I have these emotional highs where I just feel incredible and motivated and I have tons of energy to do everything. I feel super productive and great.Then I have these lows that kind of come out of nowhere, and it feels like nothing matters. I barely want to get out of bed, I skip meals because eating feels pointless, so on. I get upset easily, I hate things I normally like.I got diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, and my husband took it as a big relief because now the medication is supposed to help me avoid those lows, but I don't get those bursts of energy and feeling great when I'm on the medication either.I feel like these meds are crippling my personality into something muted and acceptable to society, because the way I feel when I have all that energy is the person I want to think of as myself.My husband treats it like I'm hurting myself by skipping my meds, because I started taking them only when I feel down and he keeps complaining they "don't work that way" which I know but it's easy for him to say than when he's not the one experiencing all this.I don't feel like there's any kind of reality where I can get him or anybody to understand the way I feel here, and it's so fucking isolating that I'm afraid of just giving in to the pressure from everyone, taking the pills, and losing myself into being this emotionally stable but dull person.
>>34901770LARP. Bipolar disorder is the one where you think you're a bunch of different people in one body.
>>34901770how many times have you cheated on him?
>>34901770>feel like these meds are crippling my personality into something muted and acceptable to societyBecause that's the intended effect and may cause permanent change too. Ask your psych to wane them for some time and try to do things that keep you low stress, motivated and happy for the longest time possible. To to a therapist and don't dwell on negative thoughts. GL.
>>34902135>LARP. Bipolar disorder is the one where you think you're a bunch of different people in one body.That's Multiple Personality Disorder (now known as Dissociative Personality Disorder)..
>>34902229Never. I have thought about other guys but I've never acted on it or anything.>>34902291This feels like how housewives in the 50s were getting lobotomized if they didn't act the way their husbands wanted, and it makes me feel a little gross about taking this medicine at all.>>34902299That's plurality actually, I'm not a plural but I have plural friends who said the DID diagnosis is erasing their identity. I doubt that's something you want to hear or think about but it's something I try to bring up for the people it affects whenever there's a mix up on these things.
>>34901770Just take your fucking pills. You're making your husband miserable forcing him to deal with a depression you could medicate away RIGHT NOW.
>>34902403>NeverThis is how we know you're LARPing.
>>34903207Nah if she's depressed she probably just lays around and rots in bed all day. No chance for cheating if she doesn't have the will to get up at the start of the day.
>>34903759News flash she can go "shopping" on a Sunday get dicked down by some guy from tinder and come back home in the span of 5-6 hours and you'll never fucking knowEasy for girls to do this, even easier for girls without a conscious (every single girl with bpd, because they're perpetual victims, and never in the wrong outwardly (only silently guilt tripping themselves but never telling the truth about why they feel awful))
>>34904136Bipolar isnt borderline personality disorder- confusing yeah.Bipolar is going from mania/hypomania and depression. OP, are you doing talk therapy/CBT/DBT or just taking pills?
>>34902615I don't want to medicate MYSELF out of existence though. I don't feel like me anymore when I take the medicine, and I've tried a couple different kinds.>>34904163I can't afford a lot of therapy sessions so the pills are doing most of the work. We tried talk therapy for a while, but bc I wasn't taking the pills it didn't help a lot.
>>34904533YOU are not your mental illness. Your mental illness is obscuring who you are. Take the fucking pills and quit letting your sickness define you you fucking victim complex moron
>>34902403TIME TO HIT THE SHART SURAGTITS, GET THAT GOOD-GOOD AND LIGHT THAT CRYSTAL UP LIKE IT'S 1999!!
>>34905829SHARD*
I don't have bipolar, but I do have ADHD and experience cycles of burnout/depression that often mediated my more hyper/manic phases.I think you need to acknowledge that you are not an objective observer in your own reality, and that as someone involved in a relationship (with kids?), your emotional state is extremely important for the stability of your family. You recognize the lows, but the highs are also bad too. Manic behavior is genuinely frightening from the outside and you probably don't realize just how strong you might be coming off in those moments. You might ask your husband to film them for you so you can view them when you are in a more neutral space, as it might show you how unsettling your highs are. You may subjectively feel better, but there's a reason human brains trend towards mild positivity rather than constant motion. I know that if I'm pushed to the limit and can trigger ADHD adrenaline, I am 300% more productive and resourceful than the average person. But it has a very physical cost and is also not representative of a healthy way of living. While I do acknowledge my best work comes from facing down the barrel of a gun, I take my meds because they make my life easier for everyone and I don't end up relying on stress to get things done. The "joy" or "passion" that comes with a deadline burns so hot that it immolate me afterwards, and it's not worth the constant cycle of building and destroying habits, passions, and goals.
>>34901770(part 1 of 2)There's simply no way around this one, I'm afraid. It's in the nature of bipolar disorder that there are both high swings and low swings. Medication to treat it necessarily damps down both the lows and the highs. There isn't any way to selectively treat the lows without also affecting the highs, and there never will be. So you have a simple either/or choice: take the medication, or don't take it. If you take it, it will stabilise you and make you more normal, without either kind of swing. If you don't take it, you will continue to get both lows and highs. I can't tell you which of those two choices is the better one for you. Taking the medication is probably the better choice for everybody else around you, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's better for you.>I feel like these meds are crippling my personality into something muted and acceptable to society, Well, yes: they make you normal. >because the way I feel when I have all that energy is the person I want to think of as myself.You want to think of yourself as being that person BUT YOU AREN'T. Eventually you are going to have to face that fact.>My husband treats it like I'm hurting myself by skipping my meds, because I started taking them only when I feel down and he keeps complaining they "don't work that way" He's right. They don't.>which I know but it's easy for him to say than when he's not the one experiencing all this.The fact that he isn't experiencing it doesn't mean he's wrong. The meds don't work like that.(continued in part 2)
>>34910185(part 2 of 2)>I don't feel like there's any kind of reality where I can get him or anybody to understand the way I feel here, and it's so fucking isolating that I'm afraid of just giving in to the pressure from everyone, taking the pills, and losing myself into being this emotionally stable but dull person.In a sense you're right: neither we nor your husband have experienced what being bipolar feels like. We'll never get it. But there are certain things about your situation which are absolute, unchangeable facts. It is a fact that who you are when you're high is NOT "who you are as a person". Who you are when you're high cannot be separated from who you are when you're low. Both of those people are who you are when you're not on the meds. It is also a fact that the meds don't work the way you wish they did, and they never will and never can. You can't change that. Your husband not understanding how you feel doesn't change any of these facts. You still face the same binary choice: meds or no meds.
