How To Self-Medicate Your Mental Illness

How I self-medicate with coffee and other ways to self-medicate.

I have bipolar disorder. Without going into too much detail on what that entails, just know that it causes me to have wild mood swings over weeks or months, ranging from “I can do anything!” manic to “everything is awful and I want to die” depressed.

I’ve talked about what it feels like to be manic before, in particular how it makes me feel like I can do anything. For me and many like me, mania is addictive. Based on what I’ve heard from some people, it’s somewhat comparable to a mild high like you get from various drugs, hence why it can be addictive in some sense of the word.

Having that manic high feels great, and it feels like I’m more productive and more creative when I’m manic. At this point in my life, however, I also recognize that when I’m manic, I will eventually crash back down into depression again. As such, mania can be a bit bittersweet for me, since I know I will need to take advantage of it for as long as I can before the inevitable fall.

That said, I have always found ways to push myself into mania, or a manic-like state, through various other means. Primarily, I over-caffeinate myself.

As a kid, that meant drinking loads of soda at sleepovers and bouncing off the walls until 3 in the morning. As a young adult, that meant more energy drinks than was probably healthy. Both of those things combined to give me a kidney stone when I was in my early 20s, so I forced myself to back off for a while.

Recognizing that drinking loads of sugary drinks with random chemicals in them wasn’t sustainable, I weaned myself onto coffee. I started by drinking sweet mochas, then moving onto sweetened black coffee, then transitioning to just black coffee. By forcing myself to enjoy unsweetened black coffee, I came to legitimately enjoy it.

That said, the entire purpose of transitioning to coffee was to give myself a low-calorie high. In my 30s, I can’t afford to consume so much sugar anymore, so black coffee gave me the energy I needed in a 10-calorie mug.

The explicit purpose of this, of course, was to trigger a hyperproductive mania and boost my mood. My first foray into regular coffee drinking was at my first full-time office job, and I almost immediately started drinking three to five cups a day, usually before noon. I was generally very productive in the morning and into the early afternoon, would eat a late lunch, and then spend the remainder of my afternoon coming down from my chemical high.

As I got older and life started throwing more and more curveballs my way, I went all-in on coffee. I would get into the office at 7:30, drink a cup of coffee an hour until noon, and then spend the rest of the day coasting on that energy burst. It felt like I was triggering that manic state, helping me be more productive and more creative than I might otherwise be.

Of course, it wasn’t always like that. When my mood was more level, I’d get a semblance of mania from it. When my mood was low, I wouldn’t get the mania — rather, I’d still be depressed, but also jittery. And, of course, my system acclimated to the caffeine over time, so I needed more of it to get the same results.

Eventually, COVID struck, and my usual coffee routine was upended. I spent a month or two buying Starbucks Tripleshots, which are glorified energy drinks anyway, before settling into a less forceful caffeine routine. I had been coming to realize that this level of self-medication wasn’t helping me anymore, so my excess coffee consumption would have to change.

I started making cold-brew and drinking one cup a day. Around the same time, I started a tradition of taking tea with my partner, which gave me a mild caffeine boost around noon. The slower, more regulated caffeine intake has helped me be less jittery during the day, which has also helped me keep up with my job a bit better.

Lots of neurodivergent people self-medicate, and that looks different for everyone. Caffeine is a common choice, as are cigarettes and alcohol. Marijuana is another common choice, and with its increasing decriminalization, I’m hoping that more people will find it useful.

That said, there are many other common choices of varying degrees of help or harm. Self-medicating with food is fairly common — I tend to keep a lot of ice cream in the house when my mood is low. On the flip side, some people self-medicate with exercise, which gives that endorphin rush for a lot of people.

There are also more harmful variants of self-medication. Cigarettes and alcohol are both legal, but both can cause major issues when used to self-medicate. Hard drugs also come to mind. There is also self-harm, which helps a lot of people cope but is quite obviously not a good way of handling your symptoms.

Digital distractions are also a form of self-medication. A colorful phone game or a social media app can give a quick rush of dopamine to a depressed brain, even though the longer-term effects are probably more negative.

While a lot of neurodivergent folks self-medicate, I’m most familiar with bipolar disorder. Based on some of the people I’ve talked to and the stories I’ve heard, most of the bipolar folks who self-medicate are often chasing that manic high. Caffeine is one of the most common choices that I’ve seen, but harder drugs are also somewhat common.

Some people with bipolar simply stop taking their medications altogether. When you’re manic, your thoughts seem to race through your head; a common complaint is that having your thoughts “slowed down” is hard to cope with. That’s the reason I went off my meds in college — compared to mania, being medicated made it feel like I was slogging through mental mud.

For me and many like me, that’s part of the reason to chase that high — the racing thoughts feel normal, and anything we can do to grab onto that feeling is comforting. When you’re used to driving a Formula 1 race car at breakneck speeds, driving a Prius on city roads feels like hell.

All things considered, neurodivergent folks self-medicate for different reasons. Some, like me, chase the high. Others try to drive away the depression. Still others use it to focus more, or be less jittery, or calm down the hallucinations, or to help themselves feel numb to all of the pain they feel, or to express that pain in some physical way.

And, not all self-medication is necessarily bad. Drinking lots of coffee is minimally harmful and can have some health benefits based on the antioxidants found within. Exercising is generally considered a good thing. Some people self-medicate with hobbies or jobs, which can have a lot of positive effects.

Ultimately, self-medication isn’t necessarily bad, and most neurodivergent folks (and a lot of neurotypical folks) do it. Being aware of some of the better ways to self-medicate and avoiding the more harmful options can be helpful for anyone new to this premise.

So, don’t be too ashamed if you like coffee a bit much, or have a mild addiction to gummy bears, or something similar. A little self-medication isn’t always a bad thing, and it can boost your mood and help you feel better about things. Just be careful, don’t push yourself to self-harm, and you’ll be fine.

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