"Depression isn’t always not being able to get out of bed, hypomania isn’t always being extremely happy."

I was 15 years old when I first dealt with suicidal thoughts. I was diagnosed with PTSD, depression and anxiety back then, which was followed by the diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder type 2 when I was 17. Because I was so young, I didn’t fully grasp what that meant. I just knew it would be something that was life-long and that I would be on medicines or in therapy for the rest of my life. It was very daunting, since it’s a very, very young age to get news like that, and it took me about three or four years just to fully accept that it was something I would have to deal with for the rest of my life. This year in 2026, it will be six years since I received my diagnosis.

I was 16 when I first began to notice the symptoms of bipolar. I had been aware of them for about a year, when I would have these periods of highs and lows. I would have a week where I’d be doing really well, but then eventually the high would begin to taper off, I would begin to feel sad and my energy levels would crash, resulting in three or four days where I couldn’t even get out of bed before I would start to go ‘up’ again.

I would have these extreme highs and lows throughout the month and became very erratic. I would go from sleeping for 10 hours a day to sleeping for 2-3 hours a day and just assume that was normal. I thought it was how everyone dealt with life; their good days and their bad days. But what I hadn’t realised is that people don’t experience good days and bad days at this intensity.

Those were the main symptoms I noticed initially. After six years since the diagnosis, there is a lot more I am aware of. With mood episodes, I deal with brain fog, my memory is affected, amongst other things. I’m also conscious of my sleeping and eating patterns, and my energy levels. I also keep a note of my self-talk; is it negative, is it positive? I have a whole checklist which I pay attention to in order to track my symptoms.

When I say I have bipolar, I have had some interesting reactions. I’ve been asked if it’s a personality disorder, or people assume I’m either sad or always happy. They think it’s one or the other, either mania or depression, and that’s not the case. People think I only ever exist on extreme ends of the spectrum when really, I move between them. There are also different forms of bipolar, like type 1 and 2, cyclothymia, and unspecified type, so it’s different depending on the person and the form of bipolar they have. The worst one is, “You don’t look bipolar.” What does that even mean? How do you ‘look’ bipolar?

People quite often misunderstand what a lot of my symptoms look like, too. Depression isn’t always not being able to get out of bed, hypomania isn’t always being extremely happy. Those things can be a part of it, but it’s often much more than that. There are different intensities of depression and hypomania, and there are also times when I’m experiencing normality as well.

Being in depression affects daily life. For me, my memory feels foggy, I can’t make decisions and I have random bouts of crying. I feel as if there is no meaning to life. When things are at their worst, I feel like I’m worthless and that I don’t have any value. I have very negative perceptions of myself. During such episodes, I deal with low confidence, low self-esteem and even suicidal thoughts.

With hypomania, it’s not just about feeling euphoric all the time either. When I am going through hypomania, I feel like I’m the best person alive, and I have a really overly-optimistic view of myself too. I’d take too much on as I would be convinced I could do anything and everything. Now that I’m more aware, I don’t do that anymore. In hypomania, sometimes I feel impulsive and my risk management gets affected a bit.

The way the media portrays bipolar- and the way people perceive bipolar- is very different to how it actually is. For me, I’m very functional as a human being even when going through episodes. Nobody will know that I’m going through depression or hypomania, unless I tell them. So it’s unrecognisable unless I’m very close to you and you see me on a day-to-day basis. That’s especially the case with depressive episodes.

A lot of my relationships have been impacted due to bipolar, particularly during my college years. I have lost a lot of friends because I was unable to give them the emotional support that’s needed consistently, or because I took up a lot of space myself emotionally. The nature of bipolar impacts every sphere of one’s life.

Work-wise, it’s been challenging as one of my biggest fears for a long time was that I wouldn’t be able to hold down a job. I am in a support group which has been monumental for me in my journey, but I do see a lot of people in that group who struggle with keeping up with the demands of their professional life. Eventually though, I got over that fear because I did manage to take up work and hold on to those jobs.

One hard thing I learnt in therapy and had to accept it is that when one goes through a stressful period in life, they might be stressed for that time and then bounce back once the stressor is gone. But for someone like me, with a genetic predisposition to depression and mood swings, it makes me much more vulnerable to intense reactions. I’ve often been through depressive episodes four or five times a year, sometimes each one lasting up to three or four months at a time. So my work has been affected in the sense that it’s been difficult to hold on to a job, but with therapy and lifestyle management, I’ve been able to manage and cope with my life’s demands well.

The diagnosis used to be limiting. Earlier in my journey, I was putting myself into a box of what I could and couldn’t do. I’d think, ‘Okay, I have this particular thing which means that I won’t be able to do everything that I want to do,’ but through therapy, through healing and acceptance, I realised that I don’t have to stay inside the box. A diagnosis doesn’t have to limit you in any way. It’s just information to help you to see how best you can serve yourself better, and that realisation has been super empowering. Living with bipolar does make things harder, but never impossible.

I have tried treatment with a lot of therapists and psychiatrists. Some of them have worked, some haven’t. It was back in 2022 when I found the right therapist and psychiatrist for me. They changed the entire game for me. These are the people who are my support system and the backbone of my recovery, and I know I can count on them no matter what.

Currently, I am on lithium, which has genuinely been a lifesaver for me. I have been on it for about three or four years now alongside an antidepressant. My medications depend on the current stressors in life and their impact. I used to dislike taking medications a lot, but I am more accepting of them now. Sometimes, I need that extra support, and that’s okay. They do sometimes come with certain side effects such as weight gain and acne, but to be honest I would much rather deal with the side effects than not take them and then have to deal with the repercussions. I have to look at the trade-offs.

With a lot of inner work and lifestyle management, I have also learned to recognise that there are stages to these episodes. I know when I’m about to enter an episode, when I am in an episode, and when I’m likely to come out of an episode as well.

My therapist uses quite an eclectic approaches. We do a lot of CBT, but he also uses other techniques as well. The primary aim is focusing a lot on my thoughts and feelings, more so on the thoughts because thoughts dictate the feelings. My therapist meets me where I’m at, and we go from there.

In the initial two to three years after my diagnosis, I would often feel that I didn’t know what it felt like to be happy anymore, because I was so scared of letting myself feel happiness. You tend to question and doubt your own abilities until you have the systems in place to manage it better.

I think sharing lived experience is so incredibly important, because not everyone is able to talk about it. So when someone is in a position where they can talk about it, and where they do have a voice to be able to do it, it gives strength to someone else who isn’t able to. It helps them realise they aren’t alone in this and feel seen and heard, which goes a long way in anyone’s journey. The diagnosis made me realise my passion for mental health and it pushed me towards becoming the change I want to see in the world. That has opened up a lot of doors for me which I don’t think would otherwise have been opened.

In terms of the future, I hope that I can get off meds. I know that won’t be possible for another three or four years at least, but I would like to get down to a minimal dose until that happens.

I think I’ve done a pretty good job with my self-awareness and building a system that supports bipolar for me. But I hope to increase my bandwidth for tolerance because of the kind of life I envision for myself, and I need to hold a lot of space for that emotionally without getting burnt out and triggering depressive episodes. I’m also hoping to consistently reduce the number of episodes I experience in a year, mainly by establishing a better tolerance of the triggers that push me into an episode, be it hypomania or depression. I’m hoping for even more growth.

If you are someone who is living with a mental health condition, here is my message to you. Living with any mental health condition is hard. It sucks, and it feels unfair. And you didn’t deserve any of the bad cards you got dealt with, any bad experiences that happened to you. But I know this doesn’t have to be the end of all the happiness, peace, growth that lies on the other side of this struggle.

Your diagnosis doesn’t put you in a box, nor does it limit you in any way. I hope this year treats you with love, care and gives you the courage you need to live with a bold and brave life.