This is a very strange disease, bipolar disorder (BPD) is. In some ways you can be very functional even in the midst of a severe episode. Like, for example, a lot of my poems were written while in quite a severe phase of BPD. I even managed to get a job, and drive to New Orleans while I was pretty sick. On the other hand, emotionally, you are a wreck. Of course, even in the best of times, we BPD people are highly sensitive people, reaching depths of emotions, good and bad, that people without mood disorders cannot and do not. However, when we are sick, the levels and depths of emotions are off the charts. Sadness is pure tragedy and calamity, anxiety can be experienced as severe panic attacks. If you are lucky enough to feel happiness, it is extreme jubilation. Emotions to the nth degree. Anger can be explosive. And of course the antithesis of this is anhedonia, where one has no positive emotions or enjoyment. This is terrifying. It feels like an emotional vacuum, where all good feelings have been sucked out from you, and have left an aching emptiness behind.

Speaking of aching emptiness, that is familiar feeling to anyone who has been depressed. In its severe form, depression can sometimes feel like the worst heartbreak you have ever experienced. No wonder people who have mental illnesses turn to drugs and alcohol. It is unbearable to feel like that, so self medication, which unfortunately may lead to addiction, is often the way for people to try to cope with mental illness.

Another thing that is very strange about this illness (and other mental illnesses) is that the person who is afflicted, often looks normal. If I am in a depression, no one who looks at me can say I am ill. Same with being manic. I don’t look any different, so people don’t realize I am sick and I am expected to carry on and function as if this illness didn’t exist at all. If a person breaks their leg, and has a cast on, we realize there is something wrong with their leg and we don’t ask them to run a marathon. When a person is depressed, often they are expected to work, live, and act normally. If we cry we are told that things aren’t that bad, that we should look at all the good in our lives, how much we have to be thankful for. That’s fine, it helps, but when my brain is in withdrawal because the levels of neurotransmitters are in low supply, and the symptoms of which are crying, hopelessness, rumination, negative thinking, then it is very difficult to just snap out of it. Same with mania, there are a group of symptoms that exemplify mania and you simply cannot will yourself out of those. The best you can do is realize “Oh no, it’s happening again!” And call your doctor to have your medication adjusted, in most cases doses have to be increased.
Perhaps some people think you are just plain crazy and simply cut off relations with you. But it is an illness, granted it affects thoughts and behaviors, it can have deleterious effects on other people. But it is an illness and as far as I am concerned, it is not a reason to cut of relations with someone. You just realize that a person has this illness, and it can act up sometimes. But I don’t consider myself crazy. I am a very sane person most of the times, and with the increase in my meds, I hope to be very sane all the time. :-))
Yes, it is a very strange disease, this I do agree with.