My Journey to an Unexpected Bipolar 2 Diagnosis

This article discusses personal experiences with mental health challenges, including Bipolar 2 disorder. It describes symptoms such as hypomania, depressive episodes, suicidal thoughts and struggles with mood instability, which may be triggering for some readers. There are also mentions of emotional distress and the impact of a new mental health diagnosis.

If these topics are sensitive for you, please consider reading with care and prioritise your wellbeing.

The first time I had really considered Bipolar was a few years ago when I was watching Modern Love, a series based on the real life New York Times column which explores love in its many forms.

In one particular episode, a character that Anne Hathaway plays - Lexi - is in a supermarket early in the morning. Her life is like a movie, and even in the simple act of visiting the supermarket, everything around her shimmers. She is wearing a sequin shirt, is full of energy and life feels amazing.

All is going well until Lexi is getting ready for a date. In the bathroom, whilst putting mascara on and looking in the mirror, she stares at her reflection and her facial expression shifts. Dropping the mascara in the sink, Lexi pleads with herself in the mirror, “Please”. Eventually, she falls to the floor, sobbing, and curls up into a ball in despair.

The next day, Lexi wakes up but is unable to leave bed. Instead, she spends days shutting herself away from the world and ignoring everyone.

As I watched those scenes play out, my heart dropped and my stomach turned. I knew that feeling all too well, and it was like watching a part of my own life play out on the screen.

I remember saying to a few loved ones “I resonated with that episode a little too much, maybe I have Bipolar?” Unfortunately, though, it’s something I dismissed. From what I heard of Bipolar, I knew I’d have to have mania and, well, I didn’t, right?

In the years that followed, navigating both work and my personal life continued to be a daily battle. I would go through periods where I would feel fantastic. When one thing was going well, it all was. At work, I wasn’t just thriving, I was excelling. I was getting work done that should usually take months but I’d get it done in a day.

And it wasn’t just work. When I was excelling at work, I would excel in all areas of my life: I’d start doing 10,000 steps a day, I’d eat nothing but fruit and salad, my living space would be spotless, I’d pick up a new hobby or passion, and I would become a social butterfly. The life of the party.

During these periods, it was like I was seeing the world through a sparkly, shimmery lens. It wasn’t just a good mood, it was an AMAZING mood. I had a pep in my step and life was going my way during those times. I was full of confidence and joy.

What always followed, though, was the inevitable crash. Like Lexi, I would wake up one morning and feel like I was carrying a ton of bricks. That amazing mood quickly crashed and burned, and depression hit me to the point that I couldn’t look after myself in the most basic of ways. Brushing my teeth, showering, making myself food, tidying my space all felt like colossal tasks. So when it was bad, it was bad. At times, I felt suicidal and no longer wanted to be here. I was a regular of the Lifeline Text Line.

I was also left to deal with all of the things I’d overcommitted to during those amazing moods, like the work projects I’d created and the social plans I had made, which was never easy. How can I explain to people that today I am a completely different version of myself, and I don’t really know why? “Sorry, happy and productive Abbie isn’t here today, so I’m going to need to backtrack on all of those commitments I made” probably isn’t going to fly.

My perception was that I was just cycling between depression and then being on top of it and managing it well. I had, after all, been diagnosed with Anxiety and Depression since my teens. So to me, those amazing moods were just me practicing good self care and looking after myself well.

Fast forward to 2024. I was becoming increasingly frustrated and exhausted from constantly switching between feeling super productive and amazing, to feeling unable to leave my bed and ignoring my responsibilities. I decided it was time to do something.

I, of course, had found myself on ADHD Tok, and had resonated hugely with some of the content I was seeing around struggling with focus and productivity. After months of going down the Google rabbit hole, I booked myself an appointment with an ADHD specialist.

We spent an hour talking about my symptoms:

I constantly switch between feeling great and feeling terrible. The good periods can last anything from days to weeks, then I may feel balanced for a little while, then I’ll be flung into the bad.
When I feel good, I won’t shut up talking. I become annoying, I go off on tangents, and it feels like I have a million thoughts whirling through my head but I can’t catch one of them.
When I feel good, I get so much work done, am full of ideas and I feel really social and happy across all areas of my life.
However, I eventually feel terrible and then struggle to get even basic work and personal tasks done, and am left to clean up the well-intended mess I made during the good times.
When I feel down, my apartment becomes a mess and all I want to do is eat junk food and sleep. I don’t want to see or speak to anyone.
When I feel good, it’s spotless and I become the vision of health. I don’t need much sleep to be able to function. I want to socialise and chat to everyone.

I’d walked into that appointment convinced I had ADHD. The Doctor showed me a list of diagnostic criteria that looked a bit like this:

*Major Depressive Episode DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria*

He didn’t tell me what the criteria were for, but asked me to read them and tell him if I thought it resonated. I said “I feel like this list just summarises my entire life. The only thing that doesn’t resonate is the risky/reckless behaviour.”

“This is the diagnostic criteria for Bipolar 2”. My heart sunk. Bipolar? Me? Wait, Bipolar 2? There are 2 Bipolars?!

He explained that all of my symptoms are mood related and happen for prolonged periods of time. I didn’t really know what to say. I felt a bit numb.

He told me this wasn’t an official diagnosis, but that he would like to trial me on a mood stabiliser - Lamotrigine - for just over a month so we could see how I might respond to the medication. He also gave me some paperwork and questionnaires to fill out.

I walked out of the appointment feeling a sense of heaviness. I sat in the driver’s seat, shut my car door, and burst into tears. I sobbed for half an hour.

I leaned on a few friends and family members. Some seemed as confused as me, “I don’t think you have Bipolar, maybe you should get a second opinion”

Once I started to process this emotionally, I started doing some research about Bipolar, and specifically, Bipolar 2.

The more I read, the more clear it became that my ‘amazing moods’ were, in fact, hypomania.

I also recognised how little I, a mental health advocate and mental health charity founder, knew about Bipolar. I was ashamed, embarrassed, but also angry at the level of stigma and lack of information out there around Bipolar. If I didn’t know much about it in the space I worked in, if my reaction was to sob in the car, then what hope was there for others?

I started to share more information about Bipolar with my friends and family and, the more they learnt, the more their opinion shifted, “In hindsight, I can’t believe we didn’t see it before.”

A few weeks into taking the mood stabiliser, I began to feel a sense of balance and calm that it felt like I had never felt before in my life. My ability to work and face the day to day became more consistent. My baseline changed, and until that happened, I didn’t realise how much I had been struggling to stay afloat whilst cycling between extremes.

In preparation for appointment number 2, I filled out the paperwork. As soon as I started I could see that I ticked almost every box for hypomania and major depression.

“You 110% have Bipolar 2” the Doctor said. This time, I didn’t cry, but instead felt a huge sense of relief, and it felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I had started the journey to learning more about myself and was excited for that to continue, as well as to have access to the correct treatment and support that would improve my quality of life, for life. Because the reality is, this is who I am and I will live with Bipolar for the rest of my life.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows from here on out. I have a long recovery journey ahead, and I’m still working on getting my medication mix and dosage right after experiencing some recent depression followed by an intense hypomanic episode, which involved working until 4am with a brain overflowing with ideas (not sustainable, hypomania!!)

I am also in the process of mourning my past ‘good moods’ and recognising that some of the fun and happier times in my life have likely been hypomanic episodes as they were inevitably always ‘shimmery’ and followed by impulsivity, chaos or a heavy depression.

But all in all, I feel good. I can already feel the difference my diagnosis has made to my mental health in being able to identify and recognise what is really happening. I no longer have the same sense of confusion and frustration as my moods cycle, as I now can approach myself with self-compassion and understanding.

Most people inevitably keep their Bipolar diagnosis a secret from most people in their life out of fear they won’t understand, or that they’ll stigmatise and judge the person. That makes me sad, and shows that we have a long way to go in being able to openly discuss more complex mental illnesses. Anxiety and Depression no longer carry the same sense of shame that Bipolar, Psychosis and other more complex mental heath concerns do.

Right from that moment that I was sobbing in my car, I made the decision that I would be using this as an opportunity to educate, share knowledge, break down the stigma, and do all that I can to make sure that other people don’t feel like I did after they walk out of their initial Bipolar diagnosis appointment.

I have been an open book in sharing information about my diagnosis and symptoms with my partner, friends, family members, colleagues and even strangers through instructing Mental Health First Aid Training and other workplace mental health services. I have just been blown away by people’s support, compassion, willingness to learn and unconditional love. It gives me a sense of hope for the future.

I can now more easily explain to people why it sometimes takes me a long time to respond to their messages, why I might send really long rambly voice notes sometimes, and why at times I decline or cancel plans/coffee catch ups and instead opt for cocooning myself away for weeks on end. What a relief to have that responded to with nothing but kindness, acceptance and understanding.

I am incredibly privileged to work in the mental health space, where I can use my platform to do my part in spreading the word. It’s scary, as always, being vulnerable. But If me sharing can help just one person feel less shame, then I’m happy.

If you are that person, I hope you know that you are not alone, and that you can get through this with the right support and tools. You’ve got this. We’ve got this.

Abbie is the founder of mental health charity, Letters of Hope, which was born from her lived experience of mental illness. Letters of Hope send handwritten letters to people who are struggling with their mental health.

Abbie has a background in Workplace Mental Health & Wellbeing and is the Gold Coast Young Australian of the Year 2024, an Ambassador for the Australian & New Zealand Mental Health Association, a consultant, speaker and a Licensed Mental Health First Aid Instructor.

Abbie has featured in a range of media and publications including ABC News, 7News, Courier Mail, MiNDFOOD, Wellbeing Magazine and more.

If you are impacted by the topics in this post, please consider reaching out for support:

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