Honestly I think the cat is just being a cat, they let you know if something is bothering them or if they want something. Also cats don’t really have facial expressions so telling from looks is hard, but if you around a cat enough you can get a feel. Also you can trust a cat to get up and leave if the want to ( if they feel safe)

If this response it too long, don’t feel pressured to reply

The whole missing bipolar is so real. It looks like so many other things that it’s hard to say where bipolar begins and other things end. Also the book BIPOLAR, NOT SO MUCH was really helpful for me understanding bipolar and how I recognized it for myself. It has some useful tricks as well. One that I use is blackout curtains as having time in the dark really helps with mood episodes(even if you don’t sleep/ it doesn’t cure them), now I sleep in the dark whenever possible and it has really helped

The journaling helped me convince the psychiatrist that I saw. I was like hey, I’ve been having sleep issues and quite a bit of bipolar symptoms, and it’s making my life suck. She made me journal for like 2 weeks while we started lamotrigine but if I hadn’t had my initial log of symptoms it likely would have taken much longer. For me personally I never felt like I was depressed so it would not have made sense to talk about my symptoms. Like when I spent a month going to bed at 5am and waking up at 7am because I was organizing the house all night, I wouldn’t even think to mention it , because that definitely was not depression and just felt like a natural thing to do in the moment. My psychiatrist also tried to get me to explain what I thought was hypomania and because I couldn’t explain it, they gave me the helpful description of a buzz or feeling g like crawling out of your skin, which I related to more than the other possible symptoms like feeling pressured or to some degree risk taking. In hindsight, especially now that meds are working should have been a sign that something was up if I wasn’t so wrapped up in hypomania I might have noticed.

Journaling helped because I would write stuff like that and believe it was perfectly normal and now I’m just like wtf when I read what I thought was a regular day with regular emotions. Now the few moments of break through hypomania (still putting the finishing touches on meds) I get the buzz which I used to think was enjoyable and now I actively dislike along with the euphoria. For me once I experience stability there was no going back. And for me the meds are life or death, so I take them even when I skip other meds. I was pretty scared about it at first because being dependent for life on a med that you can’t miss a dose for (talk to psychiatrist about exact details as there may be more detail or more rules for different meds) is really scary. But for me now having actual control over my mind and being connected to reality is worth taking lamotrigine as one of the most serious thing in my life. Like I have legit been hypomanic and not eating or sleeping and still taking it because it is my lifeline. What surprised me the most was how much I really really don’t want to go back to hypomania (I cannot say this enough) that now even when I feel I don’t want to take my meds it’s non negotiable for me as well.

Also about confirmation bias, I felt the same way that I was just looking for bipolar symptoms, but for me at least, mood episodes lead to such an altered state of mind that you might only get a small piece of it and that it actually might be more intense than you believe in the moment. The aha moment was when I had a hypomania bordering on psychotic when I first suspected bipolar and it was pretty short. So like at the end of the week I looked at my journal and was like oh this is actually really clear, but like other times it just felt like the flow of life with just enough detachment from reality to not realize it was happening.

Nice! It’s great that you also have someone experienced (both wife and doctor). I imagine it makes dealing with all of it so much better, for me it was a good psychiatrist that listened. Bipolar symptoms can be hard to catch for people that don’t know what to look for. I get mixed episodes so it doesn’t even feel like what people describe as depression, which made putting it all together take a while.

Also taking meds is so weird, like now I am almost done titrating, and every time I get a little hypnotic I remember how much better life on meds is. It’s just strange because bipolar meds are more stabilizing than anything so if they work it actually feels like they are not doing much. It might be helpful to do some journaling if you still have hypomanic/depressive episodes, that is what helps me when I think “are these meds doing anything” and I look back to stuff I wrote and my past experience, and I am like nope, not going through that again. For me meds also were not optional because from my limited reading bipolar is degenerative and I was wayyyy too close to the edge. Also unlike depression that is caused by something, the only way out is with medication.

I swear Lamotrigine feels like a literal miracle for me, and now I just kind of have all of regular life to deal with instead of having to constantly cope with mood episodes.

All that to say that you have a lot to look forwards to :)

Also as another note, bipolar tends to run a families and can be frequently paired with adhd so you might want to look into it if it speaks to you at all.

Bipolar II gets so much better/ manageable on meds. Congrats on figuring it out, that is a massive accomplishment. If you can, find someone that either specializes or treats bipolar as finding the right med can be a journey but so worth it.

Ty for your work in this thread o7

Also I wish people used manic correctly as it made me identifying it for myself take way longer than it should. Mania isn’t just being an asshole and if someone is actually manic they need immediate intense care. Like go to a hospital if it’s really bad. Even less intense mania still needs care, even milder forms of mania are no joke.

That being said it could also be other mental health stuff, but people still do have a responsibility to get treated if they have the means to do so. Also some things really don’t have an easy treatment but it’s really frustrating when there is some mental health thing and it just gets called mental health disorder of the day instead of actually figuring out what it is

Yes, and learning more about autism has been game changing for me. Now I know that burnout can and will happen and that I’ll likely need more time than I think I do

To be fair, cats are big on consent, and they make it clear when they do or do not want to be petted

That’s a wild bus factor though

A lot was already mentioned, so I’ll just add a couple of things. One resource I used to help me understand if I was trans was https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/

Laser can be very euphoric, and if you have the right skin tone/ hair color it can be very effective. Also, lots of places have packages that go on sale or Groupons.

voice training is something you can do wherever you are in your transition, and depending where you are / what insurance you can get a speech language pathologist that specializes (or at least is familiar with) in trans voice training.

Also adding on to the other suggestions about clothing, just be aware that your body changes shape on E, so clothing may start fitting differently as time passes if you end up doing hrt. For me trying cloths before hrt was not as euphoric until after my body started changing shape so if you do hrt it is something to look forwards to. It also can take a while for changes and they don’t necessarily happen in the same order for everyone. For me my boobs started growing in the first month but now it’s been over a year and I have just started noticing fat redistribution in my legs and face.

Social changes are similar and it’s up to you how quickly or slowly you go. For me it was a lot of pressure to explain to people what I was doing (especially because I am not doing a purely binary transition) and one of the best pieces of advice I got is that you don’t owe anyone, including people close to you, answers until you are ready to give them. Similarly you don’t have to be the one to explain what being trans means to you to every person that asks you. Overall, although it can be challenging, transitioning at your own pace can be really fun as you figure things out and get to decide a lot about who you are