Confused

I've been bipolar for 10 years and medicated for 8 of those years. I've experienced 2 full blown manias, and since then, countless hypomanias that I've always countered with antipsycholic medication. It has become a cycle, and it feels like it will be an endless cycle.

I've had messiah-type thoughts so many times that it doesn't seem strange to me anymore, even when I'm level. I think of philosophy when I get hypomanic and every time it feels like I make profound realizations about the world and about myself. I feel like when I'm not hypomanic I'm living in a fog. I don't really enjoy the things I do; I act out the actions required to appease others and not pass myself off as abnormal. When I'm manic I feel like I did when I was a child - a childhood that has all but vanished from my memory.

I've become more and more bored with life. So much so that I now dedicate the bare minimum amount of my conscious energy to the things I have to do every day and instead invest in the thoughts and ideas that germinate from the acknowledgment of those things in my surroundings.

I feel increasingly lost and unable to draw conclusions. I've found myself asked a question and my mind has been unable to utter a reply . . . perhaps because no answer makes sense, no answer at all.

Difference is fading into sameness and every day I feel like I will go insane, if that is not where I reside already.

Interesting thought there... ...I wonder what insanity feels like? No doubt, you'd never notice the transition into it because it would occur over a long period of time. I don't even know what being 'insane' entails.

Another curious thing: why is it 'in sane', thus implying that you are 'in sanity'. Shouldn't it be that you are out of sanity and are thus 'outsane'?


Does anything trigger the shift in mood? After 10 years you would probably have already recognised things that do. I guess, if you realise what causes them, you can better manage your moods. Do you tire yourself out; and that's when the lulls occur?


Kevin.

I've been bipolar for several decades. I can identify with your messiah-type thoughts.

I've been fairly stable for a long time now. I just accept the messiah-type thoughts. They come and go. I often believe I have the answers to so many of the world's problems. I sometimes daydream about someone famous discovering my genius and putting my ideas to work. I'm trained in science. I have a logical, solution driven thought pattern. Many of my solutions would work--the world would be totally changed. The problem is that they are impractical because people will not accept them. Here are some of my "great ideas" and why they can't or won't work.

1. Nearly all alcoholism and drug addiction can be solved without costing the government a cent. Think of how crime would decrease. The solution--just have people with these probelms go to 12-step programs. Millions of people have stayed sober in AA for years. I've been sober in AA for over 33 years, since I first contacted the organization. The problem is that it takes hard work to take a good look at yourself, and helping others to help ourselves gets boring.

2. I know how to improve the health of our nation and make all medical costs would go down to a small % of what they are. We just have to start exercising and get our weight down to where it should be. I lost over 100 pounds and ran marathons. I am in excellent health and seldom have to go to doctors. If I can do it, why can't everyone. Again, people do not want to go through the effort, and it does get boring.

I have other ideas, but the library says I need to get off this computer. The point I'm trying to make is that in my mania stage, I often think in logical ways, but I often miss some important point.

Actually, some of my crazy ideas do work out, and I have achieved some neat things for someone who was destined to be locked away the rest of my life. I made it into who's who in two different fields.

Good luck with your messiah-type thoughts,
Jim S

Chucky - I've thought about insanity too. . . I agree, I think one would just slip into it without realizing, only, my theory is that to the insane person, every thought would appear to be completely rational. It makes me think that sanity is merely a majority-reinforced accepted insanity.

Jims - Nice to know others have similar thoughts. I find that the manic thoughts themselves (in retrospect) don't seem of much use. That or I can't see what I saw in them when I was having them. But what they do serve to do, perhaps, are to be extreme guides to the subsequent "level" time where we find ourselves affected by the residual pull of those previous thoughts because they're hard to let go. But in more abstract ways . . . The attraction seems to move me in a direction I wouldn't have moved otherwise, but I still have to plod through the reality of the ubiquitous game. But it's better this way . . . It's good to have a game to play. The feeling of winning is fun for a few minutes.

And one feeling of winning is deathly scary; do you know what I mean?

I'm not sure if your question at the end is directed at Jims or myself but I don't understand what you mean by it anyway... ...if you could explain more, that'd be great.

It makes me think that sanity is merely a majority-reinforced accepted insanity.

I agree with you on this and I think about it frequently. In fact, I extend it to emcompass the majority of mental 'illnesses'. They are just 'illnesses' because they are not part of the majority. If 99% of the population was bipolar, then that would be 'normal'.

Kevin.