Anyone feel like a different person?

After 6 hospital stays in 4 years. Countless med changes. ECT. And now ketamine. I feel like I have been through the wringer. Before I used to be an overachiever and a perfectionist. I was intelligent. Shy and introverted. However now I feel like my personality and stuff has changed. I am more assertive which could be good or bad. But I feel below average in other areas and my work is suffering for it. Also I used to be really good at math and logic type puzzle but now I can’t even look at them. On the other hand I used to be terrible at word type puzzles and now I am good at them. I just feel like a different person and I am not sure I like it. Or maybe I am just having a midlife crisis since I just turned 40 last year. I just wish I had a time machine and go back to how things were before my breakdown.

I think everyone would like to turn back time. Yes Bipolar changes us. But for me I wasn’t diagnosed until age 43 but we have been able to trace the beginnings back to age 6 !

I thought back then that everyone has a racing mind and then low points, I was treated off and on for depression. Looking back all those meds did was make me hypo/ Manic ... I’m talking for once over a year , I was working 3 Jobs for over a year with no day off at all. I bought a house on my own , let my 6 year old daughter pick up what color car she liked.

Maybe had I had the internet at my fingertips I would have realize that in fact I was not the “ norm” and gotten help sooner.

My life certainly has changed, I am now on disability, between BP and severe chronic pain I simply can’t work anymore. Some days I feel like I have lost a ton of IQ points but then maybe the next day my mind is crystal clear.

I actively avoid comparing myself to neural typicals or my younger self when nothing really slowed me down. I could easily walk myself into a corner which will only make my self worth and esteem tank to the lowest rung.

Although I’m really in a horrible way due to ptsd. I still have that little voice telling me I won’t always feel this way.

You have been under enormous stress for months and months so try and go easy on yourself.

I can relate. I feel sometimes like a completely different person. I used to be confident and I trusted myself. Now I second guess myself constantly. My brain is foggier as well. I relied on it for work and like you I was a perfectionist. Now the notion of doing the same work haunts me. What if I dive in and stress myself out and have another episode? I cannot afford to lose my mind again like last time. I think about it every day. I'm still punishing myself to a degree. I wish this crazy train would stop. It feels like something within me was unleashed and I just want to put it back in the cage. It feels like a nightmare that I cannot wake up from. Some days are easier than others, but the reminders of what I did when I was manic surround me. Giving myself time to adjust and forgiving myself are important activities I need to stay focused on. I am hoping I can let go of who I was and evolve into someone new who can be great even after all I've suffered. I believe there is a reason for everything. I've learned a lot about humility and grace. All I can do is take it one day at a time and trust I'll find my way again.

Blessings and peace to you. Your journey has been a long and difficult one and I hope things turn around for you soon.

I often feel very affected by illness both BPII, and other conditions. I am definitely impaired by them. Like ~Christina, I was either depressed or hypomanic. I was working 2-3 jobs or I was in a paralyzing depression.

I can no longer do as much as I used to do on a daily basis. some days are good, others not so good. I try to accept the current version of "me," as much as possible.

I do as well. I was class valedictorian, graduated sumna cum laude, straight A’s and only one B in a tough major that weeds out pre-med students by the ton (microbiology) at the largest public university in the state, still is I believe, I think the 2nd largest undergrad enrollment in the U.S., Wikipedia says, which I hadn’t realized (Texas A&M University, main campus). It was an extremely rigorous program. I got an M.S. in Cell & Molecular Biology, my first author scientific journal publication well received and well cited over the years, not to mention being among the authors on pretty much all the papers that came out of my lab (small lab, generous professor). In high school, I could draw, do logic puzzles, and OMG, I went through the horrors of organic chemistry with the toughest prof who taught the class.

But now, all that is behind me. I don’t even work. Every time I have tried, it’s always ended badly (usually with me close to hospitalization). I think the longest I lasted at a job was 2 months. I try to be a good mother, but I feel lacking a lot of the time, and I hate my daughter has to live with all my MI crises

Then, you start to get physical health problems like a perforated duodenal ulcer (only lucky timing kept me alive on that as the ulcer had been symptomless). That easily is one of the most painful surgeries ever. It came as a shock I could feel that much physical pain and not be dead (and that was pumped full of morphine). And now iron anemia issues probably from the surgery, hopefully helped by iron infusions, time will tell, but I may be having to deal with a nutrient malabsorption issue the rest of my life, hematologist said.

It’s tough.

I use to be loud and outgoing. Now I type to talk generally. I don't go outside alone and I don't stay home alone. I sit on the computer most of the day. Actually interacting is hard for me.My voice is so soft I usually have to repeat myself. If I'm talking it's usually an apology. Most people look at me and immediately talk to my husband about me not to me. It's incredibly hard not to have the words to talk.

I feel my personality is different from what it used to be. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because I used to be a very angry person. But after years of medication and of course, aging, I just don't feel like there's that much to get worked up about. Sometimes I don't get mad when I should, though. I don't have the ability to distinguish what I'm supposed to be angry about from what I really don't care about. So I end up not caring about much of anything, and I'm too intellectually lazy to research things I find difficult to understand.

I hate being intellectually lazy. I used to look down on people who weren't paying attention to what's going on in the world, and now I'm like "Oh well, s*** happens." I may have stopped getting pissed off, which is easier on my gut, but sometimes I miss my fire and passion.

I can relate to what you all are saying, I've changed so much over the course of my diagnosis and the last year or so; bipolar has certainly changed me, and not much for the better at all. Being bipolar hasn't been a blessing for me and I want to function the way I used to. No can do anymore, though, not with how much that's changed.

At my lowest point, when I had severe depression after childbirth, I totally lost myself. I had to learn to live, like a person after long bedstay needs to learn to walk. Several years of therapy have helped to get my life back. It's not the same as before, but I have been able to learn to walk. It does not matter that I limp. I fight for every day. If I had been healthy, I would have worked overtime, looked for career chalanges, been more outgoing etc., but I have to keep stable, watch my health, avoid stressful jobs etc.