Imagine wading through severe depression for years, taking medication after medication, with no relief. Now, envision discovering that what you were facing was not major depression but bipolar disorder. Sara Schley shares her journey through these woods in her book Brainstorm: From Broken to Blessed on the Bipolar Spectrum. Once given the correct diagnosis, Sara recovered. She shares her journey to raise awareness of bipolar II disorder, a sometimes unrecognized source of severe depression.

Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder associated with highs and lows. In the case of bipolar II disorder, those highs do not reach the "manic" level of bipolar I disorder. Still, the lows can be devastating. As this version of bipolar disorder is not usually associated with the soaring symptoms of bipolar I, the hypomanias in bipolar II are trickier to detect.

A meta-analysis found that bipolar disorder may be, on average, diagnosed five years after onset (Scott et al., 2022). For those living with bipolar II........

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