So why would anyone want to be bipolar?

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The simple reason is people are ignorant.

who says this? as the great Margret Thatcher said to George Negus who are these people give me their names, ie regarding her being a cow moooo well in fact it was for being accused of being difficult. pig headed one and the same really.

The problem is it isn't like it's just you having this amazingly awesome day and you're so happy with life and the world. It's like being on a super high you just want to come down from. You have all these grandiose ideas and plans and you HAVE to do them RIGHT NOW. Your mind is racing, you can't sit down, you can't sleep, you can't stop talking. You can't keep up with the thoughts running thru your head. You spend too much money, you talk way too much, you make way too many plans. You do all these things and honestly, you're not enjoying them, your body/mind is forcing you to do these things and you cannot make yourself stop no matter how hard you want to. When you finally pass out from sheer exhaustion somewhere like 4 or 5 in the morning, you wake up the next day and feel so useless and drained and miserable and are the most depressed you've ever felt and can't even manage to make it out of bed. You see all these things that need to be done, you want to get up and LIVE but you cannot force yourself to move.

At least that's how my life is and how it feels to me. My manic phases result in a lot being done and I ride them out and end up with a super clean, super organized house and all these plans that seemed so awesome when I was on that high but when it ends I spend days not being able to function so it negates all I've done during the manic phase. It feels like a constant hole I'm climbing out of and back into.

I've been asked by two psychiatrists this year if I've ever been diagnosed as being bipolar. I told them no. I mean, I'm currently on Risperdal which is used for the treatment of psychosis due to bipolar symptoms, but in my case, it's used just for the depressive phase alone.

I've never experienced the manic phase, the constant high, the extremely jubilant mood that I can conquer the world and everyone in it. I've seen the manic phase in others, though. I wouldn't want to climb up on that high horse. I can just imagine what falling flat on my face after that high would feel like.

In my experience it does feel good until it turns into dyphoria and all I think is rage rage rage or I worry about the depression hitting. Sometimes if I really want to avoid over spending and just coming off as really weird to my friends and a speed addict to strangers, I would try and suppress it and fail.
I can relate to going to bed really early in the morning and being completely drained the next day.

Although, I still don't have a diagnosis yet. My doctor says it's all because I have AS.

because it sounds more serious and is more understood by the community tell some one especially so if your a male that you have anxiety /panic disorder your accused of being weak willed , never mind the rates of suicide is just as high as depression ,perhaps even higher.

My second cousin has bipolar and one of my aunts and my younger sister have borderline personality disorder. I have HFA/Aspergers. I could say my sister is not as affected as me. At least her house is always pretty tidy and clean. She doesn't have executive functioning issues. But then I haven't overdosed, lost relationships, been talked off a multi storey building balcony by police, threatened to kill myself with a knife and had the police called on me by my partner. I don't compare our pain/suffering because I don't know what her life is really like and what's going through her head. I just know what I've read about BPD. Just like she doesn't know how hard my life is ..... I would never say I wish I had bipolar or autism rather than something else or rather than being NT. Everyone has problems.

Last edited by HFAgal78 on 31 Dec 2013, 10:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

And I know a lady who has a little boy who has autism and mood disorder NOS because he's only 7 and he's threatened to kill himself holding a knife. His father has bipolar. There's nothing good about that. No one wants to have to hospitalise their child!

Well - like most of the human condition, each person is an individual and experience illness in general in their own way. I hated bipolar symptoms: it was excruciating and I felt like It would eventually kill me so I tried and tried to get help. Shrinks, medical doctors - NO ONE BELIEVED that I was suffering. I was just some silly woman making it all up. Even after 6 years of success with Lithium, one shrink told me I wasn't bipolar and refused to write a scrip for Lithium!

On the other hand a friend who is WAY off the charts refused diagnosis until he'd destroyed his family, hit bottom and was put on medication. It either isn't working or he's not taking it. He's manic most of the time.

There are plenty of people who don't take medication for their diabetes, heart disease and other "physical" conditions.

People are human: you just can't get around it.

Because they're ignorant. When I was a kid I wanted to be in a wheelchair or have crutches because I thought they were cool. But I didn't know then that those kids actually needed them and their legs do not work so they need those things to help them get around like the rest of us and to them they are not cool things to have. They are not their toys and something they are playing with all the time. But I didn't know any better because I was a kid and kids don't know these things. So what is it about Bipolar people want?


Reminds me in Suite Life of Zach and Cody when one of the twins fakes having dyslexia just so he could get more time on his tests and getting his work done. That showed a sign of his ignorance about having a learning disability. For those with it, it's not cool getting more time to do your school work and more time on your tests. It's not like they are being lazy to get it done later than others. I would be offended if anyone told me in high school how they wish they could be me and have their work be easier so they wouldn't have to do all of it and so they could have a teacher with them all the time so she could do the work for them so they wouldn't have to listen in class and take notes and pay attention. Sure it may have been a positive thing they would have said but it would have showed me their lack of understanding and not realizing how hard it all is for me and what they take for granted in school. I am sure they worked hard too because everyone says school is hard for everyone and college is even tougher.

No I cannot imagine being Bipolar. Must be great being a b***h and verbally abusing people and getting angry all of a sudden out of the blue because something they did annoyed you that was something small and also getting so over focused on what you are doing, you block the whole world out and forget about everyone including your own partner and kids. Also I cannot imagine how it must be like having it and having to fight all these symptoms to not do them and taking medication for it and what happens if you can't afford your pills or have an insurance problem and they won't cover your prescription? All this must be great.

It's no different when people say how they with they had Asperger's so they could be very intelligent and be good with computers and patterns and stuff. Uh it's very possible to have those things and not be autistic. Those are just stereotypes and just part of them as being people than because of their autism. My brother is very good at math and very smart and is going to law school, he is not autistic, he is gifted. My youngest brother can build things out of wood and he used to make things with tape and he is not autistic. I once saw a thread on IMDB board about Rain Man asking if anyone wished they were autistic and people in it were saying yes just so they could have his memory and do math calculations in their head and count cards. To me that was very ignorant because only very few autistic people are savants. Also did they forget how disabled Rain Man was and how he couldn't be on his own and make decisions and he couldn't even have conversations? Also he didn't understand lot of things as if he were intellectually impaired. No I do not want his autism.

Yeah It sounds like an ignorant statement. I can understand their sentiment though as I've had depression for most of my life and it makes you feel like any kind of high-experience would be better than being low all the time.

I do have psychosis and I don't know if it's something that will go away or if it's schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Just venting now but it sucks. I did start to not sleep for days and had a slight manic episode but then I went to the doctor and started medication.

I think most people who wish they were bipolar have unipolar depression. And they feel (rightly or wrongly) that being manic some of the time would be better than being depressed all the time.

I'm mildly bipolar, and have managed it all my life without meds. My hypomanic phases are just happy and fun, and as long as I'm careful to not overestimate my abilities during those phases, they're not harmful. This is probably the type of bipolar that people wish they could be, and yeah, it's definitely better than being depressed all the time.

I can't imagine having normal, 'flat' moods, without emotional intensity - in the same way that I can't imagine being NT, and wanting to go to parties, and have a whole different personality. Having intense feelings is part of who I am, and I've never wanted to take meds that will make me feel dull (I've tried them a few times, and hated the feeling).

I think it's different for everyone though. There are times when I feel horribly depressed, and wish I could take something to make me feel better, just for a day or so (without getting psychotic). But 95% of the time I'm actually pretty happy with my brain chemistry, so I just suffer through the occasional awful days, and it gets better again.

It could be that I'm not bipolar at all, and that I was misdiagnosed (which apparently happens sometimes with autism). At any rate, I've come to realize my experience is not typical for someone with bipolar disorder, so I would agree with others in this thread - that for most people, bipolar disorder is really not a 'fun' thing to live with.

Like someone above me said, it's because they are ignorant. My aunt has bipolar and she is miserable. It's a terrible thing to deal with.

yeah the lows of Bipolar can be worse than normal depression since you go from the high of mania to the hell of depression.

I think it's hypomania that people are attracted to. Obviously hypomania can be destructive as well, but many people who experience that seem to be a lot more energetic and productive in the eyes of people with unipolar depression.

I think these people who claim to want bipolar disorder have this idea in their heads that manic or hypomanic episodes are like a holiday from depression, which is not what it is. Such extreme mood changes are very dangerous and in fact mania (even hypomania) is probably the most dangerous state to be in because you have the energy and disinhibition to follow through on risky behaviours or even psychosis. It sounds scary, to be honest.

I have a history of depression and I have never had any manic episodes. I know that I have sometimes wondered how one triggers hypomania (which is stupid and dangerous btw). What can I say? Depression is so debilitating and horrible that it can make you feel desperate and trapped. It's hard not to glorify hypomania (even if that is an objectively dumb thing to do).