u/BeeplaysMC

That made me so sad. When she realised what was happening with the aunts and basically agreed to it OML I felt that.

This is a vent.

I’m finishing my PhD in the next couple of months and for lack of a better word, I’m completely fucked. Bipolar certainly isn’t helping, even though I’m “stable” at the moment. Obviously episodes are a big deal and I’m lucky that I get a lot of euthymia and stability on meds but the fact that I come across quite calm and relaxed (so I’ve been told) genuinely might be my downfall. My problem is that I am so incredibly stressed at the moment and things are really hard and I tell people and they… don’t believe me? Even though I keep dropping the ball on things, people seem to assume that so long as I’m not actively in an episode, that I must be doing great.

When I try to convey to people how screwed I am for my PhD, they tell me unhelpful stories about their PhDs where they had a longer time frame and less work thinking they’re showing solidarity. The reason I am in this position is because of a catastrophic hypomania episode earlier this year that thankfully only lasted a month but then took another two+ months to recover from. It set me back so far on my PhD that I’m having to cram eight months of already intense work into three months. All up I think I’ve lost at least 40% of my PhD timeline just to bipolar episodes. No one around me gets it. They also don’t get how bad it is for me to just push through and do all nighters, and how important routine is at the moment with some people pointedly commenting on how rigid my routine is when it’s the only thing stopping me from breaking. They also don’t understand that bipolar is limiting my job prospects as I’m not confident enough in my stability to move away from my family but there are no jobs where I live. People are perplexed that a young person wouldn’t just move countries for a job while I’m extremely stressed about the job situation.

I’m absolutely overworking myself and I have adhd but my adhd isn’t at all like the normative popular version online so people do not understand that a lot of my problems are adhd related. Everyone around me is talking about their self diagnosed “neurodivergence” and I have come to hate the term because it’s ironically so exclusionary if you don’t fit a certain mould.

I’m genuinely worried about triggering an episode. It’s weird to not be depressed or hypo but still be struggling but then not have people believe you or put the effort into understanding. I’m getting so many judgemental comments about how I’m having to live my life at the moment that would be mitigated if people understood just one of the bipolar/adhd/workload problems. Sick of hearing “it’ll be fine” when it actually might not. People don’t want to listen and help they just want to tell me about their own experiences. I want to be left alone to finish my work in peace.

Yes I see a therapist but there’s not much to be done here. If you read this far, thank you.