The quiet weight of living with bipolar disorder
There are things I do not talk about.
Not with my friends, my family, or even with myself on most days. Some things sit in the back of my throat, heavy and unspeakable, and after a while, the silence around them becomes a kind of protection. A habit. A second skin.
I have always been good at keeping things neat and curating what people see. I am the kind of daughter who makes relatives proud at reunions. The kind of friend who listens more than she speaks. The kind of person who, on paper, is put together, promising, and untroubled.
But there are nights when I do not sleep at all. Three days pass and my body is still moving, still jittering, still running on some invisible fuel that should have run out long ago. I rearrange my bookshelf in the middle of the night. I start projects I never finish. I talk too fast, think too fast, eat too much. Then, just as suddenly, the switch flips.
I stop replying to messages. Stop showering. Stop leaving my bed. People ask, “Where have you been?” and I don’t know how to explain that I have been nowhere, that I have disappeared inside myself, that I am a body sinking into sheets and silence. I think, “I should eat,” but I don’t. “I should answer that text,” but I don’t. The weight of everything is unbearable, and yet I wake up each morning and bear it again.
The one time I told my mother my diagnosis, it was like she chose to forget it the next day. Maybe she heard it, processed it, and decided it was something that happened to other people. Not to her daughter. Not to the person she raised to be capable, high-achieving, and well-adjusted. Not to the daughter she could be proud of. If she does not acknowledge it, does it cease to exist? And if I don’t name it, does it become something else?
I keep my disease locked away, tucked beneath half-truths and omissions. But silence is its own kind of burden, and I am tired of carrying it alone.
My mother messages me in the middle of the day to check in. She tells me to take better care of myself. She sends me videos about holistic remedies, mindfulness, and natural ways to fix what she assumes is just insomnia. I do not have the heart to tell her that this is not something tea can fix. That the medicines aren’t just so I can sleep; they’re so I can live another day.
And yet, I cannot always trust my mind.
There are days when I believe things that are not real. When my own thoughts betray me. I hear and see things that others do not. I know this is a symptom. I know my mind is lying to me. And yet, in the moment, it feels as real as the ground beneath me.
How do you explain that to someone?
How do you explain that your own brain turns against you? That you can be so sure of something and later realize it was never real? That sometimes, you hear things that aren’t there, or wake up convinced that the world is unraveling, only to be told it was all in your head?
My friends confide in me about their struggles. They talk about their therapists, their medications, their diagnoses. I listen, I sympathize, and I tell them they are strong. When they ask me about my own mental health, I say something vague—“Oh, I have a mood disorder”—and then steer the conversation elsewhere. It is not a lie. It is just not the whole truth.
The first psychiatrist called it one thing. The next psychiatrist called it another. “Type I. No, wait, maybe Type II.” I nodded both times, accepting the new labels like I was collecting souvenirs from a life I did not want to claim. They adjusted my prescriptions. I swallowed their trial and error. I learned how to talk about it clinically, in detached fragments, in words that never quite settled into my skin.
Because the truth is, I am afraid of what people will see when I say it out loud. Afraid that my mother will hear it and decide it is not real. Afraid that my friends will hear it and think of me differently. Afraid that if I name it, it will consume me.
Afraid, because this diagnosis follows me everywhere.
When I applied for life insurance, I mentioned my condition, thinking that honesty was the responsible thing to do. My application was approved, but only partially—accidents were covered, but not illness. If I died, there would be no payout for my family unless it was an accident. Mental illness, I learned, makes you uninsurable in the ways that matter.
I try to register for a Person with Disability (PWD) ID, but the process is exhausting. The requirements are unclear, the system is slow, and every step feels like a test to prove that my condition is real enough to deserve recognition. I submit documents, secure medical certificates, and wait in lines—only to be met with skepticism.
And even if I do get it, the questions never stop. “Are you sure you qualify?” “You don’t look disabled.” “You seem fine to me.” As if disabilities must always be visible. As if struggling quietly makes the struggle any less real. As if the legitimacy of my condition depends on whether or not people can see it.
And relationships—how do you explain that keeping them is hard? That some days, you are present, engaged, and trying your best, while on other days, even replying to a message feels impossible? That maintaining connections takes energy you do not always have?
How do I say, I want to be loved, but I do not know if I can be easy to love?
Therapy helps. Medication helps. But both come at a cost—one that is not just emotional, but financial. Sessions add up. Prescriptions change. The expenses pile on, month after month, and there is no end date, no moment when you are “cured.” Just the ongoing effort to stay afloat, to manage, to survive.
So I keep my disease locked away, tucked beneath half-truths and omissions. But silence is its own kind of burden, and I am tired of carrying it alone.
What if the weight I have been carrying is not the illness itself, but the silence around it?
I take a breath.
I open my mouth.
I try to say it.
The word sticks in my throat.
But maybe, someday, I will be able to say it without fear.
And maybe, someday, it will not feel like something I have to hide.
