[Rebound]

I have BP II. My hypomania can manifest in 2 ways. One: very happy, full of vigor, ready to take on the world, start many projects, write a lot more, etc.; two: short tempered, almost constantly angry at everybody except for random periods where I feel nothing at all; zombified, I call it.

When I'm depressed, I just want to complain to everybody and moan about my troubles to anyone who will listen and that's not exactly friendship.

Either way, I feel emotion toward others at a completely superficial level. I don't become deeply attached to anybody. I also tend toward passive aggressiveness and I can be manipulative and cynical. The only really strong emotions I feel 99% of the time are self-hatred, envy, pain and sadness.

Oddly, I feel empathy deeply. I had a friend I only knew online whose husband abused her horribly. I wanted to go the 2000km to Kentucky and hurt him badly. I didn't have the guts after she asked me not to do it but that's one example of how I can feel very strongly, but it's not because I have an attachment to that individual, only because of the pain being suffered.

I've worked in a building with around 400 people but I've only met with a couple of them outside work and not much at that. Not one close friend.

Is this permanent, a product of my genes? Or is this a behaviour I can learn to change? I want to be able to truly love, to have the sort of lasting friendships come so naturally to most people.

I feel there's nothing I can do about it but I feel so lonely I'm begging for some way to change it.

[Berries]

The best suggestion i have is to get a therapist. He/she can help you with all of that, especially with forming connections to people.
If you'd like I could help you find a therapist using this site. Just PM me.

If you have been in therapy before and it didn't help, try another one. Sometimes there isn't a "fit" with a particular therapist.

[lonegael]

I think we can do alot to change how we function, we aren't doomed to be static in one way or the other from teenage to old age. It would be in some ways easier to see a therapist, since it sounds like there is some block between the empathy developing any further, but if you have empathy, then you have a very good place to start. Hang in there and I wish you the very best of luck. HUGGS!

[doub]

Hi Rebound,
When you described your Bipolar and yourself it felt as you described me (even doing things as you describe with a friend of yours in Kentucky). Plus when I'm in mania I'm not able to hear anybody but myself
Well I could not change myself and it's too late now, I'm grandma already. Too late as I did destroyed most good things in my life during manias.
So, I'm thinking now what could I do if I'd be giving a second chance?
I'd learn to be satisfied with minimum. I'd appreciate any good or positive thing in my life. I'd make a goal to stay out of trouble as priority, so depressions would not be so painful. I'd make a list of things "What NOT to do" for mania time with things I would be able to control. I'd carry that list with me constantly.
I'd stay on meds and would check my condition with the therapist. I'd appreciate and cherish any favorable human contact as a gift.
I don't really know if I'd be able to do those things, but I did not do them and now it's too late. I'm alone with Bipolar as my companion because probably I wanted too much instead of learning to be happy or at least satisfy with little.
There was one therapist who tried to show me that it'd be a good way for me, but being in mania I rejected that advice of course.
I don't know if that could be helpful, but that is my thinking from being alone and depressed from all the troubles I put myself in
I wish you make the best from your life.