[dvious00]

I have been reading a couple books on bipolar and peoples personal experiences with mania and the illness overall. I was wondering what others peoples experiences with mania and psychosis felt like.... I come to accept my diagnosis ... Now ...Just trying to relate.... And maybe find some similarities ...

[Skitz13]

Well...mania? I've been both manic and hypo. Hypo's great. Life's great, I'm great. Boundless energy. I can't tell you how many times I've re-arranged my closets. I find it hard to sleep and eat and I can get confused and paranoid and I can become extremely irritable, spend money I don't have, and mild hypersexual, racing thoughts and wild ideas.

I've had one episode of full blown mania and it wasn't pleasant, well after I came down anyway. During the episode I don't sleep or eat or take my meds. I drink, smoke lots of weed (party girl) engage in very risky behavior, I also avoid anyone who will try and talk me down. I don't want it to end. Once I spent $75000.00 of my retirement money. I get very grandiose as well and I have tons of energy. My thoughts race and I get these great ideas.

It seems that the only difference between the two for me is my spending and extreme hypersexuality.

Hope that helps

[Skitz13]

It's all fun and games until you come down and have to deal with the fallout of your behavior. That part is horrible and can be very embarrassing.
Hypo I can handle, mania is a completely different story, I lose total control.

[Mrs. Mania]

Originally Posted by Skitz13

Well...mania? I've been both manic and hypo. Hypo's great. Life's great, I'm great. Boundless energy. I can't tell you how many times I've re-arranged my closets. I find it hard to sleep and eat and I can get confused and paranoid and I can become extremely irritable, spend money I don't have, and mild hypersexual, racing thoughts and wild ideas.

I've had one episode of full blown mania and it wasn't pleasant, well after I came down anyway. During the episode I don't sleep or eat or take my meds. I drink, smoke lots of weed (party girl) engage in very risky behavior, I also avoid anyone who will try and talk me down. I don't want it to end. Once I spent $75000.00 of my retirement money. I get very grandiose as well and I have tons of energy. My thoughts race and I get these great ideas.

It seems that the only difference between the two for me is my spending and extreme hypersexuality.

Hope that helps

I cant totally relate. I love it all until the fall out as well. I have only been in the dumps as of late and would love an episode at this point just to feel something good. I can't remember when things were good last.

[lilypup]

I find it so interesting that so many of us have those same hypo behaviors. Extra sex, spending, and organization. I usually don't get grandiose ideas, but I race through any obstacles and get it all done with honors.
I'm with Mrs. Mania. I have been depressed for about two years and would love some either normal feelings or some hypo. Anything but the darkness.

[dvious00]

Thanks for the responses... Extreme spending .. Check ..... Racing thoughts ...check .... Need little sleep and still feel energetic ...check ....heightened sex drive ...check. Grandiose thoughts.. Check. And the list can go on and on... I definatly have been down the manic road I know that now for sure .... But has your manic side became so extreme that psychosis kicked in?? .. Not sure if it was from the illness or the abundance of marijuana or alcohol I was using in those times ... Confused.. Or maybe was it from a combination of things including extreme stress and axiety in my life at those times??....
Maybe I will never know the true answers... Not really as important to me anymore as it used to be. I know what I have .... But just trying to get others experiences with the psychosis and mania thing... Helps me continue to learn that I am not alone and that there are others like me.... I hope people continue to share to help further mine and others like me education on these topics..

[cashart10]

In my worst episode, I once took a 6 hour shower (in the middle of the night) after 3 days of no sleep and months of 4 hours or less and I believed (during this 6 hour shower) that the water never got cold. I thought I was vomiting evil spirits (and I actually was vomiting because I was drinking so much shower water so quickly believing it was holy water that it made me vomit repeatedly). I believed that I had divinely turned my husband down earlier that night because the Lord wanted me pure that night for himself. I drank gallons of water a day, believing it would keep the Holy Spirit from leaving. I believed that someone could read my mind. I heard the voice of the Holy Spirit telling me to do reckless things. I believed that ALL of my prayers were answered. I was hallucinating but believed these hallucinations to be "visions" from the Lord. I was hyper sexual but believed if I acted (masturbated); God would leave me in sin. I thought God was testing me. I felt evil presences all around and believed, once depressed, that they were trying to get me to kill myself. I also, concurrently, believed that if I went to a psychiatrist and got back on meds, I would lose my salvation. This delusion stopped me from getting help prior to completely losing touch.

[wildflowerchild25]

I'm not sure if I've ever been manic. Doctors say yes but I don't know. Seems like the line comes when I start thinking I have magic powers and can heal people with my presence and words, but when I try to write healing essays I can't piece to tether anything that makes sense because my mind is racing so much. That's what the doctor says is mania.

Psychosis comes in the form of me believing that someone/thing is implanting thoughts in my brain. That is the most common one for me. The thoughts usually tell me to harm myself. Sometimes I hallucinate but that is rare. I have also had delusions where I believe someone is trying to gt me to kill myself but I don't know who so everyone is a danger. I thought everyone could read my mind. I thought that some people were replaced by robots. And I thought my husband was controlling me through medication.

It is not fun.

[Curiosity77]

I'm not sure if i've ever had full blown mania or if it's just been severe hypo. I've had the no sleep, racing thoughts, multiple projects, hypersexual, over spending etc. i'm usually a bit mixed, so even when i have all those symptoms and my mood is elevated. i'll also be suicidal, which is weird. I'm also not sure if i've had psychosis, or if my thoughts just got intense and weird. Whenever i'm really unwell i start to believe that i am fighting against demons in a battle for my soul. The reason i'm not sure if it's really psychosis is that even when that seems real, i maintain some degree of doubt and knowledge that it might not be true. But then even when i'm well, i wonder if it is partially true. So who knows. It's either psychosis or fixed false beliefs - i'm not sure where the line is. Whatever it is that happens, it can get very intense and every time i manage to destroy parts of my life quickly with impulsive bad decisions and risk taking.

[BipolaRNurse]

Psychosis only happens during manic episodes for me, and not every time. It consists of extreme paranoia and auditory (as well as visual) hallucinations. Sometimes I even think I'm a special emissary from God who just happens to be in the right place at the right time. But I don't consider it to be particularly alarming, especially not when compared with a lot of the people here who experience the phenomenon. It's just weird.....and sometimes even humorous, like the time I woke up my husband in the middle of the night to have him listen to the classical harp music I was hearing. There was, of course, no music to be heard anywhere but in my own head.

[TheatreKid]

My first psychotic episode was during a manic/mixed episode, and during it I was absolutely convinced it was real. I thought that by admitting myself to the hospital instead of killing myself in early April 2008 I had caused a rip in my timeline and I had broken free of my predestined path, and since I was veering wildly out of control, timeline wise, anyone who had any sort of contact with me would be hurt. I remember being especially upset because I had drawn a picture for one of the nurses' toddlers and I was convinced the kid was going to die. I even drew a diagram of the timelines for my psychiatrist and she told me I was psychotic. It took several days on Risperidone to even start to come out of it.

Another time it happened, I was hallucinating this little boy spirit who said he was an angel, or maybe he said he was Jesus, I don't remember. In any case, I'm not religious at all so seeing Jesus is weird. When I asked him his name he told me (in picture) INRI (which is what they put on the cross above Jesus to mean Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews) and since that didn't make much sense to me I named him Henry because it kind of sounded like those letters read phonetically. Again I was convinced this angel was real, I even accidentally freaked out my sister by telling her he was in the room with us, but time with my pdoc and meds changed it. Since then I have done a lot of CBT and can usually manage to at least check with another person to see if what I'm experiencing is real.

The most recent one was every time I laid down I heard this electric zapping noise and I told my psych nurse that I thought the neighbours were trying to kill me with microwaves but we talked about it and I was able to realize it was not real. And then I discovered that the noise was only happening when my laptop was sitting on the bed or couch I was laying on, so the noise was coming from that, I guess.