Have you ever experienced the manic side of bipolar disorder?

I have no personal experience with it but I do have a mother with bi-polar so I’ve experienced it from that side of things.

It always seemed it was easier for us to detect her ups and downs than it was for her. Or at least she didn’t care to acknowledge it. But she now has a great therapist who is helping her. She seems to like to extend the manic phase which thus later extends the depression phase because she overworks herself during the manic. We are trying to help her make use of the manic without overdoing it.

Yes, but my manic episodes are not a high like some people get. Mine consist of horrible anxiety and insomnia. When I say horrible, I mean panic attacks, extreme restlessness, poor judgment (like walking out of jobs when I have no other means of support), etc.

I can feel it coming on. Though my medication has really stabilized my manic episodes and it’s been awhile since I had one. They always begin with me having mad urges to clean and organize everything in site.

Is there some kind of checklist I can look at, that has bipolar symptoms? :-/

Ahem.

I have! Sometimes I just get crazy hyper with racing thoughts. Other times I get really angry for no reason. It just kind of happens. Usually brought on by some strong emotional reaction to my surroundings. It’s a lot better now that I take meds but I still get it sometimes.

@DrasticDreamer you don’t want to self-diagnose using checklists because it can be very scary without support systems, also many people fit the symptoms of many ‘mental disorders’. If you are concerned you can see a therapist. Or you can check into the symptoms but keep in mind that it is not considered an ‘issue’ unless it negatively impacts your life (ie effects work, school, family life, etc). Of course you can seek therapy/counseling whether it is a classifiable ‘disorder’ or not.

Look into extra Omega 3 plus the meds @loser.

I second the benefits of Omega 3s

There’s a recent Israeli study about Omega 3 – but it isn’t in place of meds – it’s an “and” not an “or”: Anybody who is curious and might think they have it – get checked. Do not self-diagnose nor self-medicate, please.

link

I have had it splurted all over me before. First the fear, “Will I survive? Will he survive?” then the anger, then the disgust, then wondering how he can act like nothing ever happened, while I am standing there with emotional vomit all over me.

@Judi—It’s often the case. Horrible feeling for all involved. [[[[hugs]]]]

My son has two different manic phases. One is the traditional super-powered one, where he is full of great ideas, does not need to sleep, and talks a mile a minute. The other is raging anger, violence against the people closest to him, and no need for sleep. The first is less common in him but is much easier to live with. The second often results in a depressive phase where he wants to kill himself. Very, very unpleasant.

My son never seems to know when a manic phase is beginning, but those around him can tell that he is winding up and getting ready to let go.

@Darwin Ya i’ve noticed the two different ones as well in my relative.

@Darwin That’s me, too, unfortunately. It’s soooo hard. Hope he’s better now. How old is he, if I may ask?

@NewZen – He is 15 and was diagnosed at age 7 after his first suicide attempt.

@Darwin I have a 15 year old boy, too – very different from his dad, thank heavens. {{{hugs}}}

I find the manic part of bi-polar above all exhausting. I want to slow down but I can’t – no matter how hard I try. I usually start by thinking that everything in life is wonderful and I can do anything. But that is tempered with dread because I know what is coming. The exhaustion kicks in around day three and I am completely fried after that. I am very fortunate that I have been stable on meds for many years now. Mania (and depression for that matter) is not fun.

@SuperMouse I’ve begun to appreciate the down side more, and look forward to it. It used to be the other way around. It’s more or less under control though, right? Maybe not – if my fluthering is an example of anything..

Sometimes I really enjoy being manic. I feel like Im on meth or something. Im very productive and usually cheerful. Im the taskmaster. Sometimes I have went really far out there and blacked out almost like I had been heavily drinking but I hadn’t been drinking at all. I have kinda came to my senses laying on the floor or sitting in a chair and my apartment will be a mess. Most recently probably 2–3 months ago it happened. I came to when my gf came over after she was off work. I was sitting on my couch covered in sweat with a terrible headache. My coffee table was flipped over. The contents of my trashcan were all over the place. I have no recollection of much after the time I came in the door from work. I don’t know what happened but it scared the fuck out of me and my gf. Its was weird I hadn’t had anything that weird happen in a long time.

@buster Yep. Classic symptoms – you have to be careful not to hurt yourself – or others. Not only physically.

I gain confidence. My manias are not all that high, but they worry me because I know what might follow. I get more energy, and may not need to sleep. I don’t know, but I think my thinking and writing may get more disorganized, as ideas pop through all the time. I get more anxious. I eat less (yay)!

The main thing, which is the coolest thing, is that I am able to understand women’s subconscious signals. Of course, that gets me into trouble, since I have no business paying attention to whether someone likes me. However, I have no willpower any more. I get impulsive and I take more risks, and my decision-making is much more questionable.

What I’m wondering is if anyone notices. My wife asked me if I was feeling anxious or something, after a couple of nights when I was tossing and turning all night. In my group, someone told me I was jiggling a lot more.

Meet me in PM later for cocktails and jiggling, big guy?

I wanted to respond but I’ve been sick so I couldn’t gather my thoughts clearly. I’m still rather sick, so excuse me if I don’t make much sense.

I often wonder if I’m truly bipolar or if I was just in the mental health system for so long that I know exactly what it’s like to be a patient. I’ve taken many psych courses and it’s such a slap in the face to read some of the things I’m reading. It’s exactly why I chose to stop being a psych major, because of how distant it would make me.

Anyways.
I was diagnosed at 17 with bipolar. I hadn’t had any manic episode by that point, but had multiple depressive episodes starting at 14. I don’t know exactly how they came to this conclusion. I think they just wanted to medicate me to get me to stop wanting to kill myself. So, they put me on Zyprexa, then Seroquel…but antipsychotics.
I was 18 turning 19 when the guy I thought was the love of my life broke up with me. Well, I sort of broke up with him, because I finally just let it go. That same night I became extremely promiscuous…and then began doing coke (again) which usually makes me quite depressed, but at this point it made me hyper and I felt like another realm in my brain was being opened up. I started staying out way too much, never sleeping, having sex with people I shouldn’t…and basically hating myself completely and ruining everything I ever had going for me.
It felt like it all happened at once. Nothing really made sense. I was failing school and hurting people left and right.
I was in therapy and going to therapy while high or whatever, and my therapist (who I’d had for years) because angry with me and told me he would not see me if I didn’t get more help. So I stopped.
I then called him one day. I was at home, in my parents room and I was crying. I knew what I had to do. Everything was crumbling around me. I hated myself, I hated what I was doing but it felt like I just could.not.stop. It was exhausting. It was terrifying.
I called my old therapist and he had it set up for me to go into a hospital. I had to go into the ER and tell them i was going to kill myself. I think at that moment, I truly knew that if I didn’t get help at that very moment, I would not be here. I called my mother at work and told her I was sorry. And checked myself in.
That is my only experience with a manic episode. It having ended like a depressive episode makes it sort of hard for me to separate the two. I would cry a lot during the manic episode. I never felt like I was invincible but I did feel like I was floating on air. Things hurt but they didn’t have a huge impact on me like they would a normal thinking person. The impulsiveness, the irrational decision making…been there done that. I’m glad it’s over. ]
I hope I answered your question.

The sexual part of mania is confusing. I read your story, @casheroo, and my first thought was that you were looking for love or for friends, and using sex as a proxy for those things. But then I thought about what happens for me—how this hole inside me seems to open up, and only love seems like it will fill it up, and I get to the point where there’s all this nervous energy inside me, and it just feels like I am constantly horny and constantly aroused. There is no amount of sex, at that time, that seems like it would be enough.

It’s scary looking at myself when that happens. I see what’s happening, and when I’m like that, opportunities come up, and I can’t turn them down. I feel like I need it so much. There’s never enough love. Never.

Intellectually, I know this isn’t true, but it feels true. You might think that any relationship started under such circumstances would be somewhat bogus. They might disappear when the mania and the depression end. That’s not my experience. Somehow, the feelings, which make me feel obsessed and passionate and creative—get focused on one person—usually someone new in my life, and then I am lost. It feels like I can’t breathe unless I feel this love, and send it out, and then feel the same thing coming back at me.

It confuses me, because it’s hard—maybe even impossible to sort out or make sense of reality. I would like to think that these feelings are just from the mania, but they are also more than that. They come from a deep place inside me, and they are an attempt to meet some deep need. The feelings are incredibly powerful, and even so, I feel like I should be able to control them, and not let anything get out of hand. But I haven’t been able to apply that control. And I fall in love, and then things get very, very complicated.

GQ @daloon and also excellent (read: important) thread. It will become a fluther classic: waves of newbies will continue to ask, ponder and reflect here for generations – I predict.

I have experienced it in a bi polar person, me being their partner. When they’re up, they’re way up, have so much positity and energy they can convince you they don’t need meds and everything you want so much for them can be a reality.

Yes. I was seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. I rarely slept or ate. I had crazy amounts of energy. Plus a lot of really embarrassing stuff

I’ve found that a lot of bipolar folks have that “embarrassing stuff.” Some people say it’s the hidden secret of the disorder. Some also think we should be more open about that. I’m always in favor of openness, but I doubt if you’ll ever find me in the front of that line. Good old New England Puritan self-repression.

Mine usually consisted of not feeling a need to sleep or getting tired. I used to have the crew come in to the office in the morning and say “You’re here early”. I’d tell them I never left from the day before. So I would work all day, all night, all the next day, then start into the next night. At that point I’d start feeling a bit worn out, but felt sudden fear that I’d never be able to go to sleep again. That is one expression of mania.