March 30th is National Bipolar Day. This day is used to spread awareness about the disorder and eliminate the social stigma around it.

According to Cleveland Clinic, ¨Bipolar disorder is a chronic mood disorder that causes intense shifts in mood, energy levels and behavior. Manic and hypomanic episodes are the main sign of the condition, and most people with bipolar disorder also have depressive episodes.¨

People know of bipolar disorder, but many people don’t know about bipolar II disorder– while both deal with emotions, the two are different.

According to Cleveland Clinic, ¨People with bipolar II experience depressive episodes and hypomanic episodes. But they never experience a full manic episode that’s characteristic of bipolar I disorder. While hypomania is less impairing than mania, bipolar II disorder is often more debilitating than bipolar I disorder due to chronic depression being more common in bipolar II.¨ 

Two of the major symptoms of each of these disorders is hypomania and mania. Both of these mean elevated moods, meaning the person’s mood is very high. The difference is that hypomania is less intense and the length of the episodes is shorter. 

Individuals with bipolar disorder are often stereotyped as ¨crazy¨, ¨unhinged¨ or even ¨violent¨. 

¨A full manic stage can cause psychosis, so in that often, is where people can see that a person can and will do something dangerous. A person whos in their manic phase will potentially go out in a speeding car and make bad decisions. They might feel an elated sense of anger. It’s normally when they’re in that phase of a manic phase that people think that they are more dangerous because they are often making bad decisions for themselves,¨ said Dr. Jill Maloney, school psychologist. 

Getting the diagnosis of bipolar disorder is challenging, and often misdiagnosed. To spread more awareness I want to share my personal experience with bipolar II disorders. 

Most Bipolar two disorders get diagnosed due to a hospitalization during a major depressive episode, and that’s what happened to me during the night of July 2, 2024 I was hospitalized, I was released on July 5, 2024. The doctors released me that day because I had a scheduled visit with a psychiatrist. My first visit with my psychiatrist I didn’t talk the whole appointment, and then scheduled another appointment for the next week. 

The next appointment we started talking and by the third appointment she brought up the idea of bipolar II. At this time I had no idea there was a bipolar II, I thought that people with bipolar were ¨crazy¨ just as most people think. I didn’t want to accept the diginoses, but accepting it was the most important part. My family and I started researching bipolar II and the more reading we did, the more we understood it. 

The main signs I showed were irritation, diagnosed severe depression, elevated moods during the day, along with diagnosed severe anxiety. 

The next step was medication. There are no medications that fully cure bipolar two disorder, but the medications prescribed can help lower some of the depression, anxiety, and irritability. I have been on three different medications so far. 

The first medication gave me massive migraines to where I couldn’t get out of bed. The second one made me forget anything and everything I was doing. I would be standing at work and forget what I was doing. It also made me slightly dizzy. The third one, which is the one I’m currently taking, made me not hungry, I lost 20 pounds due to not eating. I went from taking it in the morning, to before bed, which helped with not eating. I’m on another medication currently to help with anxiety. 

It takes time to find medications that work for you, so be patient when looking. 

The worst part of the diagnosis is having people tell you that what you’re feeling is not valid. When I would talk about my bipolar disorder others would tell me, you don’t have that. This made my personal experience feel invalid, and really shows how much people don’t know about bipolar disorder.  

¨I think it’s more or less about learning about the disorder,¨ said Dr. Maloney

As I am walking around the halls I often hear people saying I’m bipolar. Hearing this makes me feel upset because many people don’t have to live with bipolar two and just use it as slang. 

“The problem is people think that just when they have basic mood swings, they will say, oh I’m being bipolar or the weather is being bipolar because you never know what to expect. I think the best way to confront them about misusing it is to do it in a nice way and basically say, it might just be mood swings, bipolars an actual diagnosis that can really impact somebody,” said Dr. Maloney.

Bipolar disorder can affect so many aspects of a person’s life, but not all of it is negative. Having bipolar II has made me look at life differently, I’ve learned not to take things for granted. After being diagnosed and researching, a lot of people had no idea what bipolar was, or that there even was a thing as bipolar II. This subject needs more light shed on it to inform people better.