How my bipolarity feels

--- WORK IN PROGRESS ---

I was diagnosed with bipolarity type two after I turned thirty. This means that I can have periods of hyperactivity, but they're less intense than people with type one bipolarity. I'm almost always depressed. Dark thoughts, even suicidal thoughts, are part of my daily life. When I'm alone, I wake up with them and go to sleep with them.

Like many bipolar people, it took many years for doctors to understand what my pathology was. We've tried many different medications and posologies, and it's an ongoing process because the illness evolves with time, the seasons, and what happens in my life.

I cannot predict my energy and mood for the next few days. So it's difficult to make plans. People generally have much more energy than I do and feel rested with much less sleep than I do. To the point that they look like superhumans to me. Average people accomplish a lot when I barely do anything in a week.

Financial instability

I loath authority. I questioned every job I had: what to do, why, when, for whom, all the time. Being forced to do things that made no sense to me drove me crazy.

My energy is so unpredictable that I stopped fighting to keep a job with regular hours.

I am currently receiving financial assistance from the French government to help me live. It's half the current average salary in France, but when you have nothing, it's everything.

My parents lend me one of their cars because I can't afford one at the moment.

People younger than me have long-term jobs, own houses, some have kids, while I'm renting cheap small studios.

Sentimental desert

I've been single for 16 years because I was too depressed to attract women. Being depressed means not being able to communicate with people, looking very sad, having a bad haircut, old clothes, slouching, hunched over, withdrawn. Very rarely going to social events and feeling like an inadequate ghost there, so you leave early.

Hypomania

I had two bouts of hyperactivity.  During these long periods of several months, I slept much less than usual and worked very hard to achieve goals that were unrealistic. I was chasing a better financial situation and something that would fulfill me and stop my symptoms. I learned the hard way that the disease is here to stay until science finds an effective treatment. I have to live with it, even though I often want to end it all to stop the suffering.

My family

I was sometimes a burden to my parents. It's complicated to manage me, my depressions, my hypomanic episodes, even though my mother is a former psychiatric manager. My brother and sister, like most people, have a hard time understanding how I function and what my daily struggles are.