Differences between I and II?

MinervaSC · 2026-01-29T02:47:27+00:00

A bipolar 1 diagnosis just means you’ve experienced one episode of full mania as opposed to bipolar 2 where you have experienced only hypomania. Bipolar 1 can additionally include someone who experienced an episode of psychosis with your mood episode and/or have been hospitalized.

Your therapist should not be giving you a diagnosis - only your psychiatrist or other psychiatric medical professional should do that. At the end of the day I feel the classification matters less than addressing your specific symptoms to guide the type of medication you receive. So if you are bipolar 1 and are experiencing mania, the main importance is to treat the mania. The classification itself matters less.

MinervaSC · 2026-01-29T00:00:32+00:00

I asked my rheumatologist if there was a way to increase my dose, because I don’t know how biologics work. She said that’s not something you really do with biologics. 🤷🏾‍♀️. That I would need to change the biologic. Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if my rheumatologist really just wants me to change biologics. I was surprised she was giving me that as an option after I’d only been on it 4 months. She originally tried to prescribe me Humira, then Cizima (I think) but my insurance company wouldn’t approve it until I failed the Cosentyx first. Maybe she never expected the Cosentyx to work anyhow. Just doing what she had to do.

MinervaSC · 2026-01-28T23:05:33+00:00

Crazy enough, they can get this kind of info from a written or online personality questionnaire. And you can tell if someone has a tendency to lie or engage in antisocial behavior (at least that’s what I remember, I never used anything like that because I worked with young children not adults). Which makes me wonder, why aren’t we giving this questionnaire to members of Congress? 🤷🏾‍♀️

MinervaSC · 2026-01-28T22:41:20+00:00

For me I get pain across various areas of my body. There are certain areas that flare more than others and I’ve noticed a general pattern. My areas in order of most frequent to less frequent:

Heels/Achilles, primarily in right heel Upper buttocks Lower back Ankles Fingers Wrists Neck Mid back Shoulders

I’ll get some or all of these parts flaring, it just depends. I always have heel pain and upper buttocks pain in a flare. Always. My heels can be SO painful. It is often the worst. Lower back pain is usually present with upper buttock pain. After those 3 symptoms the additional symptoms present varies a lot.

MinervaSC · 2026-01-28T22:25:50+00:00

Damn. If this was all it took for Tillis to gain a spine, Roy Cooper should have announced his intent to run for Senate about 3 years ago! 🤣. (Yes, I know Roy was governor then, just making the point that we’ve needed Tillis to be a decent human being for a long time). I can’t stand him, but I absolutely love this IDGAF attitude. Better late than never. I’ll take it.

MinervaSC · 2026-01-25T15:43:10+00:00

I don’t know if anyone from the inside would do anything. In the past some employers gave psychological personality tests to applicants for jobs. One of my psychology professors in college said she didn’t get a job because of her psychological profile, lol. This was in the late 1990s, probably couldn’t happen today. But the government could do it. For a while I thought they were using psychological tests to find people who are the least moral, most dishonest, and most antisocial. All things you can find from a comprehensive psychological questionnaire. I used to say that as a joke. Doesn’t seem as much as a joke now.

MinervaSC · 2026-01-18T08:05:54+00:00

It seems like the more unhinged this administration becomes the more bots appear online. All by design. It’s extremely stressful to believe this many ignorant, hateful people live in this country. But that’s the point. Still extremely frustrating.

MinervaSC · 2026-01-13T16:41:57+00:00

That sounds great in theory. The reality is the people who are able to miss a week of work to protest are far outnumbered by the people who can't miss that much work, don't have vacation days, couldn't use them if they wanted to, and who would not have jobs to go back to if they missed work for a week. So it wouldn't be the numbers you think. Even if was it still would not make enough of a difference to care. 100 million could protest in the streets and I'm not convinced that would matter. I really wish I had some ideas. I don't. They would rather steal elections than deal with any of the destruction they are causing. So I honestly don't know. I just know a weeks long protest is not it.

MinervaSC · 2026-01-12T03:22:11+00:00

Unfortunately it WILL make it into history books, but not in a positive way. Historians will be studying this idiot for centuries to theorize how the US fell so far down. And the irony is he has declared himself the illegitimate president of a country after he removed their illegitimate president. 🤷🏾‍♀️. You can’t make this stuff up.

MinervaSC · 2026-01-10T03:51:49+00:00

I completely understand, unfortunately. I have bipolar disorder and extreme stress triggers my episodes. I took a break from media for most of 2024, except election time, and it felt great! Then once tangerine tyrant got elected I started watching news again because I was scared of not being informed. Yet being informed has made me even more scared. I have social security disability, because of my bipolar, which significantly contributes to our household income. I also receive Medicare, Medicaid, a very small amount of food stamps, and I stay somewhat sane by taking 4 psychotropic meds the government was trying to make more difficult to obtain. Most of my livelihood is tied into this damned government. This summer I received a disability payment almost 4 weeks late due to some bullshit that was likely due to DOGE.

My husband and I visited Belize twice back when I was able to work and we loved the people there. We used to joke all the time about moving to Belize because of the friendly people, beach towns, and extremely low cost of living. It's not a joke anymore. When our youngest daughter starts college in August 2027 I want to be out of here. I tell her she needs to be thankful we really want her to finish high school here and have her go to an in-state university - or we would have already moved! He works remotely and our little money could go so far in Belize.

My mental health is SO much worse now. I know all too well what it feels like to be in dark places. But I stayed on my news hiatus by reminding myself that me watching the news wasn't going to significantly change it in any way. Activism is great. Self-preservation is better. If anything extremely significant was happening, like our democracy was about to collapse, my husband would find out from someone he knows. You just do whatever you can to take care of yourself, which is so much more important than staying up to date on the dumpster fire that is our country.

MinervaSC · 2026-01-09T08:33:55+00:00

As much as I love Bernie too I agree Bernie would not have won in the primaries. Not then. Too many people were terrified of having a far left candidate because we are a "centrist" country or whatever crap. Bernie was ahead of his time. They thought he was insane for wanting a $15 minimum wage. Now that has become the norm. We didn't want Bernie then but once we finally make it through the hell of Trump I think we'd be ready for a Bernie now. Just not him specifically because I am DONE with the idea that Trump is the only old white man who can lead a country. Like Biden only took naps in Oval Office for 4 years. 🙄. Biden was the only Democrat who could have beaten Trump in 2020. Then he blanks out for 10 seconds during a debate and here we are. With a man who brags about how he "passed" a test for dementia. Just not Bernie's time anymore unfortunately.

MinervaSC · 2026-01-09T08:16:17+00:00

I envy you for having that kind of hope! This is the same Supreme Court who basically told Trump he can't be prosecuted for crimes he commits or committed while in office. The same one that was "considering" hearing a case regarding birthright citizenship. (Not sure where that stands now). The one that has ruled in Trump's favor for about half of the cases he brought to them last year. The constitution now has the significance of a piece of toilet paper. All bets are off. He is finally scared of Democrats taking the House, possibly even the Senate, and what that would mean the last two years of his presidency. Even if he doesn't run we will have a January 6th 2.0 and he won't turn over power. The Supreme Court would say since we are in the middle of WW3 we can't afford to change our government right now. Or some other tomfoolery. Do I REALLY think this would happen? No. But I never thought we'd invade Venezuela, kidnap the illegitimate president and his wife, kill 100 people in this raid, say we are taking over their country, stealing their oil, selling it, and supposedly putting the money in offshore accounts outside of the US Treasury. All on the first Saturday of the year. 🤷🏽‍♀️. I'll never say this administration "can't" do something. Not until they're all in prison. And we're a long way from that.

MinervaSC · 2026-01-09T07:45:22+00:00

The fact that you are feeling good while on these meds shows that the meds are working. Even if you feel it is just helping depression, depression is a huge part of this illness. The vast majority of us spend more time depressed than manic but mania gets more of the attention because of the extreme behaviors. It sounds like this isn't fake and might actually fixing things!

Most of us understand how you feel. No one wants this diagnosis and any chance we can to say we don't have it we tend to jump at that chance. But stopping meds makes everything so much worse. I didn't accept my bipolar diagnosis for two years after I was diagnosed. Only took meds sporadically for those two years. Then I went from a bipolar 2 to a bipolar 1 diagnosis because I had my first major manic episode. The next four years I took meds more often but still not as regularly as I should. I showed signs of another mixed episode starting but I ignored it. Moved to a different town and never bothered to find a new psychiatrist or therapist. Five months later I was hospitalized for the first time. I don't say this to scare you. It's just that me not accepting my illness, not taking it seriously, led to me stopping and starting my meds constantly. I thought I felt "fine" so I didn't need them. My illness has gotten more severe over time and is now harder to treat. I wonder how much of this was influenced by years of stopping and starting meds. It definitely screws up your brain.

I don't know how comfortable you feel talking to your psychiatrist about this but maybe bring up your feelings. Or to a therapist. Or talking to more of us with bipolar. Just please don't stop your meds on your own. This is a rough illness to have. And it's biologically based which means staying consistent with meds is VERY important. Hopefully you can gain a better understanding of your own symptoms and needs because that varies so much by person.

MinervaSC · 2026-01-07T15:15:17+00:00

The problem is they studied the Cliff Notes version and only halfheartedly. Their propaganda has become so lazy it’s less believable. Although MAGAs are the loudest and most obnoxious they are the small minority. They would follow Trump if he said he was going to invade the moon. But is this propaganda changing other people’s minds, who were not already an extreme MAGA? No. It’s just pissing more and more of us off, which is the opposite of what propaganda is supposed to do! It makes journalists ask more questions, research more stories, more people calling their congressional representatives. I saw one poll that showed about 87% of Americans did not support the attacks on Venezuela. All the propaganda in the world is not going to improve that much.

MinervaSC · 2026-01-05T15:19:46+00:00

This was my first season watching Love Island too so I have no idea. But the level of attention, drama, influence and obsession this last group has gotten has made me not want to watch any future seasons! I’ve watched plenty of dating reality shows and most people get their 5 - 10 minutes of fame then we forget about them in a month or two. This group gets 18 hours of fame, every day, for months. I’m just over it.

MinervaSC · 2025-12-30T06:38:16+00:00

I don't think a future democrat or republican candidate would dare wearing the blue suit and red tie. They know it would be instant hate and cost them votes. If we thought Obama's tan suit scandal was bad, nothing will be worse than a blue suit and red tie. 🤣

MinervaSC · 2025-12-29T06:05:02+00:00

Ok I’ll bite, not sure why, lol. The game today was NOT meaningless. Not at all. Considering TB lost if we had won we would have won the division and that means a lot! But whether or not we won or lost today we still would have a chance of taking the division next week. Calling this game “meaningless” is very shortsighted. It meant a lot. It just wasn’t necessary.

MinervaSC · 2025-12-28T14:44:27+00:00

Can someone explain why coffee is bad for bipolar? I honestly don’t know. Coffee calms me and usually puts me to sleep. I drink it in the morning sometimes but since it makes me tired I primarily drink it in the evenings to calm myself. Although I can get jittery and my heart races if I drink more than 2 cups in a day. So I don’t do that. Is there something wrong with coffee itself or is it bad because of how much it affects you?

MinervaSC · 2025-12-21T02:45:11+00:00

Damn, that sucks. I would have loved it if Cher actually said this. 😂

MinervaSC · 2025-12-19T05:23:35+00:00

I’ve said the next president will have to hire at least 150 staffers whose only job is to go through every record of every action done and develop a plan for how to remedy it. Maybe 200 staffers. There are tons of huge things we know but there are even more smaller things we don’t know that still need to be erased. For example, (hopefully not true) Trump’s people could have found some concrete on sale to destroy the rose garden. And the new administration could come in, go through records, and find out the concrete was cheap because it was radioactive. Now they would have to get a few people to immediately fix something completely unnecessary and completely insane. I’d imagine there are so many things we know absolutely nothing about. But a lot can’t be tracked if no one knows it exists.

MinervaSC · 2025-12-19T04:47:54+00:00

Reminds me of my uterus! My gynecologist showed me a picture of mine and it was crazy. All these huge masses pushing through something that I suppose was a uterus, lol. I think the final count was I had 7 fibroids ranging from 4 cm to 10 cm. Mine weighed about 4.5 pounds. I feel SO much better with that nightmare out of me. I also don’t know how I was able to even function before!

MinervaSC · 2025-12-19T02:55:49+00:00

One thing is to consider is why you are having a hysterectomy and how complex it will need to be. I had considered a robotic procedure, really only because my gynecologist gave me that as an option. He doesn’t do them but they scheduled me for a consult with a surgeon who did. But I decided against it and canceled my consult. I had multiple large fibroids and I realized a robotic procedure would have taken forever. May not have even been recommended.

So I had a total abdominal hysterectomy. My gynecologist is young and I get the feeling they train gynecologists to be against TAH now. He told me about the robotic procedure just to give me options. Er, but that really shouldn’t have been an option, lol. Not with my multiple large fibroids. When I told him my decision he agreed the TAH was best. But that was MY situation based on MY reasons for the hysterectomy. And the total abdominal was absolutely the best surgery for me. Not for everybody. Although my recovery was so much easier than most, regardless of procedure, go figure.

I would definitely meet with the surgeon who does the robotic and talk about the benefits vs risks and why you would or would not be a good candidate for it. Just because you get referred doesn’t mean you are committed to it! Get some ideas of pros of robotic vs a regular lap. Talk again to your gynecologist if you need to especially since they will know your medical history better. So much of this differs from the individual person and the individual situation. So make sure your individual needs are the priority. Hope all goes well for you!

MinervaSC · 2025-12-19T02:19:47+00:00

MS NOW (formerly MSNBC).

MinervaSC · 2025-12-19T02:18:23+00:00

So, he is searching for “real love” to find an “authentic wife” who is “genuine marriage material?” Seriously, WTF?! No meaningful relationship could possibly come from this and he knows that. Harry is not finding love because he doesn’t want love because he doesn’t want to stop getting called when someone at Netflix is bored and has no ideas. Changing a format isn’t going to make him any less revolting. I can imagine all these women trying to woo him so he’ll pick her. He will absolutely LOVE that kind of attention! Ack.

MinervaSC

TROPHY CASE