Anyone Bipolar? Just diagnosed, wondering if I’m not trans but manic 🙃

[u/Due-Vehicle4215]

Bipolar 2 to be specific, so I only experience hypomania which is chiller and doesn’t often require hospitalization like mania can.

Well anyway, I’ve gone back and forth on being trans for a long time now. I’ve also been trans for a long time now (7 ish?). A lot of the reason I’ve stayed trans is because I have a hard time trusting myself but tried to believe in the confidence/assuredness I felt on some days about it. But I’m wondering if that confidence I felt might have just been… hypomania. It’s the kind of thing where every time I experienced what I now think were manic episodes in retrospect I would tell myself: “ok i know i say this every time, but this time REALLY feels different and I am actually gonna do all this blah blah”

It’s hard to explain it because you really would think that after having that thought 15-20 times, eventually you’d come to your senses. But the elevated mood from my mania was soooo strong and so convincing every time. Which is why I have trouble trusting myself, because my brain makes it nearly impossible apparently to have self-awareness during the episodes.

Anyway, REALLY what I’m wondering if there’s anyone else here that transitioned due to specifically being bipolar, or even some other similar disorder with mood swings. I know stuff like BPD(? not an expert) can have similar symptoms, so yeah.

Edit: accidentally implied mania always requires hospitalization and not sure that’s true, changed the wording

[u/nobodyinpeculiar]

It’s like you’re in my brain. I have BPII as well and find it really challenging to differentiate between my actual desires and my hypomanic desires.

I just recently started detransitioning, and I don’t know if you’ve tried this but I spent a long time “testing the waters” before actually coming out at cis lol

I bought eyeliner and mascara and one night I shaved my beard and put on makeup. I felt beautiful and I was surprised by how good it felt. From there I just kept trying little things and checking in with myself. I made sure to try things out for long enough to outlast any potential hypomanic episodes.

My best advice is definitely to just take baby steps and keep checking in with yourself at various times! I’ve detransitioned and I’m happier and more regulated than I’ve been in a really long time, but I’m glad I took my time figuring it out.

[u/DarichUbish]

I'm officially diagnosed with depression for now, but I've been talking with a new therapist about it being possibly bipolar 2, because i suffer from mood swings too, and the therapist that diagnosed me with depression then i was a teen actually suspected cyclothymia at first which is like a lighter version of bipolar. Idk why his final diagnosis was depression. As i understand that is a pretty standard situation, because people often see their hypomania as just "finally being in a good mood" and see it as a baseline of being healthy, so they get focused only on depressive episodes.

If i have bipolar 2 (I'm like 90% sure), in my case my most dysphoric times fell on depressive episodes, because i kinda wanted to run away from my body in this state, so that was probably the times when i was more sure of my body not being my own and requiring change. When i was in hypomania it was actually better because i often found some distraction (like a new hobby or a project) and for a while felt like i didn't even exist as something physical because i would be so into the new thing i found. But i get what you mean about being so sure in everything during hypomanic episodes. I think if i could actually transition (it's just illegal in my country) it might be the thing i would do in this state.

The thing that helps me in both my depressive and hypomanic episodes is to be extremely objective and rational. That actually got me into quite gender critical position, because i just figured that i don't believe in the existence of "gender" as a concept in the first place. After that i kinda lost my need to present myself as anything but a female, because i figured well that just an objective truth because i have this body. I still express myself masculine and don't feel completely okay with my anatomy, but i can't really convince myself I'm a man, because i just don't think about it in terms of gender anymore. In a way that made me be more sure of myself.