Bipolar Disorder Support Group
Bipolar disorder is not just a single disorder, but a category of mood disorders marked by periods of abnormally high energy and euphoria, often accompanied by bouts of clinical depression. This is the place to talk about your experience with bipolar disorder, learn from others' experiences, and find support.
I feel great. It feels like a miracle. I have been happy and upbeat for a week and a half or so! And stable! Not manic. For those of you who have read my posts in the past few months, you know that I have been having difficult times. I was hospitalized 5 times this past summer and I have been in recovery. Since then I went through a lot of depression and hopelessness and eventually became suicidal. And you guys helped me a lot with your comments and feedback. So I just wanted to let you know that I have been doing really well lately, and maybe this will be an encouragement to someone. For those of you who think it's obnoxious, I don't mind. But someone gave me inspiration by telling their story and living with success. So hey it's possible! Thank God!
--Nick
But again, for me, speaking with or commuicating online with other people with Bipolar and or other mental illnesses is unique. Even then best mental health clincians, even the most loving, and I have had them, simply cannot understand from the inside what it is like to live with this. And the adject hopelessness that comes with it. They provide positive into and support, the psychiatrists medicate us so we have more stable brain chemistry and the therapists help stretch us cognitively and all that works for me.
But your approach of explaining that it IS possible to be better than she is feeling today holds so much more weight than people who don't suffer out illnesses. For so long, because I was so very sick, I simply didn't believe psychiatrists and psychologists who told me I could improve and life could be better. I was very cynical - I thought they were simply platitudes they spewed out to justify their jobs. But it was true and I wish I'd had networks like this in place years ago. I HAVE improved. Don't get me wrong, I relapse and it is horrfic and I can plunge to suicidality very quickly, but the episiodes are slightly milder and tthe episodes are father apart. - I claim credit for that because I have worked my arse off.
I have a very strong parallel to you imparting the potential for positive change with that young woman in that I am an 11 years sober alcoholic in AA. There is simply nothing like one alcoholic sharing with another alcoholic. I never would have gotten sober and been alive totday without that profound link to another person who has experienced the same suffering. So Kudos to you.
I am overjoyed that I brought hope to you, for those who felt that hope. Thank you so much for your support, it really has empowered me.
Wendy, thank you for sharing your story. I'm sorry your family didn't come to you when you were in need, that must have been just dreadful feeling. But it sounds like you are finding support elsewhere and the AA program is great so I hear. My mom went AA meetings for a while and my sister swears by alanon meetings. It is so real and personal when you can relate to with what the other person is saying. When I go to that BP support group, I get the feeling that I'm not alone and that people have it worse than I do so I should be thankful, and I am. Right now what's running through my brain is--- it's possible! it's so possible... And then I think of how it can be achieved whatever the idea is, and speculate whether or not it's something I want for myself. I believe in possibilities for everyone here on this site. Everyone everywhere. I feel like I was underwater desperate for air and I just came up and opened my lungs for air. And now that I'm above the water I can see that anything is possible because I did it. And you can too, whoever you are.