Key points

People with bipolar disorder often use perfectionism to pursue a healing experience.

Rather than experiences being euphoric, mania or hypomania often stems from hope.

Grounding myself in gratitude helps me manage my tendency to fantasize and idealize.

As with so many other forms of mental illness, the common understanding of bipolar disorder is wrong in a meaningful way. People tend to think the syndrome entails heightened sensitivities to one’s environment, so that whatever makes most people sad makes the individual struggling with this illness depressed, and whatever makes most people feel happy makes them feel euphoric. However, that’s a surface-level understanding of it. And the reality is much more complex, interesting, and even more challenging.

Bipolar disorder I a

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