World Mental Health Day: Living With Bipolar Disorder—From Diagnosis To Treatment

This happened way back in 2015, when I was in 11th grade. After facing relentless bullying and a relationship gone sour, I was in deep depression. There were many days of suffering before I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. My parents had forcibly taken me to the psychiatrist and I couldn't believe the diagnosis at first. The word itself felt too heavy, too clinical — something that belonged in a psychiatrist's report and not in my reality.

I had lived for years in extremes. One week I'd be invincible — sleeping three hours max, full of ideas, writing emails at 3 a.m., sure that I was finally growing into the person I was meant to be. Next, I'd crash and disappear into silence. The same brain that had run like wildfire before now couldn't wake itself out of bed. I would lie there and look up at the ceiling, crippled by a sadness that was almost physical.

They labeled me passionate, driven, ambitious. I wore them like armour, unaware they were also symptoms.

Accepting The Diagnosis

The diagnosis arrived during a time when my own life had started to crack in silent, invisible ways. I'd pushed through the deadlines and social gatherings, keeping the sudden changes hidden behind an omnipresent smile. But one morning, I couldn't. My mind, it turned out, had set its own limits. The collapse occurred in the form of panic—shaking hands, racing thoughts, a voice in my head that muttered, something is wrong.

When the psychiatrist uttered the words bipolar disorder, I faced a peculiar combination of relief and fear. Relief, since for the first time ever, there was a name given to the turmoil. Fear, since I knew what that name would invoke in the world that we live in — judgement, stigma, and whispers.

The Treatment Begins

The first few months of treatment were the most difficult. Mood stabilisers, therapy, building a routine — it was like having a second full-time job just to be alive. The medication blunted the extremities of my emotions; I was stable but also kind of empty, like someone had turned down the volume on my existence. I enjoyed the manic energy — the confidence, the creativity, the passion. But I also remembered that passion had burnt me in the past.

Bipolar disorder isn't a linear path. You learn to live in constant compromise with your own brain. You learn to monitor your moods — observing triggers, recording feelings, journaling your thoughts. And perhaps most difficult of all, you learn that ‘recovery’ doesn't equal ‘cured’. It means coexisting with the illness.

How Therapy Helped

For years, I begrudged that. I wanted a neat resolution, not a lifetime game plan. But over time, through therapy, I came to realise stability was not the absence of extremes but balance. My psychiatrist once said, "You can still be everything you want to be — you'll just need a different roadmap." That sentence transformed everything.

Living with bipolar also involves facing the way society discusses mental illness — or, more accurately, doesn't. We admire resilience but are afraid of vulnerability. We share mental health awareness in pastel infographics but don't often ask our coworkers if they're really okay. When I informed others of my diagnosis, some became silent, unsure of what to say. Some overcompensated by saying— "You're so brave!" or "At least you know what it is now." Few did the one thing that mattered most: "I am there for you."

It's a lonely sickness not because of the attacks themselves, but because of others' reactions to them. The stigma speaks louder than the symptoms ever could.

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A Life-Long Illness

Yet, I’ve found hope in the quiet resilience of everyday life. In learning to take my medication at night without resentment. In recognising the warning signs early enough to rest before the crash. In friends who listen without judgement. In workspaces that offer flexibility and compassion. In therapy sessions that feel less like confession and more like understanding.

There are still some tough days. There are mornings I wake up nervous, weighed down, uncertain of which version will be in charge that day. But I have given up the struggle. The reality is, bipolar disorder isn't something to be conquered — it's something I have learned to live with. Some days it's a soft whisper, other times a deafening roar, but it's mine to deal with, not to be afraid of.

The world likes simple narratives: sick or well, happy or sad, cured or not. But bipolar disorder doesn’t fit neatly into those binaries — and maybe that’s its most human quality. We all live somewhere between extremes; mine just happens to have a name. Now, when I reflect on that young girl — frightened, bewildered, desperate to seem ‘normal’ — I want to tell her this: stability is not the end of your story; it's the beginning of it. You are not broken. You are merely learning how to live in the space between the light and the dark. And that, in its own way, is peace.

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Image courtesy: Freepik

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