I was initially diagnosed in 1997 as mostly just an addiction person. Then, a few months later, as major depressive. Then, six years later, had my first massive manic and psychotic episodes and was then manic and psychotic pretty continuously for two years.

The upper pole of bipolar and its symptoms have a directly inverse relationship with patient insight, as BirdDnacer wisely points out. The sicker we are, the less aware of our sickness we are. It is a terrible and dangerous combination, for quite obvious reasons. I once drove my car 70 miles an hour in rush hour on a Friday afternoon because I believed I had to defuse a nuclear bomb by 3 PM. I don't know how to defuse a nuclear bomb, actually. There was no nuclear bomb, actually. But it took three weeks to finally convince me of those facts.

The other issue raised is the impact of the sometimes (not always for all people) cyclical nature of this illness. When symptoms abate, we feel "normal" again, sometimes, for a bit. I felt great from 2014-2017. Fantastic. It is a perfectly natural human response to wonder, in such a situation, whether that "old" diagnosis of that terrible brain disorder that seems to be "gone" now was correct or not. Why wouldn't we all not want to have this illness?

But, if we actually do have it, it virtually always will be back. Almost always. It is a cruel aspect of the illness, in a sense, because it does cause many of us to gain a kind of inaccurate, ultimately, false hope that we are either cured or never had it.


Some people actually believe this is so common in bipolar 1 that it ought to actually be a part of the diagnostic criteria. I almost agree with that--that is how common it is.