“I spiral into thinking everyone hates me.”

I think the first time I noticed something wasn’t right was when I needed to take a break a lot from playing with other kids and my siblings. Around age 12 I started to notice suddenly my mood would change from having a good time to needing to go home or sit in my room by myself when I felt sad or low on energy. I didn’t realize this wasn’t ‘normal’ until one of my siblings pointed it out.

My personal feelings about people changed often as well. I love my little sister and she was my favorite person to be around, but if she did something that slightly upset me, I would think she hated me and then I would cry and hate myself.

Small things like someone forgetting to respond to my text or someone saying something that comes off slightly negative can trigger a whole range of emotions in me too. Like if I have a close friend or family member that I love and they do something like not respond to me, or not talk to me, I start questioning my whole relationship with them; if they really like me, if they hate me… then I spiral into thinking everyone hates me.

With manic states I didn’t even realize I would be in one at first, but it would be clear to my therapist. I just had more energy, got little sleep, my thoughts bounced around from topic to topic and I was quick to anger.

I actually was denied a promotion at one of my previous jobs due to my bipolar. I was a host at a restaurant and I’d worked there for 2+ years (which was actually very long for a host, because the position had a fast turnover rate) and I trained all new hosts, to then find all the new hosts becoming servers before me. I asked and was then denied the position due to my mental health ‘instability’. I also find I need to take more breaks than others during rushes, like I need to clear my head because I take angry customers yelling at me more personally than others do.

I was seeing a therapist starting when I was maybe 15 or 16. I went for suicidal thoughts, depression, emotional numbness, stuff like that. Over the years she got to know me and one day said I was bipolar, which took me by surprise. I was in denial and thought she was joking about this. Then we went over a checklist of symptoms for bipolar and I slowly realized I did fit a lot of the criteria.

I still was having trouble accepting the diagnosis so asked my friend if she thought I had bipolar. I figured she would know since her brother has bipolar, and she told me she thought I didn’t have it, so I figured that was that. Then I saw a psychiatrist as well, and she confirmed with other testing and checklists and such that I have bipolar 2.

Something interesting I’ve learned since the diagnosis is that there are two forms of bipolar (aside from cyclothymia); I didn’t realize I had bipolar and my friend didn’t realize it either because we were under the assumption all people with bipolar only exhibit Bipolar Type 1 symptoms.

Since then I have unfortunately not been able to get a new therapist in two years. But I am taking multiple medications; Lithium and Escitalopram for the day , Hydroxyzine and Trazodone at night.

I was afraid to be open about it as I was always afraid people would call me out for wanting attention, or self diagnosing, or whatever other dumb reason I didn’t want to talk about bipolar. I don’t like drawing attention to myself and I felt it was a way to do that. Lately I’ve been more open with my diagnosis and people have been very accepting, especially my mother and boyfriend.

I think what people get wrong about bipolar is that there are multiple forms of it. Even I got it wrong, and that’s why I was in denial about my diagnosis. Bipolar isn’t always the symptoms of bipolar 1, which has more periods of mania, but bipolar 2 is real and is mostly characterized by periods of depression. And Bipolar Type 2 mania is not the same as Bipolar Type 1 mania, it’s called hypomania and is considered a ‘lesser’ form, or less dangerous than mania. It still is a manic episode nonetheless, but not exactly how they are characterized in media.