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Mar 30, 2013, 01:22 PM
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Member Since: Mar 2013
Location: USA
Posts: 1,486
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Odee
BlueInanna: So awesome that you can relate to this so closely! Especially with the swirling stomach feeling. I am happy that you've found a better way to understand yourself.
I have actually heard that my experience is not that uncommon, but seems unbelievable as a diagnosis because it often expressed itself as depression with anxiety, treatment resistant depression, cycling depression, etc, so it is looked over. A lot of times people with unipolar depression are giving mood stabilizers like Lamotrigine and lithium, even anti-psychotics like Abilify, so these people could really have experiences like us.
Eliza Jane: Admittedly, I was only meeting with my Psychiatrist for a little over a year before she changed my diagnosis, which is pretty quick. However, during this time I had been on so many varieties of medications for depression and anxiety that never succeeding in helping. She's a keen doctor, I think that she knows all about different expressions of Bipolar 2
Ultramar:
This! Thanks for this idea. I like it a lot. 
Confused: One of my worst symptoms in anxiety is nausea and tummy troubles. I have lost 20 pounds in 5 weeks from a period of mental anguish where I could not even get food in my mouth without gagging. If I managed to get food inside of me it felt like a hard, sickening lump and I vomited a few times from this feeling. This week this feeling has begun again, ironic considering that I was dieting to lose weight for two months (14 pounds! yay!) but I am ashamed with the weight loss I experience through anxiety. When I initially had panic attacks that I could not identify, I always thought that I was having a strong reaction to something bad I had eaten, as I always ended up being nauseous.
Pretty much to anyone: I am convinced that my anxiety is tied to the bipolar and not that I have a separate anxiety disorder, which may be the case for others. I have the same concept as when I have a difficult time focusing. I don't think that I have ADHD or Panic Disorder...I can't distinguish it from anything else.
It took a long time for me to even realize that I was having panic attacks, so maybe it's possible I have a comorbid condition and I just don't harve the self awareness to recognize it. When I started becoming really depressed, I spent a lot of time hiding in bathrooms crying, always wishing to flee class, and persistent intense worry. I was crying, so I thought that was depression, and I thought the fears (failure, abandonment, death) were a reasonable reaction to how I felt. (But I guess there was nothing "reasonable" about it.)
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Although probably necessary in some cases, I have a bit of an aversion to multiple diagnoses -because some different symptoms/experiences may well just be part and parcel of 1 diagnosis instead of separate ones. Plus I'm afraid of the idea of being medicated for each diagnosis separately which could lead to a boatload of medications, which may or may not be necessary.
For example, ADHD-type symptoms could be part of your anxiety (i.e. lack of focus), depression part of bipolar, etc. Although I think the DSM doesn't always take everything into account, maybe it would be useful to look over the criteria of just bipolar and anxiety and see if other experiences you're having that seem separate might be part of these two.
My personal belief is that anxiety is a different phenomenon, although that it can definitely affect other issues you're having. As far as anxiety vs hypo or mania, can you think of what you may be reacting to when you get anxious? Try to keep an open mind, there are tons of different things that might make you anxious (i.e. your own thoughts and fears as well as anticipated anxiety-provoking experiences). Anxiety can definitely make you very very energetic (not in a good way), frenetic, sleeplessness, etc., but there is something making you feel anxious.
There are things that can trigger anxiety as well as bipolar episodes, I think figuring out these triggers can be very helpful
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