“The people close to me are traumatised from some of my episodes.”

I first started becoming aware that something wasn’t right when my family and friends were becoming worried and telling me how extreme my moods were, but it wasn’t until I had my first major mania episode and ended up hospitalised that I finally admitted there was a problem.

For me, mania feels like the world has flipped entirely and everyone around me is robotic and can’t keep up with me. Everyone else is moving much slower, but my brain and body are racing.

Depressive episodes feel like the complete opposite. Everything is impossible, and everyone else is thriving whilst I’m suffering. Sometimes there are triggers such as high stress situations or big lifestyle changes, but the majority of the time I have a pattern of 4-14 days of hypomania or mania, 2-4 weeks of depression, then a couple of days of a sort of break.

I had to jump from professional to professional trying to get opinions. My mother and one doctor I saw were very, very supportive and understood that it was bipolar. Eventually after hospitalisations and a lot of damage to my social life, I got a diagnosis.

Getting diagnosed was traumatic. I’m now on two medications, an antidepressant (Sertraline) and an atypical antipsychotic, which has fewer side effects and has been very helpful.

I am also diagnosed with autism. ASD and bipolar actually affect each other a lot in my experience. I’ve had episodes where I’ve been painfully self aware because of my autism. Manic episodes also mess with my routine a lot and cause more stress for me, which leads to my mania being prolonged. Also mood swings caused by my autism can make me worry that I’m in an episode, which just leads to a big spiral and late night calling my psychiatrist.

My school attendance when my symptoms started went from 90% to 30%. Now I’m in college and it’s still very, very low. I’ve lost friends and relationships over it and the people close to me are traumatised from some of my episodes. I would do anything to go back and do anything to prevent hurting them.

Many people don’t understand what mania actually is and what it consists of. There is some improvement, but there are still many people calling themselves manic or bipolar as a joke or quirk, and not knowing what it actually is like to live with. Everyone has days when they are moody or impulsive- mania is so, so much more than that.

Some people also think it’s like ‘one minute you’re super happy and the next you’re depressed’, which is just really not what it is. Depressive episodes can also be just as dangerous and impactful on a bipolar person as mania, and it’s often overlooked or minimised compared to the mania.

I would like for people to know that mania is so much more than what most people think it is. It’s not ‘super happy, energetic and doing random things’, many of us experience symptoms including extreme moods, psychosis, lack of understanding for consequences and the future, struggling to eat, sleep, perform basic functions and much more.