Maybe it’s just me, but I find the bipolar depression after a hypomania to be much worse than your average, daily depression. Post-hypomania depression is the way you pay for a hypomania (at least for me) and hypomania is very, very expensive.

I have this thing, and I don’t know if it’s the bipolar, specifically, but I get wired and tired at the same time and it sure feels bipolar-y to me.

I get asked about the sex life of the bipolar on a regular basis. People want to know what’s “normal” or can they have that mythical “normal” sex life. Some of these people are partners of people with bipolar and others are the people with bipolar themselves. It seems we’re all a bit mystified as to how this mental illness affects our sex lives. Well, I can’t say what is normal for you, but I can tell you what I know about bipolar and sex.

This article is a continuation from Multi-Polar - The Many Moods of Bipolar Disorder part one.

Recently a reader asked me to describe the moods of bipolar disorder in my own words. OK, I thought, but a lot has been written (by me and others) about depression, mania and hypomania before. But then I thought about it and realized that there were actually many moods in bipolar disorder and just saying there are “up” and “down” moods sort of does a disservice to everyone struggling with bipolar disorder.

The name “bipolar disorder” is seemingly self-explanatory. It’s disorder involving the two poles of emotion – depression and mania or hypomania. People often think of this as the poles of “sad” and “happy.” But as any person with bipolar disorder can tell you, mania or hypomania is not necessarily happy at all.

I have said it again and again, what goes up, must come down and it usually does so with a resounding thud. A crater. An impact that puts you lower in the ground than before you started. In other words, a depression. And that’s the problem with hypomania. For many people the hypomania itself really isn’t a huge deal (although for some hypomania in and of itself is damaging) but the period afterwards is devastating. It’s the hypomania hangover.

Recently a doctor stopped by my blog and asked about types of thoughts people with bipolar disorder have. Specifically, he was asking about "crowded" thoughts. Crowded thoughts are likened to "too many people jammed into this office." Crowded thoughts constitute the experience of having too many thoughts at one time. So it got me to thinking, what are the types of thoughts and what types of thoughts are typical for bipolar disorder.

Sex is a basic human drive. We want to eat. We want to sleep. And we want to have sex. These are the things that bring us pleasure in life. Almost everything boils down to those three things. But unfortunately, bipolar disorder and bipolar medication can affect all three. Bipolar disorder and its associated medication can make you eat. Or make you not eat. It can make you sleep. Or it can make you not sleep. And it can affect your sex life the same way. But for some reason, doctors often take the effect on your sex life least seriously.

As someone recently said to me, Halloween should be a national holiday. It should be the "wear-something-fun-and-gorge-yourself-on-candy" day. It should be just a national day of fun when we're not supposed to be giving thanks or making love or hiding eggs. I could get behind that. There are two reasons why Halloween is so fun: 1.       You get to dress up and pretend to be someone else 2.       You get to eat ridiculous amounts of candy and get a ludicrous sugar high Well welcome to everyday bipolar disorder.