Bipolar II

I'd like to start by sharing a little bit about myself. I was diagnosed with Bipolar II in 2007 after an entire lifetime of being told I suffered from depression and at the same time was an over achiever. I am not a professional in this field - only someone who has personal experience being diagnosed and living with Bipolar II.


Bipolar II is a psychiatric disorder that involves/causes mood swings from being hypomanic to depressed. Bipolar II does not involve manic states/episodes - only hypomanic episodes (somewhat of a mild version of manic, therfore, hypomanic).

Bipolar II can create depression so great the risk of suicide is increased over those who suffer from Bipolar I.

Bipolar II disorder includes but is not limited to symptoms such as racing thoughts, being much more talkative, inflative self-esteem and as noted above, serious depression and the like.

When the term is used of racing thoughts, I call it "blender brain" because my mind feels like it's going a thousand miles a minute. My mind jumps from one thing to the next never completing one thought. I also go into a mode of what if this and what if that. It's difficult to explain to those who do not have Bipolar disorder but I'll try.

Racing thoughts can be - "I hope I can sleep tonight but if I don't, I'll clean the house but the house isn't really dirty so I might read a book but do I have a book I really want to read? No... so maybe I should go to the book store but it's too busy at this time of the day and it irritates me - I don't know why, but I feel so irritated today. Did I remember to pick-up my presciption from the pharmacy for my anxiety yet? I don't think so, maybe I should check and while I do, maybe I should check to make sure I have something in case I have problems sleeping tonight" and on and on and on.

Racing thought's don't stop. Yes, your brain feels like a blender.

When the DOWN part of Bipolar hits, I feel like I'm in the bottom of a dark cave with no light. The word depression does not begin to explain what I feel. I don't want to talk to anyone - I can't. The only thing that can even begin to make sense to me is sleep and it comes to me like my only fried for days and days at a time. I can sleep for 20 hours or more waking up only long enough to make the people around me feel safe - to convince them I've done nothing foolish like take too many pills or something (because no one (not Bipolar) can believe you can sleep that long without being drugged up).

When I'm depressed, depression becomes every part of me. It's my best friend because no one else could possibly understand how I feel. Only me in my darkness and it frightens me because at the time, it's who I am and at the time, I feel who I will always be... it will never end.

The past 3 or 4 weeks have been down. When the phone rings and the door bell rings at the same time, I panic and don't know what to do - it's just too much. Because I'm on the DOWN part of Bipolar - depression... I can't concentrate, can't find things, start things, complete things, I don't want to talk or listen.

This morning I actually got up at a reasonable hour and thought I would boil water to make some oatmeal (about 9:30 a.m.) and just as the water got hot, I told my husband I wanted to lay down for about 15 minutes more and turned the flame off. When I woke up it was 3:30 p.m. and I had to work at getting out of bed.

Well, this is my first post. I'll be writing as my moods change to share the Ups and Downs of a person with Bipolar Disorder.