Bipolar Disorder is categorized as a mood disorder that, in it's very basic form, can be defined as a series of "highs" and "lows", with highs referring to periods of mania and lows referring to periods of depression, with periods of "evenness" thrown in for good measure.  And while on the surface, it might seem fairly simple to someone who does not have(or know anyone who has) Bipolar Disorder, it is in fact much more complex.  So much so that Bipolar Disorder has been subdivided in to different types, such as Type I and Type II, along with cyclothymia and Bipolar 'NOS', for those who don't quite meet the specifications of the other defined types.  Along with that, it can also include periods of psychosis, hallucinations, suicidal urges, paranoia, anxiety, and more.  Alternately, they can feel euphoric, appear to be without a care in the world, or express grandiose, unrealistic thoughts.

If it sounds like it might be difficult to live with a person who is Bipolar, try thinking about what it's like to actually be Bipolar.  In this hub, I'm going to discuss how being Bipolar has impacted my life, and hopefully try to dispel some of the negative associations that some people have regarding people who are Bipolar.

I don't know if there's really one image that can accurately "depict" Bipolar Disorder, but this one seems good. It's a trippy, psychedelic, random, and chaotic sort of image that can mirror what might be going on in a Bipolar person's head at any given time. Of course, this doesn't necessarily apply to every Bipolar person, but it works well enough for me.

So what is Bipolar Disorder? You may be more familiar with it by it's more descriptive name, manic-depressive disorder. As mentioned above, this is a mood disorder in which a person can experience extreme highs and lows, as well as a spectrum of both in between, along with periods where they feel completely normal.

During extreme highs, referred to as mania or manic episodes, a Bipolar person may experience racing, uncontrollable thoughts, that jump from one subject to the next and have no apparent connection to one another. They may also experience euphoric sensations or feel as if they're invincible and impervious to danger. They may spend excessive amounts of money or abuse alcohol and/or drugs. They may become highly sexual, delusional, irritable, or psychotic. They may also become extremely productive and driven to complete tasks. As of this writing, I'm personally going in to a manic phase; this is the second highly detailed hub I've written today, and I frequently write excessively when feeling manic. It's barely-controllable, nearly compulsive behavior, that, if I weren't able to do it, would probably cause me to go slightly berserk.

Bipolar depressive phases are quite similar to unipolar depression in that a person may feel useless, hopeless, suicidal, sad, angry, anxious, or guilty. They may also have trouble concentrating on any one task, may experience insomnia, may experience physical pain even if no physical cause is present, and generally lose interest in life. Some of these feelings may also be present during manic phases. I personally have more "down" episodes than "up" episodes, and tend to rapid-cycle between them with very little in the way of any time spent feeling "normal"(whatever that might actually be).

Some Bipolar people, as mentioned, experience periods of normalcy where their mood is stable and they are able to function relatively well. While these periods are beneficial in that they give the sufferer a break from, well, suffering, they can also cause a person to believe that they're "cured" and no longer need medication and/or therapy, and the cessation of medications can lead to possibly severe "backlash" as the mind reverts to being imbalanced.

There is an incredible range of what feelings and moods might or might not be experienced by any given Bipolar person, and no two people will experience things exactly the same. There is a spectrum of severity wherein some will only ever experience relatively mild symptoms while others will experience the most extreme symptoms possible... and there are a whole bunch of other people who will fall somewhere in between.

Bipolar disorder is thought to have strong roots in genetics-- that is, it tends to run in families. As with most mental disorders, an exact cause has not been established. Onset is often during adolescence, though may be very difficult to recognize at that point, and symptoms may be chalked up to simply "being a teenager". Bipolar is a lifelong affliction, with some cases being treatable so that a person may lead a fairly productive life, while others are extremely difficult to manage, leaving a person unable to function normally and having a diminished quality of life.

It's very difficult to explain all of this to someone who has not personally experienced it, and I've heard from such people in the past that they can't even begin to imagine what it must be like. My sole response to that is simply, "be glad, because you really don't want to know".

People who are not familiar with mood and mental disorders often confuse Bipolar with other disorders that are not related. Depression on it's own is not Bipolar-- it's simply depression. People who experience depression do not swing the other direction and experience "high" periods the way Bipolar people do. They may experience periods where their depression subsides, similar to the periods of "normalcy" felt by some Bipolar people.

BPD-- Borderline Personality Disorder-- is also not Bipolar Disorder, yet I frequently see the two used interchangably. While characteristics can be similar in some cases, BPD tends to present in a much different manner, though these differences may not be obvious to people who have not been exposed to both. BPD can occur concurrently alongside Bipolar.

Bipolar is also not Schizophrenia; the two are not related.

Bipolar cannot be "wished" or "willed" away, nor can an affected person just "snap out of it".  In severe cases, an affected person may not have control over their behavior during an "up" or "down" phase.  I make every effort to be aware of my own behavior, but it's not always easy; regardless, I try not to let it affect those around me, though I am not always successful.

Childhood and Lasting Effects

I had a fairly difficult childhood, as my mother was also Bipolar, but I didn't recognise this was the case until fairly recently. She would display truly frightening mood swings that often resulted in unprovoked explosive rage which sometimes lasted for days on end. At other times, she seemed perfectly fine and frequently appeared to genuinely forget anything she might have said or done during one of her manic phases. To her credit, she never experienced problems with drugs or alcohol, and never spent money compulsively, however, I sometimes wonder if that would have been better than her completely out of control fits of anger. She was extremely unpredictable, and by my mid-teens I was completely terrified of her because I never knew from one moment to the next how she might be feeling. For the most part, she was also not capable of expressing emotions outside of anger; I can think of only one instance in my entire life when she hugged me, and cannot recall a single time when she ever said she loved me.

In recent years, she experienced some health problems which resulted in her having a stroke. Interestingly, after recovering from her stroke, her behavior changed substantially. While she was still prone to mood swings, she no longer expressed the extreme rage she had once been capable of. She became easier to talk to and easier to get along with, and after having been estranged from her for several years, we managed to reconnect on a fairly meaningful level. Unfortunately, she also developed a strong dose of depression, which would sometimes keep her out of contact for days on end-- worrisome because she had fairly serious health problems as well, and lived alone-- and in October 2008 she chose to end her life.

Diagnosis and Beyond

I saw a psychiatrist for the first time when I was 15 or so, and was given a tentative diagnosis of "manic depression". I didn't know what that really meant, and it was not explained to me, and as I did not care at all for the doctor I saw, I essentially just forgot about it and went back to living what seemed to be a pretty miserable existence. I had convinced myself that at some point I had done something very horrible and was serving out some sort of punishment for it. I developed severe insomnia by the time I was 16 and also began experimenting with alcohol and drugs. That sort of activity was curtailed fairly easily by my overwhelming fear that my mother would find out. That fear was based on a night, prior to my ever having touched anything drug or alcohol related, when I came home from my after-school job and discovered that she'd managed to convince herself that I had not been out working-- she was certain I'd been out smoking weed. This was not new behavior from her, she had often come up with all kinds of bizarre ideas that had to do with me doing all manner of "bad" things or coming up with "plots" against her. None of these things ever had any basis in reality, but it was impossible to convince her otherwise. And so, that night she spent a couple of hours screaming at me and demanding I "admit" to having been out smoking weed rather than working, but I stood my ground, because that was about the time I was starting to become fed up with her ridiculous accusations. The short of that is that I didn't care to actually be out smoking weed, and have her find out, because I knew what the response would have been.

It was also around this time that I began cutting myself as a way to ease some of my emotional pain. I did that on and off until I was about 21, and while I couldn't imagine doing it today, the one thing that stands out in my mind is the sheer lack of physical pain I felt at the time. I tend to think now that this was because of the nearly crushing emotional pain I was dealing with and the complete lack of support that was available. I became sullen and withdrawn, and upon rare occasions, aggressive. I didn't understand why I felt so out of control, or why my moods were all over the place, or why one day things would seem just fine(even if they weren't) and the next day it would seem like the world was coming to an end(even when it wasn't). I was confused and scared and unsupported-- I'd managed to run off what few friends I had, and my mother took almost no notice to my worsening condition, probably because she was too involved in her own mental chaos.

It's understandable, to an extent, now, but at the time it was pretty much like living in the worst nightmare imaginable, day in and day out for what felt like the whole of time.

Adulthood to Current Day

In my early 20's I began experimenting heavily with drugs and drank alcohol fairly excessively, to the point I would black out upon occasion. These seemed to be the only things that could remove me from an existence that I did not want to be a part of. For much of this time, I was actually able to maintain employment, but did go through a period where I didn't much care and did lose one job because of it. I saw doctors on and off, because my depression had worsened and I had developed anxiety and panic disorders. I also had some physical problems related to past injuries, but was almost universally dismissed as "exaggerating" or just flat out making things up for attention, and to this day I still don't understand why.

Eventually I was able to cut out heavy drinking and drug use, though much of that was because I was more worried about the panic disorder I'd developed, and substance abuse only aggravated it. And eventually, I found a doctor who brought up that old diagnosis, the one I'd forgotten all about-- Bipolar disorder. After years of alternating between wondering what the hell was wrong with me, and convincing myself that I was perfectly normal, I had to resign myself to accepting that yes, there really was something wrong with me, and it had a name.

The supposed upside was that even though there was something wrong, it was also treatable. I began my journey in to the vast world of psychiatric medication full of hope, but I've subsequently learned a lot over the last 10 years, and much of what I've learned is about how profoundly ineffective a lot of medications are for me. Some would work initially, only to completely quit 6 months in. Some had horrid side effects. Some were complete nightmares to come off of once they'd quit working. And worse still, the "flagship" medication for Bipolar disorder-- Lithium-- made me significantly worse, in a way I can barely describe except to say I don't think I've ever experienced the sorts of "lows" that I experienced when I was on Lithium. I ended up taking myself off of it cold turkey, because I was so afraid of what might happen if I allowed any of it to remain in my system. I was terribly disappointed that the one drug that so many have success with ended up driving me to the brink of suicide.

I am currently not medicated with anything because I'm without insurance. I'm without insurance because I'm no longer capable of working outside my home. I realize that many will view that as an "excuse", but it isn't, and it also isn't for the thousands of other Bipolar sufferers who are in the same sort of situation. I've maintained regular employment since I was a teenager, but that all came to an end(admittedly voluntarily, but I was simply not functional enough to return to the job I'd had) last October with the passing of my mother. I was already unstable at the time, and that particular situation was more than enough to push me well outside any sort of 'safety' zone I may have been living in. I do what I can to get by, mostly selling whatever I can on eBay, but being unable to see any sort of doctor is fairly problematic. I fear this may become a permanent problem, as I'm aware enough to recognize that my condition has and continues to deteriorate over time.

None of this is meant to garner pity, but rather to give readers a firsthand account of what life as a Bipolar person can be like. Some have worse, some have it better, we're all a bit different. I feel fortunate that I'm usually able to identify what's going on-- if I'm having a depressive episode, or if I'm experiencing a manic episode(I rarely experience anything involving "normalcy"). I recognize that as of this writing, I'm having a mild manic episode, as I've spent the last 8 hours sitting at the computer working on hubs. Stronger manic episodes tend to involve me cleaning things excessively and occasionally spending money that I don't have to spend on things that I don't need and ultimately end up wondering why I ever thought I wanted them to begin with. I also am aware enough to know that my "up" phases are consistently followed by sudden and extreme "down" phases that drain every last bit of energy right out of me.

Some days I question my sanity.  Some days I wonder if the chronic pain I experience is just something my mind conjured up, despite having a set of MRI's that show damaged discs.  Some days I question my intelligence; I used to think I was pretty smart, but I no longer consider that to be true.  Some days I actually wonder if EVERYTHING is just one big hallucination.  Some days I don't know what's really real and what isn't.  Some days I wonder what it's like to not be Bipolar.  Most days I think about how much easier life would be if I didn't have to try and live it any longer.  And since last October, I often wonder if I'll end up exactly like my mother, no longer able to deal with anything and simply want out for good.

I apologize for this being a fairly "downer" hub, but this is the reality for a good many Bipolar people.  Sometimes the resources available don't work(medication), sometimes we simply don't have access to resources(no money or insurance).  Some of us are left on our own to work things out, and sometimes that isn't enough.  There is still a lot of stigma surrounding mental illness and sometimes we refuse to acknowledge or admit we're suffering and are worse off for it.  People often abandon us if they find out, presumably out of fear.  Some of us lose jobs-- or can't even get them in the first place-- because of it, even if it hasn't affected our work performance.  Some of us use it as an excuse, but most of us just want to feel better.

I hope this helps someone out there, either because it's educated them or because it's made them feel less alone, or for any other reason one can come up with.