worrisom things: productivity

[Xila31]

So, I am curious. This sort of goes with my other question.

people talk about being productive when in mania/hypomania. I am not productive in hypomania. Sure, I'm very creative in that I have millions of ideas. But those ideas burn up right before my eyes. I can't write. Once upon a time I could write for 8 hours a day non-stop and I wrote a whole book of over 200,000 words. Now, my ideas are there and I know exactly what I want to have happen in my stories, but I can't even write them down. I try. I get out chunks, and then it stops. There is no productivity. My produtive spurts are getting shorter all the time. It isn't depression, I'm not feeling depressed and my thoughts are racing, racing, always going and I am drowning in them.

Movies, I can still watch them. A game, I can still play a game. But read? I can read my manga a little, a page or two at a time. An article as long as it is broken into small pieces. Some days I can read, other days no. Stay on one task and not try 5 tasks? Sometimes. What is this? Where is my mind going? Will I get it back?

[rogelio63]

I was just "counseled" about my productivity at work, falsely I might add, for right after that they told me I was receiving more responsibility, same meeting, discriminated against due to being Bipolar.
anyway, I haven't found that yet as far as reading goes, or writing. My inability to focus is more when I have to use numbers and that may be a side effect of my meds.
When I do have racing thoughts, I've tried to write them down but they come to fast.  I've tried to write them down but I can't write that fast, I've tried to record them, but I can't talk that fast.

[Xila31]

I know it came on gradually. Sometimes it's better, then it gets worse. Some things hold my attention while other things don't. I just wish I could finish things that I start more often.

[paranoid_cataclysm]

I think I missed this question when it first appeared here.  I have concentration problems too with just about everything.  I'm not sure if it happened gradually or if it happened suddenly but here I am.  I can't read long things for the life of me, am struggling for the past several months to finish a 120 page book and movies and games are sometimes a struggle to sit through.

[Sexy_Lexy]

It always helps to write down a list of things you want to have happen in your writing instead of actually writing the story. It also helps to stay up late to slow down your mind when you are feeling manic. It's hard for the brain to think fast when it's manic.

We Bipolars Gotta RePrEsENTT!!!!

[Xila31]

Thanks.

It isn't just my writing, though. It's everything. I just feel like I'm slipping away and hope it isn't permanent.

[BP2PROFESSIONAL]

I have the sme problem during mania, think it comes down to the speed to write or type relative to number of ideas coming into your head.  When I'm very manic I find I have difficulty concentrating typing or writing as by the time I've finished a sentence I had 23 ideas come into my head.  Have changed my job so I get to talk more than write, as I can talk faster than I write or type.  Have found its made life a lot easier.

[ILADVOCATE]

Yes well for me I found it was a matter of taking the ideas that seemed unrealistic after mood swings stabilized for an amount of time and then putting them together into more realistic goals. I do enjoy writing poetry but I realized that I would never be published in a well known poetry magazine so I just sent it to smaller ones, some written by people I knew and was satisfied with that. As well sometimes its a matter of understanding what I can and can't do. Books for example are hard to read all at once. With fiction I make an effort to. With non fiction I keep skimming the books until I understand the points they are making. I try to ask myself if what I can do as a goal is realistic and also enjoyable and then I generally work on that. For a long while no matter how hard I tried I could not write poetry so I refocused on collage work. Then after months I was finally able to write a poem. All of this comes and goes and I discuss it with my psychiatrist so they can understand what's going on and how to adjust treatment around it and track it. My main goal was always and still is to enjoy what I can do and then gradually expand things as recovery progresses.