Mania?

[Razz69]

I have just been diagnosed on the bipolar spectrum.  As I have been doing a little research to ease some of my fear, I ran across this "mania" diagnosis.  I just want to share some of my symptoms....I experience feelings of disconnect from reality mostly during my cycle.  I feel like I am sleep walking outside of my body a lot of the time.  This scares me sooo bad and then lately, I have been doing things that I can not remember.  That is actually what prompted me to go to the doctor and share some of my symptoms with her.  The one good thing that came from that appointment is that she did not blow me off, but she actually told me that others experience these symptoms and gave it a name...Bipolar spectrum with some mania...I am also a depressive.  I knew some of my choices were not my own..even thought usually I am in control pretty good.  i don't go out of my house and I would rather be alone than with people.  I have been spending too much money and having sex with someone that I shouldn't...but I feel as though I am in love with him.  I get extremely hurt when I feel as though I am not getting enough of his attention..  I can cry at the drop of a hat and I am ALWAYS sooooo tired!!!!  I can't crawl in the bed and disappear because I work a full time job with major responsibilities.  I can't just give up!  My doctor says we are going to try Abilify (the lowest dosage) first and see if it helps.  Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

[restinggirl]

I just got diagnosed with "Full blown mania" this week (tuesday)
and I just didn't want to see it...I refused to accept medical care "treatment" and I just started crying and cried my eyes out.....and I was so angry..not in a normal angry way...

Anyway when the meeting was over..I started to think..."could I possibly have full blown mania"?  And then I finally saw that it is/was true.

My story is short but scares the hell out of me......!

This summer I broke up with my ex-fiancé in march and we are best friends and everything was wonderful...healthy breakup and we have a  daughter who is three years old.

But then a week later after the breakup I started exercising an awful lot...more than I could usually handle I exercised for 2-3 hours at the gym without stopping!
I felt so energetic and happy finally...And I lost 30 pounds...I was really underweight...and then I started dating a lawyer and I thought life couldn't get better...the hypersexuality was obviously there...but I didn't see it...I was always feeling aroused and I had a very large self esteem.

Then later it didn't work out..cause he was a player and I don't like that sort of people..then I started running (exercising outside)...the anger towards that man..and I was so angry all the time so I ran 20 km everyday...without feeling tired!!!
And I spent an awful lot of money on clothes that I would never see myself wearing today...I have always been very wise about money but this summer I had a lot of money (that I had been  saving for) and I spent all my savings ....that scares me.

Then a month later I met another man and we dated for a month and a half and we fell in love and everything was so wonderful and perfect...
but I started to feel suspicious,doubtful,angry,irritated and hypersexual.
So long story short.....I doubted everything he said, everything he said he had done and I was literally spying on him online.
But I had no reason to...he was faithful to me..well long story short cause it's a long story...
his friend had a crush on me..and he wanted to break us up and he told me that my boyfriend had met another lady and that he had said that "falling in love with me" scares him and that he wanted nothing to do with me anymore :/
I didn't think clearly...I just decided now and then to believe his ugly lie!
I was furious and I broke up with him online...poor guy...I was SO angry!
I didn't even give him a chance to talk to me...I was so angry I had never ever seen myself like this.
So I ruined our relationship... which is sad cause it was something really great....and his friend was just lying the entire time..my ex boyfriend was really head over heels over me :(
After that I went into a really depression mode I was lying in my bed for 8 whole days without eating and I was just listening to angry music and sad music and singing so loud and I didn't even care about my neighbours.

That is so not like me at all.....my family was really worried about the way I was acting...and I fought with everyone......
then I started to throw up an awful lot and exercise an awful lot even more than I had been doing!
So I thought that I was bulimic, but then I got diagnosed with bulimia and "Full blown mania"

Then I started to write down what I can see in myself (the signs) and during this summer and today I see these symptoms:


*irritable mood
*arousal
*energy levels
*sleep too little (2-3 hours)
*suspiciousness
*artistic talent
*suicidal thoughts
*the urge to talk
*extravagant shopping
*large self esteem
*hypersexuality.

And now I am going to accept the medical treatment.
But now my exboyfriend gave me another chance cause he hasn't gotten over me yet..and I am still head over my heels about him, I am so afraid that I might ruin it again..I can't annoy him..but I feel mania signs cause of stress...
I don´t really know if we are dating again...or "low profile dating-talk sometimes" cause we met a week ago and everything was perfect and he said he wanted to take things slowly but I am so confused...are we dating again or is it nothing worth holding on to?
This is making me stressed and calling the mania signs and making me feel sad.

[Anneinside]

Some of what you describe, walking outside your body, sounds like dissociation, which is not part of bipolar. This does not mean you do not have bipolar. I certainly would not want to disagree with your diagnosis. All bipolar diagnoses have mania or hypomania (less severe) as part of them. Don't let the word "mania" scare you. In fact, that is what makes it bipolar. You also would have episodes of depression - the other end of bipolar.

Since you are new to the diagnosis, I would suggest that you read the book, Bipolar for Dummies. It covers a lot of topics in bipolar and doesn't assume you know anything about bipolar so it explains things very well.

[lindahand]

It is different for everyone in regards to what meds work. So if Abilify doesn't work - don't give up, and it will take a while to get there, it doesn't work right away. That being said, Abilify changed my life. I take it in combination with lamotrigine, and find it has brought me a lot of function with very few side effects - especially compared to other antipsychotics I've used (which is literally all of them).

Before that I was on geodone and it was wiping me out. I was sleeping 16 hours a day. My psychiatrist wouldn't listen to me that this wasn't acceptable so he wouldn't change my meds. It wasn't until I was down to 110 pounds and still losing weight that he switched me to abilify. Night and day difference. I quit sleeping in the afternoon, I was more interested in life, I started to believe in a future. I had to adjust to being stable, and still don't really trust that this will last - me and my therapist are working on that.

But, I had one friend who Abilify was a horrible drug for her. She couldn't feel any pleasure on it, and she was as suicidal on it as she was off it. However she is taking Geodone and it is helping.

If you haven't seen a psychiatrist I would - just to confirm the diagnosis and because they are the medication/treatment 'experts'. They may also be able to guide you to a therapist who knows about bipolar disorder. Because it is important in my journey to talk about what I experience, learn some tools to better cope, and learn how to forgive myself for the mess I make when hypomanic (I am type 2 bipolar, so I get hypomanias which as similar to manias but not as severe, and depression). If you can learn how  minimize stressors/triggers you can learn how to more effectively manage the bipolar disorder. And trust me on this - don't go to just any therapist, its gotta be someone who knows about mental disorders so they don't give dumb advice. I've been to regular therapists and they are generally clueless as to how to respond to hypomanias in particular.