What the hell is bipolar?

"Bipolar disorder is a serious illness that causes a person to experience unusual thoughts and mood swings."

So you wonder, what is she talking about? What the hell is bipolar disorder? Bipolar is a mental illness which causes mood swings, like it says there. You can go from really, really "happy" to so depressed you can't move out of your bed. Some people swing like this (rapid-cycling) in days or even during one day. Some folks, it takes a little while to go back and forth.

Lots of people have "normal" periods between these swings. You can be perfectly fine - feeling happy and sad, but in regular ways, mostly due to situations in your life, but not so high or low that it's a mood swing.

Mania. Oh, mania can be fun, until it's not. Mania is the part when you're really high. You feel like you're on top of the world, and often have feelings that the world revolves around you. You're the most important person, and you have thoughts that others just don't understand, because you're so much smarter! But mania can also turn bad. You can have hallucinations, thoughts that you can fly (or other really grandiose thoughts), and often get so high that you can't even stand yourself anymore. It's a common thought that only depression leads to suicide, but often so does mania.

Depression is not fun, unless you like to wallow in self-pity all the time. Depression can make you feel like you're the shit on someone else's shoe. You're so low, you're not even an amoeba. You're unimportant, and this can become a paralyzing thought. All you want to do is lie in bed and hide from the world. But this isn't usually when suicide happens. You just don't have to energy to think up a plan.

But hypomania, that's when you have to look out. Often, when depressed people start to feel a little better, that's when they have the energy to make that kind of bad decision. Hypomania is that state of inbetween, when you're not quite normal, and you're not quite depressed or manic. You can still have thoughts that you're shit, or the shit. It just depends. Most people kill themselves while they're hypomanic.

Wow! This is so depressing, you think. It's not. It's a controllable illness (mostly) with modern medication and close observance by a therapist. You can limit the high and the low with medication. You may still get up, and still get down, but often it's not that bad. Medication can keep you semi-stable. It's not all bad news.

So I'm advocating for meds, here. All you bipolars who think, "But it changes my personality! It makes me fat! I get dumb!" Boo hoo. Get over it. The dumbness fades as you take it regularly (REGULARLY and on time. Don't skip doses or it doesn't work). And you can moderate the fat, well, ok, so sometimes you get fat, but it's better than wanting to kill yourself or jumping off buildings cause you think you can fly.

And be kind to yourself. You're not shit because you have this disease. It's just a disease, like diabetes. You have it, you treat it, you feel better.