What's Your Experience of Bipolar?

These are my thoughts on the other gem brought up at OOO, this one last Friday. Someone else with a BP II diagnosis said that they've always had the depression, they've always had the anxiety (mine came years after the depression as a direct result of my failures stemming from depression), but they always felt that there was something else hanging around in the back somewhere.

I couldn't have said it better myself. I've always felt as though people's perception of BP, people's experience of "typical" BP is one where everything is fluid and co-occurring, not one where everything is it's own distinct part, occurring completely independent of one another. Even if I am depressed and anxious at the same time or manic and anxious at the same time I still feel as though they are different parts, not coming from the same place deep inside of me, albeit related parts. Maybe they don't live in the same house, they're not roommates, but rather next door neighbors, or cousins. Does that make any sense at all? Way back when I was 15/16 I knew I was depressed, that much was crystal clear, but I always felt like there was something indescribable in another part of my brain lingering around and messing me up, which was wrongly blamed on my family dynamics.

[image description: 2 ski poles. bipolar, 2 poles, get it? HAHA]

That seemed to be exactly or very close to how this person was saying they feel as well. Or maybe I'm totally projecting my experience onto theirs. I don't know, but I think it makes for an interesting blog post either way. So I'm wondering what your BP brain feels like to you. How is it similar / different from mine? Are your boundaries blurry, or are they very clear? And how have you made sense of it all?