[Darvula]

I'd like to know how bad your delusions have ever been while you were in a manic state. In the past when I still used to drink and take recreational drugs, I had delusions which were really crazy or full on psychotic. Examples would be things like thinking I could switch neon lights or machines on and off with the power of my mind, or believing I could put magic spells on other people. I would also sometimes hear voices saying my name, but only that - they never talked to me. When I was a child I had an imaginary friend, who I now think might have been an early symptom of my bipolar. Nowadays, I am not anywhere near that bad even though I am unmedicated and I put this down to having stopped drinking and taking drugs of any description. Even so, I still get really angry with people for imaginary reasons to the extent that I often find it best to stay away from other people until the mania has passed. I have lost a lot of friends due to imagining they had done things to me that they really hadn't, or because I totally over reacted to something they said or did. I would like to know other member's experiences.

Darvula

[madness2meditation]

Delusions while manic - The strongest one was that I had become God (In our religion, there are millions of them and they get reincarnated so very often so that delusion came rather easy to me). I always felt I had reincarnated as one of my favourite Gods. After that, there really is no stopping the power of an imaginative mind. You destroy worlds with your mind and then create new ones. Establish a new Utopian world. Ofcourse, you are 'enlightened'. You become a God only after it.

It sounds fun. A lot of it probably was.
But some of the things said and done while trying to 'restore justice' were embarrassing in some cases and hurtful in others.
And the crushing depression that followed wasn't any fun at all.

[43camt]

I havent had delusions as i have only known i had bp for about two months, but when i was manic earlier this month i would buy everything in site. I racked up a hefty CC bill over three days and ill be paying the price for sure

[RustbeltRoyalty]

Ugh, my delusions have nearly always been of the suspicious, paranoid variety. I never though I was a god, or anything like that. But at one point I felt like there was a vast conspiracy against me and the only way to fight it was to have a bunch of running aquariums in my house. (Whaaaat?)

[newtothis31]

Fortunately, I was not taking any drugs but I worked up some good delusions when I had my psychotic break:

1). That my parents had hired my husband at the time to take care of me- to be my "protector"- that he hadn't entered my marriage freely- he did so because my parents thought he would be the best one to take care of me.
2). That Barack Obama and Joe Biden wanted to meet me because I wrote them a compelling letter about universal health care.
3). That my high school retreat was actually a previous stay in the psych ward that my parents arranged b/c I refused to be inpatient in the hospital.
4). That I was actually a holocaust survivor, so was my mom, I was born in a concentration camp and my parents elected not to tell me. Since I was so scarred and malnourished- I actually looked like I was 30 when I was really in my 50s.
5). That everyone in my neighborhood was talking about me and wanted to get to know me.
6). That a budget mistake that I made would cost me my job. (I actually ended up getting a promotion at work).
7). I was reading the Huffington Post mobile app and thought that the headlines were secret messages from the government to control the moods & actions of the population.
8). That I could save my marriage.

This isn't even the full list. Thank goodness I got into inpatient when I did. Luckily- my delusions broke when I got on AP. The last delusion to break was my age- I was really convinced that I was much older than what I was.

[Curious651]

Sorry have not had delusions. Kind of hope I never do. Hope all is well

[Pikku Myy]

Delusions? At times very bad.... how would I know how bad until someone told me... love my friends, lol

[NNR09]

I didnte start having those until recently. I think its from the amount of stress I've had thrown at me latley. But my worst one (keep in mind I dont remember most of this) I woke up to go to work. I'm normally up at 4am so im pretty tired but I remember I had a dream about calling out of work. I woke up as if I were still in this dream. Apparently I rolled over woke up my boyfriend and told him I needed to call out of work. Somehow I made him upset...I'm not sure how i said it or what I did but eventually I convince my self to go. Next thing I know im awake and walking down my driveway. I have no memory of it.

[Trippin2.0]

I've had fun ones, like believing I was the daughter of Odin.

Lasted a few weeks that one. Haha


And then not so fun ones that lead to a break up, but we got back together eventually. So even though it wasn't fun it ended on a good note, because he wants me crazy and all.


Yeah, I've had a mixture of fun and bad delusional episodes. They usually last 2 weeks to a month, but atleast they're pretty *****ing rare.

[Darvula]

Wish I could have the delusion that I was the wife of Loki!

So many types of delusions. Mine are/were usually paranoid thoughts about the people around me or illusions of supernatural power, but it just occurred to me that I often convince myself that I have a weird and deadly illness. Like a while back I convinced myself I had ankle cancer and I sat obsessively feeling my ankles for hours! I was terrified at the time, but now it seems really funny.

Newtothis31, your delusions are just like my mum's, which again supports my theory that she is bipolar rather than schizophrenic.

[ChaoticSymphony]

I thought my husband put cameras in my house and got internet strangers to repeat something me and him talked about to subtly let me know he's always watching or has watchers. I questioned myself a lot during it though wondering if I was being paranoid but it did enough damage to affect how I conducted myself in certain situations. Not sure how long this lasted but it was very unnerving. I also had a time when I thought my neighbours were watching me out their windows and peeking into my windows. I go threw the supernatural bit too here and there. Some days I'm psychic other days I got nothing lol.

[newtothis31]

That's interesting, Darvula. My Mom has paranoid type schizophrenia. When she heard my delusions- she was like, Meredith you absolutely don't have to worry about having schizophrenia.

It took the doctors about a day or so to rule out schizophrenia.

[Darvula]

Newtothis, I know other people with a Schizophrenia diagnosis and they are quite different to my mum. They do not seem to have cycles of lucidity and confusion, but instead seem to be in an alternate reality state all the time. I have read that the diagnosis is difficult to make without constant long-term observation of the patient, and that makes sense. In my mum's case, she hasn't seen a psychiatrist in 30 years - she has just been given repeat prescriptions or occassionally had her meds changed by her ordinary GP if the side effects of one drug got too bad. She is on low dose anti psychotics now because the strong ones she should take make her twitch and shake uncontrollably.

Darvula

[Darvula]

Chaoticsymphony, you sound like a mixture of me and my mum.

Darvula

[Victoria'smom]

1. I could give myself a tummy tuck
2. They (pdoc,t, husband) were trying to take my eating disorder away.
3. My parents partnered with my husband to help him quickly divorce me.
4. My husband and his family www trying to kill me
5. I'm my husband 's imaginary friend and he was schizophrenic
6. Immaculate conception where in I. Immediatly had to commit suicide or join a convent.
But most of the time it's It'd look pretty if I ( insert horribly gruesome thought)

[4ALittle]

Well the first time I was hospitalized I believed I'd seen God/Heaven while on LSD. I had somehow made a promise or pact with the Universe that I would live my life and die some sort of eternal death so that my lover at the time (a Grateful Dead junkie) would be able to see what I saw. I had been as specific as to say that even if I married and had children, I would someday die for this other kid's soul.
I got on medicine and sort of shelved the weird thoughts that I had some secret knowledge of the Universe. Then I got off medicine and got real religious.
Then lo and behold, like 15 years later I picked up where I'd left off with the same delusion. I got the idea in my head after three days with no sleep and a steady diet of Sudafed, caffeine and alcohol that the Universe was now demanding payment on my promise to die for this dude I'd known briefly but intensely in college. I didn't feel suicidal, I just felt I needed to go through something big to come clean about the first episode. I likened my three day hospitalization to Christ's descent into Hell. The same doctor greeted me at the hospital that had diagnosed me as Bipolar I years before. My brain was mush. I was pretty hopeless. I accepted the diagnosis this time. Anything to get back to reality and my family, whom I love.
Now, I have a pdoc, a therapist, all of you lovely people and a long term prescription for a little Abilify. My grandmother was Manic-Deppressive too.

[tipper1492]

Little wonder to me if you drank and used drugs. You could change things and people by just using your mind. Hear voices. Unmediated now. Get really angry with people for imaginary reasons. Stay away from people. And more indicates to me there are mutable links going on here. Listen and hear your own words and see a psychiatrist is my opinion. Doctor's drugs saved my life.

[Manic Trance]

My delusions are subtle and deceptive, but I know now that I am delusional when I start to believe that there is a kind of magical property to things, and that somehow I have the key to that. When I was in youth development I came to believe that teaching life skills was something more along the lines of direct transmission as is practiced in spiritual circles like Nepalese Shamanism and what not. I also have had this belief in the kind of magical powers of my concentration. Like, I could hold an idea in my attention over extremely protracted periods of time and thereby make it manifest. I believe that I am kind of super human, like I have this ability to simply will things into existence. When I start thinking in these ways I know that I am delusional though I don't know how to stop it.

It's like the whole world takes on this kind of riddle like quality, like if I just think hard enough about it I can solve it. The thing is that I am not always manic, but I still basically feel this way, and I kind of don't entertain the idea that things are not possible. Also, things that are clearly possible bore me. I come up with broad, fantastical plans, even when I am not manic, and then when I am manic things really escalate. It is a blessing and a curse, because I actually do some of these things. I don't have psychotic mania, so I never believe truly impossible things, just extremely unlikely things that don't really acknowledge limitation. I can really burn people out. And I get really burned out and there are big crashes. But when I am on top, it can be really triumphant.

Like I run this thing, and I let someone else run it for a year, and their plan, was just so boring, so uninspired, and everyone is just bored and uninspired, and finally nothing is happening. So I took it back over, and I am running it, and immediately I have this bizarre far flung plan that relates only tangentially to the mission, but that is really compelling that gets people really excited, and that gets everyone working and what not. The thing is, that is great, but I get really wrapped up in it, things will get really crazy, so I have to be careful. I don't ever know where that line is before I've already crossed it.

The other kind of mania I have is negative and paranoid. Believing that people are kind of conspiring against me, really just that people are against me, that they think I am a silly stupid person and that they take pleasure in manipulating and deceiving me. This is almost CERTAINLY not the case, but I can get this into my mind and start building stratagems for counteracting this. Sometimes I'll confront someone about it and they're like "what?!" and I immediately see how crazy I am being. Literally last night I was going to tell someone that I didn't feel good around them and that I didn't feel like I was with someone who liked me when I was with them and that I did not want to have a relationship because of this, and instead I just chatted with them a while, and it turns out that they are so happy to see me, and love and value me so much, and I am so happy that we are friends, and I am SO crazy!

Then there is what I call 'black mania' which is when I end up writhing around punching myself in the face chanting that I want to kill myself. That hasn't happened in a while.

Ugh...
That was a bit of a rant... I am hypomanic right now for sure...
:-/
Soon...
MT

[Nammu]

My hair and nails were dead and I needed to get rid of them right away before the rest of me went dead.

That I had all the answers to save the worlds problems.... if people would just stop talking and listen to me.

[Imah]

I didn't know they were delusions for decades I thought I was just gifted.

1. Very psychic - controlling others.
2. Numbers, car colors and shapes, radio all giving me messages.
3. Can move clouds.
4. Psychically linked to criminals and its my responsibility to tune in and try to help them not want to hurt people, or to help solve the crime.
5. phone or write people like the Dahli Lhama to tell him they should chant yaaaa instead of noooo (sounds like, not actual) in order to uplift the world.
6. That Hillary Clinton wonders what my great godlike mind wants her to do - she doesn't know its me, its just that I am the almighty strong spiritual one who knows the direction of the destiny of earth.
7. Today it was, writing the Palmolive soap company to write a new ad campaign that will ultimately save and turn around the company profits.
8. That there are small black hole type things that floats in our atmosphere and one passed through me and I felt myself in 3 dimensions at once.

I didn't understand these were delusions. On some level I still believe that I am just more tuned into the spiritual plane then others - that all of us are. We are the special ones. I recently started taking a med that helps these to lessen. But not being sure what is real and what is divine understanding has been a serious problem.

Best of luck to us all.

(bipolar 1/borderline personality disorder/anxiety - recovering agoraphobic)

[Mrs. Mania]

Originally Posted by 43camt

I havent had delusions as i have only known i had bp for about two months, but when i was manic earlier this month i would buy everything in site. I racked up a hefty CC bill over three days and ill be paying the price for sure

Oh...can I relate! I spent over half my husbands check on a shopping spree for my daughter and I last Friday Been a long week since.

[4ALittle]

Originally Posted by Imah

I didn't know they were delusions for decades I thought I was just gifted.

1. Very psychic - controlling others.
2. Numbers, car colors and shapes, radio all giving me messages.
3. Can move clouds.
4. Psychically linked to criminals and its my responsibility to tune in and try to help them not want to hurt people, or to help solve the crime.
5. phone or write people like the Dahli Lhama to tell him they should chant yaaaa instead of noooo (sounds like, not actual) in order to uplift the world.
6. That Hillary Clinton wonders what my great godlike mind wants her to do - she doesn't know its me, its just that I am the almighty strong spiritual one who knows the direction of the destiny of earth.
7. Today it was, writing the Palmolive soap company to write a new ad campaign that will ultimately save and turn around the company profits.
8. That there are small black hole type things that floats in our atmosphere and one passed through me and I felt myself in 3 dimensions at once.

I didn't understand these were delusions. On some level I still believe that I am just more tuned into the spiritual plane then others - that all of us are. We are the special ones. I recently started taking a med that helps these to lessen. But not being sure what is real and what is divine understanding has been a serious problem.

Best of luck to us all.

(bipolar 1/borderline personality disorder/anxiety - recovering agoraphobic)

It's frustrating to grapple with the whole, what is delusion and what is divine reality question. It makes religion and spirituality tricky for me. I think I trust myself less than some people trust themselves. This is something I work on everyday.

[Capriciousness]

I like to think mine have been pretty benign

Believing the my apartment/I was full of the presence of an evil dark spirit from my past lives.

Believing my mission in this life was to conquer this spirit and free myself and family.

Believing I did this while meditating...(still no clear answer on whether or not that was psychosis)

Being afraid to go to sleep because I thought my soul would be taken or "transferred"

Believing that might have already happened and I wasn't actually me etc (this got confusing)

Holding rocks while I slept in order to "ground me"

Believing I had to satisfy all karmic debts ASAP

Believing master spirits were teaching me through my dreams.

Etc etc etc.

See nothing very "dangerous" or even obvious but I'm glad it crashed when it did without getting more out of hand. Lots of it was very nice but parts of it were terrifying.

[ohjustchillin]

Ah, mine are very embarrassing. I can't believe I used to believe these things. In middle school (my bipolar set in around 7th grade) I believed I was pregnant with Jesus. I used to believe I could control water and air, and that there were monsters in the bathroom and that always followed me around. They threatened to kill me unless I sang in the shower constantly. It was ridiculous. Or that I was being followed all the time, or that all of my friends hated me, etc. I was in a really bad place a couple years ago, but since I've been getting help I've been feeling a lot better. Every day is still a struggle, but not as difficult as before. I'm scared of having another one, though. Because my boyfriend is a huge part of my life, and I actually left home to be with him. If my illness puts a strain on us, I don't know what I'll do. I start college in the spring. I have a new job. I can't fall apart again. Or if I do, I'll have to do it quietly.

[Road_to_recovery]

So far the worst delusion I had was that I believed terrorists had hacked into my phone and were tracking me