Hey guys,

I'm currently taking a forced psychiatric holiday and was quite bored. Anyway, in group therapy we were talking about repercussions of manic descisions (or atleast bad decisions made due to mental health) and how to navigate them in our healing journey.

Anyway, the group reminded me of a time I was manic about 5 years ago and decided to book a business class trip to Kenya, however when that trip came around, i was in a very deep depressive episode (honestly looking back at it, I probably should have take a psychiatric holiday then as well) and despite being in Kenya, I couldn't find much energy or enjoyment in what i was doing.

With that being said, i decided to make a low effort comic (slideshow?) About my trip to kenya.

*note: i am using stock photos as i dont have access to my computer which has the photos of the trip on it. This slide show is also very low effort as i only have my phone to work with. But regardless, i hope you find some humour in it. 😀

My boyfriend is the best. I had a bad sh episode so he took all the scissors. i even handed him ones i found throughout the house to be safe. I bought these off Amazon! they were under $10 and only cut paper! Thought this might help someone whos in the same position!

I painted the stuff I got from the grocery store (I try to eat clean and get fresh produce and proteins)

*Art supplies are Himi "hi it's watercolor" palette, Kuretake brush pen from Hello Tokyo, and Hahnemüle Cappucino sketchbook :)

Currently sliding down further into a depressive episode after being in a 2 month hypomanic episode. I realized I made theme songs for each.

For the song context, they are reminiscent of me and my sister's childhood trauma. She presents as a stable badass while I am a constantly emoting bipolar person. Our music tastes suggest the opposite. She loves emotional punk rock and metal. I listen to pop-ish music that is high energy and lacks connectable emotions because I am a dissociation queen.

Anyway, for this depressive episode I hear "Welcome to My Life" by Simple Plan. During my hypomanic phase I pictured the short video clip where an animated Pooh Bear dances to "Hotel Motel" by Pitbull.

Does anyone else's brain do this?

My girlfriend added me to her Period app, which tells me the cycles. It explains how she should feel. She can also list symptoms, and then I know if she's craving something or feeling unwell

I'd also like to share my feelings and moods but I often struggle using my words .

I dont fully understand what episode im currently having. I seem to be sleeping a lot and at odd hours, but I dont necessarily feel depressed. Although I cant motivate myself enough to do literally anything and my anger is at all time high, I've never yelled but now a days I can't stop. And I feel like my anger has to do with the constant nonsense I've been dealing with with my family. I mean I suppose it's not as bad but small things too really tick me off and im afraid I'll never go back to be able torelate things. I'm losing all hope and im so confused if im actually being abused or not by them. Most of my friends say it's not right and my therapist will just ask me what I think but isn't it mostly biased ?

Yes my mom does mostly everything for me but doesn't stop nagging me about it and makes me feel like shit time and again for things I can not get myself to do. She's doing her best and I somehow can't support her and she's alone in this but her so called tiny letting out frustrations is putting me down in the process and eventually leads to a fight when I protect myself from her constantly yapping about how shit I am.

Then my brother I know is the worst, don't even want to get into that.

Then the country im in its all about working extra hard no time for yourself and just typical making everyone a donkey and people keep forcing me to be a physiotherapist but its hard work and i feel like I cant take the stress.

I really dont understand what's going on with me. I cant seem to fix my life or get shit in order and just be independent or even have normal relationships with people.

Help.

I am currently stable but very miserable. The post mania and psychosis depression is taking its toll. My episode was in January 2025. 20 months later and I feel hopeless.

I’ve been stuck in a world of bed, tv, fantasy novels, food and sleep. Sometimes just lying in bed staring at the ceiling or starting out of the window.

I have the privilege of being fully supported by my parents throughout. Up until recently I wanted to get better. I wanted to try even if it wasn’t materialising in any visible way. Now I just don’t care. I have given up.

I want to try and describe the state I am in.

It is like the lights are weak and the sky is grey. Bland.

It is like a Lukewarm bath or cold tea. Every effort feels like gearing up for a steep uphill hike. My arms get tired just washing my hair.

Stairs leave me drained. I would rather lie on the couch with cold feet than be all upstairs to find a pair of socks.

Sugar is addictive but never enough. In restless and anxious and itching to be in another skin.

This state is like driving towards the horizon. Never getting to it always moving but never enough.

I feel like I’m a whole other person in my mind. I smile and respond but I have other depressing, negative conversations with myself behind the scenes.

It is standing next to the blue ocean on a sunny day and feeling like I would rather be in bed with the covers over my head. It is counting down the moments until that becomes reality.

It is escaping into sleep or a book and then coming back to life. The devastation of waking up and realising I still have to face my real life.

It’s forcing myself to exercise and feeling like it is physically excruciating.

Too much to handle. No drive or motivation.

It is ignoring texts and dodging invitations.

It is looking in the mirror and not recognising myself.

Of course my depressive episode happens the week school starts and I notice my episode is happening literally MINUTES before I get into a car accident (not my fault, it was another drivers fault. I’m also okay)

To be fair I think I was having a hypomanic episode that turned into a mixed episode and now it’s a depressive episode. I’m not good at telling when I’m hypomanic at all until it’s basically done since I feel so euphoric I’m not paying attention to it but I can always tell when I’m having a depressive episode since they’re usually pretty debilitating.

I haven’t had a depressive episode like this for a good year since my meds usually work but I don’t think it’s helping this time.

How on earth do I motivate myself? I just started my college semester and haven’t shown up for 4 out of the 6 days I’ve had it so far (started last week). I was so motivated and ready for school and now I’m crashing. I literally just wrote a letter to the school saying that I’m doing mentally okay and they should excuse my last depressive episode that made my GPA plummet so I need to get some motivation going💀

I feel like I’m nonstop anxious 24/7. I’m anxious about money, my gf not loving me or cheating on me (I have no reason to think she is but it won’t stop popping into my head), I’m just sick of it. My meds don’t seem to be helping and I’m spiraling so bad. I sleep like shit and I can’t relax whatsoever.

My gf is going to the club to celebrate her friends birthday (I was invited but I get anxious around large groups of people) I know cognitively she won’t cheat on me but I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m to the point to where I’m debating on ending the relationship just because I’m so on edge 24/7. It doesn’t help that anytime time there is any sort of discordance between the two of us I go into an episode and freak out for days. I’m just so miserable and with this illness there isn’t anything she can even do to help me I’m just alone to deal with this.

I’ve been depressed for days and now it’s going the other way. At the moment, I can’t sleep have disruptive thoughts, and I feel like spending. I plan on telling my therapist tomorrow all kinds of shit that I’ve held back from her. Not so that she can cure me or help me but more to just shock her and see her reaction. It’s stuff that I won’t even reveal on here. I will probably regret this but here we go……

I had my psych appointment today and was hoping for a med adjustment because I’m currently in a hypomanic episode.

I let them know I was getting ready to start a new med for my heart. It’s a dangerous drug and I have to be monitored regularly for potential heart failure. I also have to get any med changes cleared by my doctor or pharmacist to make sure there are no interactions.

My psychiatrist seemed genuinely scared for me taking this medication. She doesn’t want to make any changes to my meds because the current dosage has been approved by the heart med manufacturer. I’m used to regular changes to my meds to control my episodes and I’m worried now about how I will control them.

Not asking for medical advice.

Last night I fucked up by taking my morning meds instead of the night ones. As I'm taking an antidepressant that's more on the stimulating end, I couldn't sleep all night.

I'm lucky in that I have a completely free day today and a partner that can take care of meals and any other tasks of the sort. So I'm in the incredibly privileged position (if you don't count \ gestures at brain **) of not knowing what the fuck to do.

I'm really fucking tired but not sleepy. I don't feel capable of doing anything that requires thinking or a minimum amount of coordination. I don't want to go outside in case I run into something. I don't want to interact with people because I can't process words. Reading is out of the question for the same reason. Crafting is not an option since I don't have any mindless enough project going on and I'm not starting a new one in this state.

Please suggest ways to pass the time for a whole 14 hours that require no more than a single orange braincell (bonus points for no physical movement required).

TIA!

Started working with this therapist for a year now. A total of 6 years in therapy. Kinda angry that the previous one didn't see this in me. But she wasn't helping anyway.

Past 2 months I started feeling an intense urge to go to the gym. I thought I was just motivated and it's a good thing since society praises this activity a lot.

Started sleeping 4-5 hours a night. Being promiscuous on socials. Started posting a lot. Feeling this imense urge to go to the gym. The gym was my main focus. Nothing else mattered. Not even my job, relationships. I also started spending all of my savings... Ordering stuff, buying stuff, buying lots of foods I didn't even ate. About to get piercings and a new tattoo but luckily I spent all of my money so I didn't.

Started talking a lot and became very loud and cussing around, wanted to hangout with my friends all the time. I couldn't sleep because of that euphoric feeling inside and the need to just go to the gym.

Now this is where it gets bad. At the gym, I felt so powerful and from beggining with a 30 minutes session I felt like I should do more and more until I was there every day for 3-4 hours.

I went there mornings and evenings. Nothing else mattered.

This continued for 2 months untill last week when I reached some sort of peak? I started doing HIIT cardio and I physically was unable to stop myself. I felt so euphoric or extremely energetic that I had to force myself and became unbearable. I got a total of 8 hours of sleep in the past week because I just had to do the cardio more and more untill I broke the fucking stationary bike sit and embarrassed myself at the gym.

This is when I got really scared and my boyfriend had to point out something is really wrong.

Fast forward a few days later, my therapist returns from holiday, I tell her all of this she suggests we do the assignment and this is what I just found out.

p.s.: forgot to mention that I remember the past 7-10 days doing and feeling what I just described. I also know it started 2 months ago when I did my gym membership but I don't remember anything else from that time. not sure if this sounds familiar not to remember a lot of stuff.

I was diagnosed with Bipolar 9 years back. (2017). However, I had episodes from 2014 onwards. Back then I was undiagnosed.
13 years of living with bipolar is tough. I somehow feel my brain isnt as responsive and quick as it used to be.
Do I need to get a brain scan done to see if parts of my brain responsible for cognition, memory and empathy are fine?
Has anyone felt the need to do it?
I feel I have become way too apathetic to form new relationships or maintain old ones.
Also, the things that bothers me the most is im losing my grey matter while still in my late thirties.
Constant brain fog and lack of empathy has dulled my very existence.

I had my first manic episode February 2025. I was diagnosed and medicated july 2025. When I was dealing with manic episodes I would hallucinate. It didn't notice it at first. It took it getting really severe to notice.

I would see shadows move, hear voices, hear music. Music so loud I couldn't hear or sleep. The shadows of shrunk people and I could feel them.

A year later my sister is still telling me stories about my hallucinations. Like walking into her bedroom and having a full conversation(she wasn't in the room). Turns out she didn't talk in her sleep, I have hallucinating her talking to me through the walls.

I have been manic episode free since September 2025! Sadly now I have so much anxiety about hallucinating again. I haven't been able to sleep with the lights off since. Its not uncommon for me to ask people if they hear/see something too. My sister is moving out now. I'm worried about living alone.

I'm thinking about getting my cat back from my mom. I think I'm stable enough to have a pet. He's a skittish cat, which is good. He'd react to voice, movement or any loud noises. I have heard about schizophrenics using dogs to tell if hallucinations are real.

Has anyone else dealt with the same thing? Any coping mechanisms for this. I would appreciate advice from other people. I feel pretty alone with experiencing hallucinations while manic.

Also, I'm definitely bipolar, not schizophrenic. I'm bipolar 1 and deal with extreme manic episodes.

Not entirely a meme but I wanted to share this insight/perspective with a very good friend of mine after I was telling them about how I have finally accepted my diagnosis after 6 years and it's been really fucking hard (I've started being medicated now).

You probably see these posts every damn time so I’m sorry in advance, but I really needed to let it out.

Today I had an appointment with my psychiatrist. (Of the dbt program I was in till July to treat my bpd which has been diagnosed for years) She actually took accountability and told me they didn’t treat me properly for what I was struggling with. That they mainly focused on bpd without knowing I have bipolar disorder too. She then put me on both an antidepressant and an antipsychotic.

After this initial conversation I felt very relieved, supported and heard. But now I feel like a fucking diagnosis collector, a poser, an imposter. I keep replaying how I acted in my hypomanic episode, I keep replaying how much control I actually had and I feel like a faker. Like I exaggerated things to get diagnosed, when I genuinely don’t even want it?? I’m experiencing way more trouble accepting this than I did with my bpd diagnosis.

It’s hard to put it into words but I feel disgusting, stupid, and as if all the work I put into my DBT therapy was useless and pointless. I also feel like I chose to fuck up my life with whatever episode I had just to collect a freaking diagnosis.

wtf is going on? Has anyone experienced this before? Is it in my head or should I rethink whether I was being genuine? Idk I’m lowkey losing my mind

Title sums it up. I’ve been having trouble getting meds because of insurance reasons and am going through the process of losing a pet. She hasn’t passed yet, but it’s looking to be soon.

I don’t know if I can go through this loss and I’m scared of what it might trigger. Any tips would be amazing.

My therapist said something that doesn’t sit right with me, maybe she meant it a different way I’m not too sure. I was asking her if something could be a symptom of bipolar and she asked if I “was really bipolar or was it just a diagnosis given to me”. I’m not sure if she was trying to dismiss my diagnosis or trying to make it seem like I’m “more than my diagnosis”.

I’ve already described to her my past experiences with mania/depression, and some of my worst episodes. I told her about my hospitalization due to a manic episode induced by being incorrectly diagnosed with only depression and put on antidepressants alone. I’m not sure why she would question my diagnosis

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone has any experience or knows of any studies about polypharm masking symptoms of mania and making them present as hypomania. The symptoms lasting longer than standard hypomania (7+ days), I’m assuming it might be my medications (a mix of a mood stabiliser, antipsychotic, SNRI, beta blocker & melatonin)

I’m not able to see a psychiatrist until January & my GP is hesitant to change my medications but if I can find some supporting evidence about this anomaly occurring maybe I’ll be able to convince him to change something or organise a 291 assessment.

I am not in any danger to myself or others. I am hoping to avoid inpatient if possible, I am aware if it gets worse that I will have to present to ED.

Anyone else?