Tumblr crosspost (24 February 2021)

[anghraine]

I was reading an article on one of the medications I take for bipolar II, in relation to its use in managing both bipolar I and II. And it was really interesting in a lot of ways, but one of the things it talked about is how scholars have often focused on mania, but the research is pretty clear that bipolar depression is much more dominant with both bipolar I and bipolar II and frequently more disruptive.

And, honestly, that is definitely my experience? It’s not to say that hypomania hasn’t been super disruptive (it starts out great! so much energy! but then my thoughts just skitter around and I can’t focus on anything, and I start getting really aggressive). But one of the most alarming things about it is that, once I realize what’s going on, I know the “high” is going to crash into depression at some point, and that lasts much longer and is more ruinous. And that mix of the high and the looming dread of depression is … weird.

I mean, my experience is that people definitely take mania (even hypomania) more seriously, so it was interesting and kind of validating to read that, yup, bipolar depression is Really That Bad for most bipolar people.

(I think, also, that the prioritization of mania/hypomania and kind of dismissive attitude towards bipolar depression is bad for people with unipolar/major depression as well. IMO the root is “depression isn’t that big of a deal, but mania is freaky,” and if your operating assumption is that depression is nbd, that can easily extend to major depression. And as someone who was misdiagnosed w/ major depression for a long time, I did run into that often enough.)

Tagged: #my deeper-yet suspicion is that there's a prioritization of what is most disruptive for /other/ people in a lot of research #much more than the actual patients #this article also got into how the assumption has often been that bipolar people's lives are mostly split between mania/depression/normal #but it increasingly seems that the bulk of our lives are depressive (mainly) and manic (sometimes) #w/ comparatively brief non-cycling periods #which strongly affects quality of life /for bipolar people/ #so

Comments

[lokifan]

my deeper-yet suspicion is that there's a prioritization of what is most disruptive for /other/ people in a lot of research #much more than the actual patients

YEEEEEPPPPPPP

[anghraine]

It is, let's say, extremely noticeable!