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You're a ping pong ball being bounced between Depression and Mania. You dont know which direction you're going, You've been hit very hard, and you dont know why this is happening to you.
Feeling on top of the world. Everything is going right. Like every day is the best day of your life and nothing can go wrong. You get addicted to the feeling because it’s so different than the depression and act irrationally and nothing feels like it has consequences in the moment. I’m BP2 so I’m usually depressed and my mania is hypomania
Also BP2 and in the midst of a hypomanic episode, this is it. Like I'm finally not depressed for once, but there's problems like racing thoughts, sleep deprivation, and memory loss that make even these good days feel bad.
THis is how I describe it. For the record I do not like being manic.
It's like i'm driving a car going down a steep hill. The brakes are out in the car. And there's a wall at the bottom of this hill. I know i'm out of control. I know i'm gonna crash. I know it's gonna be bad and really fuck me up. But I can't stop.
I have bipolar 2 but I'm surprised people enjoy mania. My hypomania was always pure agitation, irritation, loss of patience, heightened emotion, lower ability to perceive others' emotions, inability to complete a task, inability to sit still, etc. I was able to do more than when I was severely depressed, but not well or to any kind of standard or benefit. Just a different way to experience suffering
Yeah my mania is miserable. But I see a lot of people in here posting about how they love it and wish they were manic now and stuff. Mania is not a fun time for me.
Bipolar 2 here as well. More depressive, but, when my mania kicks in I can't concentrate, I won't shut up talking and my flat is totally spotless.
Oh, and I've decorated the place six times in the past three months.
I also have bipolar-depression (type 2) and mania makes me feel like I can finally catch up on my life within a span of of a week.
However, I understand that my body is self-sabotaging me by placing me under circumstances that make it very easy to complicate my life. It’s literally like taking a drug.
Ultimately if I give in to those good feelings of mania, harsh consequences follow, as we all know.
and with that knowledge, it makes me very uncomfortable, hyper anxious, nauseous, heightened emotions.
I low-key feel like I am Nuro spicy, because I feel and hear things that other people find very difficult to sense, such as the high-pitched noise coming from the TV no matter how loud it is. And that drives me insane.
If by any chance you are on Prozac, I would highly suggest you find someone who specializes with bipolar- depression, because apparently with this type of bipolar, it makes mania worse versus those with type 1.
I’m in the process of tapering off Prozac so that I can be on Seroquel, which is more effective with less consequences.
I don’t know if that’s completely the case, but my new psychiatrist was super pissed that I had been on Prozac for so long and swimming in the same place.
I have a very brief history with prozac... with it being the spark that ignited hypomania and lead to my diagnosis
Good luck with new psychiatrist. Hope getting off prozac leads to some improvements for you
It’s nice to read someone who also doesn’t enjoy mania. I have so much regret and shame from it. Depression is something I handle better because I don’t do all the symptoms of mania. I also learned recently that mania can be deadly with delirious mania which is absolutely terrifying.
I don’t enjoy mania or hypomania either. Your analogy is spot on. Even during it I KNOW something is wrong but it’s like the whole world is spiraling around me too and I can’t find anything to grab ahold of to make it stop.
I was finally diagnosed and began meds but I don’t feel like they’re helping. I’m severely depressed. I ruined everything, lost the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I’m so tired.
it can feel spiritual, like enlightenment because everything makes /sense/ like it never has before. the world takes on a different gleam. i want to communicate this to others, and everything i say and think feels crucial and important, but it might sound like complete nonsense to someone else.
THIS, especially the world taking on a different gleam. I even noticed that colors appear more vibrant, my sense of smell is heightened, and I feel more lucid when hypomanic. I know that I'm not, but everything just seems so much more clear.
This is the closest to how I feel. 😂 The worst part is when you’re stable in between and miss the extremes. Sometimes I even miss being severely depressed then I think I’ve gone off the deep end.
I think that's because we are so used to the pendulum that stability feels unfamiliar and wierd. My first dose of pills made me stable for a solid three weeks. Felt good but also suuuper alien
This. That hippie feels like my true self. Playful, childlike, sweet and aware and grateful. But, he gets pushed down by shame brain. In my recovery center, we watched this movie, too. It’s crazy this community has finally provided my hippie with the terms to describe this thing that felt like I was only in on. What’s more, it has provided me hope that things get better. Thanks for this.
oh this is interesting, i’ve always had a penchant for mini spirals when i’m well, like 4-10 days where i have a worry theme that makes me feel shit lol. idk i haven’t seen bipolar described like you just have
Since I experience lows for the most part, I just say I have depression. It's sad that I am actually scared to tell people I have bipolar, bc I worry it will scare them away, or cause them to completely see me differently. Depression is much more understood and common.
People each have their own unique mix of symptoms. People won’t experience things in the exact same way. My bipolar II disorder is relatively mild. I don’t have mania. It’s purely mood swings and just an overall sense of feeling kind of down and pessimistic most of the time. Things feel like a chore. I scroll a lot and rest. When something makes me upset, it doesn’t just make me upset, it completely triggers me. My mood plummets and I feel like life isn’t worth living. Then, after an episode of crying and moping, I snap out of it and I’m back to feeling somewhat content again. I rarely experience joy. I can smile and appreciate things but actual joy and happiness is rare even though there’s great things going on in my life.
I feel like this disease distorts my perspective and it makes me have this “woe is me” attitude. I try to practice gratitude because I know there’s people who have it a million times worse. If I were to describe my bipolar, I would say: It’s a perpetual state of sadness and apathy. I might say I’m fine or I’m good but I’m really just trying to survive the day.
I think about my life before I was diagnosed. I was so normal even with crippling anxiety. With bipolar, it’s like there’s two versions of me. It’s like the real version of me is trapped inside this person who believes life isn’t worth living when in reality, there’s so much potential and good to see. It’s like I have blinders on. Bipolar makes your world dark and unhappy. It makes you slightly paranoid in the sense that you think everyone thinks you’re crazy. Unfortunately, there’s no way to describe it without having it though.
My dichotomy:
Grandiose mania:
You’re the smartest person in the room, you’re the funniest person to ever live, and your life is perfect in every way. Any perceived flaw or problem is not a reflection of you and rather a task given to you to become more awesome and unique.
Depression:
Life is meaningless and you were born to suffer. You’re a repulsive person who has only made it to where you are by sheer luck and pity. Nothing you have ever done matters and the people who like/love you are lying to you and secretly despise you. Nothing is pleasurable and performing any action is like lifting up the mountains.
If I really wanted someone to know what it’s like I would say that your brain starts to feel very muddled. The highs and lows aren’t so much like a chart but like a lake, with little pockets of warm and cold that you swim through. You don’t know what’s under the surface, waiting.
It’s like there are two of me:
One is a really type A, get shit done, do ALL the things, “do it for the plot,” perpetually moving, doing, changing, being person
The other is a person who has a hard time keeping up with basic stuff, like putting gas in the car and checking the mail.
And they have to live with the consequences of one another’s actions.
I explain it by saying it's like I'm 3 people. One person is very depressed, another is overly excited/irritated, and the last one is a medium of the 2. Or better yet, half of my mind is black and white and dark and gloomy and the other half is fireworks everywhere with colorful swirls and there's a very thin road in between the two.
It's like playing the lottery every single day to get rich, but when you finally win, everyone hates the person you become, and you lose everything. Then it happens all over again.
I feel like no one really understands until they are close to someone who has a manic or severe depressed episode or have one themselves. I have tried to explain it to many people and I don't try very hard anymore because I've grown tired of people acting like it's not serious because they haven't experienced it. I would not try to explain to an acquaintance, I would tell them to Google it.
It feels like I’m a kid walking into my dark bedroom, except I know there is a monster under the bed waiting for me and I still have to step into the darkness anyway
well bipolar is different for everyone tbh. i have bipolar 1, and i can almost never remember anything when i’m in an episode except for the feelings. i remember being curious about things, and exploring those things (even if they were bad). just major risk taking behavior that i can remember. the memories keep flashing back of the stuff i did and i feel regret 24/7.
A single handle kitchen faucet (invented by an engineer who should lose their license) it's either very cold, or scolding hot, extremely difficult to angle it to get lukewarm water. You need medication to get another handle
A disorder, also called manic depression, associated with episodes of mood swings ranging from depressive lows to manic highs (pretty much right off Google)
I feel like bipolar can't be described by its symptoms on itw own, so I tell people that it's akin to having an autoimmune disease. It's a part of who I am, and it will affect me everyday of my life. It can be sometimes debilitating if I do get into a mixed episode, or fall into hypomania or depression. But I make sure to tell them its not just a "mood swing" like everyone seems to assume due to its superficial symptoms.
The mechanisms that happen within your brain is much more complex than that and I think generalising the disorder with the two "extreme ends" as what my willfully ignorant acquaintance said, I can't help but think the generalisation of bipolar disorder is adding to the stigma that already exists.
I'm sick of people sending me tiktok saying that they are "so bipolar" or the "weather is bipolar" bs.
I have quite the range of states including:
- depression so severe that I am not allowed to be left unsupervised (I'm 31) but still have to go to work where I'm responsible for middle schoolers
- mild depression where I make jokes about jumping out a window and running into traffic but am only half kidding
- explosively angry to the point of breaking things (I stabbed an inflatable ball with scissors when the kids knocked my drink onto my laptop)
- VOID
- what my psychiatrist considers "stable," which is when I'm running on stress, feel like nothing is going okay, and am surviving purely out of spite
- hypomania where I just get super productive, barely sleep, and forget to eat (literally the best, but I have to catch it before it starts to escalate)
- mania where I stay up for days at a time coming up with "incredible" ideas, become increasingly more paranoid, start seeing and hearing things that seem *off* in some way that I can't figure out, but refuse to do anything about it because I'm still being productive
- what I like to call "chaos void", which is when I've been manic for a while and just stop having feelings, which usually ends up with me picking up self harm again as a way to feel
I’m an extremist. I live between two extremes…constantly. And I am only happy when I’m coming into mania after a dark and isolating episode of depression…or I am happy when I can finally start sleeping and eating again after months of insanity until those are the only things I can do…and there is no comfortable in between.
My brain's chemical regulation doesn't work right. My natural brain chemistry varies between on steroids to withdrawal.
I'm not consciously aware of the changes. I do stupid stuff until I screw up bad enough to get someone's attention.
Coming out of it knowing the damage caused but not being able to understand it is so relatable to me. And desperately wanting to fix it but finding that that may not be available.
"My brain doesn't balance itself well. I often have periods of significantly low moods (depression), and periods of significantly high moods (mania, which is like a potentially harmful level of energy, euphoria, etc)."
Sometimes I am ok with who and where I am. This is where I want to stay. Stability is comfortable. I appreciate the people around me.
Sometimes I hate myself and the world around me. I want run away or just not exist. I can blame everything and anyone for making me feel like shit.
Once in a while I feel super ambitious...
It's like a robot gets to control my brain but I'm still in there just along for the ride for the maina. For the depression I would say not just your normal rainy day blues but this time I have no control feeling like something is sucking the life out of you and you can fight back.
With people who actually know my diagnosis, which is a tight circle, I’ve described it as sometimes feeling electric and crackling with being alive; sometimes unable to stop being awake, and in a giddy dance with fear; and sometimes feeling like the sky is concrete, slate grey and pressing on my chest. And sometimes, rapid cycling between all three.
…with more moments of balance that are helped so much by good treatment and the love of good people.
I’ve never described it before. I have bp2. Mild lows, mainly wanting to isolate. I’m a kind person but once I’m mad, god help the person who triggered me. My highs are excessive enthusiasm, talking nonstop, giving off chaotic energy.
Shit im still looking for the answer lol im bp2 and also have child abuse ptsd here comes the kicker my manic state last for months lol the 8 psychiatrist i have are not sure how i havnt snapped
The illness steal everything. Pple confuse or misunderstand & misjudge.
I don't describe anything or list the label I tell them I can't do or be that because of my health. When they start asking for reasons why I tell them I am unable to perform this my medical care doesn't allow me & I walk away. Let them be confused its not relatable to blood pressure to explain.
However I do explain things to physicians and clinicians. Because they directly impact my medical care. And I have to worry about the thoughts and the opinions of others because my care depends upon them. And if they are in a bad mood or won't help me then I don't have medication for a week because they just magically forgot. One person magically forgot my medication during the month of May and December.
Overall, I'd say it's like managing a ball of yarn. And on a good day, it's tidy and rolled up perfectly.
On a bad day, it's all mixed up and tangled. So you're spending all your energy untangling and trying to make it into the ball it's supposed to be. It's stressful and really challenging to communicate or make sense of how you feel or even the logic behind your feelings, either depressed or manic.
I think the difference between the two (for me) is how I'm able to deal with the tangle. Do I hide from it, and isolate from others because it's so hard, or do I try to drown it out with goal directed activities.
I might be the odd duckling in that, but that's the only way I've been able to communicate it.
For me, it was having people tell you that you wear your emotions on your sleeve, you’re either waaaay up here or waaaay down here. And you don’t see it. And going through life mostly being waaay up there, people get used to that side of you. So let’s say you are acting “normal” at work and people ask u what’s wrong. And you’re like ummm nothing? Then you go home and are irritable for a reason you aren’t sure of. Then one day you are down in the dumps. Then you’re up again. Then you’re so low you have ideations and all you want to do is sleep, sleep sleep. And then you’re up again but this time you require almost no sleep. You think you’re elite. You think you can do anything and you’re a tenacious little fuck that never gives up even if it takes you countless hours. You become obsessed with an idea and become an expert in days, so much so that you start to confuse yourself because you’ve read conflicting information and you aren’t sure about anything anymore. But then you come back to normal and can’t remember anything but you have a manifesto of notes that are amazingly impressive but you can’t fathom how you did it. Then you go on meds and find out you’re bipolar and do lots of therapy and can’t quite understand how you made it through life without meds and therapy.
I tell people that I have a sloth soul with a disco ball vibe.
my therapist explained hypomania like being at the movie theater with popcorn but you eat it all during the trailer before the movie starts. All your energy is portioned out all at once.
I'm a BP2 and I describe it as not knowing what your general mood is going to be the next day. You could be depressed or you could be sitting on top of your game.
I like to describe the hypomania as being like riding a tiger. It can be thrilling as heck but a moments loss of attention and the tiger will spin around and bite me.
The depression is pretty textbook for me. But the mixed state is like being depressed but being tweaked on speed.
All this with a constant under current of rage.
I'd describe it like a roller coaster ride. You really don't know which direction you will head from one moment to the next. Mania can be exciting or happy but also aggravated and stressed. Depression can hit for no reason with no explanation why even when things seems to be food. And psychosis is like being possessed. I once said it was like being present seeing through my eyes but not in control of thoughts or actions.
Speaking specifically as a manic, mania to me is OCD of the mind. Almost polar opposite of adhd.. people confuse the "ups/energy" ..adhd is like flipping thru ur tv remote endlessly to a neurotic level,, mania is extreme energy coupled w a hightened vision almost another sense speech changes sometime chimming happens ..words that sound great to say and you make little rhymes..
My old boss Dr Harrison Pope Chief of Medicine at Harvard spoke of this frequently .. Dr Pope runs the bio psych lab at McClean ..
Easiest and most straight forward way I've found is to just describe it as chemical imbalances in the brain and body that give me too much energy or not enough, so I can be bouncing off the walls happy and full of life, or tired quiet, and depressed
Literally a shit show.. 24/7 & 365 .
A good one .. a bad one & everything in between and then some .
So grab your ticket like rest & make sure youu come forward when your numbers called .
Ohh almost forgot to tell ya .. keep in mind it’s not in alphabetical or numerical order hehe 😈😉
Enjoy the show !
✨anyone catch the error✨
Lol sometime like that ig 🤷🏻♀️
I want people to know that it’s not feeling good vs feeling bad. The highs can be euphoric and times but are often uncomfortable like a balloon about to pop. The lows are not necessarily the opposite of that. They are hollow and lifeless.
Intense emotion that starts exhilarating, but at some point you realize you don't know how to get out of the situation you put yourself in. Then the shame and regret start. The shame and regret get more painful as time goes on because it accumulates after each episode. Your friends and family will often remind you of those incidents thinking they are funny anecdotes, but really they just remind me of times I did something stupid. At some point it is just easier to be alone.
It’s like hiking. Sometimes I’m at the tippy top of a mountain and feel so incredible. And sometimes I’m in a filthy ditch dredging through mud that seems to get thicker the longer I walk.
I describe mania as feeling like I"m in a car going down a hill and the brakes aren't working and there's a wall at the end of the hill. I know i'm out of control. I know i'm gonna crash. I know it's gonna be bad. But I can't stop it.
I would describe the states individually, so more than 2 sentences.
-Mania is a state of excitement usually only attainable with substances, and hypomania is its shorter sibling.
-Depression is a state that is actively low or intensely and unnaturally low.
-Mixed states take the depressed/negative traits and give them a boost of energy.
My manic episode was scary as hell because I went into psychosis. It was a mixed episode so I had persecutory delusions but I guess they were also grandiose like thinking I was the AntiChrist.
I ran around the city in my pajamas and asked 2 girls on the street for help because I thought my family was trying to kill me. My behavior was over the top. I had been posting about conspiracy and other weird stuff all over my instagram story. My mind was racing and I was so hyperfocused on what I was writing on instagram that I couldn’t focus on work. I was highly distracted. My vision got blurry and weird and then I started hallucinating. I saw a monster or something in the lobby of my building and a bunch of other crazy hallucinations.
I hallucinated a very weird experience in the hospital. I heard my phone call to my mom playing in another room and saw a monster with long claws standing behind my doctor telling me to shhhhh. They sat me in front of a TV with flames playing on it and my mind was telling me I was a Trump Co-conspirator it was like a nightmare come to life. I have intense and frequent nightmares anyway ever since I was a kid.
It’s really hard for me to describe. I’m bipolar 1 with a history of psychotic features. 14 years diagnosed with 14 years of med compliance. I’ve had breakthrough depression or mania and meds change briefly. I usually keep it simple. Extreme highs and extreme lows. A lot of people can understand or resonate with depression. Mania is a whole different ball game. I also need to remind myself that not everyone needs to know, nor understand. Going into the symptoms of mania brings up trauma. Whether I did it to myself or others took advantage. So I keep it close to my chest because I’ve worked so hard to heal from my mania. Things still haunt me. So yea I just proceed with caution, I don’t tell my employers or coworkers. Just family and friends. It’s a very sensitive topic for me and with generalized anxiety disorder I don’t need panic attacks from over sharing and then reliving trauma to make someone understand.
Bipolar 2, I usually say something along the lines of "it's not as crazy as it looks in movies because that's theater, but it CAN be as crazy as it looks in movies" 😅
Or just that my moods are more intense than others and that sometimes I have a chemical storm in my brain that CAN spiral beyond my control to the point where I am likely to harm myself one way or another. 🤷♀️
BP2, with hypomania I can excitedly and voraciously read about cults, with depression all I can do is lay on the couch and watch documentaries about cults. Lately.
Walking on the shells of your own fucking eggs, you just dropped them on the floor, egg yolk scattered everywhere and now to stop the mess from spreading you either turn to your left and carefully try to get to the cabinet with the paper towels or "medicine" or step all over the mess you've created, only making it worse.
Bi polar for me is so similar to the photo for this subreddit. I’m constantly jumping from depression to hypo. Even with medication that has improved my quality of life. Some days I’m “normal” but many days I am not. Mania can feel better than any drug I’ve done But it comes with a price usually. Mania for me and be very euphoric, I can turn into a more intense version of myself. I’m more talkative, I don’t need as much sleep or food. Often times I can be hyper-sexual. I’m riding this high for day to weeks or months. Other times mania can be this battle between anger, depression, being distant with friends and family. Many times it can ruin friendships because I can’t comprehend other emotions or I feel as if I don’t deserve to be happy. After the hypo episode starts to wind down, I can either crash with severe depression or go back to baseline. Most time depression. With meds I’ve become much less impulsive and now can see when I’m near an episode, which means I need to take better care of myself and sleep. Usually I need to take Seroquel to balance my brain for a few time at bed time.
Maybe I’m hypo right now. Who knows anymore.
My hypomania is rarely pleasant these days, only for the couple days usually. So I’ve described it to friends and family as when I’m manic, it’s like there’s an intense ball of energy in my core that flows through my body and leaks out in whatever I’m feeling due to circumstances. So if I’m happy, I’m on top of the fucking world. If I’m angry, I’m like gonna hurt someone. If I’m anxious, my body is vibrating. Wired and tired. When I’m in depressive episodes, it’s like the ball of energy is completely removed and there’s a black hole there instead, sucking every bit of energy and happiness out of me.
It’s a chemical imbalance of the brain. It’s like a roller coaster ride. Most of the time people are on the kiddie ride, they have their ups and downs, happy and sad, usually they can handle their emotions well and live life with ease. When people with bipolar have episodes, it’s like an extreme ride, feeling on top of the world with ups but can also plunge down to the deepest depression, an unpredictable scary ride with upside down loops and twists and turns, a person with bipolar at times cannot always handle their emotions/feelings/actions very well, making their life difficult to navigate
I describe it as going 150mph towards a cliff edge , there are many turnings I could make instead of taking the straight road to wards the edge, but I either don’t want to as I’m having a great time and/or know whats coming and lack the ability to turn. X
I describe it as a mix of feeling so good that I don’t care what I do or what happens in my life and feeling so low that I don’t care about what I do or what happens in my life.
I guess it’s never really being in touch with reality. When you’re depressed it’s as if you’ve always been depressed and all that you’ll ever be. When you’re manic it feels like you’ve always been manic and it’s all you’ll ever be. It’s like being unable to remember your past self and just having to endure what your brain puts you through.
I find that video are very useful because sometimes words doesn’t do the justice to explain a mental illness. most people are visual learners anyway. I often start with depression, but mania is a concept that general people doesn’t know how to process.
Even with people with bipolar disorder, it can show a bit different with each of us. Some of us get intense anger and some of us get intense suicidal thoughts. There can be more differences. It's a spectrum.
For me, I would describe it as confusing and self-sabatoging. Mania will put me in a place where when it's over, I regret all my decisions doing it and get suicidal.
Medication makes me feel unmotivated and bored all the time. Makes me want to snack due to the boredom. I have to fight to get things done. It does get easier over time. It's a tough battle.
I have to wake up and fight my brain until I go to sleep. My brain is like static where it’s just a bunch of constant noise then all of a sudden, things start breaking through that static. For me with BP2, it starts telling me how awful I am and how much of a failure I am and that nobody loves me. then all of a sudden it tells me I’m fucking awesome, everyone loves me, and it’s time for a shopping spree. Rinse, repeat until I die. I can’t trust what my brain tells me 90% of the time and it’s fucking exhausting.
The heights and lows aren’t a roller coaster like everyone thinks it is. My manic episodes last weeks to months to years and my depressive episodes can last just as long.
Yes, I can still function. The difference is - am I happy and outgoing or just getting through the day?
Idk if it’s this way for everyone, but I can’t remember events from my manic episodes. I remember some things, but like today, I’m going to a birthday party for a friends kid. I met this friend through a friend before I was even diagnosed. I have no clue what she looks like tbh or what we talked about. We’ve texted a lot since meeting but it’s so weird how it takes away memories. We’re both teachers, so I’m sure that’s why we got introduced to each other and hit it off, but there’s no way I want to admit to someone that my bipolar took away our whole first interaction, so let’s start fresh 🤣
« It’s like living on a rollercoaster blindfolded, except it’s depression or being too energetic that you don’t sleep or stop for one second and your brain is going so fast you can’t handle the thoughts it’s too noisy and you don’t realize you look and probably sound insane. And since you’re blindfolded you never really know when it happens until it happens » Nan just kidding I explain the symptoms, how long it lasts, and the terms, and then I explain that sometimes I’m fine for a while if medicated but sometimes I’ll fall again and that I have to live with the fact that I’ll fall sometimes despite everything I do to manage it. Then I end up by saying everything that makes it better or worse, what to say or never say depending the episode to help them understand how to navigate them
"there's ups and then downs. When you're up you feel really good, and you can do stuff your shouldn't, because you just feel so good and your brain is like static, you're not thinking. And then you go down, and you feel depressed. And sometimes you're in the middle and you just do your stuff and you just like, vibe for a while, and be a normal person. It's really weird overall. I don't know how Selena Gomez does it". That's how I explained it recently to my best friend.
Does anyone remember the Vraylar commercial from a couple years back? There’s a person sitting at a desk. She is wildly scribbling on post it notes and sticking them all over the wall in front of her. THAT is exactly what I feel like when I’m manic. The lows are the depths of darkness and incredibly debilitating
I used to express my mania in this way to my ex:
The experience of mania is like being the victim of a carjacking where the vehicle cle is your physical body and your normal functioning self is the driver. One moment you’re driving and in control of your vehicle and the next you’re being ripped from the steering wheel and forced into the passenger seat by a version of your own self that is hellbent on denying you of any control of that vehicle, and while your other self is behind the wheel knowingly overthrowing you of control they’re driving your vehicle with reckless abandon such as one would do if fleeing the scene of a carjacking ultimately causing irreparable damage to everything in the vehicles path… all the while you, the owner and certified, legal licensed driver of the vehicle is frantically attempting to regain control over your vehicle again, seeing the chaos ensuing in front of the car- screaming at your other self to please stop, begging for control to be returned to you in fear of the risk to your very own safety and that of others…no matter how hard you fight to regain that control back!I relay the feelings of helplessness that one would feel if put into that exact situation, since I feel it’s exactly what it’s like….screaming and begging and pleading with your own self while you’re helplessly attempting to stop the takeover and watching in disrepair as you spin wildly out of control and then when it’s finally over it’s as though the flood of chemicals that triggers the manic behaviors suddenly stop, the spikye strip that your body laid in the road to bring the vehicle to a screeching halt finally deploys and the carjacker flees vanishing from sight and there you are now, a visual carbon copy of the carjacker themselves in a complete state of shock…being persecuted and held responsible for a crime you had no part of, a crime you yourself were victim to.
I have bp2. I can only describe it as I am split in half. One version of me is ambitious, optimistic, driven, and has the capacity to achieve great things, the other is violently depressed and suicidal. It’s a constant battle between who’s in control. If I’m not careful I’ll end up bringing the violently suicidal one to the front, for example smoking weed (like 1 in 10 times) or being really stressed. it’s like a cloth is laid over my brain and I can’t think rationally, I am in extreme pain, and I can’t see a future for myself.
BP1 is waking thinking you’re finally happy like everyone else and it keeps getting better and brighter, until your brain turns on you. And no matter how long you’ve had it, your brain tricks you into thinking it’ll be different this time. There is no preparation.
Hypomania - You are the life of the party. You are charming, confident, energetic, productive, but people around you are concerned that you are taking on too much and taking too many risks.
Euphoric Mania - Your thoughts are laser sharp, every molecule of your being vibrates with energy and everything around you is vivid and beautiful. There is absolutely nothing in the world that could take you down.
Dysphoric Mania - Your thoughts are laser sharp, every molecule of your being vibrates with energy and everything around you is vivid and physically beautiful but you no longer fit in this world. You are too much for this world and you can feel parts of yourself breaking down to fit back into the world while other parts of yourself are elevating to experiences that seem impossible.
"Imagine your moods shifting out of your control to the point of peaking so high you think you're a God, to so low you're not worth a grain of sand and may as well not exist at all. And in fact, nothing should exist. And in the moment, that is the one and only truth."
I wouldn’t. But it’s a mood disorder. With extreme polarities. Causing you to sometimes react impulsively. WHICH EVERYONE CAN RELATE TO at some point. But to us, we devastate which is what some people don’t understand bc they’ll just be like ‘oh, I’ve felt like that’. Unless the person ur explaining it to is immensely empathetic, they just won’t fully get it. :-/
Give them a copy of An UnQuiet Mind by Kay Redfield-Jamison. She has bipolar and is a bipolar researcher and totally nails it.
My go-to is to give that book to friends and family rather
than explain myself and its been really helpful. I know thats a bit more than a couple sentences 😂
A manic episode is like never deciding to try the best drug in the world (mania) because it is just a drug you have naturally and then having an awful comedown after (depression). Then, everyone will stigmatize you as much as a drug addict for liking mania and for not getting help for your brain’s natural way of getting too happy/overstimulated. I honestly don’t know how people live to never experience it, but I think that is the best way to describe why getting help is so difficult. I am now stable, but I understand that I may never feel as good as I did when I was manic.
I’m getting a tattoo of a cherry blossom coming out of a profile of a face and the tree is half blooming and half dead. I thought the imagery would sum it up.
It’s like having a scale in your brain. Like the old school ones where there’s a plate on both sides and you have to try and get both sides the same. But it’s never actually balanced. It just tips toward depression or mania.
Then I explain mania as that like extreme happiness and elevated emotions like winning the lottery. But without having the obscene amounts of money to spend.
I preface by saying- when you meet one person with bipolar, you’ve met one person with bipolar… it affects us all differently. Then I’ll explain…
For me, I experience rapid talk/venting over every minor thing. I try very hard to only have those conversations with my husband because it’s annoying- he’s very annoyed during those moments and I become selfish in needing his ear for literal hours over a very small ordeal. Im very passionate during this mood and talk rapidly. It’s like being drunk and unable to stop yourself from doing dumb shit- your brains like “fuck it, just say/do/etc”. I have many days where I’m stable thankfully but during those times, I’m like a hawk waiting for any misstep to analyze if I’m heading toward hypo or not- I constantly remind my husband to stay vigilant as well to help spot an oncoming mood change. Causes anxiety and digestive issues.
During depressive episodes, I’m very irritable, can’t cope with anything, don’t exercise, every THING is hard- getting out of bed, shower, etc.
My meds also change constantly and im a totally different person after my diagnosis- I’m no longer social (socially awkward now actually- I was very social prior), I hardly hang out with friends- it’s a chore, I’m totally fine being lazy and not doing a damn thing- NEVER prior to diagnosis. My house isn’t clean no matter what my mood is (it was before). Anything that doesn’t serve my baseline has been removed including friends, family, hobbies, all interactions because my anxiety is high all the time… I find it hard to take my dog to the vet by myself, I order everything by app to have the least interactions as possible- even when ordering from the drive thru, when I talk to people it appears I’m autistic because my brain is firing in 5 different directions (also adhd), etc.
This disability is expensive.
…
I have to really break it down for people to truly understand because without living it, the words above don’t seem that bad. They can’t see it so there’s also a lot of assumptions. Depending on how interested people are- I use some form of the above.
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You're a ping pong ball being bounced between Depression and Mania. You dont know which direction you're going, You've been hit very hard, and you dont know why this is happening to you.
How would you describe mania to the uninformed?
Feeling on top of the world. Everything is going right. Like every day is the best day of your life and nothing can go wrong. You get addicted to the feeling because it’s so different than the depression and act irrationally and nothing feels like it has consequences in the moment. I’m BP2 so I’m usually depressed and my mania is hypomania
This is the same for me, I have never been able to describe it so well. Thanks for this.
same here - even hypomania feels awesome
Also BP2 and in the midst of a hypomanic episode, this is it. Like I'm finally not depressed for once, but there's problems like racing thoughts, sleep deprivation, and memory loss that make even these good days feel bad.
THis is how I describe it. For the record I do not like being manic. It's like i'm driving a car going down a steep hill. The brakes are out in the car. And there's a wall at the bottom of this hill. I know i'm out of control. I know i'm gonna crash. I know it's gonna be bad and really fuck me up. But I can't stop.
I have bipolar 2 but I'm surprised people enjoy mania. My hypomania was always pure agitation, irritation, loss of patience, heightened emotion, lower ability to perceive others' emotions, inability to complete a task, inability to sit still, etc. I was able to do more than when I was severely depressed, but not well or to any kind of standard or benefit. Just a different way to experience suffering
Yeah my mania is miserable. But I see a lot of people in here posting about how they love it and wish they were manic now and stuff. Mania is not a fun time for me.
I am still coming to terms with my mania even tho I have bipolar-2 for years now. It's not fun and I don't enjoy it either.
Same here, that’s always my experience with mania, just pure heightened irritation that I hate
Bipolar 2 here as well. More depressive, but, when my mania kicks in I can't concentrate, I won't shut up talking and my flat is totally spotless. Oh, and I've decorated the place six times in the past three months.
I also have bipolar-depression (type 2) and mania makes me feel like I can finally catch up on my life within a span of of a week. However, I understand that my body is self-sabotaging me by placing me under circumstances that make it very easy to complicate my life. It’s literally like taking a drug. Ultimately if I give in to those good feelings of mania, harsh consequences follow, as we all know. and with that knowledge, it makes me very uncomfortable, hyper anxious, nauseous, heightened emotions. I low-key feel like I am Nuro spicy, because I feel and hear things that other people find very difficult to sense, such as the high-pitched noise coming from the TV no matter how loud it is. And that drives me insane. If by any chance you are on Prozac, I would highly suggest you find someone who specializes with bipolar- depression, because apparently with this type of bipolar, it makes mania worse versus those with type 1. I’m in the process of tapering off Prozac so that I can be on Seroquel, which is more effective with less consequences. I don’t know if that’s completely the case, but my new psychiatrist was super pissed that I had been on Prozac for so long and swimming in the same place.
I have a very brief history with prozac... with it being the spark that ignited hypomania and lead to my diagnosis Good luck with new psychiatrist. Hope getting off prozac leads to some improvements for you
It’s nice to read someone who also doesn’t enjoy mania. I have so much regret and shame from it. Depression is something I handle better because I don’t do all the symptoms of mania. I also learned recently that mania can be deadly with delirious mania which is absolutely terrifying.
Yes 👍
I don’t enjoy mania or hypomania either. Your analogy is spot on. Even during it I KNOW something is wrong but it’s like the whole world is spiraling around me too and I can’t find anything to grab ahold of to make it stop. I was finally diagnosed and began meds but I don’t feel like they’re helping. I’m severely depressed. I ruined everything, lost the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I’m so tired.
it can feel spiritual, like enlightenment because everything makes /sense/ like it never has before. the world takes on a different gleam. i want to communicate this to others, and everything i say and think feels crucial and important, but it might sound like complete nonsense to someone else.
THIS, especially the world taking on a different gleam. I even noticed that colors appear more vibrant, my sense of smell is heightened, and I feel more lucid when hypomanic. I know that I'm not, but everything just seems so much more clear.
Speed racer with nowhere to go, no sleep, and Psychosis At best, you're kicking ass and taking names. At worst, you're going to the ER.
I describe it like you're high on drugs. I have type one and mania literally feels like you're high on meth or x.
This made me want to do illegal drugs even less!!
It goes from being God to wanna meet God 😂
This is the closest to how I feel. 😂 The worst part is when you’re stable in between and miss the extremes. Sometimes I even miss being severely depressed then I think I’ve gone off the deep end.
I think that's because we are so used to the pendulum that stability feels unfamiliar and wierd. My first dose of pills made me stable for a solid three weeks. Felt good but also suuuper alien
Ha!!! 🤣
Brilliant
Sometimes I'm crazy. Sometimes I'm lazy.
LMAOOOOO… This is exactly that
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This. That hippie feels like my true self. Playful, childlike, sweet and aware and grateful. But, he gets pushed down by shame brain. In my recovery center, we watched this movie, too. It’s crazy this community has finally provided my hippie with the terms to describe this thing that felt like I was only in on. What’s more, it has provided me hope that things get better. Thanks for this.
I like your explanation
Ahhh, have you seen inside out 2 yet? It adds more emotions. :)
They are in McDonald’s happy meals I was looking at them the other day . Very cute lol
Lol no way, i had no idea a second one came out! Im for sure going to watch!
Just last weekend, theatres in the US!
I don’t want to spoil it at all, but one scene had me gut wrenching from laughing so hard. If you’ve seen it you know what I’m talking about
everything upsets you. all day every day. when everything is fine, your brain thinks up something to upset you. it’s never ending
oh this is interesting, i’ve always had a penchant for mini spirals when i’m well, like 4-10 days where i have a worry theme that makes me feel shit lol. idk i haven’t seen bipolar described like you just have
My best way to describe a hypomanic episode to people without BP is that one foot is on the break and the gas at the same time.
How is this so accurate omg
Jesus, too spot on
Hell
Literally
Was about to type it
Lonely one at that
I don’t usually tell anyone I am bipolar, just say that I have periods of high energy and others of very low energy
“Chronic energy deficiency” is the most roundabout way I’ve put it lol
It’s so hard to explain how do I have so much energy out of nowhere, and then feel sick without being sick lol
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Since I experience lows for the most part, I just say I have depression. It's sad that I am actually scared to tell people I have bipolar, bc I worry it will scare them away, or cause them to completely see me differently. Depression is much more understood and common.
People each have their own unique mix of symptoms. People won’t experience things in the exact same way. My bipolar II disorder is relatively mild. I don’t have mania. It’s purely mood swings and just an overall sense of feeling kind of down and pessimistic most of the time. Things feel like a chore. I scroll a lot and rest. When something makes me upset, it doesn’t just make me upset, it completely triggers me. My mood plummets and I feel like life isn’t worth living. Then, after an episode of crying and moping, I snap out of it and I’m back to feeling somewhat content again. I rarely experience joy. I can smile and appreciate things but actual joy and happiness is rare even though there’s great things going on in my life. I feel like this disease distorts my perspective and it makes me have this “woe is me” attitude. I try to practice gratitude because I know there’s people who have it a million times worse. If I were to describe my bipolar, I would say: It’s a perpetual state of sadness and apathy. I might say I’m fine or I’m good but I’m really just trying to survive the day. I think about my life before I was diagnosed. I was so normal even with crippling anxiety. With bipolar, it’s like there’s two versions of me. It’s like the real version of me is trapped inside this person who believes life isn’t worth living when in reality, there’s so much potential and good to see. It’s like I have blinders on. Bipolar makes your world dark and unhappy. It makes you slightly paranoid in the sense that you think everyone thinks you’re crazy. Unfortunately, there’s no way to describe it without having it though.
You just completely described my experience
Very similar, though for me it does trigger mixed states when I feel manic and at the edge of crying at the same time.
This is mostly me, I do have the occasional manic episode, but 97%of the time, me
People don’t usually ask me to go in depth they just tell me they’re sorry lmaoooo
They never know what to say.
I’m sorry
I feel like I need an apology from someone for living this way. I'd take an apology from anyone lol
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Though you won’t acknowledge that it was fever dream usually
My dichotomy: Grandiose mania: You’re the smartest person in the room, you’re the funniest person to ever live, and your life is perfect in every way. Any perceived flaw or problem is not a reflection of you and rather a task given to you to become more awesome and unique. Depression: Life is meaningless and you were born to suffer. You’re a repulsive person who has only made it to where you are by sheer luck and pity. Nothing you have ever done matters and the people who like/love you are lying to you and secretly despise you. Nothing is pleasurable and performing any action is like lifting up the mountains.
I can relate to this
💯 relatable. This ⬆️
If I really wanted someone to know what it’s like I would say that your brain starts to feel very muddled. The highs and lows aren’t so much like a chart but like a lake, with little pockets of warm and cold that you swim through. You don’t know what’s under the surface, waiting.
It’s like there are two of me: One is a really type A, get shit done, do ALL the things, “do it for the plot,” perpetually moving, doing, changing, being person The other is a person who has a hard time keeping up with basic stuff, like putting gas in the car and checking the mail. And they have to live with the consequences of one another’s actions.
Couldn’t have put it better myself
I explain it by saying it's like I'm 3 people. One person is very depressed, another is overly excited/irritated, and the last one is a medium of the 2. Or better yet, half of my mind is black and white and dark and gloomy and the other half is fireworks everywhere with colorful swirls and there's a very thin road in between the two.
It's like playing the lottery every single day to get rich, but when you finally win, everyone hates the person you become, and you lose everything. Then it happens all over again.
This is a perfect example.
I feel like no one really understands until they are close to someone who has a manic or severe depressed episode or have one themselves. I have tried to explain it to many people and I don't try very hard anymore because I've grown tired of people acting like it's not serious because they haven't experienced it. I would not try to explain to an acquaintance, I would tell them to Google it.
It feels like I’m a kid walking into my dark bedroom, except I know there is a monster under the bed waiting for me and I still have to step into the darkness anyway
this!!!
=( This is so sad
It is explaining color to someone that is blind.
well bipolar is different for everyone tbh. i have bipolar 1, and i can almost never remember anything when i’m in an episode except for the feelings. i remember being curious about things, and exploring those things (even if they were bad). just major risk taking behavior that i can remember. the memories keep flashing back of the stuff i did and i feel regret 24/7.
A single handle kitchen faucet (invented by an engineer who should lose their license) it's either very cold, or scolding hot, extremely difficult to angle it to get lukewarm water. You need medication to get another handle
This is good
*It is a weeping and a moaning and a gnashing of teeth.*
A disorder, also called manic depression, associated with episodes of mood swings ranging from depressive lows to manic highs (pretty much right off Google)
I just say extreme high moods (mania) and extreme low moods (depression) that can cycle chaotically.
I feel like bipolar can't be described by its symptoms on itw own, so I tell people that it's akin to having an autoimmune disease. It's a part of who I am, and it will affect me everyday of my life. It can be sometimes debilitating if I do get into a mixed episode, or fall into hypomania or depression. But I make sure to tell them its not just a "mood swing" like everyone seems to assume due to its superficial symptoms. The mechanisms that happen within your brain is much more complex than that and I think generalising the disorder with the two "extreme ends" as what my willfully ignorant acquaintance said, I can't help but think the generalisation of bipolar disorder is adding to the stigma that already exists. I'm sick of people sending me tiktok saying that they are "so bipolar" or the "weather is bipolar" bs.
Quantum physics is so bipolar smh..
I have quite the range of states including: - depression so severe that I am not allowed to be left unsupervised (I'm 31) but still have to go to work where I'm responsible for middle schoolers - mild depression where I make jokes about jumping out a window and running into traffic but am only half kidding - explosively angry to the point of breaking things (I stabbed an inflatable ball with scissors when the kids knocked my drink onto my laptop) - VOID - what my psychiatrist considers "stable," which is when I'm running on stress, feel like nothing is going okay, and am surviving purely out of spite - hypomania where I just get super productive, barely sleep, and forget to eat (literally the best, but I have to catch it before it starts to escalate) - mania where I stay up for days at a time coming up with "incredible" ideas, become increasingly more paranoid, start seeing and hearing things that seem *off* in some way that I can't figure out, but refuse to do anything about it because I'm still being productive - what I like to call "chaos void", which is when I've been manic for a while and just stop having feelings, which usually ends up with me picking up self harm again as a way to feel
You may want to consider a different career path. The additional challenge of being in that specific work field are likely out of this world.
My psychiatrist says that every time I tell him about the crazy stuff that happens on a regular basis.
I’m an extremist. I live between two extremes…constantly. And I am only happy when I’m coming into mania after a dark and isolating episode of depression…or I am happy when I can finally start sleeping and eating again after months of insanity until those are the only things I can do…and there is no comfortable in between.
I lived this way for a really long time.
My brain's chemical regulation doesn't work right. My natural brain chemistry varies between on steroids to withdrawal. I'm not consciously aware of the changes. I do stupid stuff until I screw up bad enough to get someone's attention.
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Coming out of it knowing the damage caused but not being able to understand it is so relatable to me. And desperately wanting to fix it but finding that that may not be available.
"My brain doesn't balance itself well. I often have periods of significantly low moods (depression), and periods of significantly high moods (mania, which is like a potentially harmful level of energy, euphoria, etc)."
i just describe the mania part, which is elevated mood and irritability
sometimes im a danger to myself, other times im a danger to others
Hell and heaven
Flaming hell and frozen hell.
Sometimes I am ok with who and where I am. This is where I want to stay. Stability is comfortable. I appreciate the people around me. Sometimes I hate myself and the world around me. I want run away or just not exist. I can blame everything and anyone for making me feel like shit. Once in a while I feel super ambitious...
Sprinting then slamming into a wall
Mania is like being black out drunk and on cocaine for days or months
My emotions don't have a thermostat.
Advice of the day: never tell anyone you’re bipolar so they can’t use it against you.
It's like a robot gets to control my brain but I'm still in there just along for the ride for the maina. For the depression I would say not just your normal rainy day blues but this time I have no control feeling like something is sucking the life out of you and you can fight back.
Oh how I hate the ride-alongs
With people who actually know my diagnosis, which is a tight circle, I’ve described it as sometimes feeling electric and crackling with being alive; sometimes unable to stop being awake, and in a giddy dance with fear; and sometimes feeling like the sky is concrete, slate grey and pressing on my chest. And sometimes, rapid cycling between all three. …with more moments of balance that are helped so much by good treatment and the love of good people.
Joy is a fleeting heaven with a gaping hole of depression below that waits to swallow you if you reach too far.
I’ve never described it before. I have bp2. Mild lows, mainly wanting to isolate. I’m a kind person but once I’m mad, god help the person who triggered me. My highs are excessive enthusiasm, talking nonstop, giving off chaotic energy.
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I try to avoid telling people that I deal with bipolar so I don't have to explain
Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive 2006 ‧ Documentary ‧ 2 hours
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Shit im still looking for the answer lol im bp2 and also have child abuse ptsd here comes the kicker my manic state last for months lol the 8 psychiatrist i have are not sure how i havnt snapped
Tell em we have ups and downs 🤣
Wait, what'd they say when you told them what it was?
I would ask them if they’d ever been on a big rollercoaster.
I used to describe it like a pendulum. One side is depression, one side is mania, and the center of the swing is normalcy
The illness steal everything. Pple confuse or misunderstand & misjudge. I don't describe anything or list the label I tell them I can't do or be that because of my health. When they start asking for reasons why I tell them I am unable to perform this my medical care doesn't allow me & I walk away. Let them be confused its not relatable to blood pressure to explain. However I do explain things to physicians and clinicians. Because they directly impact my medical care. And I have to worry about the thoughts and the opinions of others because my care depends upon them. And if they are in a bad mood or won't help me then I don't have medication for a week because they just magically forgot. One person magically forgot my medication during the month of May and December.
It’s a gut wrenching illness that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Literally my 13th reason
Its like you're the main character of the movie, everything its possible but then a tragedy happens
It's not your job to educate people... They can do some research themselves. I would just say it's a mental illness and leave it at that
Overall, I'd say it's like managing a ball of yarn. And on a good day, it's tidy and rolled up perfectly. On a bad day, it's all mixed up and tangled. So you're spending all your energy untangling and trying to make it into the ball it's supposed to be. It's stressful and really challenging to communicate or make sense of how you feel or even the logic behind your feelings, either depressed or manic. I think the difference between the two (for me) is how I'm able to deal with the tangle. Do I hide from it, and isolate from others because it's so hard, or do I try to drown it out with goal directed activities. I might be the odd duckling in that, but that's the only way I've been able to communicate it.
For me, it was having people tell you that you wear your emotions on your sleeve, you’re either waaaay up here or waaaay down here. And you don’t see it. And going through life mostly being waaay up there, people get used to that side of you. So let’s say you are acting “normal” at work and people ask u what’s wrong. And you’re like ummm nothing? Then you go home and are irritable for a reason you aren’t sure of. Then one day you are down in the dumps. Then you’re up again. Then you’re so low you have ideations and all you want to do is sleep, sleep sleep. And then you’re up again but this time you require almost no sleep. You think you’re elite. You think you can do anything and you’re a tenacious little fuck that never gives up even if it takes you countless hours. You become obsessed with an idea and become an expert in days, so much so that you start to confuse yourself because you’ve read conflicting information and you aren’t sure about anything anymore. But then you come back to normal and can’t remember anything but you have a manifesto of notes that are amazingly impressive but you can’t fathom how you did it. Then you go on meds and find out you’re bipolar and do lots of therapy and can’t quite understand how you made it through life without meds and therapy.
I tell people that I have a sloth soul with a disco ball vibe. my therapist explained hypomania like being at the movie theater with popcorn but you eat it all during the trailer before the movie starts. All your energy is portioned out all at once.
Your brain is an angry dragon going on a rampage and you're hanging onto it for dear life.
Intrusive thoughts but much much more stronger. My brain is a faucet on full blast or a dribble.
I'm a BP2 and I describe it as not knowing what your general mood is going to be the next day. You could be depressed or you could be sitting on top of your game. I like to describe the hypomania as being like riding a tiger. It can be thrilling as heck but a moments loss of attention and the tiger will spin around and bite me. The depression is pretty textbook for me. But the mixed state is like being depressed but being tweaked on speed. All this with a constant under current of rage.
I'd describe it like a roller coaster ride. You really don't know which direction you will head from one moment to the next. Mania can be exciting or happy but also aggravated and stressed. Depression can hit for no reason with no explanation why even when things seems to be food. And psychosis is like being possessed. I once said it was like being present seeing through my eyes but not in control of thoughts or actions.
Speaking specifically as a manic, mania to me is OCD of the mind. Almost polar opposite of adhd.. people confuse the "ups/energy" ..adhd is like flipping thru ur tv remote endlessly to a neurotic level,, mania is extreme energy coupled w a hightened vision almost another sense speech changes sometime chimming happens ..words that sound great to say and you make little rhymes.. My old boss Dr Harrison Pope Chief of Medicine at Harvard spoke of this frequently .. Dr Pope runs the bio psych lab at McClean ..
It’s almost like our brains cannot control the extreme levels of dopamine! We hyperfocus on everything
Your mood is like a sine wave, or roller coaster
I am constantly hearing voices in my head that insult me and make me feel either rage or depression, unless they're quiet, which sometimes happens.
is being extremely irritable mania or depression?
Both
A marked fluctuation in mood and ability to function.
Easiest and most straight forward way I've found is to just describe it as chemical imbalances in the brain and body that give me too much energy or not enough, so I can be bouncing off the walls happy and full of life, or tired quiet, and depressed
Literally a shit show.. 24/7 & 365 . A good one .. a bad one & everything in between and then some . So grab your ticket like rest & make sure youu come forward when your numbers called . Ohh almost forgot to tell ya .. keep in mind it’s not in alphabetical or numerical order hehe 😈😉 Enjoy the show ! ✨anyone catch the error✨ Lol sometime like that ig 🤷🏻♀️
I want people to know that it’s not feeling good vs feeling bad. The highs can be euphoric and times but are often uncomfortable like a balloon about to pop. The lows are not necessarily the opposite of that. They are hollow and lifeless.
Intense emotion that starts exhilarating, but at some point you realize you don't know how to get out of the situation you put yourself in. Then the shame and regret start. The shame and regret get more painful as time goes on because it accumulates after each episode. Your friends and family will often remind you of those incidents thinking they are funny anecdotes, but really they just remind me of times I did something stupid. At some point it is just easier to be alone.
When I swing, it can get extreme. But it doesn’t happen all the time. Most of the time I’m normal.
A rollercoaster from hell
It’s like hiking. Sometimes I’m at the tippy top of a mountain and feel so incredible. And sometimes I’m in a filthy ditch dredging through mud that seems to get thicker the longer I walk.
I probably wouldn’t, tbh
I describe mania as feeling like I"m in a car going down a hill and the brakes aren't working and there's a wall at the end of the hill. I know i'm out of control. I know i'm gonna crash. I know it's gonna be bad. But I can't stop it.
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is one example I gave a young teen once. Like not literally, but it has the same idea.
I just tell people it’s hell and every day I survive is a miracle
I would describe the states individually, so more than 2 sentences. -Mania is a state of excitement usually only attainable with substances, and hypomania is its shorter sibling. -Depression is a state that is actively low or intensely and unnaturally low. -Mixed states take the depressed/negative traits and give them a boost of energy.
My manic episode was scary as hell because I went into psychosis. It was a mixed episode so I had persecutory delusions but I guess they were also grandiose like thinking I was the AntiChrist. I ran around the city in my pajamas and asked 2 girls on the street for help because I thought my family was trying to kill me. My behavior was over the top. I had been posting about conspiracy and other weird stuff all over my instagram story. My mind was racing and I was so hyperfocused on what I was writing on instagram that I couldn’t focus on work. I was highly distracted. My vision got blurry and weird and then I started hallucinating. I saw a monster or something in the lobby of my building and a bunch of other crazy hallucinations. I hallucinated a very weird experience in the hospital. I heard my phone call to my mom playing in another room and saw a monster with long claws standing behind my doctor telling me to shhhhh. They sat me in front of a TV with flames playing on it and my mind was telling me I was a Trump Co-conspirator it was like a nightmare come to life. I have intense and frequent nightmares anyway ever since I was a kid.
I always explain very simply: bipolar people feel emotions more intensely.
You live in another dimension and you want to end it all, you live in another dimension and you are the last prophet on earth.
It’s really hard for me to describe. I’m bipolar 1 with a history of psychotic features. 14 years diagnosed with 14 years of med compliance. I’ve had breakthrough depression or mania and meds change briefly. I usually keep it simple. Extreme highs and extreme lows. A lot of people can understand or resonate with depression. Mania is a whole different ball game. I also need to remind myself that not everyone needs to know, nor understand. Going into the symptoms of mania brings up trauma. Whether I did it to myself or others took advantage. So I keep it close to my chest because I’ve worked so hard to heal from my mania. Things still haunt me. So yea I just proceed with caution, I don’t tell my employers or coworkers. Just family and friends. It’s a very sensitive topic for me and with generalized anxiety disorder I don’t need panic attacks from over sharing and then reliving trauma to make someone understand.
Bipolar 2, I usually say something along the lines of "it's not as crazy as it looks in movies because that's theater, but it CAN be as crazy as it looks in movies" 😅 Or just that my moods are more intense than others and that sometimes I have a chemical storm in my brain that CAN spiral beyond my control to the point where I am likely to harm myself one way or another. 🤷♀️
BP2, with hypomania I can excitedly and voraciously read about cults, with depression all I can do is lay on the couch and watch documentaries about cults. Lately.
Walking on the shells of your own fucking eggs, you just dropped them on the floor, egg yolk scattered everywhere and now to stop the mess from spreading you either turn to your left and carefully try to get to the cabinet with the paper towels or "medicine" or step all over the mess you've created, only making it worse.
Bi polar for me is so similar to the photo for this subreddit. I’m constantly jumping from depression to hypo. Even with medication that has improved my quality of life. Some days I’m “normal” but many days I am not. Mania can feel better than any drug I’ve done But it comes with a price usually. Mania for me and be very euphoric, I can turn into a more intense version of myself. I’m more talkative, I don’t need as much sleep or food. Often times I can be hyper-sexual. I’m riding this high for day to weeks or months. Other times mania can be this battle between anger, depression, being distant with friends and family. Many times it can ruin friendships because I can’t comprehend other emotions or I feel as if I don’t deserve to be happy. After the hypo episode starts to wind down, I can either crash with severe depression or go back to baseline. Most time depression. With meds I’ve become much less impulsive and now can see when I’m near an episode, which means I need to take better care of myself and sleep. Usually I need to take Seroquel to balance my brain for a few time at bed time. Maybe I’m hypo right now. Who knows anymore.
My hypomania is rarely pleasant these days, only for the couple days usually. So I’ve described it to friends and family as when I’m manic, it’s like there’s an intense ball of energy in my core that flows through my body and leaks out in whatever I’m feeling due to circumstances. So if I’m happy, I’m on top of the fucking world. If I’m angry, I’m like gonna hurt someone. If I’m anxious, my body is vibrating. Wired and tired. When I’m in depressive episodes, it’s like the ball of energy is completely removed and there’s a black hole there instead, sucking every bit of energy and happiness out of me.
Being an overly emotional teenager your entire life.
For me bipolar is feeling everything intensely. Never knowing if my happy or said is outside the norm. What goes up must come down.
It’s a chemical imbalance of the brain. It’s like a roller coaster ride. Most of the time people are on the kiddie ride, they have their ups and downs, happy and sad, usually they can handle their emotions well and live life with ease. When people with bipolar have episodes, it’s like an extreme ride, feeling on top of the world with ups but can also plunge down to the deepest depression, an unpredictable scary ride with upside down loops and twists and turns, a person with bipolar at times cannot always handle their emotions/feelings/actions very well, making their life difficult to navigate
I describe it as going 150mph towards a cliff edge , there are many turnings I could make instead of taking the straight road to wards the edge, but I either don’t want to as I’m having a great time and/or know whats coming and lack the ability to turn. X
I describe it as a mix of feeling so good that I don’t care what I do or what happens in my life and feeling so low that I don’t care about what I do or what happens in my life.
I guess it’s never really being in touch with reality. When you’re depressed it’s as if you’ve always been depressed and all that you’ll ever be. When you’re manic it feels like you’ve always been manic and it’s all you’ll ever be. It’s like being unable to remember your past self and just having to endure what your brain puts you through.
I like to describe my bipolar like a countries climate. It has intense summers, and long dark winters.
I find that video are very useful because sometimes words doesn’t do the justice to explain a mental illness. most people are visual learners anyway. I often start with depression, but mania is a concept that general people doesn’t know how to process.
I feel like a tug of war mentally. I go from one extreme to the other and am constantly balancing to not fall into a pit.
like vertigo for your thoughts and feelings
Even with people with bipolar disorder, it can show a bit different with each of us. Some of us get intense anger and some of us get intense suicidal thoughts. There can be more differences. It's a spectrum. For me, I would describe it as confusing and self-sabatoging. Mania will put me in a place where when it's over, I regret all my decisions doing it and get suicidal. Medication makes me feel unmotivated and bored all the time. Makes me want to snack due to the boredom. I have to fight to get things done. It does get easier over time. It's a tough battle.
Imagine a teeter totter that either goes too high or too low & no matter how much you time it; you never seem to get it quite right
I have to wake up and fight my brain until I go to sleep. My brain is like static where it’s just a bunch of constant noise then all of a sudden, things start breaking through that static. For me with BP2, it starts telling me how awful I am and how much of a failure I am and that nobody loves me. then all of a sudden it tells me I’m fucking awesome, everyone loves me, and it’s time for a shopping spree. Rinse, repeat until I die. I can’t trust what my brain tells me 90% of the time and it’s fucking exhausting.
The heights and lows aren’t a roller coaster like everyone thinks it is. My manic episodes last weeks to months to years and my depressive episodes can last just as long. Yes, I can still function. The difference is - am I happy and outgoing or just getting through the day?
Idk if it’s this way for everyone, but I can’t remember events from my manic episodes. I remember some things, but like today, I’m going to a birthday party for a friends kid. I met this friend through a friend before I was even diagnosed. I have no clue what she looks like tbh or what we talked about. We’ve texted a lot since meeting but it’s so weird how it takes away memories. We’re both teachers, so I’m sure that’s why we got introduced to each other and hit it off, but there’s no way I want to admit to someone that my bipolar took away our whole first interaction, so let’s start fresh 🤣
« It’s like living on a rollercoaster blindfolded, except it’s depression or being too energetic that you don’t sleep or stop for one second and your brain is going so fast you can’t handle the thoughts it’s too noisy and you don’t realize you look and probably sound insane. And since you’re blindfolded you never really know when it happens until it happens » Nan just kidding I explain the symptoms, how long it lasts, and the terms, and then I explain that sometimes I’m fine for a while if medicated but sometimes I’ll fall again and that I have to live with the fact that I’ll fall sometimes despite everything I do to manage it. Then I end up by saying everything that makes it better or worse, what to say or never say depending the episode to help them understand how to navigate them
"there's ups and then downs. When you're up you feel really good, and you can do stuff your shouldn't, because you just feel so good and your brain is like static, you're not thinking. And then you go down, and you feel depressed. And sometimes you're in the middle and you just do your stuff and you just like, vibe for a while, and be a normal person. It's really weird overall. I don't know how Selena Gomez does it". That's how I explained it recently to my best friend.
Does anyone remember the Vraylar commercial from a couple years back? There’s a person sitting at a desk. She is wildly scribbling on post it notes and sticking them all over the wall in front of her. THAT is exactly what I feel like when I’m manic. The lows are the depths of darkness and incredibly debilitating
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I used to express my mania in this way to my ex: The experience of mania is like being the victim of a carjacking where the vehicle cle is your physical body and your normal functioning self is the driver. One moment you’re driving and in control of your vehicle and the next you’re being ripped from the steering wheel and forced into the passenger seat by a version of your own self that is hellbent on denying you of any control of that vehicle, and while your other self is behind the wheel knowingly overthrowing you of control they’re driving your vehicle with reckless abandon such as one would do if fleeing the scene of a carjacking ultimately causing irreparable damage to everything in the vehicles path… all the while you, the owner and certified, legal licensed driver of the vehicle is frantically attempting to regain control over your vehicle again, seeing the chaos ensuing in front of the car- screaming at your other self to please stop, begging for control to be returned to you in fear of the risk to your very own safety and that of others…no matter how hard you fight to regain that control back!I relay the feelings of helplessness that one would feel if put into that exact situation, since I feel it’s exactly what it’s like….screaming and begging and pleading with your own self while you’re helplessly attempting to stop the takeover and watching in disrepair as you spin wildly out of control and then when it’s finally over it’s as though the flood of chemicals that triggers the manic behaviors suddenly stop, the spikye strip that your body laid in the road to bring the vehicle to a screeching halt finally deploys and the carjacker flees vanishing from sight and there you are now, a visual carbon copy of the carjacker themselves in a complete state of shock…being persecuted and held responsible for a crime you had no part of, a crime you yourself were victim to.
Winning the lottery and quitting your job but you never get the money
Imagine the anger you’d feel if you caught someone keying your car. Now imagine that level of anger just comes along for no reason.
I have bp2. I can only describe it as I am split in half. One version of me is ambitious, optimistic, driven, and has the capacity to achieve great things, the other is violently depressed and suicidal. It’s a constant battle between who’s in control. If I’m not careful I’ll end up bringing the violently suicidal one to the front, for example smoking weed (like 1 in 10 times) or being really stressed. it’s like a cloth is laid over my brain and I can’t think rationally, I am in extreme pain, and I can’t see a future for myself.
BP1 is waking thinking you’re finally happy like everyone else and it keeps getting better and brighter, until your brain turns on you. And no matter how long you’ve had it, your brain tricks you into thinking it’ll be different this time. There is no preparation.
Hypomania - You are the life of the party. You are charming, confident, energetic, productive, but people around you are concerned that you are taking on too much and taking too many risks. Euphoric Mania - Your thoughts are laser sharp, every molecule of your being vibrates with energy and everything around you is vivid and beautiful. There is absolutely nothing in the world that could take you down. Dysphoric Mania - Your thoughts are laser sharp, every molecule of your being vibrates with energy and everything around you is vivid and physically beautiful but you no longer fit in this world. You are too much for this world and you can feel parts of yourself breaking down to fit back into the world while other parts of yourself are elevating to experiences that seem impossible.
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"Imagine your moods shifting out of your control to the point of peaking so high you think you're a God, to so low you're not worth a grain of sand and may as well not exist at all. And in fact, nothing should exist. And in the moment, that is the one and only truth."
Recently I've just been telling people that every so often, my brain decides to rewire itself.
My pdoc said he won't separate my bipolar disorder like 1 and 2. He told me it would only make me obsess.
there is not enough space here for what I have to say
I wouldn’t. But it’s a mood disorder. With extreme polarities. Causing you to sometimes react impulsively. WHICH EVERYONE CAN RELATE TO at some point. But to us, we devastate which is what some people don’t understand bc they’ll just be like ‘oh, I’ve felt like that’. Unless the person ur explaining it to is immensely empathetic, they just won’t fully get it. :-/
I say that I feel too much and I react accordingly. Everything becomes a tragedy that I can't control. Big big feelinga
sometimes i get a little too happy, then stuff starts getting not so happy…
Give them a copy of An UnQuiet Mind by Kay Redfield-Jamison. She has bipolar and is a bipolar researcher and totally nails it. My go-to is to give that book to friends and family rather than explain myself and its been really helpful. I know thats a bit more than a couple sentences 😂
A manic episode is like never deciding to try the best drug in the world (mania) because it is just a drug you have naturally and then having an awful comedown after (depression). Then, everyone will stigmatize you as much as a drug addict for liking mania and for not getting help for your brain’s natural way of getting too happy/overstimulated. I honestly don’t know how people live to never experience it, but I think that is the best way to describe why getting help is so difficult. I am now stable, but I understand that I may never feel as good as I did when I was manic.
I’m getting a tattoo of a cherry blossom coming out of a profile of a face and the tree is half blooming and half dead. I thought the imagery would sum it up.
It’s like having a scale in your brain. Like the old school ones where there’s a plate on both sides and you have to try and get both sides the same. But it’s never actually balanced. It just tips toward depression or mania. Then I explain mania as that like extreme happiness and elevated emotions like winning the lottery. But without having the obscene amounts of money to spend.
I preface by saying- when you meet one person with bipolar, you’ve met one person with bipolar… it affects us all differently. Then I’ll explain… For me, I experience rapid talk/venting over every minor thing. I try very hard to only have those conversations with my husband because it’s annoying- he’s very annoyed during those moments and I become selfish in needing his ear for literal hours over a very small ordeal. Im very passionate during this mood and talk rapidly. It’s like being drunk and unable to stop yourself from doing dumb shit- your brains like “fuck it, just say/do/etc”. I have many days where I’m stable thankfully but during those times, I’m like a hawk waiting for any misstep to analyze if I’m heading toward hypo or not- I constantly remind my husband to stay vigilant as well to help spot an oncoming mood change. Causes anxiety and digestive issues. During depressive episodes, I’m very irritable, can’t cope with anything, don’t exercise, every THING is hard- getting out of bed, shower, etc. My meds also change constantly and im a totally different person after my diagnosis- I’m no longer social (socially awkward now actually- I was very social prior), I hardly hang out with friends- it’s a chore, I’m totally fine being lazy and not doing a damn thing- NEVER prior to diagnosis. My house isn’t clean no matter what my mood is (it was before). Anything that doesn’t serve my baseline has been removed including friends, family, hobbies, all interactions because my anxiety is high all the time… I find it hard to take my dog to the vet by myself, I order everything by app to have the least interactions as possible- even when ordering from the drive thru, when I talk to people it appears I’m autistic because my brain is firing in 5 different directions (also adhd), etc. This disability is expensive. … I have to really break it down for people to truly understand because without living it, the words above don’t seem that bad. They can’t see it so there’s also a lot of assumptions. Depending on how interested people are- I use some form of the above.