Grief, bipolar 2, and breakups
I don’t really know what to do honestly, I just feel completely incapacitated.
I’ve always known I had some kind of mood disorder, and I’m sure like most people with this illness, I denied that’s what was happening for a long time. I’ve had one foot in and one foot out with accepting my diagnosis for years now.
Fast forward to 3 months ago, I went through a breakup. It wasn’t ugly, it wasn’t one sided, and we held a lot of love and respect for each other even while devastated. Not to get too into it, but she had a different timeline on when she wanted kids and I decided I needed to finish school and have a career before feeling comfortable supporting a family. It was and still is brutal, leaving someone you still love deeply.
After a month I was doing okay, hurting for sure but establishing new routines and trying my hardest to move on. Then my grandma got diagnosed with late stage leukemia, and within a week I flew to my family and took care of her on hospice until she passed. Then a week later, my grandpa died of a broken heart. I was very close with both of them
When I got back home after that, I went into a very intense hypomanic phase. I finished a huge creative project that elevated me as an artist, I had a massive ego, I felt barely any empathy, and all of my feelings were filtered through an ecstasy like lens so I didn’t feel the grief. I realized what was happening, and forced myself to sleep and reestablish my routines to level out.
I’m unmedicated, and for some reason I’ve said the past few years that it’s a part of who I am. I’ve had a delusion that bipolar fuels my art and without it I wouldn’t be the same artist.
Now I’ve had a crash after the mania that’s an all time low, and I feel so defeated. It feels like my whole life I’ve just been surviving. I’m angry, I’m frustrated, I’m devastated with grief, and I don’t know what’s even happening inside of me anymore.
I need help but don’t have the money for a psychiatrist, I go to therapy when I can afford it but it’s feeling like these mania/crash episodes are getting more intense and I need medication if I plan to live any kind of life that’s consistent..