him an elephant tranquilizer. And it’s not because he doesn’t want to sleep it’s just that when he is manic, it’s like witnessing a race horse ready to run the Kentucky Durby only the gates don’t open. And all that intensity and restlessness if it;s not used in a resourceful way, life becomes so discomforting and overwhelming that all he wants to do is sedate himself. Never with any bad intentions, but that is his words not mine. He also can get very depressed, and when he does he gets to the point where you can see that it just physically exhusts him.
Life isn’t always like this. He has the biggest heart in the world. He is the most exquissite and intelligent man I have ever met. He always comes from a heart place. We love to cook and cozy up to a fire. Watch countless hours of the history and science channel and have in depth conversations about life and share our peaceful thoughts and just be in love. I am a preschool teacher perhaps that how I have the most amazing patiences in the world. By nature I happen to be a very natural nurturer. We live in the Rockie mountains and its a peaceful place.
I will never understand how he feels never knowing what each day will bring. But when he starts rapidly mood swinging he feels that he has the right as a Bipolar person to do what ever he wants to his body so he doesn’t have to conciousley live through the yucky times. And since ‘no one else’ knows what this feels like or have been ‘genetically victimized’ they can “f–ck off” as he would say. obviously this is so dangerous to his health, if someone pisses him off they might as well give him a bottle of vodka. And the ironic thing of it all is he is the one who helped me stop drinking.
This fall has been a rough one for him. I feels like Tarzan and Jane in our house swing this way and that way. And even though I don’t have Bipolar I feel his pain to my core. I hold him and unconditionally love him. On really yucky days I stay quite and support him to just focus on taking care of himself, whether it’s making him food when he too depressed to feed himself. , I know half the hot air that comes out of his mouth is just that, and don’t get argumentative with him( even when he is making no sense whats so ever) But things are getting to a point were he needs to take accountability fr his abuse to himself. Knowing the very long and detailed list of things that are his triggers I don’t understand why he doesn’t want to take control and say I WILL NOT BE RULED BY BIPOLAR. It’s a the deepest helpless feeling when you wish you could find the magical remedy that will make him feel comfortable in his own body.

I just realized how many typos I have it that letter. I really can speek, just bad speller LOL

>How has bipolar disorder changed you?
>Whether you have bipolar or have a loved one >with bipolar, please share your experiences and >insights into how it has changed your life, >particularly your view of life and how you >envision your future.

I didn’t get hit with BP disorder until I was 36. Before then, I was a bit of a rock star. I had received degrees from 2 Ivy League schools, including having graduated Summa from one, and having received a National Science Foundation Scholarship to study at the 2nd.

Out in the work world, I was consistently a star employee. At one fairly large organization, I was the 5th highest paid individual at the relatively young age of 36.

I’ve now been living with BP disoder (BP II to be precise) for 16 years, having been diagnosed 9 years ago. For me, my life has clearly been divided into 2 periods: BB and DB (before bipolar and during bipolar).

In my BB period, I was happy and couldn’t imagine ever wanting to change places with anyone. I loved getting out of bed every morning and had nothing but optimism for the future. Why people killed themselves was a total mystery to me. In the game of life, I was blessed to have been dealt a winning hand.

In my DB period, everything has changed. I’m now a loser, spending a great deal of time wishing I were dead, hating myself, and spending way too much time trying to manage a steady dose of anxiety. I went from 6-figure income to making under $20K last year and under $10K this year. As of this writing I’ve been depressed almost nonstop for 3 years, despite taking 6 meds that make me chronically tired.

And 16 years later I am still trying to find a way to lead a relatively steady-state life. I try not to think about the future because the past and present have been so dismal. Sometimes when I do think that I could live for another 50 years, I’m filled with terror.

I’ve probably been bipolar all my life, but it’s been within the last 5 years that I’ve had a diagnosis of bipolar II.

Sometimes I think that the worst thing that happened to me was getting the diagnosis. Prior to that, I always thought that if I just tried harder to maintain self control, then I would be okay. Or, if I just had the right faith, or right beliefs, then my life would be full of peace. These beliefs gave me hope that I could do something about my problems. Being dianosed, took away my hope.

Doctors believe that medication solves all problems for bipolar people but that is not true. I might sound a bit over negative for not having tried every drug out there. I’ve only used Lamicatal, Abilify and Serequel. The problem with the anti-psychotic medications is that I can only take a very small dose before becoming too sleepy. My doctor didn’t seem to care that this sleepiness was impacting my work or ability to drive, which was required for the job I had. Lamicatal, although good at preventing depression, seemed to make me on edge. I’d rather be slightly depressed because when I have even a slightly elevated mood, I usually struggle with anxiety. When I feel general anxiety for a week of so, I begin to feel physical pain because of muscle tension, and grinding my teeth. Then my doctor thinks it’s great that he can give me something to make me feel calmer, which really means, make me sleepy.

I can go long periods when I feel normal, so I do want to keep working. Work causes more stress in my life, more stress causes more symptoms, more symptoms cause the need for more medication, medication makes me sleepy and interfers with work. This causes more stress.

There is another strange thing that I’ve heard others experience and I would like to know more about. That is, that bipolar people have more spiritual difficulties. This has always been the case with me. In the past I could convince myself that I was delusional or hallucinating, but my son recently witnessed something that happened to me that was like a haunting or something. Anyone else experience odd spiritual type things?

I was diagnosed with Bipolar II when I was 20 but no one was really surprised. My life up until and at that point was always in disarray; depression and hypomania completely ruling my life and all my personal relationships. After my diagnosis, I began the medication journey and struggled with the stereotypical implications of my disorder: both judgements from others and myself and the roller coaster mood swings and subsequent substance abuse. My life remained chaotic and my depression showed no sign of waning. Personal relationships continued to be ruined and my whole persona was wrapped up in chaos. After years of trying different medications and being in and out of therapy, I am finally truly happy and in control of my life. I am nearly 29. Mindfulness meditation, medication, and healthful behaviour habits allow me to take control of my moods even when they begin to show the begins of disorder.

I now work with the mentally ill and am completing my degree in psychology. I never imagined my life could become so ordered and sane.

Don’t give up. If I can master this, so can you. It’s not easy, still not even now, but every time I start to feel myself falling I know I have the capacity to take control of the reigns before I find myself in disarray. And the reward of having a happy and calm life is worth all the hard work.

Hello,
Im new to this site. I registered and now I can not locate the login….However, I am searching for support for myself and my bipolar son…..Rexx

I am Bipolar I. I have been suffering from organ damage from bipolar medication. It is such a tough road that the very same medicines that help my mental functioning, turn on my thyroid, kidneys or liver. I am starting Tegretol, but it’s side effects are daunting as well. The cure is sometimes more cruel than the disease.

I was diagnosed with Bipolar Type I in 2000. I had just had a full Hysterectomy and a few weeks later I began to change for the worst. I went and seen a Psychiatrist who told me I was Bipolar and that I probably had been all my life, but it took having the surgery to bring it out. I have lived through pure Hell ever since. I have been on every psychotropic and depression drug known to man and have been hospitalized 42 times. I have tried to commit suicide at least 2 dozen times. One I almost did end it, but they saved me. On top of that I have gone through numerous surgeries and had to be put on pain killers…which do mesh well with bipolar. Now I’m having to go through it again. I just found out yesterday I will have to have yet another back surgery, this time very evasive, I will be hospitalized and put on Morphine. Great!!! NO NOT GREAT!!! Yes there was a time a year or two ago that I began to get better but that all changed when I had to have all my teeth pulled and was put on some heavy duty pain killers. I began to abuse them like always and then ran out and began to detox. If you want to know what pure Hell is like, bipolar + pain killersM + detoxing = PURE HELL.
In the past I would hullicinate, see things, hear things. I was going to have ECT’s done, but chickend out. I could write a novel on what I’ve gone through and put my family through. But the one thing that has kept me going these past years is my Husband. He has stood by my side the whole time, even after threating to kill him and myself many times. He has never left me and said he will never leave me. He says he knows there is good inside of me and that I have to make the choice …. to live my life in Hell…or to try and make myself better…..I have chosen to not let this disease beat me…I have chosen to live again.

I was diagnosed BPII after my child was born. I was probably hypomanic throughout my life before that. I keep fighting the diagnosis. This has become a daily struggle for me. I spend lots of energy making sure my husband and daughter don’t have to deal with it.

After being diagnosed with bipolar disorder I have been plagued by the unfortunate stigma of being “fragile.”

I am in no way fragile. I am a completely competent person who, until being laid off thanks to the crappy economy, was contributing to society. I am well educated and have a nice family. I can care for myself and my family without anyone’s assistance even without my meds.

With my meds, I have become better able to focus without the constant manic episodes or major depression.

I am angry about the stigma that is attached to bipolar disorder. We are NOT crazy people. Some of the things we do can sometimes be classified as crazy, but WE are not crazy.

It’s important to take the meds and do just as the doctor orders, but it’s just as important that we, as a group, do our best to make the stigma go away.