Your post describes where I am at now. I feel like if anyone saw how I truly am and how bad it can get, they will drop me like a hot potato. I try to keep it together, make other people laugh, take the time to listen to other people, and even help other people financially to the point where it is harming me.

I'm afraid that I've set the expectation with other people when I am hypomanic/manic and get a superhuman amount of things done and be overly generous, that is how I should be 24/7. They just seem to take it for granted. Then, when I am at my bottom, it seems like they just can't understand it, or worse, don't want to. It's exhausting trying to get people to realize that when I am at the end of my rope, when I say that "I can't", it's not the same thing as me saying "I won't".

There are some people that know about my bipolar and my GAD, and as much as I try to let them into my head and see what is really going on, they just don't get it. So I try the best I can to plant a happy expression on my face and marshall all of the strength that I can muster to act like there is nothing wrong, when that is so far from the truth. There's no point in them trying to get why I've had to gone out on leave or why I've been so debilitated at times that I couldn't work. There's no point in trying to explain why I have to take all of these medications.

I don't know what it more exhausting, the MI or the effort that it takes to pretend everything is hunky-dorey just so that I don't ruin someone else's day.