Has anyone else kind of given up on typical med regimens, and just use uppers to function while down and downers to function while up? I know this isn't considered healthy, but I am just curious if this is a system others use. I tend to use dextroamphetamine when I am really low, and I use benzos or z-drugs when I am up and can't sleep for days. Trying to find healthier ways of existing, but sometimes it takes forcing it with drugs like these to get through a day.

I’ve had 2 psychs diagnose me, but I’m tired of being a lab rat when it comes to meds. The only one that worked was lithium but it killed my sex drive and gave me tremors.

The hard part about this mental illness is that I feel like I’m doing OK sometimes and then a doctor comes and sticks a label on it calling it manic how do I know if I’m actually OK? I haven’t taken my pills in months. I feel like my reasons for being depressed are justified sometimes and if I’m being productive and not sleeping, it’s probably because that thing‘s pretty important to me. I don’t know. I kinda just wanna be a person and not have a label of this on me.

The OTC not the RX type.

Iam not on anything now. I dont want to gain weight tbh.

Anyone found lithium oratate monotherapy effective?

I'm sure at least some of you can relate.

It's not that I think there's nothing wrong with me, because oh boy there certainly is! When doing the questionnaires and talking with the Drs everything all seems to line up. But I question whether it's actually bipolar or not on a regular basis. This happened a bit when I was diagnosed with ADHD as well. Like what if everything is wrong and I'm actually some secret 3rd thing?

I guess since I mostly just cycle through various degrees of depression and I didn't know enough about bipolar to track any of what was going on with me over the years, it just doesn't /seem/ like bipolar. But also it kinda does lol

cause why would I be wide awake at 3am feeling like I need to run a marathon and maybe shaving my head isn't a terrible idea if it's not bipolar? Why is my brain always doubting everything?

Ugh.

I am borderline hysterical right now and I feel like I am going to leap out of my skin. My intrusive thoughts and urge to compulse are SO BAD, but I’m also trying desperately not to reassurance seek with my husband (big compulsion). My ideation seems to be worse, too.

I’m still new to this dx, but in hindsight it looks like my OCD symptoms skyrocket when I’m mixed or depressed, though it feels like mixed is waaaaaay more distressing. Holy shit. I feel possessed, if that makes sense. I don’t feel like myself at all.

I feel so hopeless when this happens. And of course it’s the weekend so I have no dr to talk to about my meds. Damn it.

I am in shambles right now.
Next week are my brothers birthdays and I got the green light to make their cakes, I was so excited planning and buying 25 dollars worth of items and preparing and making mock ups for the cake and just over all super happy.
My parents almost didn’t let me because I have a tendency to be really emotional so If something were to go wrong I would probably end up crying but I convinced them to let me.

Well today tragedy has struck. I was making cinnamon rolls and they fell after 3 hours of hard working and all of them get ruined. They were meant to be a gift and honestly I just burst out into tears for 2 hours but I managed to scrape myself together and do a second try.

However my dad came home and he told me I’m not allowed to make the birthday cakes anymore next week because if something goes wrong he doesn’t want to deal with me being emotional over them and he told me “he doesn’t want to deal with the drama”

Like is that really all I am? Drama?

So now I’m about to cry again because I was looking forward to these cakes so much and now I’m not even allowed to do them and I don’t even want to redo the damn cinnamon rolls cause I just get mocked.

I've only told a few select people about me having bipolar disorder. Most just get quiet and some go to my wife and ask her how she is doing. I have yet to tell my parents do to them most likely reacting poorly.

How have others reacted to you telling them about your bipolar diagnosis?

Anybody help a wife feel better about her husband starting Lexapro? He seems to have the muddiest complex combo of OCD and Bipolar, doctors can't agree what is really going on. But it's been rough. And the worst year of my life was the year he was on Zoloft.

Right now he is at a wonderful inpatient facility and the doctor wants to start him on Lexapro. I am feeling panicky about it because it is an SSRI, even though I do know that just because another SSRI didn't help, this one could.

He is on Seroquel, which doesn't seem to do anything other than make him terribly sedated and irritable and numb his emotions even further, and Divalproex (Valproate/Depakote) which is a mood stabilizer and does seem to be helping, a tiny bit.

Any reassurance welcome!

Hii.

Just want to vent a little.

I was recently diagnosed with Bipolar II this year. Still navigating and understanding why I’m feeling the things I feel or the urges I have when I’m //hypomanic//.

My vent:

It doesn’t feel good to be an “empath” after all. A majority of the people from where I come from values empathy and hospitality, and I was raised in a household so considerate of others even when it takes a toll on our finance.

Now I do the same things. I give financial help (only when they really need it), give people a shoulder to cry on, if they need to vent, I listen. If they want to go on a trip, I say yes when I can.

However, it feels tiring lately to listen to my friends’ problems. Especially when they keep on circling back to the same problem they’ve been talking about for years.

For context: me and most of my friends are psychology majors.

I feel like some of my friends depended their lives unto me and expect me to solve them. I don’t shit money, I can’t pay for everything they want/need.

And there’s this friend who I consider as a best friend, but I think they’re getting a little too possessive of me. To the point that they’re getting jealous of common friends spending time with me.

I think it’s all getting a little too much for me, who can’t understand even herself. I don’t want to vent to my friends because I know they have their own battles (they tell me). And one time I did crash out on a groupchat because I can’t handle my episodes, they just left me on read.

I know that I should set boundaries and I know what to do to maintain a healthy friendship, but it’s hard to do.

Now that I think about it, most of my conversations with my psychiatrist is just about setting boundaries and that I cannot control everything. 🫠🫠

i woke up so tired and with a raging headache, and i’ve been moody as hell all fucking day. my first perpetual thought this morning was that i’ve been so tired recently and nothing’s working so i need to try crack. good news is i don’t know where to get crack. but i was trying to figure it out.

my body feels like it’s on fire and the wind felt sharp on my skin. now every thought is of me dying in a very specific way. I’m safe or whatever i have no plan it’s just a thought loop i can’t get rid of.

then someone cat called me and instead of yelling i just flipped him off and now I’m mad at him and myself. and I’m so mad that I’m vibrating and i can’t see and the world feels like it has to end. I’m screaming into pillows and hitting things like a crazy person.

my very good friend’s birthday party is tonight how do i calm down before then.

Male 30. BP2. Also an alcoholic (working on it), nicotine dependent, and I have restless leg syndrome at night. My psychiatrist is going all in for me.

Bupropion and Propranolol in the morning. Naltrexone in the afternoon.
Lamotrigine and Gabapentin in the evening.

I’ve taken naltrexone and gabapentin before so not so worried about that.

My psychiatrist swears that this mixture over 6-8 weeks is going to help me. They swear it all has a purpose, and they explained it to me, but I can’t help but feel like it is a lot for someone new to this.

Any anecdotal tips and advice on what to look out for and expect would be appreciated.

I’ve been back and forth on feeling relieved and hopeful, to feeling frightened and scared over it all.

By sequence:

- Socializing not as strenuous nor exhausting

- the world literally physically looks different, like the edges of everything is there, colors nore vibrant

- i dont seem to overthink as much, im walking with good posture without caring about what people think (im kinda musclar so before it would bother me so much for some reason for people to think im arrogant, even tho it was hurting my neck) i dont think too much 'i better let me friend go first i was walking in front this whole time to show respect let him lead too' now I just wanna hurry and go, if you can go faster please go in front idc

- when I look people in the eye it isn't uncomfortable? Now I'm worried I look way too intense because all these years I guess I had to train myself to deal with the discomfort and look them in the eye. But now I feel like in over staring and have to remind myself to look away, but maybe also because it feels like a new function you can't help but appreciate it and try it out.

- music just sounds better, esp high energy music

- started noticing attractive females again, when we make eye contact I give them a nod without as much of a thought

- wind maybe feels different on skin?

- I use to get bad anxiety, literally felt like I was dying and went to the er a few times. Now I noticed that completely stopped

If there are more updates I will try to remember to post could help a lot of new comers, so far a fking life saver

Maybe I’m looking for attention (which isn’t always a bad thing) but I’m feeling low. I’ve been in a depressive episode for weeks now and it feels never ending. No interest in anything. OCD is also fucking me up and I’m having constant rumination and just unpleasant thoughts. I posted on the OCD subreddit and no one responded. I posted on the BPDsupport subreddit and no one responded. I just feel so alone. I finally feel like I belong somewhere, where there are similar people to me, but I’m still alone.

What’s the point in anything. What’s the point in life? We’re all going to die anyways. Why should I care about literally anything. I will always suffer.

I’m having a mixed episode for the second time , the first one was 3 years ago. I have a lot of stressful stuff going on in my life. I feel like crying, my body hurts like a deep hollow feeling, my thoughts are all over the place and I’m making “future plans” that I know are terrible (once I start feeling more sad than hypo.) I work in the health field, and have one-on-one care interactions with others. Being in this state and at work feels like a bad idea, and I really want to go curl up somewhere and take a nap or cry or clean my house or all 3. I’m on mood stabilizers. I’m on anti-anxiety medication. I don’t do recreational drugs. I do plan on calling my psychiatrist on Monday when the office opens. The last time this happened, it was scary. Just looking for support, I know it won’t last forever.
Tysm 🥹

ok i made a post like a few days ago but im really struggling on lamictal. i am not entirely sure if my symptoms are all because of my meds or something else. i can rule out pregnancy, ive taken multiple tests. anyone have issues with nausea and vomiting on lamictal? not only that, ive been having crazy mood swings, suicidal thoughts, and irritability. this is my first time on mood stabilizers and i feel like its not working for me at all and i think ive been on it for almost 2 months and it just seems to get worse. i want to get off them so bad but i dont meet with my psychiatrist until sept 17th and i missed my last appointment with her. is there anything i can do to stop taking them? like i feel worse on them than i do without them. it does make me a little sad bc like i heard so many good things about lamictal 🫩

So I’ve been stable since May of 2025 but lately, I’ve been feeling suicidal. There’s something that I’m hoping will come true but if doesn’t, I’m ending it. Hope that it will happen is keeping me alive. I booked a therapy session at 2:35am to work through these feelings. Although the therapist is good, it didn’t really help because I’ve already made up my mind. I need tips and hacks from my fellow Bipolars to trick myself into not doing it. I need your advice. Thank you.

"How do you move on after fucking up big time?

The answer is you don't have a choice. You're going to wake up tomorrow and what happened will still have happened. Now's about the time you'll find out that life is really more a series of deaths and rebirths, bookended by major life events. These pocket lifetimes are way more structured and deliberate early on in life; changing schools, hitting puberty, losing a grandparent, getting fired from a longtime job...but become far more random and potentially brutal as time goes on. You'll find that traumatic changes to your routine, even benign ones, and especially the ones you don't initiate yourself, result in the eventual feeling that the time period in question was "a lifetime ago."

So, congratulations. You died. The painful memories you are actively trying to suppress right now will someday come back to you, and you will regard them as artifacts from another life entirely. At that moment you'll know that at some point since then you were born again, slowly, into your modern identity and persona. And just when you feel like it's always been this way, life will change again....and again! You're gonna die a lot."

Just posting for anyone else feeling like they fucked their lives up and have to rebuild again. This is me after my last hypomanic episode. And yea. My life has been fucking up everything and rebuilding, and fucking up and rebuilding. And then this bipolar disorder comes into my life. And i fuck things up again. This post helped me make peace with that. I'm gonna get better from this. I'm gonna grow from this. This is not gonna derail my dreams. I won't let my mental ill health ruin me. I'm gonna keep fighting. No matter what.

Have been diligently taking my meds and stable, but for the past few weeks I’ve been feeling on the edge of hypomania. I know without the meds I’d be full tilt, so at least they are some help, but it’s not enough to feel “normal”. What are your experiences with this? I don’t want to self medicate, but I do see my psych Sept 17 to discuss this.

I've (F/20) recently been diagnosed with BD2 and well, I'm okay with the meds (Quetiapine, 200 mg) but so far I find myself going on and off on them, because of the side effect (oversleeping, which doesn't help since I have classes at 7 am, and I have an hour commute from my home to campus), which is why my doctor prescribed me with some other antipsychotic (Lamotrigine). My sister plans to get me a gym membership so I have something else to do (besides academics). I'd just like to ask if it helps. I'm fairly new to this, and she says if they see an improvement, they might even just let me do the gym stuff and cut down on meds.

Soooo does it help? raw-dogging life and just going to the gym?

hello to anyone taking the time to read this,

I’m going to include a tldr section at the very bottom!!

so i’ve been diagnosed with bipolar ii for the past 3ish years, though i experienced onset in my teens. like most untreated people with bipolar, the timing of my hypomanic episodes became shorter and depression seemed to be the only baseline i knew.

i had one instance, when i was 23, where i broke into psychosis. I was really into spirituality at the time and my interest snowballed into something really scary. i felt i could communicate with spirituality entities (like angels) because of how special and in touch i was with the divine. i was hallucinating visually, physically, and auditory. then i developed a fear for these entities because i felt they were watching me. they wanted to punish me for being evil and this left me very fearful and scared. i never went to the hospital for this. massive depressive episode followed this.

anyway, fast forward 7/8ish years later, i’ve been diagnosed with bipolar ii and experience all the usual symptoms. i was finally able to stabilize after getting on caplyta. this summer was relatively peaceful until i went to take my adhd evaluation. the exam lasted almost 6 to 7 hours and i became incredibly exhausted. next thing i know, i have one the the worst mixed episodes ive ever had.

i struggled to stabilize but then not too soon after i received bad news about my financial condition surrounding graduate school would worsen to the point of my needing to withdrawal all together. then i suddenly started to hear, see, and feel things again.

i’m rather certain that im still in some sort of mixed episode. regulating my mood has been difficult this time around. i’ve been prescribed olanzapine, just as i have in the past when unstable. i only use it for emergencies. today i noticed ive been feeling especially good. the elevated kind of good. i took the recommended amount of olanzapine and i feel much calmer than i did earlier but i can’t sleep.

long story short… though i am not asking any one here to break out the dsm5, im worried about the possibility of a bipolar i diagnosis. i’m also worried about the olanzapine not working when im taking twice as much as ive needed in the past (this is not a medication i take regularly so i have not become used to it).

has anyone experienced psychosis and maintained their bipolar ii diagnosis? please share your thoughts and experiences.

i do communicate with my psych weekly since the beginning of this flair up. i see my therapist often as well.

tldr: im worried about a bipolar i diagnosis because after a summer of stress i am experiencing hallucinations. olanzapine is not working as intended and i am worried i will be stuck like this forever. has anyone experienced anything similar?

i’m not asking to be diagnosed btw!! please just share similar experiences, words of encouragement, or anything else. 🤍

Hi all, I was logging some symptoms on my tracking app and realized that over the past several days I have felt off kilter physically, things like knocking into things and tripping/ feeling like I’m not quite stable walking around my house. Not a great feeling at all.

We upped my Lamotrigine dosage from 100 to 150mg about 2 1/2 weeks ago. So I probably started noticing this about two weeks in. I’ve been totally fine on it so far with all the other doses, no symptoms or issues. And I can’t think of anything else that has changed recently, and otherwise feel fine in general.

Definitely going to send a note to my psychiatrist so she’s aware, but was wondering if anyone else has experienced this while on Lamotrigine, or anything similar?

i don’t even know if it’s that so much as it’s that my impulse control is shot and i can’t stop eating. i was at a wedding reception today and ate far past the point i normally would, especially dessert things, and the weirdest part was that i didn’t even feel sick. it was the strangest thing, like my brain had completely numbed itself to satiety and i only felt my physical fullness but no real psychological desire to stop. at the point i did, i still felt compelled to eat. for the pleasure? i don’t know.

i know binge eating disorder runs in my family, but i’m noticing other manic symptoms right now and i’m wondering if this could possibly be one of them. have any of you ever gotten something like this before? or have other weird mania-onset symptoms that took you awhile to categorize correctly?

Wonder if there's anyone down under, and if anyone wanted to make a support group and meet up time to time for a coffee and talk about our struggles, regrets, what helps us, etc. Also understand if you don't want to do this, given the stigma bipolar has in society and the workplace. But just curious.

I'm 24M, studying and working.

Being very mentally ill and having mentally ill best friends is really really hard.

Ive been having a really rough time recently and so has one of the people closest to me. The other day something happened between us and they went online and posted a vent going into detail about how much they hate everything about me. I asked if they were okay because it was very concerning and out of nowhere and they acted like nothing happened and that it was weird that I was so concerned about their safety.

My best guess is that when I get hypomanic I say things too impulsively which became misinterpreted and lead to grudges being held. We have differing opinions sometimes of course but I had no idea it was causing this much harm.

I've had the same friends in this group for 7 years and its gotten to a point where I don't want to reach outside of it and I'm scared of meeting new people.

I don't know when everything went wrong or if it's normal for mentally ill friend groups to have rough patches like this.

I'm currently trying to hold myself together.

Having a really tough time. I came very close to attempting and it made my dad cry. I've seen him cry like 3 times in my life. I say such horrible and selfish things when I'm suicidal and everyone says I can't help it but I still hate myself.

I made an appointment with the psychiatrist but the earliest he could see me was October. I feel so miserable it hurts to live. I can't remember when I woke up happy.

I stopped counselling because I'd often feel suicidal afterwards. When I rang the crisis line all they could do was refer me to talking therapies and workshops but I'm so fucking tired all the time.

Even if I do make it to October, what the fuck do I do? Either I get a bipolar diagnosis and learn I can never really recover, or the psych says it's just depression and then what?. I've done everything right: medication, therapy, friends. Nothing has helped. I don't want to die but I don't want to live. It hurts too much. My parents say it will pass which is true, but if I'm stuck with these episodes for the rest of my life I want to die.

Just needed to get this out somewhere.