Mania

#BipolarDepression #BipolarDisorder

1. Trouble at Work

Bipolar Disorder tends to wreak havoc on the work environment. Symptoms can lead to low productivity or strained interactions with colleagues. Workmates often spend more time with the individual than anyone else, making them most alert to unusual or troubling behavior.

2. Irritability

It is all too easy to call men “grumpy” as they get older. Many of them are. If the irritability comes on suddenly, is uncharacteristic, or last for many days, it could signify something else going on.

Bipolar disorder can rear its ugly head through outbursts and irrational ranting. Left untreated, this growing anger can lead to money or even legal troubles.

3. Great Mood

On the surface, a great mood should be a good thing. Someone who suddenly experiences several days of extreme joy and high-energy may be signaling something is wrong. Prolonged and excessive joy is one of the common signs of Bipolar.

Bipolar disorder patients often describe mania (or hypomania) as Superman Syndrome or the feeling that you can do literally anything. The high spirits are typically uncharacteristic and may come with visions of grandeur and impulsivity.

4. Depression

Turning to the flip side, depression can also be a signal of bipolar disorder. More than the simple blues, depression lasts for days or weeks and can disrupt relationships and social interactions. Depression may come on suddenly and then disappear just as suddenly only to return later.

5. Difficulty Completing Tasks

Mania can bring on a sort of attention deficit disorder. Ideas come so quickly that it becomes hard to complete one task before you have a great idea for the next one. Lots of projects may be started.

When bipolar depression takes over, all motivation slips out the window. In an instant, everything becomes impossible and unworthwhile. Little matters as the defeatist attitude takes over.

6. Unpredictable Behavior

It is sometimes hard to see this as a sign in others unless the behavior is extremely unusual. But you may recognize it in yourself. One of my friends once bought three cars in the course of a week. He didn’t have the money to even pay for the first one.

7. Rapid Speech

This is one of the signs of Bipolar Disorder that you will know when you see it. Rapid speech doesn’t refer to that like a teenage girl when she is excited to tell you about some boy or outfit she wants to buy.

8. Racing Thoughts

Another one of the tell-tale signs of Bipolar is racing thoughts. Hand-in-hand with rapid speech, this often presents as an intense flight of ideas. This is a more internal symptom that one must recognize in themselves. In children, it may be more obvious as they struggle to get out words coherently because of the rapidly changing thoughts they are experiencing.

9. Sleep Issues

Sleep issues that last more than a few days can be one of the signs of Bipolar. Problems with sleep can manifest in two different ways, but both tend to be extreme.

10. Mental Noise

The tenth on the list of signs of Bipolar is mental noise. To use the party analogy again, bipolar may produce an abundance of mental noise.

The difference between mental noise and a flight of ideas is that mental noise, at least in my experience, tends to be incoherent. Like being at a loud party, you can hear the voices of lots of people talking but none of them are clear enough to comprehend.

11. Weight Changes

Sudden changes in weight can be one of the signs of Bipolar Disorder. Mania can lead to no appetite or being too busy to eat. Depression can bring on excessive eating.

12. Alcohol or Drug Abuse

Frequently referred to as “self-medicating,” turning to drugs or alcohol tends to be the go-to for those with untreated mental illness. With the list of symptoms above, it is no wonder that someone would try to find their own means to fix the problem.

Excessive alcohol or drug use should always be a warning sign. Even if you are not bipolar, they are unhealthy behaviors and should be addressed appropriately.

You can refer to this:

resiliens.com/resilify/program/cbt-for-bipolar-disorder

These past few weeks, I’ve been knocking myself out to get my house in order inside and outside. Two things have really helped. One is taking “before” and “after” photos. The other is listening to music on my earbuds. Somehow I never discovered how much music helps people get things done.

Tuesday night, I worked on my basement from 11 pm to 4 am. Earlier in the day, I donated a lot of items stored down there: three artificial Christmas trees, 24 pillows, 13 blankets, a rug, a shower curtain, and some clothes. We had plans to go out of town Wednesday, and my son is coming for a weeklong visit starting Friday. I wanted to get the cleaning out of the way while I had the motivation.

Problem was, I could not wind down. At 4:30 am, I found myself hanging things on the wall in my living room that I found in the basement. I’m sure some of it was fueled by mania. I just want to be consistent, not extreme in energy fluctuation. Does anyone have tips for pacing one’s self while still accomplishing goals?

So, since I was delirious and couldn’t find a candle, I got a wall sconce ready for the prom. What can I say? It’s yellow. And I finally fell asleep at 5 am.

#Bipolar #Depression #GAD #OCD #PTSD

My son loves me. I know he does. And he knows that I love him too. We have a really good relationship and we both try to be supportive of each other.

Although we don’t live near each other, we talk on the phone quite frequently about all kinds of things. When I’m having an episode, he listens and tries to help me though it. He can often tell within the first few words what is going on. So great! And I have asked him to tell me when I’m getting manic because I don’t always recognize it right away. (I can always tell when I’m depressed.)

But sometimes , I am just being passionate or angry or exited about something with reason. Then he might tell me that I’m getting manic and try to calm me down. I know he’s doing it from a good place. I tell him I have regular emotions too. It’s ok if I get excited or angry or sad when things are happening. Other non-bipolar people do too! But he won’t let it go unless I stop talking completely. It’s super frustrating and a little hurtful at the same time.

Does this happen to you? Do people assume you are having an episode if you express any emotions?

#BipolarDisorder

Good morning, I hope you’re doing well today and you have a wonderful week ahead.

I am diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Psychosis. Here is an account of an episode where I was hearing voices. I initially posted it on my blog so I’ve edited it to make sure it is compressible to read.

Looking back a few months ago now, I had two episodes were I was hearing the voices in my head once again. Nothing sinister or anything like that, nor a command to do anything detrimental. Literally the situation was that I walked up to the pub about 1pm each day to me a friend. I had my MP3 player (I know they went out of fashion years ago), and I just use the right earphone as I’m deaf in my left ear. So, I was beginning to hear chatter. Nothing clearly but it was like I was in a pub or restaurant or something like that and I could hear the conversations of the people around me. It doesn’t worry me, or scare me as I’ve experienced this before, I have had these voices from years and years ago and to me at least, I know they aren’t dangerous to me or sinister. So I even took my hearing aid out of my left ear to see if they were coming through that, but no, I was still hearing them. I got to the pub and then turned off MP3 player and then chatting with my friend and then it all stopped. I walked home afterwards though and then it started again.

A few days later I had to collect my prescription from Mountcroft (Mental Health Resource Centre) for extra Quetiapine. So I met a mate near my house and we walked up to the promenade by the sea front and then to the next town where the Resource Centre is, and I collected the script. No voices at all.

So at the time I was then on 750mg per day of Quetiapine! 250mg when I get up and 500mg before bed! (Update: The Quetiapine didn’t work and it was discontinued in favour of Olanzapine)

I’ve noticed that I think it is more prevalent when I was silent in my mind and the thoughts weren’t racing when it happens. Basically when I’m Bipolar Manic I have too much going on to hear the voices.
It’s crazy isn’t it that I have now experienced a new scenario. I would try to see if it would happen if I had both earphones in my ears, but as I said I cut the left earphone off as it was redundant. After spending a small fortune on earphones over the years I’m not spending any more money on another set! 🤣

I wish I could have a way to record my voices and then be able to put them together in a download or something like that so people can have a listen to my voices and then they can get a better understanding of what it is like to have mental illness.

#MightyTogether #MentalHealth

When I go into a Bipolar Mania or Bipolar Depressive state, I feel things and my emotions and my expression returns. It’s at this moment that I can do some writing, practice my guitar, continue teaching myself Portuguese and Spanish, be able to socialise a little more and be what most of you would describe as normal. But then again, the truth is that I’m not wired up like the rest of you. My medication I take for control of my mood swings, my Psychiatrist says is well balanced and ‘working’. When I’m not in either of the two moods (depression or mania) and I’m said to be ‘functioning’, I’m actually just completely numb. Numb to emotions, numb to everything you take for granted. It’s like someone switched off your connection to the world. It’s like the saying that “The Lights Are On But Nobody Is Home”.

So, I looked at the medication I take; I have an antipsychotic called Olanzapine which is used in the treatment of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder, and I have an antidepressant called Fluoxetine, which works very well in combination with Olanzapine, and I take a mood stabiliser to help me stay level called Lithium. But it’s not a cure for Bipolar Disorder, it’s simply just a remedy that works in reducing the severity of your mood swings to manageable levels but it doesn’t reduce the frequency of them.

When you have an episode of depression or mania I feel that it is like you are functioning, and that you have productivity and purpose once again. I am currently experiencing a high phase, the mania, which is manageable but it is still very erratic. Writing this for example is proving difficult as I’m trying to write the next paragraph before I have finished writing the current one.

Writing however became my primary coping mechanism for my mood swings and the panic I was unable at the time, to ride out.
When the psychosis started I felt weak. That I wasn’t in control of myself. The voices that got louder the more you tried to ignore them. It started with only a solitary word that I wrote. Not enough to keep the audience in my head from heckling me but I was able to start thinking about the words and not the nonsense going on in the background. Slowly the one word became two words, which then became three, and so on until I was able to write full sentences. From these I tried to make a paragraph out of them and join them together as best I could. This was because the words I had written weren’t really in any narrative form that was comprehensible to understand.

Since I started using this method to cope with the erratic nature of mania and psychosis, I have written 27 songs, about my bipolar perspectives on a unipolar world, the illness itself and the associated things that it brings. I started blogging in 2021 with the intention of creating a scrapbook if you will of all my thoughts and feelings about different things I have experienced, and if my Bipolar had any influence on my perspectives and opinions. I found that writing was the best way to cope with my extremes of Bipolar as it occupied my mind, and focused my attention on the writing and away from the nonsense that I had reverberating around my head. I have written 3 short books too which are a continuation in general of my blogs. I’m under no illusion about these being any good or great pieces of musical lyricism or profound literature, but I am proud of myself for doing it. For me though, it is an example of how you can make a negative situation become a positive one. I don’t have the answers for anything about Bipolar Disorder but I do have some insight into how to deal with things that might occur when you suffer from its effects, that I can potentially and hopefully, offer to others a new perspective on how to deal with the effects that are happening.

I have been a far worse person than most people. By this I mean that I can potentially help others and resonate with them in their journeys, as I’ve climbed out of the abyss of deep, dark depression and I’ve fallen from the highest echelons of the unrelenting madness of mania, from which I can now tell my story of how I attempted to get out of it, and maybe even give someone a chance to do it too.

#MightyTogether #MentalHealth