Hey bipolar life. I feel your pain as I too have bipolar. I had it undiagnosed for years - they thought it was depression/ anxiety, but the mood swings were brutal. Constantly on a roller coaster, happy, sad, angry, depressed, hypo manic. I lost relationships, friendships, jobs, was unemployed several times for months. This went on a good decade. People always told me to cheer up, calm down, get it together. Got lots of people telling me I needed to get my act together. But It was awful- a constant roller coaster. I changed moods rapidly- over days or even hours if I was under extreme stress. I never knew when I was going to wake up and be too depressed to even get out of bed, or so hypomanics I'd have to give take anti-anxiety drugs to calm me down,
Went through 7 different antidepressants before finally the doctors realised what was happening was that the antis were triggering hypomanics. Thing was, I'd never heard of bipolar 2. The doctors asked me if I had manic episodes, and I don't. So I always got treated for depression Finally someone explained a hypomanic to me and suddenly my whole life made sense, so finally finally finally got on to a med for bipolar.
It's still rally new, only be on it just over a month. BEST MONTH OF MY LIFE. The insane roller coaster has slowed down a lot and isn't anywhere near so extreme. Instead of the giant scary fast roller coaster, it's now like the tiny slow baby roller coaster. And I, still on the low- end of the dose, we're taking it slow to find the right dose without too many added side effects.
All I can think is "is this how normal people feel?". Like to wake up in the morning and just feel... Normal. No constantly spiralling from completely depressed to totally hypomanic to screaming at everyone in anger, spending money or doing stupid thoughtless stuff in an hypomanic episode.
It's not perfect- still on the slow gentle baby roller coaster. But I can live my life this way, it'd be nice if we could get it better, but I can cope this ways I can hold down a full time job without struggling heaps and needing up in an anxious depressed spiral, I'm much calmer and able to cope with all sorts of events and triggers, my relationship is much easier for me to cope without constantly having to monitor my moods so I don't inflict it on my parter (that used to bea. Full time job, trying not to inflict my episodes on him)
my life is much much better now. Maybe there's a drug out there to help you too
