What Is Happiness When You Live With Bipolar Disorder?

What does happiness actually feel like when you live with bipolar disorder? And how do you know when feeling really good is healthy happiness instead of hypomania or mania?

In today’s episode, Gabe Howard (who lives with bipolar) and Dr. Nicole Washington tackle a deceptively complicated question: Are people with bipolar disorder allowed to chase happiness and excitement, or should they be focused on stability and contentment instead?

The conversation gets especially important for people with bipolar disorder who have learned to fear feeling good. If you're used to wondering, “Am I happy, or am I becoming manic?” ordinary excitement can become confusing for you and the people who love you.

Listeners Will Learn:

Why contentment may matter more than constant happiness

How to tell happiness from hypomania or mania

Why excitement isn't automatically dangerous

Why finding your own definition of happiness matters 

Bipolar disorder shouldn't mean giving up the fun parts of life. It means learning what happiness looks like for you, recognizing when it may signal something more serious, and finding a healthy middle ground between depression and mania. Listen Now!

“I think we have to get away from this idea that happiness is the goal – it’s more nuanced and complicated than that.” ~Dr. Nicole Washington

Our host, Gabe Howard, is an award-winning podcast host, author, and sought-after suicide prevention and mental health speaker, but he wouldn’t be any of those things today if he hadn’t been committed to a psychiatric hospital in 2003.Gabe also hosts Healthline's Inside Mental Health podcast has appeared in numerous publications, including Bipolar magazine, WebMD, Newsweek, and the Stanford Online Medical Journal. He has appeared on all four major TV networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX. Among his many awards, he is the recipient of Mental Health America’s Norman Guitry Award, received two Webby Honoree acknowledgements, and received an official resolution from the Governor of Ohio naming him an “Everyday Hero.”

Gabe wrote the popular book, "Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations," available from Amazon; signed copies are available directly from the author with free swag included! To learn more about Gabe, or to book him for your next event, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.