Feeling very isolated, down and lonley

I have bipolar 1, @LFS. It was diagnosed about 2009. Before that I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety alone since 1990. So, yeah, a long time. I was miserable a lot as a child too, and very anxious and alone.

How about you, @LFS, have you been unwell a long time?

Okay that is a very long time @Mazarita. In early 2008 I was diagnosed with major depression and then in early 2010 I was diagnosed with major depression and psychosis with negative symptoms

I’ve been unwell since early 2008 @Mazarita

Okay, @LFS. I take quite a few medications, one for psychosis as well.

@LFS, speaking of which, I forgot to take my meds earlier this evening. The day has been intense here, slipped my mind. Back soon if you want to keep chatting for a while. Do you usually stay up later at night?

Have you been able to work since you’ve been unwell and been able to have romantic relationships @Mazarita. I’m 28 and would love to have a girlfriend that would lead to marriage and kids. I was going well from August 2010 and was regularly working from then until November 2013. But my Dad put a enormous amount of pressure on me to do a lot of work I wasn’t capable of due to my mental illnesses and how sedating my medication was that was requiring me to sleep 10 hours on average a day. I became unwell when my Dad worked me into the ground and wouldn’t let me get the rest I needed. I told him I needed more rest for over 3 years and he kept putting enormous pressure on me to keep working extremely hard. My medication has now been well and truly doubled and I have to sleep at least 12 hours a day to feel any good

Yes @Mazarita. It’s very hard to have normal sleeping patterns with my mental illnesses?

I haven't worked since I got the bipolar 1 diagnosis, @LFS. That was 2009. I slept for 20 hours a day for at least nine months at that time. Prior to that, throughout my life, I had multiple breakdowns from work. The stress has been too much for me, and the pace of things, the pressure I put on myself, and the pressure that comes from outside. On top of that I get paranoid about other people in the workplace and tear up and get overly emotional in the workplace just when people talk to me. I do this even now sometimes in social situations, after years of trying to recover and finding some contentment in a different life than I imagined. My life is okay now. I'm 55, have had a lot of romantic relationships, including being married once. The friend I live with is a kind of life companion but we are not intimate. I suppose I still sleep a fair bit too, even now, but not as much as you are saying how it is for you.

Sorry for the ? @Mazarita That was accidentally typed in