A newfound respect for my bipolar

In the past, I was always a bit carefree when it came to my bipolar, even though I have a diagnosis of type 1 rapid cycling bipolar (which is probably up there as the worst it can get) but I always took a very lax rule of to how I dealt with it. I would take my meds for it but I knew that my mood swings were always quick and that if I ended up depressed it would pass in a few weeks so it didn’t bother me too much.

I never really considered it to be that much of a serious condition, which to people who also have bipolar and knew me probably gave them some cause for concern. But I knew being a rapid cycler that it would be very unusual for one of my episodes to progress to a state where it would become a risk to myself.

Yes, I would get depressed to the point where I would get suicidal thoughts, and sometimes it might get to the planning stage. But this never really bothered me because I knew that before it would get to the stage where I might act on it, my mood would change and then I might be in a bit of a normal state for a while or I might end up a bit manic.

The same thing happened with my manic episodes, I would start with the hypo-mania and it might burn itself out there and my mood would change. Occasionally it would get to full mania but by this time I had already put plans in place for this eventuality to deal with it. Like…