Bipolar

[Harry]

Are all INFPs bipolar?
How do you tackle it?

[Entity]

I haven't been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, so I take it I haven't dealt with it.

[synapser]

I have bipolar. It has systematically ruined the most important part of my life on a stunningly repeated regularity. Now I don't even really try to " tackle it" I just sort of know it's there, the world is going to discriminate against me because of it and I will struggle to have meaningful relationships because of it.

There are lots of medication options and if you're even having moderate difficulty some can be very helpful, but you need to find a good provider you can stick with for a year or two. It can take a long time to find a mix that works well for you. There are DBT, EMDR, CBT, and just plain old psychotherapy that research has shown to be more effective than just medication alone. Having people around you you like to spend time with amd trust is when I've been happiest. Though I inevitably fuck shit up.

[DAVIE]

Recently a friend of mine (am infp btw) said I may have bipolar. I have my ups and downs and suicidal thoughts on a constant basis. However I am coping without medication and I would rather feel emotion than a life with a numbed emotion. Life can't break me! I'll adapt!

Maybe it's common with us INFPs? Or maybe it's just to do with our personalities? Maybe we aren't bipolar? I wouldn't like to put a label on myself anyway, even if i was.

[crow]

"Life can't break me!"
Hahahaha.
You'll never have a life, as long as you see it as an enemy trying to destroy you.
There is The World, see, and then there's the world-of-people. You are confusing the two.
Being a leftist, you imagine people are important, while The World may as well not exist.
Ass-backwards.
Still, you won't know this for many, many years.

[DAVIE]

Explain. Who said I see it as an enemy? And I may be a Leftist but I do have some Liberal and Conservative views too. Labels are for idiots.

[crow]

Labels are for idiots? You announced, right-off, that you were a leftist.

"...to make friends, and influence his uncle."
Bob Dylan.

[DAVIE]

Leftist is not a label. Its a position of political ideology.

[synapser]

Recently a friend of mine (am infp btw) said I may have bipolar. I have my ups and downs and suicidal thoughts on a constant basis. However I am coping without medication and I would rather feel emotion than a life with a numbed emotion. Life can't break me! I'll adapt!

Maybe it's common with us INFPs? Or maybe it's just to do with our personalities? Maybe we aren't bipolar? I wouldn't like to put a label on myself anyway, even if i was.

Hi Davie,
I don't know if you're biopolar or not. I can tell you that I denied anything was wrong with me for similar reasons. I felt exactly like you do right now. Bipolar was a label that is given to people who are a normal part of the human spectrum of personality and the only reason to label us that way was to discriminate against our creativity, control us with drugs/therapy, force into a messed up society, and different way of seeing the world. For a while it seemed to work. Then over the period of a decade I realized that the damage to my life was no longer worth resisting the way other people interpreted my behavior and outlook. Seeing yourself as this creative wonder that is normal and should be allowed appeals to a sense of martyrdom and ego. Indeed, I will be the first to advocate that you have the choice to lead your life without help for your disorder. However, I would advise caution, having now had schizophrenia added to my diagnosis pool and my second manic episode ever in my entire life leading to the end of my engagement I can warn you there will be unexpected consequences. Consequences that you will not see coming and will not be able to recover from.

I'll leave you with a quote that really spoke to me from a book called the Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison.

"I was late to understanding that chaos and intensity were no substitute for lasting love, nor are they necessarily an improvement on real life."

[crow]

Always, it comes back to ego, and the inadvisability of allowing it to ru(i)n one's life.