Where you you be if you weren't Bipolar?

I would probably have achieved something in my life. I was brilliant as a kid and I'd like to think I would've been capable of something big. Instead, I had freakout after freakout and made a series of terrible, impulsive decisions and spent every cent I earned. Not that I ever made much. Jr high dropouts generally don't.

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This made me cry. You hit exactly.

Wow -- I don't even know...if I had been able to be a better student in grade, middle, and high school and I had more confidence, I would have stayed in sports and probably gone to a better college, probably stufied computer science and business and have my own software company....if I hadn't spun off into drugs, alcohol, and nearly failing outta high school, and dropping outta all sports, and gave up on computer geek stuff (until later in life, when I picked it back up)....

Thank you Capriciousness, for starting this thread. (And for being you!)

This is something I've thought about a lot. Maybe too much. There is no doubt in my mind that I would not have joined the Army. Talk about crazy and impulsive. Then again, I wouldn't be getting benefits, or all my health care and be taken such good care of in my senior years.

Perhaps I would have been published by now. Then again, without the spark and the talent that I know is a by product of my illness, I might have only been a mediocre writer and would never have had a chance of being published at all.

Without it, I might have had a family and not married the same kind of man three times. (cheater-abusive cheater, user, loser sociopath and abusive alcoholic, pathological liar, narcissistic user, loser and cheater) I see a pattern here...

But then again, I would not have been able to experience the full range of human emotion that we do; from the horrific to the sublime. I might not have been an artist or have the capacity to be so transformed by the beauty of our world or be as intelligent or compassionate or kind as I know myself to be.

It's a trade off and only my higher power knows what other paths I might have tred. And without it, I might have been ordinary and boring and dull and never have known how amazing life can often be.

I don't like impossible "ifs"
I am bipolar and that's that. No need to think about "if" I was not.

But if it floats your boat to fantasize, be my guest.

I used to dwell on this, because I was not able to live up to my potential, and that really sucks. I'd be much farther ahead in life and much more fulfilled. But it is what it is, and it's a waste of time to dwell. I just focus on what's possible now, and the positives in my life. I just hope when I'm at the end of my life, I am at least somewhat satisfied with how it all turned out.

Interesting thread!

(snip)

I would be working now, enjoying my free time and not filled with so much fear about the future all the time. This depressive episode has been the most God-awful!

My nursing career would be going super well. When I'm doing well I'm a great nurse as per my performance appraisals. I would be married still, my kids would not be so traumatized. My life would be simple. That's all I want is simple

My daughter wouldn't have the MH issues she has now, thanks to me.

Try not to load those type of burdens on your shoulders. Whats the stats....1 in 4 end up some form mental health problems? Not to downplay the seriousness of mental health issues, She may have ended up with something else that you could not relate to.

In a weird sort of way of looking at the situation this is something you have in common and can relate to with each other.

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so so true

I'd like to think that I'd be a college graduate, out living on my own, maybe be in a stable relationship...
it's kinda hard to say.
I was only diagnosed with bipolar disorder in late summer/early fall of 2013, but it may have been affecting me for a long time. I often wonder how responsible this disorder is for the very long and crippling addictions to alcohol and Adderall I had for close to five years cumulatively. I'm getting better, very slowly, but I'm nowhere near where I should be.

I was on my upward climb to the top at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Even as a QA/QC Chemist, I had it made; good pay, tons of benefits, a challenging and rewarding position, travel all over the U.S., and everywhere I'd go as a E.P.A. representative the contract corporations treated me like gold. After two years of success, a mixed state hit me and I lost complete control. I went to the two major newspapers and reported internal corruption within the agency. They couldn't fire me, so they put me in a back room cubical doing routine paperwork. I had no choice but to resign.

My tragic story doesn't end there, but you get the picture. This is a devastating illness.

On another forum probably trying to figure out how to handle another of lifes many problems -cancer, abuse, dependency. ...
I don't know too many people who have not been affected by some tragedy in life...

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