Bipolar Is ... Short Takes

by Community Members

Short answers to our question, "What is Bipolar Disorder to you?" from members of the About Bipolar Disorder community.

Frankee:
To me, bipolar is a constant struggle with moods, keeping things straight, being in crowds, and having too many tasks to do at once.

Poetprose:
Bipolar to me is a strict regime of pill taking so that I won't have another psychosis where I see Jesus in my monitor or turtles diseasing me. It's admitting that I have a problem with my brain - that wants to go to Oz sometimes. It's trying to stay out of a black pit of despair, and a heavenly place where angels tread. It's mourning some parts of me that have been clipped off by lithium. It's talking out loud to myself, and sometimes saying things in blurted outbursts, good and bad. It's going in circles.

Dianne:
What does Bipolar mean to me? It means I have a brain disorder and I will be taking medicine for the rest of my life. It means I act different and I might lose family and friends. It scares me.

Loca58:
To me, bipolar is relying on meds in an attempt to keep my nasty edge under control; to help me sleep (too much); and to prevent highs as well as terrible nightmares and mild hallucinations.

Adria:
To me, bipolar disorder means that I have not yet met my potential. In other words, I might have finished high school or gone on to college. I may have never been arrested. There is another person lurking beneath my disorder that I am desperate to find. Maybe she's one that finishes things or does not get enraged. Maybe she really isn't paranoid. Maybe she's normal. I rapid cycle and I live on an emotional roller coaster. I have no idea what it is like really to be anything but bipolar. My illness started affecting me when I was really young because I had a lot of stresses in my life most kids my age did not.

GoneN60Scds:
BiPoLaR DiSoRdEr: PuRe H**lllllll! I experience this as great inner turmoil, demons that haunt me every waking moment, false beliefs, a roller coaster ride through the grand canyon of my emotional existence. They were giving the tickets away FREE!!!

Keki60:
Bipolar - for me it's the hypomania that makes me. I seem to suffer from that more than depression. My hypomania consists of uncontrollable (but I do control them) excessive emotions - rage, happiness, driving really really fast, extra vivid nightmares, and a few other things that even freak me out. It's never knowing what you will do or say until it is done or you come out of your blackness and look around at the changes you have inflicted on your family. My meds are the Yin to my Yang. And the darndest thing of all is, if you commit suicide, your insurance policy doesn't pay up.

MJett:
To me, having bipolar is living with suicide thoughts every day, pain in my mind, and knowing I will have this forever.

Becca:
What bipolar has done to me - I am now a shy and introverted person, afraid to put anything out there for fear it is too strong or the wrong thing to say because of a mood I am having. I can never trust if it is me anymore or the beast. My existence is tied to taking 23 pills a day which help me sleep in a world of night terrors and bad dreams, and live during the day filled with terrible side effects. I have little or no impulse control which has caused me many financial woes and physical pain as well.