black and white sad face

I have had this exchange a thousand times,

“I’m really depressed.”
“Why, what happened?”

Have you been missing the plot?

Bipolars Get Depressed

Bipolar disorder is defined as the cycling of moods between a depression and a mania, or hypomania. It is not characterized by being cut off in traffic and then being depressed about it.

Depression Happens. Bipolar Doesn’t Need a Reason.

I do understand the confusion. For a normal person, emotions have causes. I say something hurtful to you, and you might feel hurt. Someone hits your car and runs, you might feel mad. You break up with your other, you might feel sad. I get that. They taught us the feeling faces in elementary school.

The problem is that for most people few emotions fall outside this cause and effect. It’s true that people may not always be able to pinpoint the cause, but generally one exists. The only feelings falling outside of this paradigm are things like bad hair days…more at Breaking Bipolar blog.