Living with Type I Bipolar Disorder: Share Your Story

I live lithium so much I got the molecular symbol tatted on the right arm where I get blood work done. Above all, therapy and meds has helped me immensely with my journey to sanity. I always knew something was off even as a child. I would get worked up, excited or stressed, and pull all nighters. As an adult, I came to the decision to try medications because my depression was unbearable. I tried SSRIs and shockingly, they made me manic. Stupidly, my primary care provider and no other doctor thought “hm these seem to be classic bipolar traits”. Oh well. I had a horrible depressive episode during the peak summer of Covid-19 and sent myself to the mental hospital. I would sleep for long durations and not respond to the medication I was taking at the time. Then a psychiatrist diagnosed me correctly (thank god). I had been on lithium before I was diagnosed but psychiatrists were too shy to properly diagnose me. Irresponsible, I know. Fuck Kaiser mental health. Now I have more energy, I can see personal growth, and have completely changed as far as bad habits go.

medication has saved my life!! i’m on seroquel and it stopped my depressive, hypomanic, and manic episodes completely (as long as i’m consistent on it). i really recommend looking into medication to control your disorder, because preventing future episodes is very very crucial. the more episodes you have, the more your brain gets used to that state and so the easier you have episodes, and having many/frequent episodes has been shown to cause brain damage. i know that sounds scary but its good to know so you can work on preventing episodes as much as possible. talk to a psychiatrist, try some medications (mood stabilizers and/or anti-psychotics are the go to - but avoid anti-depressants). if medication isn’t your jam, try to find other ways to prevent episodes (enough sleep + consistent schedule of eating/sleeping/waking up, + monitoring your moods to help prevent oncoming episodes, etc + also experimental/newer treatments)

Hi Enoki. I had bipolar depression later on in my depression journey. I tried at least five different types of medication and none of them solved the problem for me. Some made it worse (I don't recall the names too well). The only thing that worked was a treatment called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. Withing 4-6 months of treatment, I was medication free and essentially cured of my depression. I was very moody/unmotivated. I'd stay in bed a lot but went through a lot of emotions. Then I would go through periods of no emotions and numbness. At some point, I got voices in my head along with compulsions. At the time, what helped to some degree was birth control...specifically mili tabs (purple/white box). It helped regulate me to some degree and helped with the major mood swings that I would get before/after my period. Estarylla (or however it's spelled) is the generic version of mili tabs, but made my bipolar depression much worse and made me severely sick. What has also helped is understanding your condition on a medical level. Your condition doesn't happen for no reason...but it feels like it. Learning about your condition along with the tendencies around it can save you from having attacks or break downs. It also humanizes your condition. I've found that having the mental breakdowns were easier than the moments leading up to the breakdowns. There was always a lot of anxiety surrounding that. I could go on, but that's a basic summary of what I went through and what helped me. I hope this helps!