Post-mania regrets?

This is probably old hat for many of you, but I've finally put two and two together and come up with four: Mania, for me, is as intoxicating and as tempting as alcohol. It also has the same effect on me, as I'll develop huge blank spots in my memory, remember only the annoying or the embarrassing, and generally regret the hell out of the whole thing. It's like a bipolar hangover!

And why, oh why do I think I can have my cake and eat it too---that by sheer force of will I can stop an episode from spiraling out of control? I swear, by the time I admit to feeling even "pre-hypomanic", I'm already dancing on the moon, and of course I'm enjoying myself so much that I don't CARE that I'm annoying the crap out of people, spending money I can't spare, making scenes in restaurants and so on.

It's just crazy---literally. I did a little better this time because I called my pdoc just before I went completely ape****, but I know I did it only because my friends and family talked me into it....that, and I knew he'd be pissed at me for NOT calling when I ran into trouble. I don't really want to be fired as a patient!

Now, of course, I've got all these post-mania regrets, just like I used to have after a night (or several months) of drinking like a fish. I feel like I need to apologize to everybody for being such a dip-wad.

I completely relate. At the point that other people are telling me I'm off the walls manic, I might admit to being just a little hypomanic! Mania is my drug of choice, and once I start to feel the high it's really hard to remember why it's going to be a bad thing.

Well done on you for calling your pdoc and dealing with it! It doesn't matter why you did it, the fact you did is amazing.

Thank you.

I have an appointment with my pdoc on Friday, and I'm already embarrassed about going in after this latest whing-ding. I'll do it, of course, because I never miss a session and we really do need to talk about the long-term management of this damn thing......I hate it that we have to keep bumping up the antipsychotic but it's the only way to bring me down when I'm going bonkers. I just worry that someday I'll reach the outer parameters of safe dosing, and THEN what will happen?? Scary thought.......

BipolaRNurse,

I love the way you described mania and that hits the nail on the head for me too. You write in such a down-to-earth way...love it. I have also wondered about the meds/dosing...hopefully your pdoc has an answer/solution that comforts you so that you can cast that worry aside and hit the "panic" button without concern in the future.

Well, if advil, greasy food and rest are the cure to a hangover, then, AP's, greasy food and rest MUST be the proper cure for Mangover (Mania-hangover) : )!!!

middlepath... that cracked me up.

I've just done a "let's make grilled cheese with mozza and chorizo and see what that does right now" after clueing in that I've been away for like 4-5 hours and hadn't ate a single thing yet.

It was utterly delicious. And now I'm just plomped comfortably on the couch putting myself through the horrors of Therapy Homework. hahaha.

Luckily, I don't do many impulsive things regardless of my mood, though there was a time while I was manic when I severely neglected my coursework because I was so involved in other, more pleasurable pursuits. I paid for that one...

I don't have any advice except to find the medication combo that will keep you from getting too manic. I know that it sucks to take a drug that takes away one of life's greatest pleasures, but the price of mania is very high for you, and it probably isn't worth it. Drugs that completely got rid of my highs include tegretol and high-dose abilify. In an ideal world, you'd find something that allows you to get hypo now and again, but go no higher. Unfortunately, I've yet to find a med that does that!

As for maxing out the dose on your AP, relax. If the 80 mg dose of Geodon is current, you have a long way to go. I was on 120 mg of Geodon for awhile there (had to stop due to nausea), and my pdoc told me that if the psychosis got bad we could up that to 160 mg, which is the dose most of his schizophrenic patients take. In fact, you may still be having such bad manias because your Geodon might not be high enough. Lamictal is great for depression, but it doesn't do much against severe mania. The other thing you could try is going off of celexa. ADs are often destabilizing for us. (I really shouldn't be on prozac, but I need it because my depressions are much more severe than my manias).

Good luck!

I'm completely with you on this one.

I love the 'hangover' analogy, that's it.

I don't tend to fall into a *clinical* depression afterwards but I do tend to get down. To me, it's the 'hangover', it's as a result of the episode *itself* not a separate sort of depression.

I feel down because of my regrets. Because of the memory loss (that you describe). Because I start to question (this is a relatively new phenomenon for me) who I really am (am I 'me' while manic or am I taken over by something else and lose my'self'?).

I've realized that my episodes don't end with the end of the episode. It doesn't fully end until the hangover is over, and this drags it out in a really ugly way. Feeling down about how I feel, if that makes sense. I have felt down during the course of 2 episodes now, usually towards the end. Some might call this a mixed episode (feeling down while hypo/manic) but to me it's a reaction to feeling out of control, crawling out my skin, my behavior. Maybe it would be a mixed episode if I felt this throughout, I don't know.

I'm in the thick of a 'hangover' right now and I hate it. I'm coming out of what I would call a hypomanic episode in my personal context (I didn't get fully delusional, not 100% out of control, speech usually wasn't *that* bad, etc.) I think because I upped the Seroquel the earliest in the process I ever have, but it nonetheless lasted for some 3 weeks, I probably should have increased it more, for various reasons didn't).

The hangover also includes lowering my Seroquel little by little back to my baseline dose. This can take weeks depending on how much it was increased. It means oversleeping, and being sleepy and stupid during the day. It means fearing all the while that I won't tolerate going all the way back down to my baseline dose (something I always worry about) and end up with a higher baseline dose. This is part of the hangover in the sense that it drags it out, it makes it hard to put the episode behind me, because I'm reminded every day because the medication issue and how it affects me.

I'm rambling, but I get it. The hangover prolongs things so much and I hate it. I tend to feel that I should have controlled this, that I'm a failure, I tend to feel really feel badly about myself.

When I get down on myself, my therapist tells me that I need to accept that 'my brain just operates this way sometimes' -sometimes I don't think he gets it. Sometimes I feel bad that he may feel helpless in helping me when I'm like that because it's a medication issue (to resolve it) above all (he advises me to up my med when I get like that), and that 'psychological' interventions just can't help this.

I'm actually feeling embarrassed at the prospect of my next pdoc appt, telling him what happened. There is absolutely no rational reason for this and he certainly has never given me cause/would never judge me or anything like that.

I also am afraid of increased doses, adding medications. My pdoc has recommended adding Abilify, but so far I've refused. I don't want still more meds and I'm afraid that once I go on x med (especially another AP) that then I won't be able to come off of it.

I did try going off Celexa once, last summer, and I had horrendous w/d symptoms even with the very low dose I'm on. I was angry, irritable, explosive......and definitely depressed. I wasn't on an AP then, so it might be worth it to try again, but I'm really leery of futzing around with the meds since I'm still unstable.

My lows aren't as severe as my highs, and I have more mania than depression. It's strange how that's happened in the past few years; when I was younger it was the other way around. My pdoc was wanting to decrease my AP dose in a few months, but it's obvious that I need it or I wouldn't have these episodes.....we'll see what he has to say about it on Friday.

In the meantime, I'm not the least bit depressed---I landed softly this time, thank God! But coming down from mania is kind of like having a high fever, and then when the fever breaks you feel chilled, even though you're sitting at a 'normal' 98.6.