My hypomanic episodes have sometimes helped me be more creative and more productive, but as mentioned before they're usually followed by a crash, so on the whole I would say my hypomania and depressions used to balance out. Nowadays euphoric hypomania has become much rarer for me and I have depressions and mixed states all the time, so the bipolar is mostly a burden to me.

Even during good times, my episodes mean that my work performance fluctuates a lot. I'm lucky to work in research where I can make my own hours and have a lot of leeway in the way I work. There's no way I could function in a setting where consistent performance is expected because I regularly have weeks or months where I get next to nothing done.

I will say that my bipolar has made me give less of a f**k, in the sense that I've given up on living a "tidy and organized" life. In a way that has made me more free in pursuing my projects and ideas, so I guess that could count as a positive.