[Manic Trance]

I believe I am bi polar and I am in the process of being diagnosed and considering treatment options. I experience hypomania and mania more so than the low end, but the low end is bad when it comes. I have spent a lot of time addressing the low end and I have fairly effective techniques for lifting out of it. The hypomania and the mania however I never looked at as a problem until recently. Recently, I've realized how completely and utterly swept away I become by racing thought patterns, byzantine thought construction, and a belief that my intellect is border line magical, casting anyone who disagrees with me as an enemy. This is SO destructive for the people around me, especially my family, and I want to address it. I am considering medication as an option. I am scared of not having the hypomanic lift off, even if it is destructive. It is how I have accomplished everything in my life, in extreme sprints of productivity often lasting into the wee hours of the morning. Will this totally go away if I am medicated? That quality of thought flow, will that just disappear? The street is just the street, a car just a car, instead of a massive interconnected web of information to decipher? That idea scares me.
If anyone has any experience with this, let me know.
MT

For me meds cap things...so I go up hypo, but most of the time avoid mania, when my meds get tweaked when I realise i'm hypo. If that makes any sense at all. It stops the crushing lows and highs but I still get hypos and lows just not crushingly so (most of the time)...Meds make life more manageable for me.

[EJB5565]

I am on meds consistently for over a year now and perhaps they have taken away any "magic" I may have felt while manic or hypomanic. The question I would state at hand here is; is the magic worth the potential destruction you may be causing to yourself and those around you. I.E. are you spending too much, are you sexually not responsible, are you talking too much, are your thoughts racing, are you irritable; I'm sure you know all these can be destructive to your life in the long run. I am still trying to find a medicated balance to my meds to be both stable and emotionally content. I'm still searching for a happy normal state where I feel without being over emotional to everything around me. I think one of the keys is finding a Pdoc you can trust and being patient to iron out a medicine cocktail that works for you. I have struggled being patient with finding that cocktail, but my Pdoc says he is a "bulldog" and doesn't give up so I just need to hang in there for the long haul and find that perfect potion. Good luck in finding a Pdoc that can help you.

[BipolaRNurse]

After a year and a half of working at it, I think I've achieved relative normality while still retaining my creativity and ability to have emotions. On my current medications, I simply have the average ups and downs now that everybody does.....a bad day doesn't always signal the beginning of a mood episode.

I no longer even have to do a mood "gut-check" when I wake up in the morning ("am I going to be OK today?") Believe me when I say that it's worth it to experiment until you find your perfect medication "cocktail"---I am alive and reasonably well today only because my pdoc is conservative but persistent in trying different things (which includes highly individualized therapy and treatments tailored to what is most meaningful to the patient's life).

Wishing you the best of luck, OP.

[kykid]

You must remember that the mania is the most dangerous pole in the bipolar spectrum because this is often the state one is in when self harm enters the picture. I can relate to your concern about the depressive part of bipolar disorder because that is what troubles me the most. I have had to change my medication recently because the one I had been on, Seroquel, was not working any longer. That was about 6 weeks ago and I am just recently returning to normal.

Stay persistent in your search for help and don't take no for an answer, because it is not necessary for you to suffer.

[BlueInanna]

Depends on the med & depends on you. I don't think they have to take the magic away.
If it feels that way to you after you've tried it, you can try a different one.

Lamictal was the first one I tried, yes for me it took the magic away, weepy & sleepy.

Then I was on lithium for awhile. At first it was great, pulled me out of a bad depression. It was hard to get used to - it makes you really thirsty at first, and salty metallic taste in my mouth. Soo I started to feel better, still had some hypo episodes (they last 2-3 months for me), but didn't go off the deep end. It didn't take the magic away - I still had the heightened senses & creativity during those episodes. Until I gained about 50 lbs. That was a deal breaker for me.

We are all different with what side effects we are willing to accept. And meds can react differently on each person. It's a big decision, and a very personal one. Wish you the best and hope you find some relief. Welcome to pc by the way, there will be a lot of people here to help you along the way.

[lawrenman]

I feel the human mind is capable of extraordinary things. If you let it get out of control I believe it is capable of way more than we currently consider as normal.

However, for me it is dangerous to be manic. What happens in my case is that my conscious part of my mind attempts to take over everything leaving me unable to sleep for one thing. Above all else it will lead me to paranoia and delusions. I find myself able to do things I normally would not be able to do. But the cost is that I will be unable to keep control my thoughts as I start to believe I have supernatural powers. At some point the racing thoughts lead me too tangentfully and I become unstable.

Zyprexa brings me down to a manageable level. However, if I am not careful it can start to make me complacent. So I am making sure I do things I enjoy.

The big test now is to attempt to lose weight while on Zyprexa. I'll have to be careful though because a certain level of fasting seems to also push my mood up.

[wildflowerchild25]

For me meds have definitely taken away hypomania. I agree with someone else who said that they experience the normal ups and downs that everybody does. That's what meds do for me. I am able to live my life. With depression I cannot function and mania for me always turns rageful. I get in a lot of trouble when manic. So while the meds have essentially "taken the magic away" I do feel I am much better with them than without them.

[Skittles56]

Short answer? Yes. The real question is whether you miss the magic enough to risk ****ing up your life. If not, stick with the meds.

[Lillyleaf]

That is a hard question, and it's more a question to yourself then anyone here.

You have to weigh the pro's and con's. Some of the magic will be taken away, but the clarity that it has the potential to provide in unthinkable before experiencing it. Medication takes away some of you, but gives you part of you as well.

It gives you the stability to feel and address emotions that aren't just the "bipolar" or the "mental illness" .
Playing with medication is no fun, because it's a gamble. Will this help? hurt? frustrate? Do you need to change meds? Dosage? And so on. It takes time to find the right ones, but if you do and chose to stay on them then it can be in some ways just as magical as the magic you have lost.

So I ask you the question: What do you want, and how much will you give, to be given so much?

I wish you luck,

Lilly

P.S. Don't forget about therapy and all the other resources, medication alone isn't nearly enough or as effective

[Dylanzmama]

Really good question. I've noticed that I don't have songs constantly in my head, needing to be deciphered anymore. My manic/psychotic episode lasted almost a year and I lost almost everything. I'm finally thinking clearer than ever, I think. But I lost my faith in god and in myself. The magic feeling of being connected and feeling decent about myself are gone. But I have gotten some things back, like my sense of humor ; )

[Manic Trance]

Thanks to everyone who has written me! It is so amazing to have found this community. This thing I experience has never made any sense to anyone until now, it is already changing my life!
Thank you thank you thank you!
MT