One of the hardest parts of the last 4 months has been that I feel perpetually guilty. I don't feel as guilty about things from now as I do about things from the past. My brain seems to think that a review of all the things I ever did wrong when I was working is a good idea (it's not) and that I should remember every time I failed at something, especially if it was from bipolar.

I also wind up thinking a lot about things that happened that were bad because of bipolar and that's not good either.

I know it's just intrusive thoughts (and sometimes voices mocking me) but it's really bad this round. I think there is no need to remember that in grad school the first semester I had a very hard time waking up to get to classes that were very early in the morning plus I had a bus ride to get to them, because of my meds. And when the psychiatrist tried to help he just made it worse. But really? That was 1998, I passed the classes just fine, I got my degree and I clearly learned what i needed to know.

One of the things that comes out every time is my so-called best friend. I thought we had the perfect friendship until she asked people in her church who didn't know me to vote on whether I was a Christian based on my very, very ill, early in treatment and on a placebo in a clinical trial and trying to stick that out, behaviors. She did not ask the one person in her church who knew me extremely well. They voted no. So she came and sprang all this stuff about my being possessed and that I had nobody in my life but her that cared and the person who knew things only was in my life because he felt sorry for me and I needed to do a bunch of things to be friends. It was all awful but the worst of it was that she came when I was lying on the depression tests at the clinical trial to keep my numbers just high enough to not be hospitalized because I didn't have mental health insurance. I was dangerously suicidal and being watched carefully. Later I asked her why then, why she would risk my life, and she said that it was a risk she had to take. With my LIFE. I moved on from that "friendship" but every time I feel like this I start missing her. It's been many years and I still go there over and over even though I know that she was very cruel to me.

I know my dysphoric mania isn't the same as some of your manias. I think some of the things are me being sad because I'm depressed but the mixed thing catches them and repeats them over and over until they are far too much to handle. But does mania do this to anyone else? I'd really like it to stop.