Bipolar mania - misconceptions about symptoms

So, I’m going to describe a bit of what has been going on with me a little here and more in upcoming posts/videos, hopefully I can because I fully realize that my mind is not functioning as it should right now. It is very hard to concentrate.

I don’t know when this most recent period began. My moods have been fairly erratic the last few months, and I now realize they are often triggered by outside factors. I no longer see my bipolar/BPD/anxiety/depression as discrete “disorders”. I see them as a combined form of 1 thing where at times, one comes to the surface while others recede. However currently I’m literally experiencing almost everything a human can simultaneously.  So instead of referring to a particular disorder I’m simply going to address what I’m experiencing.

The textbooks always talk about those “stereotypical” behaviors – promiscuity, impulsive spending, reckless driving, yadda yadda yadda. It’s safe to say I’ve experienced most of those textbook things. But the thing I hate is they never describe what is going on internally when a person is doing those things – what drives them to do it, what their internal state is like. They generally just address outward behavior or “symptoms”.

I went off meds in January of this year. So it’s been almost a year without them. Like most people who have taken psychoactive meds, I don’t like doing it. (Post for another time). I was willing to accept the fluctuations and deal accordingly. In the last week my anxiety symptoms and mood fluctuations have become quite severe to the point that unfortunately, I have resorted to taking some medication again to try to tame it to the point that is manageable. I don’t mind going through the ups and downs. But when it gets to the point that my mind is so confused/erratic/discombobulated, I literally have a breakdown of mental functioning. I’m on my second day of resuming Zyprexa and waiting to see how that goes. It tends to work quickly. Here are a couple things I’ve noticed over this year (off meds).

        1) I have had far more elevated periods than depressed periods. Often, the feelings actually combine. I wouldn’t call that a “mixed” episode as doctors like to do, because it does not involve simply 2 mood states of elevation and depression. It literally involves every emotion possible. Yesterday a friend asked how I was feeling and I said “I feel like everything at the same time.” I was angry, happy, sad, anxious and excited ALL SIMULTANEOUSLY. I could not separate out one feeling and say “This is how I feel.” Needless to say, it can then cause a great deal of confusion within a person’s mind (as it did to me.)

                     2)  I’ve also noticed that I’m particularly sensitive to triggers in my environment. I’m far more affected by sensory input than I once realized. It is frustrating because it can cause a pretty serious dysregulation of mood. I have to try to find ways to mediate my surroundings which can be difficult. I cannot tune out all the triggers or become “immune” to them. Which sucks.

                  3)  Altered mood states for me involve just about everything. One misconception about bipolar or other similar mental illnesses are that they involve just MOOD or EMOTIONS. Not true. It involves a distortion of – time, memory, behavior, thought processing and others as well as emotion. So basically, it’s “the whole shebang.”

So I’ve been feeling a lot of – well, everything! It can be beautiful and horrible at the same time. Overwhelming feelings of pleasure mixed with intense feelings of agony, periods of confused elation, agitated elation, agitated anger. Periods of memory and time lapse, and dissociation from my mind and body, both heightening and depression of my nervous system. Well, it can make you an interesting person to be around or talk to, but it can be exhausting to experience it, both physically and mentally. It’s like living a constant paradox.