What does being bipolar feel like?

I've had a psychosis with manic characteristics but am not bipolar diagnosed. It felt during my psychosis that I was a very important person (married to Jesus). It is a sign of bipolar during mania that you have a blown up self image. I had as well the characterics that I was very happy and lots of energy. I didn't sleep the whole night and was very energetic. Before the manic psychosis (and after as well) I was always very insecure but because of the blown up self image I was suddenly the most secure person in the world.

It is living in the literal moment. Just focusing now on what do I need to do in order to survive. Wake up, exercise, a good diet, focused work, relationships all done in the moment. Not wanting to remember yesterday. Afraid of tomorrow. Sometimes to happy and sometimes to sad. Feeling on top of the world and then feeling as if the world is on my shoulders. Wanting to be something else and yet not even aware of what else might be. Trying to survive to get through each day by just moving. At times having a great hope. At other times such terrible discouragement.

At times it feels like I can do anything and a few days later I feel absolutely useless. I feel so creative and amazing like one of the smartest people in the world then wanting to die for the smallest reason or becoming really upset at something I cannot control. I act irrationally and emotionally and verbally which I know is not the right thing to do but at times I just loose control of my emotions and become enraged and scream and become borderline violent to the ones that I love for reasons that I cannot really explain other than simple frustration at times i become afraid of what I might do in the wrong situation or if I was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and how easily it could end in mine or someone else being in danger or being hurt and me maybe going to jail and my family having to suffer for all of it.

Not everyone deals with it or 'feels' it in the same way but I can tell you what it's like from my perspective. I was diagnosed with Bipolar 3 years ago when I was 13 years old. At first I didn't want to believe it but soon came to terms with it and agreed to get help. Before I was put on medication, days were really rough emotionally for me. I would have down days in which I would feel very depressed, unmotivated, and hopeless. On up days I felt like I could rule the world. My moods felt like they were always changing and even had multiple highs and lows throughout the day. Thankfully, I'm now on meds and they help a lot. I feel more in control of myself. I still have my days but not nearly as often.

I am new to this and being diagnosed with bipolar 2. I still think and say “if I have this” when I try to talk about it. I have this funny fear that if I get comfortable understanding and accepting it, it suddenly is going to be pulled away from me. I will once again be wondering what the heck is going on, who I am, and what is the point in all of this. However, taking my medication is what helps me come to an understanding somewhat. Before I started my medication my days were horrible. I could go from feeling fine, to yelling, to crying, then feeling like the worst person/mother ever all within a day or hours of waking up. This was my normal for so long and I can’t remember when it started. Sometimes I just woke up feeling mad, irritable, and depressed. I felt like I stayed horribly depressed for so long that now it is hard to tell what is normal. I know my medication is working, but I still fear stepping off into this abyss. I am always waiting. I feel like there is this cloud around me and I will never get my feelings or thoughts across to anyone. I feel fake and alone. I fear not having bipolar and that makes me feel weird that I would want it. I feel most people would look at me and think you don’t have bipolar. I process so much inwardly and only my family truly ever sees the ugly. I just want to understand myself and be happy. I want to be able to live the life I can imagine, but seems so hard to accomplish. A revolving door of my thoughts and wants. I feel trapped in my head, and I am constantly going back over the same things to the point it is embarrassing to talk about with others. I am scared to feel motivated and energized because the ball always drops. I am left depressed and embarrassed, then angry at my life and past decisions that I know I can’t change. Not sure if what I wrote is helpful or not. I am still navigating.

You're laughing one moment, then you're in bed for a week. Everything is sunshine or beyond sunshine for a period of weeks and then your ideas and thoughts go haywire. You start off with great ideas and productivity, but soon you're not sleeping , not eating and not functioning. But you're too busy focusing on stuff you wouldn't see as important if you were well. When you're low, you're low. When you're high, you're high as a kite. Friends notice the mood swings and sometimes have to walk on eggshells around you because they don't know how you're going to react to stuff.

Before I was diagnosed it was confusing. I was depressed often but then have these periods of high energy. I would sleep less, have racing thoughts, and I’ve never heard anyone say this before but it was like I had better access to certain parts of my brain like I’d be able to access my knowledge of difficult words to use. Things weren’t too bad until I turned 19. Then I was suicidally depressed. I had been drinking and doing drugs to manage my moods and it wasn’t working anymore. After a suicide attempt I was hospitalized and diagnosed. I had one major manic episode after that where I didn’t sleep for days, I had delusions of grandeur. I love reading and writing and was convinced it would be super easy for me to submit a pilot and get picked to be a writer on a show. I was also spending a lot of money on my credit card. I also felt like hooking up with someone which is really weird bc I’m demisexual and don’t usually have interest in sex. Then I was hospitalized again. Things got a lot better on meds but it took about 2 years to find the perfect combo that didn’t stunt my emotions and allowed me to feel normalish.

Bipolar disorder is a confusing condition, especially for someone viewing it from the outside. If you have a friend or relative living with bipolar disorder, this person may be reluctant to share how they feel. Because this can make it hard to know how the illness affects them, reading first-hand accounts of other people living with bipolar disorder can help you understand the condition from their perspective. To outsiders looking in, bipolar mania comes in many forms. During these emotional highs, your friend or relative may become full of energy and overly excited about life. Mania can be mild, moderate, or severe, so you may not always link their happiness and elation with a mood disorder. Sometimes, all you see is a fun, optimistic, and upbeat person, the life of the party. But other times, you may notice erratic behaviors with their joyful mood.

Being Biopolar is feeling like you have no control over your emotions, you feel depressed and the next second you are all energetic. You feel sad and then you're happy. Things might be going well and then you're angry for no specific reason. You don't sleep normall, either too less or too much but you still function perfectly, or you might have had a good day but you're still sad and God knows why. It's like your emotions and you're environment (what you're going through), they have no link to each other, no connection whatsoever. You're just out of control and at some point it feels exhausting because not being able to control how you feel is exhausting, a lot.

Being Bipolar feels like one minute you have really high feelings of happiness and excitement and the next you have really low feelings of sadness or anger. You feel like your emotions are controlling you rather than you controlling your emotions. Taking medication or going to counseling to learn how to cope with your feelings is a good way to take control of your feelings. Being diagnosed with Bipolar disorder can make a person feel like they are different but you are just like everyone else, your emotions are just more sensitive than others. There is nothing wrong with being bipolar.