nothing average about me. normally I'm out going and hard to shut up....sometimes I just like to relax.

It's definitely challenging for everyone involved. Being bi-polar you can posess a lot of amazing qualities and talents that others can only imagine but you ultimately pay a big price for it. Mood swings like night and day.

Amen, brother. It's an amazing relationship, but if you like roller-coasters, well worth it. I tell people, "Whatever you're doin', if it ain't scarin' ya, you ain't doin' it right!"

Most mental disorders are a cursed gift IMO. They can give/unlock the mind in such amazing ways giving one great creativity, imagination, etc. But often times at a great price, instability, loniness, etc. JMO

And, forgive me the father of the admitted one, great sex.

Exactly...& THAT'S the delimma. Most bi-polar people resist medications. I've been on em' and then would feel completely flattened so I'd quit em' and bounce back and forth again. I didn't know HOW to be stable cuz' it felt weird and un-familiar to me.

Yeah, I know what that's like.

Throw drugs or alcohol into the mix and you got a recipe for disaster.

Yeah, I've been there a few times.

I wouldn't be anyone other than who I am. My illness isn't a curse. It's a source of creativity, epiphany, and comic relief. As an inventor, well, I'm sure you can see its immediate advantages. As long as I don't mix this brain with alcohol, I wont qualify to be on the Jerry Springer show, so it's all good.

Not sure, it depends on what you define as "average mood".

I'm pretty much average all the time. Know people that have bipolar...looks like it sucks really.

BiPolar can be a cruel and difficult condition to cope with. It is really agonizing for family and friends. If you are lucky and get yourself where having a good working relationship with your doctor and a few close friends you can trust to tell you when you aren't thinking straight you don't necessarily have to turn yourself into a zombie to keep from going to the wild extreams. New drugs and even existing drugs are being reformulated to help reduce side effects. It is true the drugs are serious and can be abused. The cost of not takeing the needed medication can be truely brutal; the saddest of course being the loss of life which can happen all to easily. That may be a personal choice but it always affects many other people. For that reason I would take the medication and feel average.

Not sure on that...I have mood swings and I'm not bipolar. Some doctors have said one of my boys is...not so sure that he is though. I'd rather see him during the highs, at least he is happy..

You'll still have high and lows. They just won't be as extreme.

My former wife was bi-polar and her refusing to take her meds is what ended our relationship. Not the only thing that ended it, but is really was the root of all our other troubles.

Lithium, has helped my daughter deal with hers....

Exactamundo! These people should not go anywhere near illegal drugs or alcohol. It turns their already existing problem which they are not taking meds for, into a nightmarish hideous monster. It's apparently called "self-medicating" and they are in fact accomplishing the oppposite of what they intended. I was with one of these tortured souls for 3 1/2 years, but in the end, she lost total control and walked out on me. Now she's someone else's problem.