[Polekat]

Here's my one problem with my diagnosis of bp1: I have never, not in my entire life, felt the euphoric "high" of a manic episode. (Or the manic phase of a cycle.) I go from bad to WORSE. That's the best way to describe my cycling. I have all the other symptoms, however.
I always thought major depression was my "condition". But anti depressants never worked. I had a meltdown about 3 months ago. Wound up in the psych ward.
By the time I left, I was on 900mg of seroquel and working up to 200mg lamictol. Still doubting my diagnosis.
So recently I stopped taking the meds thanks to an insurance hiccup. Started feeling my "old self" again. Which is about 50% asshole and 50% RAGING asshole! (I'm new here, hope I didn't break a rule w/ the swearing, but that's really the best description) I needed my meds back! I couldn't see it, but they were actually doing wonders for me. Presently, I do have my meds, soI'm climbing back on slowly.
So anyway, if anybody is still reading, do you have the highs with euphoria? Do you really feel GREAT, happy, joyful? Or are you like me where the manic cycle is primarily heightened energy, mostly self-destructive energy, with ridiculous paranoia and the fear of "losing it" in public confining you to your own private hell? My fear of a jail cell keeps me home when I'm in "warrior mode". So there I sit (when I'm not pacing), hating the world and everyone in it, raging about all the injustices perpetrated upon me. Sound like you, or is it just me?

I sometimes do have the highs associated with mania.. but mainly after being medicated. My usual mania is irritibility, anger, rage, delusions, paranoia, etc.

[~Christina]

I'm sorry you are going through all this ..

I very seldom get the "happy go lucky I love the world I can do and be anything I have ever dreamed of Creativity off the charts."

I get the" Mad pissed off hate the world and all the fluffy bunnies kind of Mania."

Good Luck and welcome to Pc Polekat.

Hope you can find support and info here and even a laugh or 3

Hypomania is what makes me happy. Ready to take on the world, celebrate, become the life of the party & everyone's muse... Actual mania? I get really psychotic & angry. It's unbearable... Not as much for me as it is for the people around me! I'm 100% of the time an asshole, but it's usually charming until I'm manic.

Good luck finding a way to feel better! Hopefully you'll wind up the same as landskaperdan & get a bit of euphoria once you're on some appropriate meds?

[noneedtoknow]

Im so with you. My doctor says it's dysphoric mania-I go from 0 to super ***** in 3 seconds-no space between reactions. My mind goes and goes and goes. I'm negative and pessemistic. Ive "got the edge on" and have that irritatated anxious energy. I get very short glimpses of the "happy" doesn't last long or get too high. Pisses me off,frankly. I'm sorry that is your experience. It is really hard for me to buy into the bipolar label because I don't have the typical "happy mania" Glad your back on meds that help you. Hang in there!!!

[BipolaRNurse]

I get both kinds, which confuses the hell out of me. Sometimes I experience them both within days or a week of each other---I'll be bouncing around on a high for a while, all unicorns and rainbows and sunshine, and then I'm thrown into a dimension of pissed-off that I've never been before. There isn't even a break in between; one day I'm Cherry Ames, and a few days later I wake up as Nurse Ratched. No, worse, I'm that crazy nurse from the Stephen King movie "Misery", just waiting for the chance to whack somebody with a sledgehammer. Yikes!

So yeah, I feel for all y'all who suffer from dysphoric mania/hypomania. At least with me, I get to experience the fun part too, but it always winds up in the dumper sooner or later.

[Polekat]

Wow. Thank you all for answering! Your experiences have answered my no.1 question. I guess it's official, all denials abolished. Now I can deal with my tormentor. This site is pure gold; we are survivors, and you are my Heroes! :-)

[moremi]

I have just experienced my first asshole mania. I have to say I hate it and I feel for you. Its just awful. I usually get just hypo and then come back down. Sometimes I get hypo where I am really happy and full of energy and creative, then get manic but my manic is usually just some pretty off the wall delusions and sometimes I see things that arent really there so I guess you call that psychosis. But this last mania was just pure anger wanted to beat the living hell out of anything and everything and I am not a mean person at all, I am actually one of the nicest people you would ever come across. I will give anyone anything and do anything for anyone. I just dont know what really got into me. It was a very scarry feeling. Maybe your meds need to be adjusted. I am adjusting my own until my doc comes back from vac because I cant have that happening to me.

[faerie_moon_x]

Hi Polekat, welcome to PC.

I actually don't have euphoric mania. I have dysphoric mania and mixed states. I don't know if it's because I also have "dysthymia" which I guess is like a constant low-laying depressive state. So, with my dysphoria I am super irritables. I have racing thoughts, pressured speach, obsessive thinking, grandios thinking, insomnia (or sleep without rest,) and I pace and rock and although I have energy I can't seem to focus it anywhere. My attention span drops and I have to do 10 things and once (and nothing gets done.)

If I did have euphoric mania it was before diagnosis when I was a teenager/young adult, and I can think of some times when that might have been the case.

I also have episodes (or melt downs) and I have issues with SI when I'm dysphoric. My mood chart looks more bipolar than me. I'm depressed today. But I'm bursting with engery! Mwahaha....

[bunnifoo]

Or are you like me where the manic cycle is primarily heightened energy, mostly self-destructive energy, with ridiculous paranoia and the fear of "losing it" in public confining you to your own private hell?

This is very much like how I am. I've had "euphoria" but it wasn't happy or exciting. I've never had the kind of hypmania or mania that I hear people wishing they could have back (creative, high energy, get things done, feel good).

My "highs" are full of - irritability/anger. I have had huge problems with unexplainable rages that come from no where. When I was growing up I'd think of it as "black rage" and visualize it as black inky smoke coming from my pores. I wouldn't hallucinate it, but in my minds eye that's how it was - this stuff enveloping me. Road rage was a huge problem. I'd be *****y and rude. I'd get mad and destroy stuff (at home) or be in a store and have to control myself from knocking over displays or pushing people.

Lots of energy but not anything good, like being on a runaway horse - unable to do anything but hold on and the ride was horrible.

obessesive/paranoid about stuff. I could only stop at gas stations I'd been to before (I ran out of gas quite a few times), feeling of being cursed so things didn't work. CD player didnt work - I'm cursed! My absolute worse I had lost my job and was reapplying and not getting interviews and I was convinced my former boss was black balling me. Obsessing about the phone working (waiting for calls) so picking it up/hanging up over and over.

Thoughts racing so fast I can't carry on a conversation. Feeling of an "itching" inside my head - or feeling like a gerbil scratching at the glass cage trying to get out.

I also get tantrums. And super irritable so little things set me off. Lots of pacing.

Also hypersexuality that led to some bad choices. And I never had money to go on spending sprees but I'd do stuff like check out 20 books from the library on the same subject to read in 2 weeks. Or research or obsess about a subject or person or series (tv or book) and watch/read all of them as quickly as possible.

I would drink more too, because I needed something to explain my behavior and being drunk and acting like that was better (I thought) than being sober and having no explanation for what was going on.