The Bipolar Social Club invites people at every stage of their journey living with bipolar to join our community.
Request to join the Bipolar Social Club email list (only for people with bipolar illness please). If you want to join anonymously, consider setting up a gmail account just for use with this list that doesn’t include your real name.
Request to join Bipolar Love, a confidential email list for friends and family of people who are living with bipolar illness.
People with bipolar disorder experience the world differently from those who don’t have it. We have mood swings, difficulty with impulse control, and challenges with concentration. We swing between states of mania or hypomania and depression.
If you are in crisis, reach out to a crisis counselor, or contact the Suicide Prevention Hotline by sending a text to 988 or calling 1-800-273-8255.
Our founder, Paul English, recently gave this candid and heartfelt TED talk in Boston.
What Is Bipolar?
Mania is a high. We have seemingly boundless energy. Colors and light shine brighter. The world around us seems full and beautiful. We can stay up all night multiple nights in a row without caffeine or feeling fatigue. We have poor impulse control, making decisions quickly: an urge becomes action without a second thought. We can also be easily distracted or irritated. We talk at a million miles a minute and make logical leaps that can be hard to follow but make total sense (to us). We’re jubilantly self-confident and feel invincible, like nobody and nothing can stop us.
Hypomania is similar to mania but is “less than” manic. The sensations are similar—rapid speech, flight of ideas, risk taking, feelings of euphoria—but less intense.
Depression is the low. Depression is much better understood and represented in pop culture. The definition includes feelings of sluggishness, loss of energy, hopelessness, worthlessness, and can include thinking about or planning suicide. We can’t concentrate and, in contrast to when we’re manic, might struggle to make decisions. We can become trapped in our bedrooms for days or weeks at a time, sometimes longer.
It’s called bipolar because we swing between mania or hypomania and depression, with occasional, rare, or no breaks in between.
Bipolar disorders fall on a spectrum and include Bipolar I, Bipolar II, Cyclothymia, and Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). The National Institute of Mental Health is one site that provides a detailed description of bipolar.
Getting Help
Diagnosis
Your doctor can help you start your journey. You’ll likely have a physical exam and then get a referral to a psychiatrist. It’s helpful for your psychiatrist if you keep a journal or some sort of daily record of your moods, sleep patterns, and other factors, such as drug and alcohol consumption and eating habits.
If your doctor won’t refer you to a psychiatrist, a number of free services can help you with getting the care you need that fits with your insurance. Psychology Today is one well-known resource that offers a tool for finding mental health providers.
Support
Our Bipolar Social Club is also a resource for you to meet and talk to people who already have a diagnosis. Bipolar is defined in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (commonly known as DSM-5), but the symptoms can manifest differently in different people. Listening to someone talk about their journey with bipolar can put words to feelings and experiences you knew but didn’t understand.
You can also contact the National Alliance on Mental Illness HelpLine at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or info@nami.org if you have any questions about bipolar disorder or finding support and resources.
Break the Stigma
Founder of Bipolar Social Club shares his story and reason for starting BSC
Join the Discussion
Sign up to our email list to share news, events, and stories with our supportive community of people with bipolar and professionals in the field. Explore our website for news, resources, videos, and more!
Questions? Contact us at editor@bipolarsocialclub.org.