obsessive behavior and thoughts

[morningglory333]

does anyone else deal with obsessive thoughts or behavior sometimes a thought will come and i go over and over and over it and get nowhere....or i will start a project and it has to be just perfect or i am frustrated....like i will clean out my closet and one sec i  what to get rid of everything and the next hoard everything and i know its ridiculous all it does is frustrate me so i end up putting everything back into my closet and got nowhere lol

[BJ_1]

I'm on the flip side of this.  I left my husband because my self esteem was so low because there was no way to meet his standards.  Everything had to be orderly and everything had it's place.  Ie in the fridge, cupboards, cleaning had to be perfect or he would redo it and so on.  It was very hard on the kids and I because nobody could attain the high standards he set so eventually you just didn't bother. Then he had to start to do it all the correct way "his way and his standards".  It can be very frustrating to live with someone like this.  You have to be VERY understanding.

[6FT2]

Same here irishwriter ...

I am a programmer and I ABHORE sloppy/duplicated/badly structured code.  I would at times rewrite my OWN code several times before I am either happy or run out of time.  I guess that does somehow qualify as obsessive...

I also can't seem to get positive responses to "mean" anything.  It's like the negative always overrule the possitive.

[irishwriter]

i tend to be a perfectionist when i am doing chef job. everything has to be perfect and i find myself echoing my father when doing jobs at home as i say to my kids do it right or don't do it at all! i also have mean comments reverberate in my head no matter how many positive responses. when my ex husband would say that he didn't like a particular outfil i would throw it away!

[6FT2]

Interesting question...where does one draw the line between thoroughness and obsessiveness...

[adel_ezz]

BP and OCD go hand in hand. psychiatry call these two illnesses comorbid. Quite often I fluctuate between the two. This is why pdocs diagnose patients as having OCD then suddenly they turn out to be bipolar. Obcessive thoughts, racing thoughts, perfectionism are all synonimous to each other. what you all describe is no more than traits of bipolarity. The difference between the two is so minute, for OCD only people tend to not touching knobs, cleaning their hands more often or cleaning their rooms on and on but when this occurs at the time of mania then this BP because i assume it is more of psychosis than obcession. I have gone through many sites on that where they say pdocs dx pts as OCD and it's quite tricky that it takes them sometimes 10 years to discover they have BP. So BP patients are not dx right away usually a person is not dx until many years have passed. my father has OCD washing his hands more often, doesn't touch doors knobs, keep sometimes asking the same questions to make sure the person doesn't lie etc... but he is not BP because he never fell into depression. So i assume if you don't get depressed then you don't have BP because that is the beginning of one's illness. I can't imagine a hypomanic/happy person going to see a pdoc on the contrary he hangs on to the ride. but after he crashes that he goes to see a pdoc. OCD only is different

[Alex_X_18]

I get kindof compulsive espically when I am more on the manic side
I guess an exampl is me being impatient saying that I need to get something done right away and that it can't wait five minutes.....I am a diabetic and sometimes I become all obsessed with my blood sugars or my diet like my first semster in college for example I was eating brocolie and avacado for breakfaat and waiting all day till I got home and then had some cheese and a can of tuna fish.
I was parnoid about my diet because I want to loose weight and contol my diabetes
I would spend hours studying and keeping my room clean I never even had 1 fiiend over that whole six months.
Looking back on it I can see how my roomates at the time must have thought I was extremely odd
because they were really the party type.

[bastet56]

I have had trouble with obsessive thoughts throughout my life. It seems OCD goes hand in hand with our other psych illnesses. I often have songs in my head that go on and on and it drives me nuttier. I used to obsess that the IRS was watching everything I did and was going to take me away (Paranoia as well as Obsessive) and I had done nothing wrong. I also have trouble with getting a thought in my head and I cannot move on until I act on the thought. I think it's just another facet of our illness.

[lagatta]

I think it's fairly common for people with Bipolar to have obsessive thoughts and behaviours.  I go through everything you do!  

I'm especially bad with negative thoughts.  If someone makes a negative comment about me it will swirl through my head for days before I can let it go.  I wish that the positive ones would have the same affect but they don't.

I'm an absolute perfectionist with my home and at work.  I'm so bad that my bosses and coworkers have actually told me that I'm too hard on myself.  

The suggestions from morningglorry33 and iladvicate are good ones.

[Nycky]

Oh yeah! I hear you on that one!
I never knew that what I was doing was a BP mood swing for me until I started learning more about this disorder a bit more. I would sit for hours writing out lists and sorting out paperwork etc to just throw it all out the next day because it 'wasn't right' and start all over again.
For me it is part perfectionism part obsession.
Now when I start to do something along those lines I stop and think if what I am doing is really necessary or it is a mood thing. Usually it is a mood thing because I don't think I really need lists and lists of useless stuff that I never look at again after I have written it.
I try to distract myself and find something more constructive to do. Usually beading or something intricate to help with the specifics of the swing.

As for the obsessive thoughts I have found a relaxation technique helps. Mindfulness breathing where you count your breaths from 1 - 10 and then 10 - 1 slowly. Concentrating on each breath to all exclusions. It helps the brain to break the circling thoughts.

[ILADVOCATE]

Yes I have that happen as well. There are a variety of reasons in happens in me but one of them is the standard moodswings everyone goes through. Its very common in bipolar to have excess energy that gets misdirected. I myself try to find something specific and constructive to do with it to redirect it. For some people when their medications are adjusted and talk therapy is helping them as well with their everyday issues cognitive behavioral therapy can be good to know how to handle this and what to do when you feel that way. I know some people who are diagnosed and are considering treatment for bipolar who will spend endless time organizing things and it does get under productive. Its important to keep track of how you are feeling as regards moods at that time in general to see what else is going on. You could then bring the information such as the Mood Tracker to your psychiatrist.