Life with Bipolar Disorder: A Personal Account

I've been very happy to have my diagnosis as it makes it possible for me to get help, feel validated, and qualify for the treatment I need.

Mines the depressive kind and ADHD. I get hopeless and know what normal is but work 60 hrs weeks.

it made me feel relieved but sad and ashamed. i was relieved i finally knew what was “wrong” with me but i was scared to have to try all new meds, luckily my psychiatrist got my first med first try. i was ashamed to look back at times people in my life told me i was bipolar and i said no im just depressed, i was also ashamed because i knew how some people viewed it.

Its so nice being able to read that other people reacted the same way I did to their diagnosis. I only recently got diagnosed so I'm still just so angry about it and sad. Like others said, I hate my brain for being this way and I'm sad that I'll never be "normal". I think the hardest thing I've ever heard was before my official diagnosis where a therapist told me I need to stop trying to get over my mental illness and learn to live with it because it's never going away. I was 15 and that shattered so many hopes and it felt like years of personal work went down the drain and that idea of forever being mentally ill stuck with me even now

marx that’s exactly how i feel

It’s made me extremely angry and made me get physically violent. It’s also made me feel like nobody in the world gets me, and like I’m the only real person in the universe, if that makes sense

I was fine with it mostly, only because part of me kinda knew. It runs in my family but I never expected to have it until my doctor prescribed meds for it and gave me the diagnosis.

I wasn't even told I was diagnosed with it let alone what type. I only learned of it from a doctor listing my diagnoses but I've been on medication made for it for years before hand and it was the only one that ever worked so idk why I didn't catch on sooner. anyways I felt dumb and mad at my doctors for never explaining things to me, they always expect me to know everything about whatever condition they tell me I have.

It led me down a path of wanting to understand myself and the life Ive been through. It made a lot of things make sense but I struggled with treatment and it made me resent my own brain for being this way. Led to a lot of self toxic behaviors. The people I was around were also uneducated on it and the stigma made it worse. Now I am on the right medication for me and have a partner who understands and worked with my symptoms when I wasnt medicated. It is incredibly difficult having bipolar disorder. And its not fun grappling with the fact your experience is not the norm but it was for you.

it makes me feel hopeless about ever feeling “normal” mentally. i’ve been dealing with mental illness my entire life and the fact that i’ll never be able to experience a non-mentally ill life is so upsetting.

it’s made me angry . being irritable is one of main symptoms but after i’ve been diagnosed i’ve just been so angry . like “ why me “, “ why can’t i be fix” , “ why can’t j just be normal “ . just angry at the world . it’s sent me into spirals of episodes and almost ruined my relationship