What TikTok Gets Wrong About Bipolar Disorder
Spend ten minutes on TikTok and you’ll find a familiar storyline: someone claims they’re “manic” because they reorganized their closet at 3 a.m., or “so bipolar” because their mood swung from “I love everyone” to “don’t talk to me” before lunch. It’s an online mash-up of pop psychology, overconfidence and the never-ending quest for attention.
Don’t get me wrong, TikTok has done something both wonderful and wildly confusing for mental health awareness. It’s made once-taboo topics, like anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder, common dinner-table conversations. But it also has a damaging dark side: misinformation.
What Bipolar I Disorder Actually Is
According to the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), Bipolar I Disorder is diagnosed when a person has experienced at least one manic episode. One episode is enough. A depressive episode may or may not follow, but it’s not required for the diagnosis.
A manic episode isn’t just “feeling good” or “being productive.” It’s a sustained period, at least one week, of abnormally elevated, expansive or irritable mood, plus a surge in energy or activity. The episode must be severe enough to cause major impairment in functioning or require hospitalization. Mania can also include psychotic features, which TikTok tends to gloss over or get entirely wrong.
Common manic symptoms include:
Grandiosity (“I’m launching three companies and buying a horse.”)
Little to no sleep, without feeling tired. (Emphasis on NO sleep)
Racing thoughts, pressured speech or talking faster than your brain can keep up.
Impulsive behavior—overspending, risky sex or major life decisions made on a whim. Behaviors can be both uncharacteristic and dangerous and lead to physical, social and financial harm.
Here’s a vivid description of how the euphoria of mania can deteriorate into confusion, which comes from a memoir I often recommend to newly diagnosed bipolar clients:
The Unquiet Mind by Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison:
"When you're high it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty...But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes".
Bipolar I vs. II: Not the Same Movie, Different Endings
Here’s where TikTok loves to blur lines. Bipolar II Disorder involves hypomanic episodes, which share some features of mania (increased energy, less need for sleep, elevated mood) but don’t necessarily cause impairment or psychosis. Bipolar II also requires major depressive episodes, a distinct difference from Bipolar I.
Bipolar II is not “Bipolar Lite.” It’s simply a different presentation. And it has been found in some studies to overlap more frequently with borderline personality disorder (BPD), which is marked by emotional volatility, impulsivity and extreme fears of abandonment. This overlap often creates confusion, especially in the world of “self-diagnosis TikTok,” where every intense emotion is scrutinized and pathologized.
TikTok’s Good Intentions, Bad Information
The New York Time’s Psych 101 column exists precisely because of this problem: mental health content online is booming, but accuracy often lags behind enthusiasm. Reporter and clinical researcher, Cristina Caron, does a fantastic job making complex concepts understandable without the jargon. She reminds us that while online conversations can reduce stigma and build connection, they can also “encourage people to label themselves in ways that might be too restrictive.”
In other words: feeling a little more energized than usual doesn’t mean you’re bipolar. Watching videos about trauma doesn’t make you traumatized. The human brain is complicated, and a fifteen-second clip isn’t enough time to sort it out.
The TikTok Effect: Awareness vs. Accuracy
There’s no denying TikTok has changed the way people talk about mental health. The pandemic pushed these conversations into the open, and for many, that’s been healing. People finally have language for their experiences—terms like “moral injury” or “depersonalization,” once confined to academics, are now trending hashtags.
But that same accessibility creates noise that can drown out our ability to think critically. Every week brings a new wave of amateur diagnoses: “Do you have relationship OCD?” “Maybe it’s your attachment style!” “Could it be ADHD and bipolar and dissociation?” The result is a blur of pseudo-scientific self-discovery that’s not helpful
The Takeaway
Bipolar I Disorder is a serious psychiatric illness that requires careful diagnosis and treatment, not a trending topic or a personality quirk. If you think you might have symptoms of mania or depression, talk to a licensed mental health professional. Not a life coach, not a content creator, but a real clinician.
TikTok has helped people talk about mental health more openly than ever before. That’s progress. But we still need trusted, vetted information, not just viral anecdotes. So before you take advice from someone without serious mental health creds, maybe check the DSM first. Or, you know, call a licensed therapist:)