<font color="purple">I had no clue were to put this so I just stuck it in here because this manic feeling often leads up to my low-impulse-control and/is caused by OCD tendancies.

It's like a huge energy rush, I'm practicly shaking, I need somethin' to do but I can't do anything really because I swear I can only pay attention to something for like...5 seconds.

Trying not to bounce off of the walls and start picking at myself (teeth, skin, scalp, etc) I swear this feeling just makes me want to pull out all the hair that I can and chew on my fingers or something. But I'm tryin' not to.

Ugh. If this is teenage hormones that I'm glad I wont be a teenager in 3 years </font>

[thelostone]

when i get that way i clean. scrub the floor, vacuum, clean out closets, what ever i can find. it keeps me busy. if i run out of things to clean then i do jigsaw puzzles. do you knit or crochet? anything that keeps your hands busy but doesn't require lots of brain power.

lost

<font color="purple">Once my grandma taught me how to knit, but I forgot how after all of theese years, I'm thinking about sewing again. I'm not very good at it, but I'd like to learn how to make dolls and stuff.

let's trace it back a little:

Stress leads to anxiety
Anxiety leads to mania
Mania leads to more stress
More stress leads to an episode
Which at this point, is pretty fun
Until it leads to something else that I can only describe as a body memory
Which takes awhile to kick the stress out of
Then I went to bed
Slept fine
Woke up too early and took a nap
Had a bad dream
And spent the rest of the next day in a funk.

That pretty much sums up the past few days</font>

[Schatje]

I hope you can channel all the extra energy into something productive like you are thinking about. It is better than a lot of things you could do while manic. The mania can be fun sometimes that is until the crash comes.

[struggling931]

Have you ever tried to learn how to meditate? It's *not* about "relaxing" or "learning how to calm down" or even just breathing deeply (which is what most people have as their image of it) but about breathing naturally and sitting with your feelings and thoughts…it's a little hard to describe it has to be something you experience for yourself.

It might not help when you're feeling very manicy, but it might help prevent you from *getting* to that state in the first place (sort of like a lightning rod). Good luck

<font color="purple">Hehe. Well, I was feeling that way earlier in the week and I remembered what you said about doing something with your hands that didn't require much brainpower, so I got out a blank notebook and some colored pencils. We drew quite a few things together, like a deer in a feild, a cat, a sailboat, and some scribbles too. Man, it really kicks the crap out of my stress in ways that my old ways of coping (which were either eating excessivly or picking at myself and pacing excessivly) It's too bad I don't have any batteries in my camera...because then I could show you

I'd still like to do the sewing thing...I just don't even know were to begin making stuffed animals and stuff maybe I'll find a book about it sometime. </font>

[thelostone]

good job kaika,

doing with your hands gives the nervous energy somewhere to go. if there is a walmart with a craft dept or michaels or joannes near you they have kits that teach you to crochet or to knit, complete with beginner patterns and hooks/needles and all. that is how i learned to crochet. now i can make anything i can find a pattern for and make lots of stuffed animals and such. you can also do dolls and animals with sewing machine, joannes should have patterns and books and such to learn, but i have found that less theraputic for the nervous energy. it still keeps your hands occupied, but doesn't use the repetitive motion like knitting and crochet do, but what ever works for you.

lost