Ok - was diagnosed few weeks back BP after years of erratic behaviour, guilt, and major depression (originally diagnosed MDD).
I fleet between accepting and wanting the diagnosis of BP and then completely failing to see how they arrived at it, time after time after time......
I would be grateful to hear if people who have been diagnosed can identify any of my traits to be those of manic, and in return I would also like to hear what people experience when manic, in their own words...
Ok - so this is me when I am 'supposedly' manic...
Extreme aggression towards anyone and anything, violent and abusive, arrogant to the point of ridiculous (on reflection), absolutely no talking to me - my way is the only 'rational' way after all and everyone else is wrong, wreckless driving, feeling totally immortal, could take on the world and win, electric, totally buzzing with energy, no touching anyone just like they can't touch me, completely in my own world, come into house..go out..come in...go out...come in... (you get the picture).... shopping spedning hundreds of £ at a time but feeling good with it, then after it all (from few hours to couple of days at a time I feel the most immense guilt for my 'unstoppable' behaviour. Can't believe I've done it 'again'. Feel my 'sorries' have become empty. Worry about money. Go down into my low.
***but although I talk very loudly and fast my words do make sense!!!
does anyone identify with this for their mania?? or I'm I just ill behaved??? really don't know......
what do you experience as mania??????
Interested to hear,
Re: Does this constitute mania? What about your's??
Nut,
I experience hypomanic episodes, and my symptoms resemble yours in many ways. I will typically talk very loudly (and am often "shhh'ed") and fast, fast, fast-- and I make sense. In addition, I often get over-stimulated during pleasant conversations, where I become so excited while having a normal conversation that I start to shake uncontrollably, my teeth even come close to chattering, like I'm freezing, but I'm not. The conversation doesn't even have to be that interesting. I also get VERY irritable and full of rage, although I am able to keep it inside most of the time. I drive dangerously fast, and want to drive faster, especially when I feel like I'm being closed into a space, like between several cars, and will attempt very hasty, reckless moves to get out. Also just like you, I feel that I am ALWAYS right, and get very angry with people for not seeing things my way and end up thinking they're just stupid; I feel that people are talking about me behind my back all the time; I can't sleep at night, and during my insomnia, I am full of anxiety and anger.
Sound familiar?
Anyway, what you're going through sounds like mania to me. I've done quite a bit of research on this myself, and mania comes in so many different forms it's almost unique to the person experiencing it. So, don't hold your symptoms hostage to any one particular set of standards when trying to understand them. Hope this helps.
Re: Does this constitute mania? What about your's??
Hi Nut,
yes yes yes (does this sound familiar?!). I do all of what your saying.
I was originally diagnosed BP 11 Rapid Cycling; 4 in a year. But now BP 1 with rapid cycles down to hours and days with maybe 1 big psychotic mania a year when I halluncinate.
I don't realise I'm full of rage until I've smashed a light socket with my fist beecause it didn't go on the first time, or picked up a small coffee table and smashed it over my knee, or just picked many items up and smashed them on the stone floor in kitchen, which provides a great sense of relief, but despair when it was my favourit vase etc. But I don't always get rage. Sometimes I just cant sit still, can't stop my brain racing and when I do try to stop it, it sort of freezes.
I exercise for 4 hours a day and can lift weights most men shrink from. I also get agitated in conversation like Gav and start to shake. I talk over people, loudly and sometimes not even making sense because I jump from topic to topic folks can't keep up.
I think nothing of spending £600 on 2 items of clothing and staying out all night spending £400 on bars, clubs and ending up in some blokes hotel room taking cocaine, which sort of calms me. I used to sleep around a lot, for the thrill, but now I am able to curb that and just stick to the drugs lol Not that that's better or anything.
Worst of all I will self medicate with alcohol, drinking for days, not sleeping but not feeling tired. Driving my car (although I'm better now at not getting into the car since i tried to kill myself with it).
Soooooo, really I take the meds and try to keep my warnings cards with me and look at them to remind me of my conditon and what's stable behaviour vs having an episode.
Re: Does this constitute mania? What about your's??
jgr01, I can really identify with a lot of what you went through and are still going through, although, thankfully, it's been many years since my "druggie" days. Cocaine and alcohol were also my drugs of choice, which I've read are the drugs of choice for most bipolars--all these signs and never a diagnosis until now. Pretty fascinating, if you ask me. The anger, the spending sprees (which ended up in bankruptcy); the alcohol and drug abuse (which landed me in jail for a year in my 20s); living on the streets, practically eating out of garbage cans; rape, eating disorders, etc. It's really a bittersweet experience to learn that, for one, these things weren't all my fault or my own doing, yet second, learning that they never had to happen at all if only I had been properly diagnosed in time. I just thought I was some artistic, brilliant freak-of-nature and there was no hope for me beyond what I could control. At least, that's how I felt, that's what my family convinced me I was. And I'm not saying that I'm really some brilliant, talented genius or anything, only that I felt that way, like I was very, very special, but at the same time hopeless--and hopelessly lonely. Love, understanding and support, as I've said before, can make all the difference in the world for the direction in which our lives take us. And more importantly, learning to love and accept ourselves. I just thank my lucky stars for this diagnosis.
Re: Does this constitute mania? What about your's??
Hi Gav,
i know it's freaky isn't it? Folks who know me really well reckon i should write a book....but no-one would believe it, would they? sometimes even i don't!
I even got bitten by a tiger shark 3 years ago....these things just don't happen to the girl next door...am I having dellusions of grandeur here? No, just sometimes i have to laugh
I'm gonna have to turn in now, already 1 hr 45 mins past my bed time! But i am getting much more happy with my condition since joining this board.
You're great an as are most the other folks on here.
as are most the other folks on here.
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