u/Southern-Cow-118

Hello all,

I just completed an MSW program this month.

I feel like I should be more excited about the fact that I just completed an entire masters program... but I am struggling with a lot of mixed feelings.

Now that I am a social worker, I need to find somewhere I can have this conversation. I very much know I am not alone with these feelings .... I should probably also start with the fact that I am a WoC.

On the whole, I am happy with my decision to pursue social work. The decision has always felt right, the work clicks for me and I am good at it. Before coming into social work, I had a career as a case manager, and I genuinely love working with people and I enjoy witnessing people heal / improve their lives.

There is a whole other side to my experience that I am also genuinely struggling with...

I went to a known school (I won't name it) and am actually in a little bit of a state of shock about the lack of unprofessional behaviors by many of the faculty and staff in my school program ... I don't feel the need to detail everything, because, well, it was a lot (unfortunately, not a small handful of incidences, but rather an exhaustive list of things I personally experienced as well as things I witnessed my classmates experience).

Perhaps the best way for me to summarize my experiences is that when I first entered into the MSW program, I was excited to be entering into a field that appeared to be intentional about diversifying the profession. The experience I just had, however, was very much not that. I witnessed countless students of color be treated horrendously to the point that I feel like I exited my program in a little bit of a state of shock. What did I just experience????

Honestly, the only way I have to describe what I feel is that the whole thing felt like a bait and switch: "Marginalized folks, come to social work because we need you!" And then we show up and we're told "No!! You're not supposed to be Black/Brown like that!!" ... all by a bunch of social workers who want to tell us "Well, I've been in this profession for more than 20 years, so...."

I guess I am just starting to brace myself for ongoing racial violence in a profession that is supposedly trying to counter it.

I am confused and need to hear from other social workers - I am honestly struggling to make sense out of my experiences.

Thanks.

Hi all

I am somewhat new to this community and am new-ish-ly (is that a word?) diagnosed with BPII. I am currently in the process of setting up treatment - I do plan to medicate and have been in therapy my whole life (perpetually addressing my obvious mental health issues without ever knowing i am bipolar - yikes!! :-/) - my therapist has been amazingly supportive and has shifted their treatment modalities to match my updated diagnosis. It has not been seamless, but I feel well supported during this major shift in how I approach my mental health.

As I approach the appointment with my new provider, I am trying earnestly to figure myself out - my symptoms are obviously not at all new. I have struggled with depression for most of my life and, unbeknownst to me or anyone else in my life, managed to sustain manic states over multiple years, where I often felt healthier, stable-ish, and generally happy (all with an asterisk, as I do also tend to dysregulate even when living in a "healthy" manic state) ... The pattern i have managed to figure out is that I was able to sustain those states when I had gotten an awesome job and thrived in my position for a period of time, or the "honeymoon" period after I met my husband and we got married. Typically, however, I will inevitably "crash" into a depressive episode - the longest depressed state that I lived in was 6.5 years (yowch!!) that I "switched" out of not long ago - which how I learned I am bipolar.

I am now older and have lived a relatively stable life (again, stable* with an asterisk). I have a career, I have been married for 14 years and I like my life just fine....

That said, now that I am out of a prolonged and godawful depressed state and in that "healthy" manic state, my life is very different on this side ... i am not young, so i am not chasing adventures or new things at this stage in my life. I have a career and am happily married .......

At the same time, I feel like I keep fighting these weird impulses in me that are making me panic a little bit... Some days I struggle a lot with feeling like I want to just trash my whole life and start over - which, at my core, is absolutely NOT what I want to do!! What gives?!

I also realized that these impulses I am experiencing are also not new at all ... In fact, long before I met my spouse, I used to do things like this in relationships - I was young (though its not an excuse to hurt people!!) and got into relationships, would suddenly "turn" on my partner at the time and would impulsively disappear on them or breakup with them out of no where ... I now understand that I "discard" the people I date - not something I am proud of ....

But omg, here we go again - I have days / weeks that I feel restless with my life, bored, agitated, and on bad days, I experience feelings like i want to leave my husband and start a new life. Woah!! It's not what I actually want at my core - it's that I have these impulses that contradict who I am and the choices i've made in my life.

I was having a real rough go of it a few weeks ago and came to realize that I was in a mixed episode- racing hopeless feelings and restless energy. There were some stressorsthat could have contributed to triggering it, but as time goes on, i am seeing that i am kind of ebbing and flowing in this mixed way that sucks badly - i can have a perfectly great day, but then later burst into tears and feel lost and hopeless - what gives?? i think its a possibility that in those quiet-er periods of my life, that i often have this restless energy that can feel difficult to "satisfy" or - i don't even know what the right word is to describe it ...

I guess my question is, do some people with bipolar tend to live in this blurred manic and depressive state all the time? I am worried that might be the case for me ... but i also dont even know if that is a thing or not?

I do plan to speak with my provider about this, but i just wanted to get a sense from others about what the lived experiences are with bipolar and having mixed features. I do plan to get onto a mood stabilizer and would welcome hearing from others, especially those struggling with mixed features. what your experiences are?

Any and all perspectives would be deeply appreciated and helpful!!

Thank you!! 🙏

Apologies in advance for the length of this post ... I admit I joined this community a couple of days ago as I am seeking to understand my experiences with my white in-laws. I don't know if this is the right community to post this ... if it's not, please forgive the post and do let me know a better place I may be able to turn to vent/seek support!

For context, I've been married to my husband for almost 14 years ... We have a loving and stable marriage. I am South Asian and he is white.

My husband and I have been through a lot - including a life threatening illness in our household that took years of hospitalizations, treatment, recovery and then a lot of mental health therapy/support to overcome the challenges we've faced. We have endured a lot, and thankfully, our marriage and our household have remained intact throughout the hardships. We work very hard. Very very hard.

I am genuinely struggling to understand what is going on between myself and my in-laws in recent months / years - really since this second Trump administration.

During the first Trump admin, there was a lot of outward expression of support toward me - there were a lot of "I love you"'s and "thank you for your (act of activism)" .... it wasn't a constant stream of support either, but there was enough said and reflected toward me that I felt both seen as well as affirmed.

What's so odd is that these supportive messages have not only completely stopped, but my in-laws - in particular, my husband's older sister as well as my mother in law - have really shifted their behaviors toward me.... It;s leaving me feeling confused.

What hurts most is that all of them know first hand the many difficulties my husband and I have survived through. We have overcome a lot. Our experiences when we are around my family, my husband and I are treated with gentleness and empathy because of our hardships.

In my husband's family, we get none of that. These days, nobody wants to even acknowledge what we've been through and how well we've done - as we are just getting to the other side of a few difficult years. There's just this bizarre void... I want to be clear that I am not saying that my in laws need to give us special treatment when we're around - but I almost feel like thats how they're seeing and interpreting things ... some of the things that go on, for example, are things like my sister in-law saying cruel and shitty things about us when we are around (ie: lots of eye rolling and intentionally audible shit talking when my husband and I walk out of a room about one or both of us) and when either my husband and I push back on that type of behavior, I feel like we are basically being told to "get back into line" ...

I don't mean to keep going on and on about it, but truly, my husband and I have been through a lot - and I feel sorry for my husband that some of his immediate family members appear to be choosing to disrespect him instead of showing him love and support. Thankfully, my husband is good with his boundaries. There was an incident almost a year ago in which his older sister actively and openly disrespected my husband to the point it got abusive ... Her behavior was shocking. And, as to be expected, there was no shame and she absolutely refused to acknowledge or apologize for her behavior. Given the egregiousness of my SIL's behavior, we more or less assumed my mother in law would see our side of things. But, in spite of her previous support of my husband and I, she got immediately onto the white supremacy bandwagon and defensively jumped to defend her daughters socially liable behaviors.

I guess what I want to say is that these are relationships were previously really important to me and I am struggling to make sense out of it. At this point, we've gone NC with his sister. I dont want to do that with my MIL, as I have genuinely cared for these people ... but my husband and I have really been through a lot and even our medical and mental health team is shocked by the way my husband's family is choosing to behave right now in light of the medical stuff in our household.....

I guess my feelings about our situation is pretty clear... but the reality of whiteness still never ceases to shock and amaze me .... I've been in their family for almost 15 years with a near death experience in tow, and yet their petty needs to be centered clearly "trump" all else ... Oof ... How grotesque...

How should I handle my MIL going forward?

Good day. I wanted to introduce myself as a new-ish member to this community.

I am not so new, in the fact that I've spent a couple of years lurking different bipolar related subreddits. But I am new in the sense that I just learned that I am bipolar II.

I really want to put it out there that I feel terribly awkward here - as I had been previously taking to the BipolarSOs sub, as my husband of almost 14 years is bipolar I and he went through some stuff in 2024. I found that sub to be somewhat helpful at times, but also somewhat challenging at times.

I'd like to be an active member on this community for myself as I am just embarking on my own journey. I am seeking community, support, as well as opportunities to learn from others.

To cut the long story short, I was severely depressed from 2020 - 2025/early 2026, until this spring, when I became undeniably hypomanic. My husband, who is bipolar I absolutely noticed it and I reached out to my therapist, who then did an assessment - and sure enough, I am bipolar II.

I want to put it out there that i feel rather awkward being here - because of how much space I took up on BipolarSOs through 2024, while also being absolutely clueless about my own bipolar >.< ... I feel quite embarrassed because I got into a lot of arguments and fights with people over on BipolarSOs who (I felt) were saying cruel things about people with Bipolar. There is a part of me that is fearful that some of those individuals I got into arguments with may be lurking around this subreddit as well and may spot my tag as being bipolar II ...

yikes! : )

I guess this post is my way to transition from those spaces into spaces like this. I am grateful I was aware this community existed before I knew about my own bipolar 🙏 I've gotten some really helpful information from this subreddit in the past, so I would like to thank you all for that - particularly as 2024 was so scary, and I was so scared for my husband and our marriage.

In any case, I have come to learn some really fascinating things about myself and my family. There is a lot of schizophrenia in my mothers family, and I just came to learn that this can also mean that there may also be bipolar, as well as major depressive disorder in the family as well - which there is. It turns out that a bunch of us in my mom's family are bipolar, including my mom. It's been overwhelming, but I am able to embrace this new information about myself.

Okay! That's all about me for now! Thank you for being a resource!!