Do you find anything positive on your bipolar?

I agree that hypomania feels so fun and FREEING! I’ve also been quite successful in work (except I see myself as super badass and don’t realize I’m missing some of the details). What else has felt amazing is how much I love buying things and how delicious food tastes! I know those things can be spun to be a negative but we have to cling to as much positivity as we can! Then the other part is that I can finally nap! Naps normally give me a headache and I’m too antsy but during Med changes oh boy can I sleep!! Oh I also enjoy relaxing where I LET myself relax and not get so hard on myself about getting tasks completed.

Hypomania, which I haven't experienced for years now, used to be absolutely euphoric, feeling I was the most brilliant person in the world, pure joy...until it would turn ugly and transform to mania.

I chased that 'high' more than once by messing with my meds.

I guess the positive is the *experience* of that pure joy; there was and has been nothing quite like it. I have come close, not hypomanic, but I have yet to reach such heights on my own.

I know better now not to mess with my meds in the chase of that joy, but frankly I think it's less willpower on my part, and more the time that has gone by since the last time I was hypomanic, so that the wonderful memories have dissipated a bit. Also, what I also vividly remember is how horrific it has become after the high becomes an ugly, terrifying, psychotic mania and then the depression that follows. So I manage to keep my meds as is.

I do like and enjoy my baseline, for the most part, but I do, sometimes, miss the purity of that joy, and all-encompassing confidence that went with it...

I've become a great curmudgeon. A cynic.

I am chronically depressed and every few years seem to slip into a psychotic mania. I wish I didn't have this disease. There is no upside for me.

Compassion and empathy for others. And of course, what it feels like to be heading up but before it gets really bad and psychotic and insane.

I sure enjoy the euphoria. And the gains in compassion and being able to recognize pain in others and do what i can to help. The worst part for me is that i have a lot of trouble making a difference in the world. There's a volunteer project i was working on which will benefit a lot of my peers who are poor but i had an acute fear reaction and am on medical leave, taking time to heal. I'm a lot more fortunate than most of my peers in that i have been able to get an education and a comfortable living standard tho i went thru a poisonous time in order to get it. I feel i *could* contribute my skills and experience if only i was able to string together more than six weeks of service. This means that yet again, i am not participating in the volunteer project and not contributing. I feel like all my suffering has no meaning because i am not able to help others. If i could just get something done, some good work, do some good for my beautiful people, the mentally ill clowns of God, i would feel a lot better about myself. But here i am, resting and recovering, catching up on my sleep, hydration, nutrition, laundry, dishes, groceries, all day-to-day activities i ignored while i was hypo-manic and now demand attention. So sick of not being able to make any progress, not being able to make a difference, not being able to help others, not being able to give my life and my suffering any meaning . . . .

I struggle to find anything positive about my diagnosis. Before my diagnosis, I was a somebody. I had a lot of positive influence and impact on the world through my career.
Now I’ve gone from helping to implement the gold standard in ventilating neonates, to colouring in.
I’m now a nobody with zero influence in my own world, let alone anyone else’s.
Bipolar has broken me.

I just found this hilarious because I’m in the process of being excused from jury duty right now. 😂😂😂