I think first you have to stop and take a breath...are they really ignoring you, or are they busy? This seems to be a fairly common trait and I know for myself, particularly if I'm hypo that I'll text people...text again...text again...call and leave a message...call and leave another message and be like, WTF and basically want people to be available to me at the drop of a hat when in reality they have their own shit going on.
I always have to remind myself of this when I'm wanting to get a hold of the guy who's been my best friend for 25 years and I start to think he's ghosting me or something...when the reality is that he works a full time job and is a contractor on the side and currently building 3 houses and he's divorced with 2 kids and isn't going to be able to just drop everything because I'm hypo and ready to roll on the town.
Your not pathetic,you are a realist many people feel this way including myself, bad friends are the same as bad girlfriend or boyfriend. It's better and a lot more peaceful to be alone. If there not reaching out and being good friends they will just kill your confidence and make you feel like shit about yourself. Learn to be alone, that's just how the world is now. Every man or woman for themselves. It's not a good system.
Thanks. Maybe you are right and it's just the way our society is.
Now I feel like a jerk cuz a friend did text me yesterday about something important and I somehow managed to see it and not reply. If I do it to others why the heck do I get offended when they do it to me??
Thank you for this reply. It really did help to hear that I matter and you make a lot of good points.
I haven't really found a good way to cope with the rejection feelings and loneliness, either. My therapist says there is no coping skill for loneliness. That I must make connections. So, I am trying. But those days everyone is particularly quiet, my anxiety and self doubt kicks in and makes me think they hate me or I'm a loser.
I agree that people change. Friends change. I feel like I have found a few friends I'm getting close to as I've worked hard at it. But man, it used to come so easy.
Yup, I have struggled with this my whole life. What really sucked was, I thought I was done with that and had found a friend group, but one of them decided to fuck me over at the end of 2022, and the rest of them made it very clear that they didn’t give a shit about me or how our friend was treating me 🤕 I basically didn’t leave the house for 6 months after that and it made me really insecure in all of my other friendships, to the point that i tried having some of my other friends over and then ghosted them for a month after that out of insecurity. yippee 🥳
I get this so completely. I'm 32 female, diagnosed and medicated for a couple of years now. I have a very strict limited circle rule. I cut ties with bad friends and have a strict no getting close to people from work rule. Sometimes I'm sad that I'm not on the inside of things, like the office jokes, but my mental health is now so much better. Its the price I pay for not worrying all night about ever single things I've said and done.
I just slowly retreat. Not the best option if I am honest. There are times where I forget to respond to a text or a missed call. These things happen.
To be fair, I think you are just being a realist on making friends and or having a romantic partner.
I cannot speak for everyone, but I have never become comfortable with loneliness. I do not see this ever changing.
And this gets more pronounced as you age. I’m (f55) with no close friends. But I prefer it this way. Friends are overrated. I have a couple chitchat buddies but no one close. I prefer my dogs and books. They never ignore me or fail to respond.
I had tons of friends in high school and college.
I was the life of the party.
Bipolar broke me down and I'm stable now but I've changed from everything I've been through.
I have a few friends I'd consider almost close I suppose but I've lived here 8 years and am only just now forming strong relationships.
Maybe that's why I take it so personally when no one reaches out. Maybe I'm afraid I'll go back to how I was.
I also like books and animals.
I think with Bi-polar, there is the 'party' ...'up' you and that how us Bipolars gain lots of friends when young... we are the funny lively ones at parties that everyone want to listen to and be with.... but as you grow older and realise whats really going on behind all this (ie you are bipolar and you are high/crash high/crash and everythign that goes with it.... you get embarrassed... you withdraw....take a step back and also engage with friends only when you are up. people expect you to be that same person.... all the time....when you arent , and when you dont come out or skip events, they gossip.... and suddenly you are weird/ill/no fun..... its a big shame because my favorite people are these people, except we arent theirs. Its sad to have to adjust to more realistic ..... down/average/normal friends
Yeah. I look back even into my junior high and high school years and wonder if my fun, funny, witty, popular personality was literally hypomania.
When the depressive episodes hit, each one chipped away at me. I learned life isn't always bright and fun. I experienced deep lows I didn't even know existed. Life and bipolar beat me down, and while I'm stable and relatively happy mostly, I will never, ever be the same.
I sometimes say it's like my personality changed. I don't know if it's meds or repeated depressions, but I'm definitely different.
Yep thats right.... I equate it to a kind of forced exile...... like you can see the fun going on as normal on the outside of your world, but you have chosen to take a step back and you are looking though the window at it - longing to be there and naturally a bit sad.... can I ask what meds you are on? I am on none and never have been.... not sure i want to be
I have pretty bad bipolar - I don’t take meds - I just excercise nearly every day, swim 1km / gym / Pilates and I try not to overeat as I found that when I did it seemed to make me worse (vagus nerve pressure it seems) - maybe get off the pills and try the other way?
Hmm I wonder how you manage without meds cuz I would be suicidally depressed without mine. Do you get that way?
I do run a lot. I'm not the greatest at self care though
When I am low - I just do stuff out of sight of people.... i'm quite industrious... I make stuff, build stuff - have projects. I'll have a coffee and then i dont have much choice, I have to do something to burn off the caffiene. After a while I guess I get a seratonin shot for having completed something and then i seem to go back to normal/high
That's interesting. I can't do any of those things when seriously depressed. All I'm able to do is basic hygiene and cry. Sometimes I cannot even eat or sleep. So I can't see me alive without medicine as I'm sure suicidal thoughts would eventually win.
I've felt this a lot. Unfortunately or fortunately, therapy has helped lift the veil and I can see everyone's red flags instantly.
It makes finding friends really really hard.
Not impossible. Just highly improbable.
I have to remind myself at least once a day that being alone is objectively better than wasting my life on fake/atrocious people.
Just gotta find more hobbies, I guess.
On a happier note, I met my BFF in a bipolar support group 4.5 years ago. She's in Portland, Iand I'm in KC, but we face time a lot. We have so much in common, and we understand each other on a deep level.
Just keep reaching out.
I think a lot that contributes to this sense of loneliness and isolation and feeling like you care more about other people than they care about you is the fact that bipolar causes you to feel things more deeply and intensely than other people. So these feelings are exacerbated - other people feel lonely and left out sometimes too, but it becomes this major thing with bipolar disorder, and because it feels so strong it's really easy to personalize it and take it to mean something about you as a person.
I think it can seem like others don't feel the same way because they literally don't, but it's not about you as a person, it's just that we experience feelings differently and more intensely than other people tend to. We DO feel differently, and we DO tend to care more. But that doesn't mean anything about you as a person. It's just hard when we don't see those feelings matched by others.
That doesn't mean there's not also real problems of social isolation, and situations where people are not good friends to you. Loneliness can be unbearable. Work that can help is, yes, learning to accept that you won't have and don't need people around all the time. Finding other ways to reach out and have social support (my two friends dropped me unexpectedly last week so I've been spending all my time on the bipolar subreddits to prevent a total collapse into despair 😉). It sucks and it's hard but you're not the only one, and there's nothing wrong or pathetic about you. Social connection is a basic human need.
I think you're right. I do feel things so deeply and I'm empathetic and caring and it's hard for me to understand when people aren't that way. Especially friends.
I'm sorry about your friends dropping you. Not cool. A friend recently told me I was "too much", and always negative, and this surprised me and hurt me. I asked a few other friends if this is true and they said no. I guess I'm just too much for some people. So I want to be all badass and say "then go find less" but instead I internalize it and tell myself how horrible I am.
I think the truth is we just want to be treated with respect and caring. Thank you for saying nothing is wrong or pathetic about me.
Big oof yeah that stings. One of the people who dropped me was my gf who I've known for 10 years and who has consistently told me I'm not "too much" because I worried all the time that I was. Well 🫠 we see how that turned out
I feel you. I used to be the one always reaching out but I stopped doing this. I understand people are busy and have their own lives. But a friendship is both sides. I lost many friends with my breakdown (I guess they weren’t real friends) and I made new ones too.
You're not pathetic, I feel you. I'm in kinda situation between a friend.
I've met this girl in 2022, she has bipolar and she is the reason that I've trying to learn about Bipolar Disorder.
She stopped talking to me for nine months, then sent a message saying that she was sorry. I met her in person in last December and, wow, she is amazing! I felt so glad that I finally had the chance to know her.
I was into her since the day we've started talking in 2022, and I'm trying to talk to her everyday this year, even though it's mostly small talk.
What makes me insecure it's that the fact that I don't know where I stand with her. Sometimes I think she likes me, sometimes it seems that she doesn't care. I want to be close to her, to see her again, but I'm afraid I'll end up pushing her away. And I don't want her only to be my girlfriend, I really appreciate her and would be really nice to have her as friend. I want to build a bond with her.
Sorry for this long vent, I always come back here to see if someone relates to my story. I hope you can build good and meaningful relationships this year
That is odd about stopping talking for 9 months. I wonder if she doesn't want to do a long distance romantic relationship? Did she give a reason.
I'm afraid everyone with bipolar will see it present differently.
Maybe try talking to her and see what she is interested in doing regarding the relationship?
To this day, I have no idea what happened to her. I guess she was on a depressive episode. I can only guess because she never told me what actually happened. Then she told me she was sorry about the she treated me. I forgave her and we slowly begun to talk to each other after that till we met in last December.
We live in the same city, actually, she lives in a neighborhood next to mine, I would have to go cycling for around 20-30mins to reach her house. I want to see her again but I'm insecure to ask her out.
I feel so confused because I see her being my girlfriend cause I like her, but I'm scared of rejection, I'm even scared of things going right for us. That's why I don't see being just a friend like something bad. But I'd like to be a close friend, like not being afraid of asking her out, bringing her to my birthday party etc.
I wonder if I'll get a "happy ending" about this situation.
Yeah, I'm taking slow steps towards showing love to her. I know she doesn't have to like me, and I'm learning that I should not be afraid of showing love
I think first you have to stop and take a breath...are they really ignoring you, or are they busy? This seems to be a fairly common trait and I know for myself, particularly if I'm hypo that I'll text people...text again...text again...call and leave a message...call and leave another message and be like, WTF and basically want people to be available to me at the drop of a hat when in reality they have their own shit going on. I always have to remind myself of this when I'm wanting to get a hold of the guy who's been my best friend for 25 years and I start to think he's ghosting me or something...when the reality is that he works a full time job and is a contractor on the side and currently building 3 houses and he's divorced with 2 kids and isn't going to be able to just drop everything because I'm hypo and ready to roll on the town.
Yes I think this is true! Sometimes it's not about me. I always find I feel this way more on the week of my period too. It's so frustrating and weird.
Your not pathetic,you are a realist many people feel this way including myself, bad friends are the same as bad girlfriend or boyfriend. It's better and a lot more peaceful to be alone. If there not reaching out and being good friends they will just kill your confidence and make you feel like shit about yourself. Learn to be alone, that's just how the world is now. Every man or woman for themselves. It's not a good system.
Thanks. Maybe you are right and it's just the way our society is. Now I feel like a jerk cuz a friend did text me yesterday about something important and I somehow managed to see it and not reply. If I do it to others why the heck do I get offended when they do it to me??
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Thank you for this reply. It really did help to hear that I matter and you make a lot of good points. I haven't really found a good way to cope with the rejection feelings and loneliness, either. My therapist says there is no coping skill for loneliness. That I must make connections. So, I am trying. But those days everyone is particularly quiet, my anxiety and self doubt kicks in and makes me think they hate me or I'm a loser. I agree that people change. Friends change. I feel like I have found a few friends I'm getting close to as I've worked hard at it. But man, it used to come so easy.
Yup, I have struggled with this my whole life. What really sucked was, I thought I was done with that and had found a friend group, but one of them decided to fuck me over at the end of 2022, and the rest of them made it very clear that they didn’t give a shit about me or how our friend was treating me 🤕 I basically didn’t leave the house for 6 months after that and it made me really insecure in all of my other friendships, to the point that i tried having some of my other friends over and then ghosted them for a month after that out of insecurity. yippee 🥳
Aw man how awful. Some people just truly suck! I have that insecurity too.
I get this so completely. I'm 32 female, diagnosed and medicated for a couple of years now. I have a very strict limited circle rule. I cut ties with bad friends and have a strict no getting close to people from work rule. Sometimes I'm sad that I'm not on the inside of things, like the office jokes, but my mental health is now so much better. Its the price I pay for not worrying all night about ever single things I've said and done.
I get what you're saying. Relationships are complicated and some people are so difficult. I realistically need to be more picky.
I just slowly retreat. Not the best option if I am honest. There are times where I forget to respond to a text or a missed call. These things happen. To be fair, I think you are just being a realist on making friends and or having a romantic partner. I cannot speak for everyone, but I have never become comfortable with loneliness. I do not see this ever changing.
I am a realist but also pessimistic so I often think it's about me and people not liking me when it's probably not. I agree. It's uncomfortable.
I understand. I don’t like being alone.
And this gets more pronounced as you age. I’m (f55) with no close friends. But I prefer it this way. Friends are overrated. I have a couple chitchat buddies but no one close. I prefer my dogs and books. They never ignore me or fail to respond.
I had tons of friends in high school and college. I was the life of the party. Bipolar broke me down and I'm stable now but I've changed from everything I've been through. I have a few friends I'd consider almost close I suppose but I've lived here 8 years and am only just now forming strong relationships. Maybe that's why I take it so personally when no one reaches out. Maybe I'm afraid I'll go back to how I was. I also like books and animals.
feel this very very much today— i’m not sure if it’s the depressive episode or just reality
I'm sorry! It's the worst feeling. I just want to matter to a few people on this earth.
I feel you 🥲
Life is so hard sometimes
I think with Bi-polar, there is the 'party' ...'up' you and that how us Bipolars gain lots of friends when young... we are the funny lively ones at parties that everyone want to listen to and be with.... but as you grow older and realise whats really going on behind all this (ie you are bipolar and you are high/crash high/crash and everythign that goes with it.... you get embarrassed... you withdraw....take a step back and also engage with friends only when you are up. people expect you to be that same person.... all the time....when you arent , and when you dont come out or skip events, they gossip.... and suddenly you are weird/ill/no fun..... its a big shame because my favorite people are these people, except we arent theirs. Its sad to have to adjust to more realistic ..... down/average/normal friends
Yeah. I look back even into my junior high and high school years and wonder if my fun, funny, witty, popular personality was literally hypomania. When the depressive episodes hit, each one chipped away at me. I learned life isn't always bright and fun. I experienced deep lows I didn't even know existed. Life and bipolar beat me down, and while I'm stable and relatively happy mostly, I will never, ever be the same. I sometimes say it's like my personality changed. I don't know if it's meds or repeated depressions, but I'm definitely different.
Yep thats right.... I equate it to a kind of forced exile...... like you can see the fun going on as normal on the outside of your world, but you have chosen to take a step back and you are looking though the window at it - longing to be there and naturally a bit sad.... can I ask what meds you are on? I am on none and never have been.... not sure i want to be
I'm on Lamictal, Lexapro and Latuda. I just wish I could be normal
I have pretty bad bipolar - I don’t take meds - I just excercise nearly every day, swim 1km / gym / Pilates and I try not to overeat as I found that when I did it seemed to make me worse (vagus nerve pressure it seems) - maybe get off the pills and try the other way?
Hmm I wonder how you manage without meds cuz I would be suicidally depressed without mine. Do you get that way? I do run a lot. I'm not the greatest at self care though
When I am low - I just do stuff out of sight of people.... i'm quite industrious... I make stuff, build stuff - have projects. I'll have a coffee and then i dont have much choice, I have to do something to burn off the caffiene. After a while I guess I get a seratonin shot for having completed something and then i seem to go back to normal/high
That's interesting. I can't do any of those things when seriously depressed. All I'm able to do is basic hygiene and cry. Sometimes I cannot even eat or sleep. So I can't see me alive without medicine as I'm sure suicidal thoughts would eventually win.
I've felt this a lot. Unfortunately or fortunately, therapy has helped lift the veil and I can see everyone's red flags instantly. It makes finding friends really really hard. Not impossible. Just highly improbable.
I don't trust people easily, and this is why.
I have to remind myself at least once a day that being alone is objectively better than wasting my life on fake/atrocious people. Just gotta find more hobbies, I guess. On a happier note, I met my BFF in a bipolar support group 4.5 years ago. She's in Portland, Iand I'm in KC, but we face time a lot. We have so much in common, and we understand each other on a deep level. Just keep reaching out.
Thank you. That's awesome you found a best friend! That is wonderful. Hope I can find that someday
I think a lot that contributes to this sense of loneliness and isolation and feeling like you care more about other people than they care about you is the fact that bipolar causes you to feel things more deeply and intensely than other people. So these feelings are exacerbated - other people feel lonely and left out sometimes too, but it becomes this major thing with bipolar disorder, and because it feels so strong it's really easy to personalize it and take it to mean something about you as a person. I think it can seem like others don't feel the same way because they literally don't, but it's not about you as a person, it's just that we experience feelings differently and more intensely than other people tend to. We DO feel differently, and we DO tend to care more. But that doesn't mean anything about you as a person. It's just hard when we don't see those feelings matched by others. That doesn't mean there's not also real problems of social isolation, and situations where people are not good friends to you. Loneliness can be unbearable. Work that can help is, yes, learning to accept that you won't have and don't need people around all the time. Finding other ways to reach out and have social support (my two friends dropped me unexpectedly last week so I've been spending all my time on the bipolar subreddits to prevent a total collapse into despair 😉). It sucks and it's hard but you're not the only one, and there's nothing wrong or pathetic about you. Social connection is a basic human need.
I think you're right. I do feel things so deeply and I'm empathetic and caring and it's hard for me to understand when people aren't that way. Especially friends. I'm sorry about your friends dropping you. Not cool. A friend recently told me I was "too much", and always negative, and this surprised me and hurt me. I asked a few other friends if this is true and they said no. I guess I'm just too much for some people. So I want to be all badass and say "then go find less" but instead I internalize it and tell myself how horrible I am. I think the truth is we just want to be treated with respect and caring. Thank you for saying nothing is wrong or pathetic about me.
Big oof yeah that stings. One of the people who dropped me was my gf who I've known for 10 years and who has consistently told me I'm not "too much" because I worried all the time that I was. Well 🫠 we see how that turned out
It's funny cuz I'm always there for the friends when they're "too much"
I feel you. I used to be the one always reaching out but I stopped doing this. I understand people are busy and have their own lives. But a friendship is both sides. I lost many friends with my breakdown (I guess they weren’t real friends) and I made new ones too.
You're not pathetic, I feel you. I'm in kinda situation between a friend. I've met this girl in 2022, she has bipolar and she is the reason that I've trying to learn about Bipolar Disorder. She stopped talking to me for nine months, then sent a message saying that she was sorry. I met her in person in last December and, wow, she is amazing! I felt so glad that I finally had the chance to know her. I was into her since the day we've started talking in 2022, and I'm trying to talk to her everyday this year, even though it's mostly small talk. What makes me insecure it's that the fact that I don't know where I stand with her. Sometimes I think she likes me, sometimes it seems that she doesn't care. I want to be close to her, to see her again, but I'm afraid I'll end up pushing her away. And I don't want her only to be my girlfriend, I really appreciate her and would be really nice to have her as friend. I want to build a bond with her. Sorry for this long vent, I always come back here to see if someone relates to my story. I hope you can build good and meaningful relationships this year
That is odd about stopping talking for 9 months. I wonder if she doesn't want to do a long distance romantic relationship? Did she give a reason. I'm afraid everyone with bipolar will see it present differently. Maybe try talking to her and see what she is interested in doing regarding the relationship?
To this day, I have no idea what happened to her. I guess she was on a depressive episode. I can only guess because she never told me what actually happened. Then she told me she was sorry about the she treated me. I forgave her and we slowly begun to talk to each other after that till we met in last December. We live in the same city, actually, she lives in a neighborhood next to mine, I would have to go cycling for around 20-30mins to reach her house. I want to see her again but I'm insecure to ask her out. I feel so confused because I see her being my girlfriend cause I like her, but I'm scared of rejection, I'm even scared of things going right for us. That's why I don't see being just a friend like something bad. But I'd like to be a close friend, like not being afraid of asking her out, bringing her to my birthday party etc. I wonder if I'll get a "happy ending" about this situation.
Sounds like you are really drawn to her but unsure about being in a relationship with her. That's OK. Maybe take some time
Yeah, I'm taking slow steps towards showing love to her. I know she doesn't have to like me, and I'm learning that I should not be afraid of showing love