I received my bipolar diagnosis a little over twelve years ago as a freshman in college. It took me a couple years to accept my diagnosis as valid, and looking back on my life pre-diagnosis, there is a lot of evidence that substantiate my having bipolar disorder.
I spent most of my high school years in a state of hypomania, which one of my favorite authors describes as three-quarters manic. Of course, I did not know in high school that my moods were influenced by a mood disorder. The years leading up to my diagnosis were full of extreme productivity—I played sports year-round, and I took nearly 60 hours of dual credit classes in 2.5 years.
I averaged less than 5 hours of sleep during my junior and senior years of high school, which could explain the hypomania. Thankfully, I also exercised over three hours every single day, so falling asleep was never a problem. I do not think I had any full-blown manic episodes in high school, thanks to the exhaustion/endorphins resulting from physical activity. I never had any trouble falling asleep at night.
In high school, I was an absolute asshole. I treated everyone poorly, especially my family, most of the time. Maybe most of that was due to me living with an untreated mental illness? I look back at my high school years and cringe. I fought with everyone in my family, often for no reason. This trend continued well after my diagnosis. I had a lot of pent-up anger, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t start seeing a therapist until the end of 2018 (seven years after being diagnosed). My relationships with my parents had been on a good trend before I started talk therapy, and once I’d been going to therapy for a while, my relationships with my family continued to improve.
I still sometimes butt heads with my parents, yet the fights usually aren’t as volatile as they once were. I’ve learned a lot about myself over the past five years, partly due to therapy and also because of all the writing I’ve done for this blog. Writing provided me with an avenue for self-discovery; sometimes writing sessions are more enlightening than therapy sessions.
As a kid and well into adulthood, my temper was a force to be reckoned with. My fuse was about as long as my pinky toe, and once it was set off, it’d sometimes take me days to cool down. I slowly got more control over my temper, so it didn’t get triggered quite as often. In 2021, I resolved to stop cursing in the car (which was the main place I lost my temper), and once I did that, my temper basically disappeared (not just in the car—across the board).
I learned a few weeks ago I get angry when I feel like someone is criticizing one of my good moods—something I’d never been able to articulate before. After college, I spent a lot of time in hypomania, and I started associating hypomania with my good moods. I am significantly more social, outgoing, and talkative whilst hypomanic. I liked hypomania because it meant I could overcome my shyness. My family soon learned what my hypomanic moods looked like (although, they sometimes assigned it inaccurately), and they didn’t like the accompanying obnoxiousness. I feel safe with them, so I’m sometimes extremely goofy.
When I’m in a good mood (more and more without assistance from hypomania), I want to have fun, and I laugh a lot. I get the giggles, and everything is funny to me. Because hypomania provided me with such good moods, I became unable to differentiate between hypomania and just being in a good mood. They became synonymous to me. I really preferred my family not assign my mood, and sometimes I felt like they labeled me as hypomanic when I was just happy. That bothered me.
In between 2020 and the end of 2021, I lost hypomania for the better part of a year. I learned I was very much capable of good moods without hypomania. I could be talkative and funny while simultaneously being self-aware and measured. In some cases, I could turn it on at will. What a revelation that was! I could be in a good mood without a form of psychosis.
These days, I can still reach hypomania, although it is much less common than it was four or five years ago, and it looks a little different. It’s not quite as extreme, and I no longer fall into a depression afterwards. Probably because my hypomania only lasts a day or two, instead of an entire week.
Sometimes, I still feel like my family assumes my illness is playing a part in my moods, which is painful. It took me a long time to accept that my illness doesn’t define me. My moods are not invariably dictated by my illness. My temper sometimes flares when I feel like my good moods are being criticized or diminished in some way. It hurts when people assume the reason I’m goofy or playful is because of hypomania or my illness.
I am likely overly sensitive when I feel like comments are targeted at my moods. And part of that sensitivity might involve perceiving criticism where there isn’t any. I’m fairly intuitive, and sometimes I still get it wrong. I suppose I have a lot of defense mechanisms in place concerning my illness. I’m not sure what to do about them, or even how prevalent they are. If you’d asked me a month ago about my defense mechanisms surrounding my bipolar diagnosis, I might’ve looked at you funny. I feel like it doesn’t happen very often.
This is something I’ll bring up with my therapist next week. Maybe she will have some insight and give me something to work on/think about in the coming weeks.
Between Two Poles 