Is my hypo/manic experience similar to yours? (I typed a lot, sorry)

Hello,

I’ve been recently diagnosed (January 2019) and i at first thought i was Bipolar 2, but my doctor saw me on a day i hadn’t taken quetiapine for a few days and hadn’t slept at all and said that i was experiencing mania.

I used to think mania was more of a psychotic state to be honest, and i’ve been going to a support group and the stories people told about their manic episodes were too “out” there compared to me.

I mostly talk a lot faster, have urges to drop what i’m doing and go travel the world or something and i’ve been writing a LOT. I hadn’t written in over a year and in three months i have over 300 pages of stuff! That to me is a lot and makes me feel pretty awesome.

Anyway, my doc said mania isn’t always psychotic, it’s just really in “your face” and easily noticeble. I accepted that, but normally if i’m taking the meds right i don’t think i go over hypomania! My doc also said, my family protects me a lot, i don’t work, i don’t have money on me at all or any credit cards, usually just the necessary money to get the bus and stuff. And because of past events i’m not really allowed to drink and go out and if i do go out my Mom checks on me every 5 minutes (i used to drink a lot and ended up in the hospital a couple of times).

What i wanted to know is, a lot of people keep talking about mania/hypomania being periods that make them productive. Can you be productive but only in one aspect?

For example, i want to write dude. Like that’s all i want to do!!!!! Give me food and leave me in peace to write and write (it’s mostly fanfiction, but seriously, yes there is a lot of really bad fanfics i’ve seen, but there are also amazing writers and stories out there) but then i like hate the two year nursing program i just started (i dropped out of psychology after all the hospitals stays!) and it’s detrimental.

In class i can’t focus/don’t want to and i’ll write on my notebook or read on my phone and sometimes it’s like i have so many possible ideas in my head i HAVE to get them out.

I’ve noticed i also talk to myself a lot, just rambling on about whatever and i’ve done this all my life but it gets more intense and frequent and i’ll do it in the street and just talk to myself quickly and in a quiet voice.

Oh, paranoia is a thing too? Me at night on a street? Any and every noise and or person makes me flinch and i look behind me every five seconds. The more accelerated i am the worse i get. I live in a huge city somwhere in the globe and it has a certain gross city insect that starts with a C that i’m ocd about and every leaf on the ground or whatever makes me jump and if i see one it’s terrible and i get the creepy crawlys.

In regards to the whole “flight of ideas” i get ideas, but non of them are complete and i’ve finished about 3 short stories out of i don’t even know how many. I’ll literally write pages and pages of prompts for possibly larger stories. Is that common? The whole quantity over “quality” thing?

I like writing stand alone scenes and it’s really, really fun to me! I get to research a lot for a few original characters as well and i love that. I just wanted to know if that’s normal in the hypo/mania state, tons of ideas that never see themselves through.

Bottom line: do you have similar experiences? Is focusing on one thing (in this case writing) and negleting every other aspect in your life a thing while euphoric? Do you experience paranoia and feel like your thoughts don’t *fit* into your head?

Oh, and i don’t have insomnia i think, i take the meds and i feel tired but i don’t want to sleep. I really don’t want to sleep, like why waste beautiful writing time? And the longer i stay awake the more awake i feel, say if i’m up until 5am i am much more hyper than i was at 12am and it’ll take 2 hours for me to chill down and sleep (especially if i took the sleeping meds at 5am lol)

Honestly, i’m insecure about diagnosis. I’ve been told it was only depression for a long time (with anxiety) than when i was at my worst a doc said i was borderline (at the hospital, my own doc and therapist don’t agree), so i sometimes need reassurance this isn’t another misdiagnose and what i’m feeling is along the lines of what other people think, that have bp.

(I feel anxious because it’s like everyone experiences each pathology in there own way and various comorbid issues will make bipolar look different from one person to another. BUT little old me feels the irrational need to fit the criteria PERFECTLY, so as to be 100% sure i’m 100% bipolar, you know?)

Sorry about that, i’m horrible at keeping things short and sweet but THANK YOU if you read this far! Hope you’re feeling good and having a nice day.

Bye

No need to apologize to me for writing a lot! From my daily observations, I write longer posts than almost anyone else here, on a daily basis. I have zero difficulty writing on and on, but do often have trouble reading without distraction. I do try to push myself, though, because I know that many sweet and tolerant people here read my long posts. Some likely skim or skip, but I understand why.

Frankly, your descriptions sound a heck of lot like many of my experiences, especially when I was younger. The only thing I experienced a lot of, here and there, that you didn't mention was irritability. And I think the word "irritability" is a sadly mild word to describe many of my anger outbursts. That's not saying I wasn't mostly elated during manic and hypomanic episodes. I was. But, boy, I could turn into the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes in a split second.

Travel the world? I did that enough. 20 something years old female traveling all around Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and having sexual flings here and there. But that doesn't mean I was always having sexual flings. Symptoms like hypersexuality or hyperspending, may not always be characteristics of every mania. Some people exhibit some impulsive behaviors that others don't.

I'll try to finish this quick because my husband just got home. Lucky you...and lucky everyone!

Please do take your medications and continue treatment. I found that by not being properly treated through my early 30s, my illness grew more and more severe. THEN, evil psychosis really showed itself. I had had some minor psychosis in my youth, but it got BAD later on.

Signing off...

My mania is usually being extremely "up" almost abnormally happy and loud and lack of sleep. Then I start ridiculous projects in the middle of the night-like pulling all my files and papers out and re-organizing my filing cabinet- until I burn out. I have never had any episodes of psychosis but I have experienced a "fugue" state.

A manic state doesn't have to include psychosis, although some episodes in some people do. I've been manic without psychosis before, but I've also had episodes in which I was not only psychotic but paranoid. Hence my bipolar 1 diagnosis, which I fought for a long time before finally accepting it about a year ago. I've never stripped off my clothes and walked down the middle of a street or hopped on a plane to China on impulse like some bipolar 1's do, but mania doesn't have to manifest itself in such drastic ways. Sometimes it's just seeing black and grey cats running under the linen carts in the ER, or hearing music that has never been composed playing in your ear, or freaking out because a car has been following you for several miles.

I was diagnosed in January too. My hypomania causes me to obsess over the end of the world. I'm talking bomb shelter type stuff.

I'll also start worrying about someone I love (family member or friend) unexpectedly dying and seeing visions of the worst possible scenarios, I've gone raging mad screaming down the street at 10PM. I was so loud the cops got called.

It was very embarrassing, but at the time my sister wouldn't come home and I thought she was dead. Turns out she was with her boyfriend, ugh. The cops were so very rude to me as if they had never seen someone mentally ill before (apparently I was wasting police resources by having a manic episode).

That particular night my mom had to force me to take Wellbutrin and an anxiety pill (maybe Xanax) because I couldn't come out of that manic state even after my sister came home. It was horrible and I felt guilt and shame the next day when my neighbors kept asking me what happened, what was wrong with me. Looking back at moments in my life I can see where my mania/hypomania has driven me over the edge.

I'm amazed I wasn't diagnosed with Bipolar sooner! It's frustrating that these doctors let me go on unmedicated having episodes like that.

Will you have your writing published? I used to write entire novels in a week. I posted them online in a writers group, it was very therapeutic and calming for me at a time in my life when I isolated myself during a deep depression.

All the events I'm typing about happened over a 15 year span (I'm in my early 30's.).

Hi @Unbalancedjo ,

I too have been given a recent bipolar II diagnosis and relate to the tunnel visioned productivity I like to call it!

Anything I put my mind to - I can accomplish in great time and with perfection. Only I can't apply this superpower to anything I want (usually house projects, rarely university assignments, cleaning the house until early hours of the morning). Whatever it is that I am focussed on for the hour/ day/ week/ month - I achieve at an incredible standard.
It's like my productivity skyrockets and nothing else matters - struggling to sleep, make time to eat or do anything else I logically know I should be doing.

But knowing I am achieving this one specific task I have put all of my energy into does give me a eurphoric feeling! It's like a sense of urgency overtakes me and all of a sudden I can see so clearly the most effective way to get something done. Multitasking is a big thing for me too when hypomanic - and with that, distraction.

I don't get paranoid as such, but my anxiety does intensify and make me percieve things differently - like heightened awareness I guess. Except I will see a leaf is a creepy crawly C running towards me until I snap out, or hear voices of what I imagine others' thoughts are based off their body language and spoken words. Sounds a little strange when I put it like that, huh.

And with your not fitting thoughts in your head. YES! The amount of lists I write for myself to remember great ideas, realisations, things to get done or just a good thought when I'm hypomanic is beyond reasonable. I feel like I am compelled to write them down just to declutter my mind.
My mind is just overflowing with what seems like never ending creative, intelligent thoughts - in hindsight probably just my inflated self esteem talking there, but nevertheless they are never ending!

I too have been trying to grasp an understanding of my bipolar diagnosis - everyone's experiences are always so different on a personal level. Reading your experiences has been helpful to me in understanding and fitting my 'symptoms' into the criteria medical professsionals keep mentioning, so thanks!

I'm manic 24/7, I hardly sleep. Once a week I actually rest due to needing to reboot from a life of go go go go. I can't help it because that's who I am. Doing anything is easy from building a man cave in my garage to totally restructuring a company.

I don't have the ability to love and i have a minimal of feelings towards anything. I work, sleep 4 hrs a night and repeat. This is my life and I've learned to accept it. I've cut everyone out of my life and it doesn't bother me. Its actually more work to have people around me when I'm not at work than a benefit of doing so. So I've stopped trying to make friends because everyone is annoying and can't keep me interested with their vague and childish conversations.