Feeling manic because someone told you so...

[Twelvesgirl]

Hi everyone!

So I've been under tons of stress, and my ex-husband is a HUGE trigger for me and I have to have a talk w/ him soon about our son which is very stressful. This has thrown me into major manias and hypomania previously. I am now on Lamictal and doing fairly well, keeping myself in check. I have been up and down and stressed, but I don't feel like its out of the norm for what I have to deal with in my life. I, like so many other people, am on the internet in different communities, and my brother told me today that I have been saying or writing strange things, and not making any sense. He said that if I'm sick and not feeling well, I need to remember that EVERYONE will see it and that I need to keep it private. When he said that, I immediately starting pouring over every single thing, paranoia set in, I went into manic mode. If he thought I was going from depressed to manic and back again in a matter of days then I must be. I started freaking out. Finally I called my friend, who is one of my main supporters and asked her to look through my stuff and tell me what she thought. She told me that she thinks its sounded like me and my everyday stresses. She told me that when I talk I sound fine, I don't sound incoherent, as I have before. I calmed down, and now I am back to where I was, even and doing fairly well.

I know my brother means well and is worried, so that is not what this is about. It is about me feeling manic because he thought I was. Has this happened to anyone? Has anyone had a trigger like that? Someone telling them that they're acting strange and that MAKES you feel like maybe you ARE manic? Does that make sense :) If not ask me and I'll try to explain again!

[bastet56]

yes, I've been set off by someone telling me things but it wasn't mania as much as a panic attack which threw me into high gear. Sounds like your brother needs to mind his own business and let you be you. Yes, what you say is on the net for good but NOTHING I have read from you was out of line or did not make sense. You are at home here and should not worry about anything said here. Besides, it's not like twelvesgirl is your real name right?

[tweekie]

I think doctors can screw up dxs. But when you have many people notice that you are ill it becomes more likely that this is the case. Perhaps the fact that you ran with an idea that your brother suggested to you can be mania starting to surface. In other words, if he said he thought you were becoming depressed, you might have ruminated manically on the idea. Perhaps there is some anxiety behind someone telling you you are acting a certain way, when you don't believe you are, like you are losing control of yourself. Whatever it was I think it is normal to respond that way givin your history. I think these things are okay, and human and acceptable and perhaps all of us are taken by our own thoughts. Like when one person says something that really affects you and you can't stop thinking of it, because it hurt you in someway. Overall, I would look at the longer term, even if you swallowed a little mania coctail, that your brother mixed because your brain can snap itself into that remembered state simply because you have experienced mania, even the memory of it.

[CrzyBeautiful1]

I'm not quite sure if I know exactly what you're saying. I think I sorta do though LOL. <---yeah THAT makes a lot of sense!

I know that when someone mentions to me that I'm not making sense, I think, "what the hell is wrong with u?! What part of what I just said can u not wrap ur brain around?". I guess I have manic or hypomanic or whatever episodes that I never realize thats what it was. Its really hard for me sometimes to distinguish what I'm overreacting to, and what is something any normal person would react that way to.

[Xila31]

Maybe you are getting ready to cycle. Like you said you have people close to you helping you keep watch. That is a good plan. I hope you feel better.

[Twelvesgirl]

I realize that my brother can't decide that I'm manic.
I have been in a true mania before and know what it feels like, I know that my personal manias and hypomanias usually last between 4 to 6 months. I don't mean that I became manic because he told me so. I realize that I didn't have a 2 hour long manic episode because my brother said I was saying strange things, like hypochondriac or whatever the word is that I'm looking for. But I started to feel and to think that possibly I WAS manic and maybe I needed to call my doctor. That maybe I was saying strange things and didn't realize it, maybe I was doing strange things at home and no one was home to see it. I have asked people close to me, which is an important thing to do, to help me with my plan of action. I have people who are close to me who know the signs of my mania and depression, and they are to tell me, and if I become defensive etc, they call my doctor on their own. However I didn't forsee that when I'm feeling well, and someone told me I'm sounding a little strange, I'd go off the rails. Does that make more sense.

What I was actually wondering is if anyone has experinced this, I'm not manic. I didn't have a 2 hour manic episode, yes it was just all in my head, and not a BP all in my head type of thing. I do know that only a psychiatrist can diagnose anything and everything.

Soooooo, I suppose I'm the only one who feels that mania or depression is coming on when someone tells them they may be going into an episode...that ***** to be all alone over here. :)

[tweekie]

I think that mania is a little bit more enduring, in other words its not just going to be on a computer online in what you say, but the whole day, your interactions, and a sort of daily thing that starts to get worse as the days go by. Usually its the consensus of many people who see this change in you that sort of determine it, rather than one person deciding you are manic. I think the mind is very powerful, and we can easily believe we are sick and find symptoms, if it serves us in someway. Sometimes if being mentally ill is all you are used to it can become difficult to be cured, insanity does have its own comfort especially if it has been the status quo for you for many years.

[ILADVOCATE]

Well only a psychiatrist could diagnose a manic episode but there are specific emotional triggers that set them off in people with bipolar and some people do happen to know how to "press the right buttons" so to speak and others that are emotionally manipulative try to set them off. Also when a person knows someone has bipolar if they act in a way that causes the person to experience moodswings then they can feel superior. Its a losing situation either way and the important thing is to step back and say you are apart from that person and what they do comes from them and try to set limits that will stop it or distance yourself from it or them if neccessary.