How To Tell Your Loved Ones You’re Bipolar

Bipolar—there, it has been written. Does it look as scary as it sounds out loud? Possibly.

Being bipolar is not a linear experience. It is curved, and it is high. It is turned, and it is low. Up and down is an understatement.

Hearing you are bipolar is okay, especially if you were able to recognize the signs. Telling people you are bipolar is different. You want those you love and care for to understand you, but you overthink telling them. They may label you as “crazy” or love you less. So here is a letter to give someone you love enough to trust with an intricate, complex, and pertinent part of your being.

Dear Person I Care For,

I am bipolar. There, I said it. Now that we are here, I have some things I want you to know.

Bipolar is some of the stereotypes you have heard, but there is a difference between ‘word-of-mouth’ and it circulating through your brain.

Bipolar has a mania phase. During mania, we are untouchable (in our minds). We have thoughts that move at the speed of sound, a sense of grandeur that no one can knock us down from, the sex drive of a hormonal teenager, and the monetary control of a 21-year-old who hit the lottery. During these phases, we can run off of little to no sleep. Boy, can you feel how much we love those around us. We pour all the happiness we have running through our veins onto them.

But then, like a hurricane approaching shore, comes the depressive phase. It is a category 5 storm, but we are unable to evacuate because we are the shoreline.

We come down off our high and we sit in the devastating downpour of the aftermath. The sense of grandeur previously mentioned deflates. We are left with a shell of a person who was holding the grenade when it exploded. We judge ourselves, we read what we have said, replay what we did and overanalyze just enough to push us to sheer exhaustion. That is one thing that does not stop, the overthinking. Though our thoughts have slowed, we race slowly through everything we have done. Some of the things, if not most of them, are not inherently bad, but we do not see it that way. However, we are so tired we do not have time to overthink much before the sleepiness pulls us under the covers and drowns out the noise of our minds.

I know what you are thinking: that sounds insane. It can be. But with the recognition comes the acknowledgment to accept help.

Therapy, coping mechanisms, and medication done at consistent rates help keep us on track. We learn how to live as normally as possible. Even though our episodes mostly subside and are few and far between, we can recognize our behavior and control it, rather than it controlling us.

There are times when we may give in to our overthinking and our racing thoughts will shine through. But the rambling is harmless, we just want to get it out of our system. Some people will listen to us and some people won’t, and we understand that. Some people will turn around and leave, and some people will stay. There are times that the episodes will not happen, for months and months on end, we will just be normal. Then it will creep up slowly and quietly, and when we finally feel it, we are stopped cold. But don’t worry, we are fully capable of taking care of ourselves.

I tell you this not for sympathy; I am not sad. This is not something I picked out from the store to take home. This is something that was genetically passed down to me. I tell you this to understand me and so you are not as confused by some of my behavior at times.

This is only a small part of me. I am also intelligent, loving, loyal to a fault, sarcastic, witty, confident, and secure.

Thank you so much for reading.

Signed by Me.