For me, being BP without treatment is like being a rattlesnake - coiled, unpredictable, dangerous. You never know what you're going to get. You feel good when the sun warms you up but get edgy when things don't go your way.

Many people choose not to take medication because they crave the manic high of BP. It leads to a flurry of creativity and a lot of people thrive on it and miss it when they take medication to slow down their minds. The meds can change the way we function and that frustrates people. On the low side, people tend to crash after the highs and that's the depressive side of BP. Thus we have the highs and lows.

Many people go off their meds or stop treatment mid to long term because they believe they "have it beat" or they were mis-diagnosed. This is a common concern with many people who are BP, alcoholics, or suffer from other similar conditions.

BP has significantly affected my relationships with other people, especially my family. For me, my BP was accompanied by substance abuse so not only did I have the highs and lows, I also had the aberrant behavior associated with being drunk or high......a bad combo with BP, IMO. I would lash out at them and become paranoid about all sorts of things, blaming everyone else and the world for my problems when the issue really centered on how I reacted to external challenges (which we all face).

In a lot of ways, my BP doesn't allow me the capacity to deal with "life" so I need some help with that. And that's OK.