A Friend’s View of Bipolar Disorder

I once asked a friend of mine what he thought about mania and his friends with bipolar disorder. It’s always interesting to ask the people in your life how they perceive bipolar  moodswings. It may be very different than you expect. Here is his answer.

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 I’ve always thought of mania as a “Euphoric” high, the feeling that we  all have at times that is exacerbated with someone with bipolar  disorder.  You feel like you can do no wrong, you feel great, you can’t  believe you’ve ever been depressed.  You can spend money, make big decisions,  all with this state of mind.  I compare it to making decisions with a  depressed mind, you don’t want to do that either.  It’s like two ends  of a spectrum.  It may feel great to be on a manic high, but it seems  uncontrollable, decisions are made that are easily regrettable in a short  time.  Like a control chart people [ Read More ]





Posted on September 10th, 2009 | Tags: , , | Category: Family and Friends

Bipolar Disorder and Suicidal Depression Downswings

This post actually follows a thread I started about four entries ago….  

Surviving a Terrible Down Swing

I got very hypomanic yesterday. I wrote about it earlier and wrote a newsletter about it.  Of course, it’s very easy to write when you’re hypomanic. But when it was going on, I could tell it was going to spin out of control. I managed to stay well enough not to do something stupid.

The problem is what I’m going through now. I woke up in a terrible downswing. Just terrible. Crying with suicidal thoughts. Just awful. I feel sorry for myself!  Then my good friend Karen had to cancel our evening plans. I always feel better when I go out with Karen, so this was a blow. I just cried and cried. The tears come so easily when you’re suicidal. I started talking myself out of this downswing. I thought of what I said in Get it Done [ Read More ]





Bipolar Disorder and People Who Change Plans!

I now a lot of people with bipolar disorder and we all have one thing in common. We need the people in our lives to be dependable. I used to stay in relationships with people who made me sick. Here is how they made me sick:

 

- Call and want to meet and then cancel

- Forget we set a time to meet and then tell me it’s my fault as I expected something from them that wasn’t actually confirmed

- Come on strong and then fade away

- Remained secretive even when they knew me well

 

And finally- these people in no way understood, even when I told them over and over again, that I’m an extremely flexible person in most [ Read More ]