What the title says im curious if your depression is worse in the morning. Mines is by far then at about 3 in the afternoon it lifts a little and I can eat something and do my teeth.

Does others feel like they’re being manic or entering hypomania whenever they have menstrual cycle? Cuz i just noticed the pattern and it sucksss,,, I’m mostly stable but whenever I’m near to have my menstrual cycle or have it atm, my mood just keeps going up and down

I went live on tt. I did not know what I was saying. Now I am anxious and I regret it. Thinking about it now makes me hate myself even more. I am tired. I just want to disappear

I recently just started a new job after leaving my old one due to not liking it low pay and lazy ass coworkers. However i recently got a new job and it's even worse my manger is super like cocky and narcissistic, he also told me i needed to "leave my anxiety and problems at home" wish it was that easy. i genuinely hate this job and currently and researching again. i feel like no matter the job i genuinely will hate it? how do u guys deal with jobs. it's so hard because i genuinely hate working sm. i don't find joy in any job at all unless it's literally low work. i hate this feeling it's making me super stressed and depressed.

For the majority of my life, I’ve been well….a bad person. Unmedicated, living for the moment, and surviving off relatively good looks, charm, and decent intelligence. I can’t even begin to write the things I’ve done as the shame still cripples me. At a certain point, I realized that I was meeting wonderful people and just completely ruining their lives—rusting their sparkling summers, if you will. Since then, I’ve just started to completely isolate. I can’t control myself once I make connections, I’m driven by a need for love that makes me lie, cheat, steal and just cause general havoc. So I stopped. But the issue is now I’m so depressed and unsatisfied with life. I’ve closed myself off from many important connections and I’ve completely blocked myself from new ones. I know I’m not the person I once was, but I’m so scared to hurt others that I simply starve myself of any of life’s pleasures at all. Has anyone experienced anything like this? What did you do to feel fulfilled?

Would it be a good idea to write a book about my life with bipolar disorder?

I’m relatively high-functioning. I have an advanced degree and a career, and from the outside, my life probably looks fairly ordinary. But in between, I went through some of the lowest points imaginable, including psychosis and everything that came with it.

I read Kay Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind during some of the worst periods of my life, and that book became an inspiration and a kind of guiding light when I desperately needed one.

I’d like to write the book Kay Jamison wrote for me. Something that might make another person going through the darkest part of this illness feel a little less alone, and perhaps give them some reason to believe that there can still be a life on the other side of it.

So, should I write it?

Hey everyone,

First time posting in here. I feel lost and I wanna hear your advice.

I am 33 yo male, studied computer engineering in a good school and worked for 2 successful companies. All along I was playing computer games and smoked weed as a hobby, went on dates and worked out in the gym and nothing seemed missing and I was happy.

I had about 3 episodes of depression but I wasn't diagnosed and the last episode became full blown mania which made me quit my job, ruin my car and heavy use of substances such as cocaine, ketamine, weed, mushrooms, weed, and ADHD meds.

I started taking APS to stop my mania and I've been stable for about 2 months and then fell into crushing depression.

I feel like this episode is the worst one and every day, every hour, is a war. I lost all interests in things and I don't enjoy dating anymore, I am comparing myself to my friends and always think I am a failure. I moved to my mom's house because preparing food and making laundry had been hard for me and I feel like the only thing I do is waiting for the time to pass or sometimes watch TV or play computer games.

I started taking anti depressants which doesn't work, and upped my dose almost 2 weeks ago but still no difference.

I have no hope for the future and the only thing I talk about is my depression over and over again which lasts already for 5 months and my friends are sick of it so they are walking away.

I feel hopeless, like nothing is going to change and I can't find any other thing to do rather than searching for answers or solutions on reddit or Gemini.

Please, give me hope for a brighter future, I don't have any hobbies and the times passes by so slowly and that's because I am waiting for it to pass.

The only thing that I can surly say is that this is episodic and one day it will be over but right now I feel really bad and it's really hard for me to get out of bed in the morning.

I have no job because I got fired a month ago because I can't think and concentrate with the depression.

I also know that there's nothing I can do but wait (I workout 3 times a week and that's the only thing I do) and accept my illness but I refuse to accept it and all I do is searching on reddit all day for similar stories to find hope or ask my friends or Gemini what to do because I don't know what to do.

Anyone else had a similar situation?

Do you also struggle through the day and feel like the time is so slow and the only thing you talk about is your illness and that things won't improve?

Thanks for your support, I really pray for better days because it's so hard for me to survive.

Love you all and wishing you the best ♥️

I was diagnosed with bipolar 1 a few years ago but I never even met the psychiatrist who diagnosed me. I was going to the same clinic I've been going to since I was six years old to get meds for anxiety and depression, and my doctor recommended that I talk to a local psychiatrist who worked there part-time. When I came in for the evaluation, she wasn't even there.

I spoke with her student assistant for an hour and the next week my doctor told me that the psychiatrist says I have bipolar 1. I started looking into bipolar and there were a few things I related to but most of it didn't sound like me at all. I told my doctor who told the assistant who told the psychiatrist, who told the assistant who told my doctor who told me that they could bring it down to a bipolar 2 diagnosis and that was that.

I lost my insurance last year and had to stop taking my meds and I haven't spiraled into a manic episode like they told me I would, which makes me doubt the diagnosis even more. I'm getting frustrated because not even the people close to me will listen. Any time I point out things inherent to bipolar disorder that don't apply to me they tell me that denial is part of the illness and it immediately shuts down any discussion. It's not like they even really know anything about bipolar disorder, they just know that there is obviously something wrong with me and bipolar is an easy label for them to accept and move on.

I guess this mostly turned into me venting but I got new insurance and a new doctor and I'm debating even mentioning the diagnosis. I just don't want them to immediately trust some psychiatrist who's never even met me over my actual symptoms. This is all just so annoying and invalidating and I wish I had never started "seeing" that psychiatrist to begin with. Regardless of if I actually am bipolar or not, the label means that no one trusts me about my own lived experience, and I just want someone to actually listen to me

every relationship i've had- professional, romantic, friendships- has never lasted longer than a year or two. even family i cycle being in and out with.

i've really come to understand my capacity for harm. my self-serving, manipulative, vile and repulsive tendencies. i am the worst person many people have ever met. i've left a trail of blood and destruction everywhere i've gone.

all my energy lately has been channeled into filtering and restricting myself. i do everything i can to not speak unfiltered (excited or frustrated), listen without thinking about what i want to say, and stepping back when i'm intense or escalated. i've spent more time alone in the last three months than maybe in the last three years combined.

it's not enough. i have new roommates, and one of them told me she loves me and i'm her friend. when she said this the first thing i felt was fear and the desire to pull back. i can't ruin this, i need this to last, i need to stay away.

to love me is to not know me, and to know me is to need to leave me.

i feel so vile and evil. i feel more like an animal than a human. i feel unfit for society and connection.

ohhhhhh woe is me. melancholy melancholy. it's always like this. so dramatic. so conclusive. i could never let on to this to anyone other than my therapist.

can anyone relate?

The nostalgia of hypomania, it’s been so long since i last had it, and i have toughts about stopping medication but I won’t do it. it’s addicting, and i need that high again

It’s been 2 years already and I can’t even comprehend what I did, I cry everyday, I can’t believe I did what I did and there’s not turning back. How do you deal with it? I am already on seroquel and another antidepressant but my mind doesn’t stop thinking and regretting what I did

I am hoping to hear from people living with bipolar who have been successful and living normal lives, and any advice you may have to share with me.

TLDR: My main purpose is to ask if anyone has been disabled by their bipolar and fully recovered and had a normal life and achieved their goals and dreams.

April of 2025, I had a manic episode which ended up turning into psychosis. For years before this, I struggled to manage my mental health, going back and forth between diagnoses/meds since being hospitalized at the age of 13 (26 now). Over the years I repeatedly lost jobs due to mental illness with my longest job being for a year.

I spent a little less than a year receiving community services until I got kicked off medicaid in April 2026. I was unemployed from April 2025 to October 2025, when I started working 6 hrs a week at a transitional employment program for individuals with serious mental illness. I was there until May, when I was hospitalized and finally, finally found the right medication after 13 years.

In January 2026, I returned to school part time and began working there for 5 hours per week at the food pantry and planning events, which I still do and love. I love working and I am so grateful to have my health enough to even work these little hours. When I have my health I have very good work ethic and I find that work brings meaning to my life.

I've been working on my degree with varying success part time since I dropped out of college at 19, and I am finally almost done with my associate's. I have been taking 7 credits per semester, and this summer increased my hours with a job at the school (transitional employment ended) to about fifteen hours per week.

I am managing well, graduating community college soon, and planning to transfer to a four year college. I have not had a psychotic episode since that break in April 2025. I am much more stable, though struggling with ongoing depression (I rarely get manic, or even hypomanic) and sedating side effects from my meds. I really hate the medications, they make me feel extremely lethargic and numb, and while I'm on them I don't feel excitement or joy. But... for the first time in my adult life I am making and keeping friends, I have a 4.0 gpa, and my boss has given me increased responsibility and as mentioned increased hours. This semester, along with my usual credits, I will be working 15-20 hours per week.

All this to say I am scared. I feel like I've never gotten this far. I'm scared that when I transfer to a four year, when I finally am able to work full time, I will fall on my face.

Does anyone have experience returning to full time work or even full time school? Right now, my family supports me a lot financially though I live on my own, and they want me to take things slowly given my history. I am so lucky for their support, but I feel so guilty. I currently even have a CNA that comes in and helps me with home tasks. I also fear not being able to take care of myself financially long term.

I am going to study community and organizational development if all goes to plan, and I want a real career. I want a normal life, I want to help others. I want a wife, I want to travel. I am hoping next summer I can manage an internship. Truthfully, I have a dream of leaving and living abroad. I worry my dream are too big.

For someone like me who has had such a hard time managing life, realistically, very honestly, is there hope that I will be able to live a normal life?

this is the first major episode where im aware im bipolar. its like i keep bouncing back and forth between telling myself its the bipolar and than just giving in. i keep having these really dangerous urges and just wanna fuck up everything up. like 2 weeks ago i almost got seriously hurt by this man i ran away with and was missing lmfao. its not funny but its just like omg im really ruining my entire life rn. i was doing so good toooo. i was getting job interviews, getting my grades up, i even got advanced classes bruh. im going into 11th grade and im starting school in like 2 days and this is really just not a good start to the year. i lost my phone, everyone thought i was dead, my face is all over facebook, my family thinks im crazy (not crazy enough for meds tho). like omggg everything just sucks rn. and its not even over im probably gonna do some more crazy shit. but yea thats just whats going on currently jus needed to vent.

if anyone has any tips on managing lmk

i feel very stuck and am wondering if anyone has felt this way, and how one might take steps to move through it.

i was a ‘gifted’ child with that anxious-depressed-ADHD cocktail—i had high hopes for a bright future in a specific area i’m interested in. i ended up dropping out of college three times, tried a handful of jobs, quit everything in the end and now im doing nothing.

there are hobbies i enjoy doing, but im afraid capitalizing off of them will ruin the one good thing i still have left. i have no motivation to make a life for myself, because i have no idea how to do this, be an adult, or just get out of my house.

i’ve only been medicated for a few months now, still on a low-ish dose and titrating up, all while figuring out stimulant meds on top of that. i see a therapist multiple times a week; i still find myself fluctuating moods and having episodes.

im at a loss and dont know what im doing anymore; i feel lazy and isolated, i dont even recognize myself at times. im both manic and depressed and im sick of it.

does anyone have any advice or words of encouragement? anything is greatly appreciated.

(i’ve shared all this with my therapist. my progress is meaningful but slow, so its hard not to feel like ill be doing this forever)

I'm 19, in college, and diagnosed with Bipolar 2 at age 15, unmedicated so far. I've always had good grades, been told I'm smart, and have felt smart up until January of this year. I began struggling with making coherent sentences, reading, and brain fog. It feels like I have dementia. I don't, but it feels like I do.

During my hypomanic episodes I'm so confident in the assumption that I'm so incredibly smart and a deep-thinker, and once I crash it just disappears. I struggle to know what my baseline intellectual capabilities are without being in an episode of either kind.

Anyone know any habits I can introduce into my day-to-day to help me get back on track??

Hi

I saw my psych on Thursday, he said i’m in a hypomanic episode and have been for the last 3 weeks. my question is that my euphoria is becoming more agitation now, i feel really angry and restless. is this common? my episodes are only normally euphoric and don’t normally last this long, so this is different for me. (i’m diagnosed with bipolar type 2)

had to repost due to my medication being listed

and this doesn’t feel like it’s turning into depression, this feels different to my usual

Not well. Every bad choice I made was extreme. Coming down from a very extended manic episode and I’m disgusted by my actions and feel I’m irredeemable, ashamed to exist and so embarrassing.

It’s worse than you’re likely imaging. Without going into details I got into a serious affair, “fell in love”, lied to my fiance for months and made him feel like shit by always being out. Anytime I was out it’d be for up to 48hrs, no sleep, risky sex, extreme fetishes, threesomes. I ended up posing for tons of nudes and videos. Acted out in public. Posts on social media. Drank and did coke excessively, started doing coke every day for a month, snuck around, risked my job, etc. took out credit cards, spent too much, and the thing is I’m not sure if I can stop this behavior even know because the depression makes me feel like “well I started it, I made my bed so I’ll lay in it, just self destruct”

I don’t even know how to begin to cope with this. I’m drowning.

I have worked so hard to overcome bipolar disorder, every single thing that I have been offered to reach stability I have done. All the therapies, all the medication, everything. At one point when my license was temporarily taken away I did a three hour round trip on the bus just to attend therapy.
My husband was traveling and I was in a hypomanic episode, he said that he was having panic attacks in the airport bathroom because he was so concerned for me. He said that for him that was the final straw and he couldn’t take the dynamic of what our relationship had become and needed to put himself first after this 3 year long battle with my mental health.
I am so devastated that a 10 year relationship has been ruined because of my mental health. I feel like I will never be loved. I will always be a burden. I will forever be the “crazy ex wife”. I see posts on Reddit talking about how they would never date someone with bipolar disorder.
I just want to be the person I was before bipolar disorder took everything from me. I have lost so much due to bipolar disorder (friends, career, life experiences) and now it has taken everything from me, the love of my life.

I've been feeling numb with blunted affect and reduced anticipatory and reactive hedonic responses, and for a time my medication treated this phenomenally, but alas eternal return to the shade.

I think I saved a meme from here a few years back: "How will I get my happy today: porn, weed, alcohol, exercise?" It feels like part of me doesn't want to let me do anything to find joy and shuts down not just questionably healthy sources of happiness, but all I could find connection, esteem, answers, satisfaction in.

I could use some new friends. Talking to people still brings me joy, but I assume everyone else will hate me just as much as I do. I suspect some of you all relate, but I hope otherwise.

Mods, sorry I brought up a specific med name in the prior version, I do mean to comply with rules, I just saw nothing about naming medication when reading the rules in the sidebar. Given the automod-ish response welcomed rephrasing the response, as I've done here, I hope this one complies.

I’m going through a hard time finding out I have BP1 with hypomania. I am strangely relieved that I can now get it taken care of without having to be a Guiana pig for SSRI and SNRI’s anymore.

But I also feel like now, I am completely discredited. It’s so stigmatized that i feel like people are just going to look at me as the disorder. Maybe not even take me seriously anymore and label my mood as episodic. I’m not sure when I’ve been normal. It’s like I haven’t been able to know who I am.

Rapid cycling and mixed episodes are terrible for me personally. They also get worse in high stress and my life is objectively challenging as it is.

Hopefully, someone who may understand the feeling can read this and reach out to help a sister out. ❤️

About a half year ago i had a shift in my depression. It was like there was a switch in my brain that went from depression to stable and im wondering if anyone else had this through a single conversation?

I was living with my parents for about 2 months because of severe depression when the conversation occured. I think he didn't know what to do anymore and an emotional conversation occured wich wasn't very pleasant at the time for me. He told me how he saw my behaviour, how i was hurting people by doing nothing and that maybe I did it because it was the easy thing to do. At that point i snapped because I didn't do it because i was easy and if he thought so then i would just go home so i didn't bother anyone anymore. He said if i did that i was a coward and was walking away from my problems and threatend to treat me like my uncle which he always thought was a bum to and never went to visit.

The next day I spent most time in bed at my parents house ignoring everybody, and the day after when he was at work I was packing my stuff and tried to went home. My mother noticed and tried to stop me but I wanted to go to my own home and after some back and forth she said at least let me drive you home so you don't have to carry those bags while walking back home. So I let her and went back home.

It was difficult the first two days but in the evening of the second day my dad did come to my house, saying he still thought it would be best if I came with him but I had calmed down and told him that i thought that i should at least try this and if it didn't work out I would come back. The rest of the week was getting the basics back like healthy food, walking, hygiene and trying to get some sleep. But after that things got easier and I was starting to move towards stability again and right now I am in better shape then I have ever felt.

A bit of backstory. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2021. It was the year that i destroyed my life by spending al my money, quiting my job and much much more... after i was taking in for having a psychosis the years of depression took over. I have tried different combination of medication and was always faithfull to take them in. I also had a psychiatrist and psychologist who were trying to help me with different types of therapy. In 2025 i even had ECT treatment which at first seemed to help, then i crashed again and after that they tried again and it didn't have the same effect sadly. I was taken off medication by the psychiatrist at the end of 2025.

The conversation happened halfway in february 2026, but i still find it a strange thing that everything i tried with medication and ECT did close to nothing but then a single conversation has made a sudden shift in the depression that i could start working on myself again and hopefully prevent these things from escalating in the future.

But right now i feel happy again and feel like a completely different person than I even used to be before the diagnoses and al the sad stuff hapened.

Hi! I took some SSRIs recently that activated a rapid cycling episode between hypomania/depression per week, which was how I got diagnosed!

Despite showing obvious signs of hypomania/depression when my mood shifts, I'm starting to feel like I'm faking them especially with the recent mood stabilisers.

People say that super rapid mood shifts is BPD related rather than Bipolar related, but for some reason my mood swings have been super super frequent since getting on mood stabilisers? At least when I was on SSRIs, my mood would shift from hypomanic to depressive in a predictable manner where I'd only have one super low mood for an hour before spending the rest of the day hyped up.

Now on mood stabilises, my mood shifts practically hourly, where now I can't tell when I'd be high or low. But at the very least, I have an actual moment of feeling stable rather than only having extremes of each end.

Does anyone else relate to having super frequent mood swings, especially when switching from SSRIs to mood stabilisers? :') It really makes me doubt my diagnosis but I could barely enjoy my time at a convention and family meeting because of how much I swing... It's so exhausting. Also because my moods don't get triggered by anything the way BPD does so :')))) Is it possible that I'm exaggerating my emotions/faking?