I am bi-polar, runs in all the males on Father's side, I have known long time ago, drugs pretty much made me sleep 24 hours a day or made it worse. There is nothing worse to have as a career in life for bipolar is trading, but didn't know at time when I first started. Yeah, have many more down days in my life than happy days, relationships are difficult to maintain. Before trading, I was into gambling, did ok as I was taught and kept it a business. There have been times where I get destructive thoughts of doing harm to my trading account, but have always placed safeguards. I really think having this disease has helped me achieve the direction I wanted to go in trading as I literally lost 3-5 years of my life working hard at it. It be nothing to work 72 hours back testing some idea. I still hardly sleep much. But I seldom get any happiness from trading, maybe twenty five years ago when I was losing often in futures and get couple winning days, but that long gone. I doubt anything in my life would make me feel thrilled much any more, I figure it is a just part of life. I stay busy as health will allow. I often get into tunnel visions when I trade, a bomb could go off and I wouldn't notice. Few years ago I did have to redo all my manual methods, concentrated on not losing, that has actually helped me cope better with life. Trading is a game/job, that's all it is to me and I don't play golf.
We all have problems in our life, whether ongoing or parts, we all do what we can to overcome.
Trading brings out big time all the worst emotions of being bi-polar, but I been writing down my feelings for so long, I made my condition work for me, when I felt I should add many contracts-I knew the end was near.