14 August 2025
I believe that the definition of happiness is relative and differs from person to person. Everybody has their definition and meaning of what happiness is to them. As someone with bipolar disorder, for the longest time, I have equated happiness with the (hypo)manic episodes I experience.
How can I be blamed for this way of thinking? When I am in a depressive episode, tidal waves of melancholy wash over my whole being, drowning and suffocating me.
My depressive episodes are painfully scorching. In general, I am a motivated person, but I know I am in a depressive episode when I no longer feel motivated in things I am interested in, such as art, reading, studying and writing. I would spend hours and days rotting in my bed, with low energy, mood and motivation. The beauty that life once held sucks away as my depression grows. My depressive episodes are plagued with physical symptoms as well, such as chest pain, difficulty breathing and at times, I even turn mute and would lose the ability to speak and sometimes move. Days, weeks and months will pass with this lingering and painful feeling of depression until a switch clicks in my brain and I am set off flying into a (hypo)manic episode.
I would confidently say that (hypo)mania is an illusion. For most people with bipolar disorder, it is an illusion of what happiness is like. I believe that this is due to that, for people experiencing (hypo)manic episodes, we have this incredibly immense burst of energy, we get the illusion that we are able to do anything we want, and we feel unstoppable.
It feels that way, but it isn’t.
I would say (hypo)mania is the opposite of depression. During times of depression, when doing normal daily tasks becomes difficult, my energy, mood and motivation are down the drain. The opposite goes for (hypo)manic episodes, where I am bursting with energy and my senses are heightened; everything is possible during this time. Due to my heightened energy, I become extremely impulsive and unstoppable. For instance, thousands of Euros will be spent in a day, I will start multiple new projects, run away from home, get new tattoos, modify my appearance, turn my house upside down, I will spend days awake without sleep, forget the duty I hold to take medications every day and many more.
How can I not think this is happiness when I can do everything I want?
To say the least, a chaotic and eventful summer vacation is the perfect blow I needed before starting my second Bachelor’s programme to awaken myself.
Perhaps, a part of me needed to escape the Netherlands, specifically to escape the mundane and structured lifestyle I have here, to get a dose of Indonesia’s dynamic and tumultuous environment. I started to realise my need for a perfect balance between structure and chaos, because, as contradictory as it sounds, I thrive in chaos. As much as I find joy and excitement in the thrill, danger and chaos, I am also aware that structure is needed in my life to balance out the imbalance of chemicals in my brain.
While I experience — in what I call — true joy in moments of thrill, such as when I am going through danger, self-destruction, near-death experiences or even when I am having extreme emotions, I also have to come to a consensus that I can no longer chase after the thrill to feel joy. I am starting to realise that, while I love the thrill and chaos, I have to sit in the uncomfortable truth that the still and mundane life can also be comfortable. Similar to how I taught myself to feel comfort in times of pain, I need to unlearn that pattern of thinking and teach myself to be comfortable in the mundane.
Perhaps what I am saying is that there is no need for me to wreak havoc, be reckless and restless while spending days and nights without sleep — in other words, to be in a (hypo)manic episode — to be happy.
What is happiness? Perhaps, I will never find the answer to that. Maybe happiness is a scam devised by capitalists to maintain a certain standard that we must meet to be considered happy. Whatever happiness might mean to one or the other, I just want an ice cream at the moment to escape this summer heat.