maturity before bipolar and after bipolar

I started to realize that while I was in mania , or should I say pre bi polar diagnosis ( my originial diagnosis was extreme anxiety with clinical depression) that I was 100000% more creative then I am now and that for some reason which doesnt make sense to me is that iI seemed more mature. I was manic/ drepressed from 17-22. I dont know if I seemed more mature because I just didnt care what other people said and marched to my own beat but i have noticed now that I dont seem that mature. Im 24 years old. Its like my friends have this constant calm around them which makes them seem more mature then theres me , like I dont understand. I have always wondered if being diagnosed with bi polar has brought out my true personality and the pre bi polar was just my brain being ###$ up.

Can anyone else relate? I feel like this person I am now isnt the person I want to be.

I can relate to this.

Per diagonoses of Bipolar in 2011, I was a completely different person. I was completely erratic in my behaviour. I was drinking and partying all the time, even of I had work the next day or it was a Monday. I just didn't care about being responsible for anything. I gave all my money to my wife to pay the bills and look after me. I just didn't want to deal with it all. I miss that person, but I did a lot of really f###ed things. I treated my friends and family like crap. I completely checked out of my marriage, I decided to do the one thing that I knew would end it, and that was cheating on her with the one person she hated the most. When she found out, I took my chance and left, not only the marriage but the state as well. I was away for a couple of months and came back because I had burned through the $5000 that I had in the bank.

I ended up trying to destroy everything in my life that was stable because I wasn't.

Before the medications I would spend most every night huddled over a computer or notebook. I was extremely creative and I wrote all the time, so much so that I carried a small notebook with me where ever I went because I never knew when I might start writing. I could see at the time that I only used to write when I was in a depressive episode. Now I barely write, the creativey is still there, but I can't seem to make sense of the whirlwind in my head anymore

Now, after the diagonoses and medication, I am stable. It took a lot of time and effort. I worked things out with my wife, that has been a long road, one that I was more than happy to do. One of the conditions for me returning to the marriage was that I needed to get help. Which lead to me finding out about the Bipolar.

I have grown up so much since then. I still have the times when I just want to blow off work and go to the pub and drink the day away, and sometimes I do.

Just because you have had to become mature, doesn't mean that it is a bad thing. Sure being stable is the best thing for me and everyone around me, but when those episodes kick in, man do I enjoy the hell out of them.

Hope this helps.

Landor

I can relate, 100%. I thought at 11 years old, I had it all figured out - as hard as my life might have been, I think I was doing a good job. Then when they gave me my first "medication" that only messed me up (antidepressants without a mood stabilizer), things only got worse. Over the next several years I received every single diagnosis, took all kinds of medication, nothing ever worked. Now that I too am 24, I guess I could say it was a learning experience, but all these problems kept hitting me and I had very few options on how to deal with them. So I just ended up worse and worse.

In terms of maturity I have found I am more mature after diagnosis and some time down the line. I am not sure if this is because I have had a lot of therapy and also a lot of life experience before getting more stable or if it is just growing up or a combination of those things but I think I am more mature now than I was pre and immediately post diagnosis.

Cracked

I think we all mature after the diagonoses, either with or without meds, because we are faced with such a daunting reality. Because of that, I made a lot of changes in my own life. I got rid of the people who would drag me down, I quit the soul sucking job that I hated, I worked at, and still working at, understanding my emotions (I never showed them before, I would bottle them up and push them down). But because of all of that, I am a better person, husband, friend and employee.

Before we live a life that is carefree and have the ability to not care about our actions.

Afterwards we are faced with the life of living with something that we know about but can't control. It makes you look back on your life and you notice when it has made you act out or how it has controlled you.

But being mature about the illness is not such a bad thing. I now know how to gauge my moods and work with them rather than fight them, which is what I used to do before and that made them worse.

It takes a lot of time and effort to become the person that the illness will make you. Hell I am still working at it.

I think that this is a really interesting question. Personally, I got my official diagnosis relatively early in life, at the age of 16 (and I'm now 28). From around 14, I was pretty much certain I had some form of mental illness, I just didn't know exactly what I was dealing with. So, the knowledge of my own bipolar and my struggles with it, have loomed large over almost half of my life.

Pre-diagnosis, I was always a serious, studious, highly sensitive person. I was also extremely creative and productive in terms of writing and academically. This may have arguably marked me as more 'mature' than most of my peers. However, I suppose my extreme perfectionism, idealism and black-and-white thinking could be seen as signs of immaturity.

Since diagnosis I've had to become more mature in many ways (as LandorAiel says, the reality we face is daunting). I've had to become much more responsible in terms of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, reducing stress and working on my emotions through therapy etc.

I also feel that bipolar has given me such extreme experiences, difficulties, and unique perspectives that I've developed, in some ways, a deeper insight into myself than the average person.

However, right now, I feel my illness is making me outwardly less mature than people of my age as I haven't been able to progress in life as quickly (especially in terms of work and relationships). It's really frustrating and demoralising having so many bipolar-related setbacks, particularly as I'm naturally driven. I'm hoping that the inner strength this illness forces us to develop will get me where I want to be-eventually! x

CrackedGirl wrote:In terms of maturity I have found I am more mature after diagnosis and some time down the line. I am not sure if this is because I have had a lot of therapy and also a lot of life experience before getting more stable or if it is just growing up or a combination of those things but I think I am more mature now than I was pre and immediately post diagnosis.

Well put. Thanks. I agree.

I used to consider my self an "old soul" I was very mature at a young age. I was also diagnosed when I was fairly young (16). Now that I'm a bit older, I feel that I'm less mature than many of my friends as having to deal with BP has left me not able to learn the skills that most people do throughout their 20's. (I'm 28 now) My concentration has been almost solely on maintaining as stable a mood state as possible, or chasing the fun emotions that hypomania brings. This didn't leave much room for learning other things such as how to be responsible with your finances, or how to have a stable relationship with open, honest communication etc. Now I feel as though I'm behind the curve and I need to do some catching up.

Yes, I very much relate to feeling/being LESS mature post diagnosis. I've been wondering about this a lot lately. I work in an office environment (my first "real job" I guess you could say), and when I'm hypomanic I have absolutely no filter when I talk, and I make a lot of dumb jokes. When I'm "Stable," no one notices because my hypomania is louder than my more mature days. I'm beginning to recognize these moods, and in them I try my best to remember "better to remain silent and be thought a fool say than to speak up and remove all doubt."

I am definitely known for being absent minded though, good days and/or bad.

I turned old in the last years.

I have two experiences that shaped me as I am now. One was about eight years ago, when I was already diagnosed with depression but not yet with bipolar. With three friends we went camping. We were staying by a river, picked up a lot of wood, had a bonfire and listened to crickets until 3am or so. We loved the experience so much, the peacefulness and quiet, that we decided to do it again, only this time all night. So we gathered LOTS of wood, prepared food and drinks and got ready... but around 10pm three cars full of teenagers arrived, parked right by (even though I went and asked them to move... yeah... 15 teenagers will totally listen), started pumping out very loud techno music... The kids were shouting "hey! pour faster, we have to be home by 1 and I want to be ----faced!" -- they were doing vodka shots. After about an hour of this torture we overheard them talking about going to our camp, beating us up and stealing our wood -- of course those lovely yoof wouldn't bother gathering any. We gathered our tent and escaped into the dark to a place we've seen earlier, no wood, no fire, no river, but also no broken teeth.

The second experience was going out about a year ago. Already knowing that I can't drink, do drugs, that I should watch my sleep, I decided to pick up a really promising party. And so me and my boyfriend went. Music was the WORST. I don't know if I had such bad music at a party ever before. The crowd was pumped full of drugs, sweaty, zoned out. We were sober, grossed out by the sweaty bodies and missed our beds. Around 2am we said to each other "can we go home now, PLEASE?" and left.

So here I am, not 37 yet, wanting to retire to the country and live in silence and peace, surrounded by nature, and my idea of a fantastic party night involves a big campfire, a few friends talking quietly and going to sleep early having drunk a few pints of green tea. I think I matured indeed.