Bipolar Dilimmas

all of them, they are/ were so hard, still are i guess, but with the right med. i am doing soo much better

All of these are hard but for me the hardest is keeping jobs then mood shifting. I find it sometimes hard to deal with without the meds...but after so many years of dealing with overdosing and way to much meds i would rather do it clean.

well, as a severe rapid cycling bi polar i can say def. not knowing what one min to the next is gonna be like, and the social implications of this factor...i can be 30 or 40 diff people in the space of 8 hrs.....and have no warning,or precursors....this causes many big probs.....daily existence is almost unbearable.....social interaction is pretty much impossible, and the combination of all the co symptoms can induce psychotic breaks,dementia,and totally abnormal thinking and behavior....speakig for myself, of course.......opinion only.ask me in 5 min.....u cud get a totally diff answer. be well, be safe...'core

Toughest for me, not only getting a dr. & proper diagnosis; also keeping jobs--I quit when I'm manic--& also keeping friends.

Just crazy, but also annoying is hearing people toss around "oh, she's just bipolar" talking about someone who's moody. I'm thinking "No she's not!"

averity05 wrote:

ddeehopes wrote:

averity05 wrote:What do you mean by not knowing from day to day.

Many bipolars find it hard to deal with the fact that they are not in control of the moods from day to day. Never knowing what mood will dominate them when they wake up. Or even from hour to hour in many cases. This can cause the exausted depression that many have that causes them to give up.

That seems to describe me perfectly.

On the other had, someone who has the exact same mood -- with absolutely no changes -- I'm sure would become very despondent, depressed, and robotic, too.

Obviously, neither extreme is desired, but a healthy balance of mood fluctuation is the healthiest bet.

alap23 wrote:I would have to say not knowing day by day. All of those things are big issues, but based on the last two days that's my answer. I'm new to this forum, but yesterday I was so depressed I didn't want to talk to anyone. Then this morning I got up and was so angry (hyper?) I had to leave before I hit someone. My agression was left on the freeway at 105 mph. My meds take about 2 hours to kick in so eventually I calmed down but right now that just scares me. The worst episode I've had in a while. Not knowing how I'm going to feel in the morning scares me the most.

hey alap,
How do you know you just didn't have to "get some place very quickly on the freeway"?:)

What element of the mood uncertainty scares you the most?

I've been diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder ,acute anxiety disorder, panic attacks, and depression at various times in my life by various psychiatrists.

What's most interesting to me is trying to decipher the logic behind mania and/or depression, operating from the theory that the mood swings are not, technically, random. rather, they are just the result of microscopically precise hyper-sensitizations to events from the previous day (or anxiety in dealing with the upcoming events). The answer would lie in the ability to deal with those sensitivities effectively.

Why has no one commented about people who are remarkably successful, and who "look" bipolar because of their zaniness, but definitely are not? What about musicians who freak out and go "manic" on stage?

how do you

i guess not knowing from day to day...i happen to have an ultradian bipolar disorder...so my mood can change multiple times in a 24 hour period. its scary not knowing what mood you're going to be in. and not being able to control it is pretty bad too. but switching in and out and in and out in one day...is pretty bad. from up to down, it really sucks. i'm pretty new to the whole bipolar thing tho, i only found out i had it in may, tho i've been one for about 2 years.

deadbird wrote:i guess not knowing from day to day...i happen to have an ultradian bipolar disorder...so my mood can change multiple times in a 24 hour period. its scary not knowing what mood you're going to be in. and not being able to control it is pretty bad too. but switching in and out and in and out in one day...is pretty bad. from up to down, it really sucks. i'm pretty new to the whole bipolar thing tho, i only found out i had it in may, tho i've been one for about 2 years.

Wow, okay, fascinating that ultradian (by definition) constitutes 5+ (more than 4) mood states within a year, moreso than rapid cycling. How does that differ from just being mercurial and having moody emotions?javascript:emoticon(':lol:')

I can imagine it feeling very frightening having an unpredictable mood all the time. Right, the up/down, right/wrong flipping from those polarities sounds jolting. But don't humans who experience emoitions feel a relatively large magnitude of emotions throughout their life? Certainly your emotional roller-coaster feels faster and bumpier than others', but what prevents you from looking at it like that?

My interest in providing an alternative perspective does not revolve around denouncing your diagnosis, but rather, offering a more appealing outlook to your mercurial emotions.

Secondly, what do you do -- rational-emotive therapy wise (or medically) -- to cope with, manage, and prepare for your frequent mood swings?

kooz wrote:

deadbird wrote:i guess not knowing from day to day...i happen to have an ultradian bipolar disorder...so my mood can change multiple times in a 24 hour period. its scary not knowing what mood you're going to be in. and not being able to control it is pretty bad too. but switching in and out and in and out in one day...is pretty bad. from up to down, it really sucks. i'm pretty new to the whole bipolar thing tho, i only found out i had it in may, tho i've been one for about 2 years.

Wow, okay, fascinating that ultradian (by definition) constitutes 5+ (more than 4) mood states within a year, moreso than rapid cycling. How does that differ from just being mercurial and having moody emotions?javascript:emoticon(':lol:')

I can imagine it feeling very frightening having an unpredictable mood all the time. Right, the up/down, right/wrong flipping from those polarities sounds jolting. But don't humans who experience emoitions feel a relatively large magnitude of emotions throughout their life? Certainly your emotional roller-coaster feels faster and bumpier than others', but what prevents you from looking at it like that?

My interest in providing an alternative perspective does not revolve around denouncing your diagnosis, but rather, offering a more appealing outlook to your mercurial emotions.

Secondly, what do you do -- rational-emotive therapy wise (or medically) -- to cope with, manage, and prepare for your frequent mood swings?

i'm sort of confused by this part ..."But don't humans who experience emoitions feel a relatively large magnitude of emotions throughout their life? Certainly your emotional roller-coaster feels faster and bumpier than others', but what prevents you from looking at it like that?"

it isn't all that you're cranking it up to be, if i am getting what you're saying. kind of. certainly i have a lot of emotions and all that but i am a hypersensitive person and have been all my life, so that adds to my condition and i quite hate it actually. i suppose i hate my hypersensitivity more than my bipolar disorder though. it only makes the bipolar disorder worse. there's so many emotions that its actually overwhelming. of course there are positive and negatives to certain things. i certainly learn a lot from being bipolar and hypersensitive. but it separates from me from the rest of the world...or maybe i just let it separate me. but anyways...theres a lot of negatives lets put it that way. all the moods are generally ones which you can't function well under. depressed moods where you might eitehr be unmotivated or a lot worse off and feeling like cutting or something similar. manic mood where you're mind is crazy off the wall and your thoughts race and you can't really think and you're this totally different person and can't really get anything done cuz your minds racing so much. personally i also have moods where i also am still energetic and have racy thoughts but i'm also angry and somewhat hostile...this mood can make me somewaht wild in that i feel like doing damaging impulsive things tho usually i just end up piercing myself (ie. diy piercing) i also have moods a mix between the depressed and the angry hostile one where i am also dangerous to myself. and then of course a lot of the time i'm very irritated and people don't want to be around me because of that and i push them away because they are in fact irritating me. including my dog as horrible as that is. so its quite a lot of crappy stuff in there...not much good. except lessons, a lot of lessons...on myself, on others, on lots of things i guess.