You Know You are Manic When .....

Wait..wait...wait....so it's not normal to have 14 other tabs open? lol...this one is so true for me...if i don't have constant entertainment/distractions i will jump out of my skin.

I feel that way too. Not every second, mind you, but sometimes.

I just realized that this is me most of the time...didn't know it was "abnormal" LOL

you decide that you must indulge your curiosity about Taos, New Mexico right NOW, pack all your belonging into a rental car, and move there without the first clue as to how you'll survive

you decide, despite never showing any talent for it, you are really meant to be a world famous visual artist and invest hundreds on supplies and art books

you decide, despite never showing any talent for it, you are really meant to be a lyricist -- and write over 100 songs (some pretty promising, actually)

you decide, despite being fairly shy and never ever singing out loud, to sing LOUDLY in a fountain - the police compliment your voice while taking you to the hospital

you become completely convinced that your (married) singer/songwriter crush is secretly in love with and singing to you

you buy a new wardrobe made up entirely of plaid, stripes, and flowered hair accessories

you suddenly become extremely sensitive to sound, complaining everywhere you go

I always have several panels open on Firefox, music player on and several documents opened. And I often consider people who cannot handle multitasking somehow deficient...

hahaha I still relate to these so much, however my new psychiatrist (who has met me twice) has said that I no longer have cyclothymic but actually EUPD but am still at risk of developign bipolar within the next 5 years or so and cant explain the mania....

So anyway
you know you are manic when you go into work and finish all the days tasks before you are even due to start then start planning how you are going to 'improve' your bosses business

I guess I can add to this list with my husbands recent mania...

I know he's manic when.....

* he tells me hes been alive for 26 years and that should ahve earned him a better place in life..and proceeds to tell me he deserves fame and fortune, and a super model wife.

*He scribbles jokes, movie lines, questions, invention ideas, new ideas for a WORD, etc on random paper and leave them all over our car, living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom.

*He decides we should invest $15,000 in a movie rental station (like redbox) so we can be millionaires. He goes so far as to have a conference call with the company about buying his own station-- diligently taking notes and doing online research, even though he KNOWS we don't physically have the money to invest.

*He hand sands the paint off the entire deck to try and escape his thoughts.

*He has a huge silly smile on his face, just sitting on the couch doing nothing. When I ask him why he's smiling, he says he can't NOT smile because life is so happy. (after seeing him be a pessimist for so many years, this kind of freaked me out!)

*He's the life of the party...the center of attention. Singing, dancing, story telling....flexing his muscles and talking about how well-endowed he is, or how great he is in the sack.

*He flirts excessively with everyone and anyone, including guys..just for the attention. He often makes almost creepy comments that make people uncomfortable because they don't know him well enough to get that it may be a joke.

(just to name a few)

Oh, my life... all of these. Only, I can actually play some musical instruments (piano and classical guitar.) But in the last six months I've bought an autoharp and a ukelele. At least they're easy instruments to massacre...

The musical symphonies going on in my head I should realise by now are a sign that I've gone completely off the wall.

I also have a "flight" impulse. When I was seriously not right I literally "flew"... took myself and my son all over Europe, then finally to Africa... of course he loved it, so it wasn't completely a bust. But wow... what normal human being on a budget wakes up one morning and thinks, "Let's go to Africa"?

At least we got some good photos out of it.

As for the religious experiences... I don't want to say too much, because I don't want to denigrate religion. I don't want anyone to think that religion is just something bonkers people believe in. But I've certainly had bizarre thoughts in that general area in the past.

What else? Writing novels... very quickly. Each one was going to change the world. Learning new languages. Learning new instruments. Learning various crafts, knitting, painting, etc. Deciding I was going to learn the Bible off by heart. (Actually succeeding in learning a few books of the New Testament, and loads and loads of psalms, before crashing into the realisation that knowing things off by heart didn't make me a better person or Christian.)

Taking my phone apart, looking for bugs. Climbing into the attic, looking for bugs. Taking apart the light switches, looking for bugs. Climbing the street light outside, looking for bugs. Deciding that, although I couldn't find any bugs, the house was bugged anyway, and moving house.

Going online and spending loads of money on my son. Being too intensly interested in what I'm doing to bother dressing appropriately, and going out in the world's scruffiest pants, and the world's baggiest teeshirt, not having washed or combed my (very curly) hair in ages, and wondering why the neighbours look at me funny.

Deciding my neighbours are looking at me funny because they're spies.

Start looking for bugs again.

It certainly gave me and my son some great experiences. He's the only kid in his school who has seen elephants, lions, giraffes and rhinos emerging from the African mist.

He's possibly also the only kid at his school who's mother climbed up a street light with a screw driver to see if there was a camera in it pointed at the house.

Oh... I just remembered another one. You decide that you're a great chess player (as opposed to a competent club player.) You spend loads of money on computer programmes and books, hours and hours and hours online, and despite the evidence that you're not the next Kasparov (your game results don't lie) you still think you're a chess genius.

none of your clothes are "sexy enough"

everyone wants you

you send rambling brilliant emails to people in the middle of the night. Later you read them and can't understand them.

I love this thread... I had no idea it wasn't just me...

You know you're manic when:

* You realise you've never seen Paris so you pack a bag and go there alone for a week despite not knowing any French.
* Ditto Germany.
* You decide to dye your hair bright green.
* Despite being an atheist, you suddenly feel that the universe knows who you are, and it's on your side.
* You later decide you *are* the universe.
* You suddenly decide you've had enough of caring for the elderly and go off to be a welder or a fork lift truck driver.
* You believe there's nothing wrong with working two full eight hour shifts a day.
* You buy children's toys because they're cool.
* You buy children's toys for your co-workers because they're cool.
* You decide to walk the fifteen miles home from work, at night, in winter. Through the woods.
* The walk takes an extra hour due to following a moth.
* You know you can save everyone.

And, I so identify with everyone who talks about unfinished projects and suddenly starting new hobbies.

You know you will be rich and famous when you grow up...and you're 38 years old.
When you decide to buy a house right now with bad credit and no down payment
and start your own business
and work a 60 hour a week job
and volunteer with NAMI (how ironic)
and go back to college and get your doctorate
and have a baby
and foster a child
all at the same time

TBH, I never listened to the "Lisbon (whetever destination) right now is a good idea" thoughts... but I think i should do it just once... it might be great experience.

To add another for the list: For me it's suddenly understand lyrics of my serbian/bosnian/croatian songs. Understanding Russian much better. It's like it was unlocking something in my brain.

I'm 41 and still believe I will be rich and famous one day

Benevolent universe. Toys. Million mile march. Moth. Check. But it was the bird that got things interesting.

You sit for three days straight writing the novel of the century.

When you next look at it, after three hours sleep, you are pleased to discover that it's 184,239 words closely typed, no spelling mistakes. You tinker with it a little bit to get the words up to a round 185 thousand. You can't explain why, but 185 thousand is an important number.

Having finished tinkering, you send your magnum opus round to people, including folks you've never known, and get offended when they don't write back telling you how brilliant you are. Suddenly you crash, and are simultaneously convinced that everything you wrote was crap, and that someone's stolen your manuscript and is making a fortune pretending they wrote it... why did you send it to that woman in Germany?

You get the idea...

The joys of Bipolar. This would be mildly entertaining if I hadn't experienced such severe mania myself, for so long. I know where you all are coming from......... (Darn......it still is amusing.......)

When you find yourself on the locked unit of the hospital and this was somehow not part of the Master Plan.

when you think you really did get picked up by a legion of angels and rode on angels' wings up to the top of heaven and saw the golden eyes and silver robe of the creator on his throne! wait, maybe that was a touch psychotic?!

Hey, Poetgirl... you too?

....you end up joining the Military because it's something to do on that day.
....you drag your friend out of bed at 10 pm because you have to drive 3 hours to Ocean City to see the waves coming in from the hurricane that's passing by.
.....you take midnight trips into the houses and condos being built in the neighborhood just to see what they are going to look like (again dragging poor friend out of bed)
....you drive 4 hours just to show your friends your new car.... then get a nice little speeding ticket on the way back.
.....then you drive 8 hours to show your brother your new car... he just needed to see it, right?
.....you drive all over the D.C. area looking for an Olive Garden (nearest one you found to where you live is 75 miles away)
.....you walk all over downtown Orlando at 3 am because you can
.....you do this around midnight at the D.C. Mall as well (what was I thinking?!?!?!)
.....you drive 110 mph from Houston to Dallas
.....you spend well over 4,000.00 dollars in beading supplies because this is going to be your new hobby and then you get tired of it after 3 months.
.....above in stamping supplies and art supplies, clay, etc.
.....you buy every book a certain arthor wrote, not because you want to read it all, but just because they wrote it....(that one was weird)
.....just had to buy a motorcycle and all the gear (then didn't ride it for over 2 1/2 years. Took a motorcycle class and broke my wrist. Now I'm not interested in it at all and I'm going to sell it.)

A

guess so, yup! I tend toward spiritual intensity......and I think it gets a bit out of hand when I have episodes (not that I had much insight into that until recently!)

oh thats too, funny - I did that with CD's once- and even hated the music but thought the singer was awsome looking and loved her personality on TV!

You can't hold still for even five minutes during your required class for work and the class is four hours long....so you go home afterwards and clean entire house, do laundry, and three loads of dishes before hubby comes home from work. Hubby sees nothing wrong with a hypomanic housewife!