In my history with bipolar I've had three episodes, and I'd have to say out of anything that I've experienced due to Bipolar, these were the most traumatizing. The initial one was the worst, the scariest, and couldn't have happened under worse circumstances. More than that, when it was over I had no idea what had just happened. Over the next few years I ended up having two more episodes, one due to med withdrawal, and another drug induced, each just as ******.

Anyway, I've started this thread to chat about how others have helped themselves recover from these episodes, what the aftermath was like, how you got over it, and so on.

I'd have to say that the biggest things that came away from my first episode was an extreme dislike of the unknown and the obscure, and also the realization that almost no one I knew would be able to understand or empathize with what I experienced.

Since that time, and the later episodes, my life has been tinged with a mild level of paranoia: my mind always strings together random events into narratives that I have to self identify as delusional. So I like to keep my brain slowed down with sedative teas, and avoid social situations that have 'too much going on'.

Moreover, I've found that time itself has been the best healer. It's now been 5 years since my last episode, and as time passes the life I experienced the episodes in feels like a completely different, past life, and I gradually become more disconnected from it (or at least I try to).