[Atypical_Disaster]

How do you know if your mood is at baseline/normal/stable? How can you tell? What is it like?

Thanks in advance for any answers.

[Wander]

I'm having trouble working out that myself. I think I am 'normal'
when my mood does not effect my capacity to function 'normally'. Obviously this is very subjective and our view of things can be skewed by the bipolar. I have asked friends and a close one is pretty good at noticing where I am 'normal', manic, depressed or mixed just from spending alot of time with me. Is there anyone in your life you would feel safe to have some feedback from?

For me it's when I'm bored. When I'm sleeping regularly, eating regularly and feeling bored. That's how I can usually tell. Just my experience though. I was diagnosed late in life, I'm used to being unstable...

[BipolaRNurse]

For me, normal is when I don't need to do a gut-check first thing in the morning to find out which way the wind is blowing.

[hamster-bamster]

Eating regularly, drinking plenty of liquids, and sleeping enough but not too much. meaning - for me it boils down to physiology.

[Sinking Feeling]

Baseline is going to be different for all of us. Mine changes I find. I know because I keep a mood log. I can see graphs for the week, month, year and even years. Baseline is simply the best I can hope for

[venusss]

Sleeping normally. Enjoying things. Enjoying food but not obsessing about it. Smiling when one sees a kitty and being healthily angry over issues that should make you angry (if kitty playing with a flower and war in Syria make you feel the same emotion - blah - that is not stable). Stable is also not chronically bored or unchanging.



interesting take on stable as a goal: Why ?Stabilizing? People is Entirely the Wrong Idea | Mad In America

[Curious651]

Could be off tilt, but I think everyone is normal or we would not be. Learned radical acceptance and pretty much we are the way we are and that is our normal. As for baseline, that is tough. Everyone has their own I believe. Mine maybe up and down throughout the day as long as it is not to the far extreme that I don't function. If I stay in house, don't go out, avoid ppl, I know I am in trouble. On other side. If out spending money, eating everything in site, and blabbing on to everyone I see I know I am in trouble again. Some where in the middle is good for me.

[Blitter2014]

When those around me enjoy my company and I enjoy theirs. When I can eat poo and sleep normally. (Sorry but my stomach and nerves tells me alot about how I'm doing) When I can act like I want to act without feeling drugged or zombified.

But most of all, being stable means im not constantly focused on myself but have time and energy left to spend on others.

[elevatedsoul]

i dunno, i dont really ever know how i feel

[ozzy1313]

Originally Posted by venusss

Sleeping normally. Enjoying things. Enjoying food but not obsessing about it. Smiling when one sees a kitty and being healthily angry over issues that should make you angry (if kitty playing with a flower and war in Syria make you feel the same emotion - blah - that is not stable). Stable is also not chronically bored or unchanging.:

This! Stable for me is a feeling of calm. My brain is quiet. I enjoy things yet I also feel every emotion, but in balance.

[TheatreKid]

I don't really have a baseline. It's hard to pin one down, when EVERYONE has normal mood fluctuations. I know my hypo and manic symptoms, and my depression symptoms, and my psychosis symptoms, and label the vast amorphous combination of things in between to be normal.

I've actually found that once I stopped pathologically labelling every mood I was in, I had fewer episodes. Maybe there was no change and I stopped labelling every day mood fluctuations as more than they were, but in any case, I feel more peaceful, in control. As long as I'm not ringing mania or depression warning bells, I don't care what's "stable" and what isn't.

[lilypup]

When I can shower normally and get up and go to reasonable things. Needing rest is okay, but isolating is not.

[wiretwister]

When i am not pacing the floor and eating 24/7 or doping myself silly to sleep or crying over nothing and bored out of my mind then i am normal.

[HALLIEBETH87]

Im wondering this too!

[Tomalovely]

I know I am stable when I can laugh and have fun with my family. My husband has a great sense of humor, which often busts me out of darkness, but just to have a pleasant time back and forth is a good indicator. This usually doesn't last long, but keeps me hopeful!

When the intensity and duration of extremes are tolerable. Given moments, can be very uncomfortable, but not persisting and pervasive to where it really messes with my functioning.

That's my usual take on it anyway. Sometimes, it goes one better in that there really aren't (even short-lived) intensity bouts to deal with. By this I DON'T mean flat emotion. The intensity bouts mentioned above are very negative for me --as in suicidal or very self-destructive energy level, NOT as in deliriously happy, or deeply moved. Those are just fine.
But there's just too much precariousness to my life to wait around for that level of fabulosity, so I count the other. It's simply more realistic, given my overall life situation.

[LastQuestion]

Normal is an immediate awareness of how unnormal I have become, courtesy of the knowledge gained through intense and torturous emotional extremes which are routinely compounded by a persistent state of disinterest, varying cognitive deficits, and the life that naturally arises in consequence of those conditions.

Being normal or stable is, for me, when being depressed or suicidal is not a constant part of my life as it is then I am most able to distract myself from how unpleasant it is to be so far from normal, whatever that actually is.

[WorkhorseDVM]

Originally Posted by HALLIEBETH87

Im wondering this too!

I am really glad Atypical Disaster asked this question!

[Tucson]

I am focusing outward instead entirely on myself. I feel energized but still relaxed. I go out and do things I now have an interest in doing.

[Fresia]

Stable for me is one when I sleep a decent amount of hours but not too many eiher.
When I wake up and I don't either:
1. Really dread the day and will not get out bed no matter what, OR
2. I don't have a gad-zillion things I have to/want to get done right NOW!, all of them this instant,
so then the day actually lies somewhere in between; this means it is as stable and levelish as it is going to get.

[Sprite22]

That hard for me too...because I can't even tell when I need to get to the doctors (Hospitals) so it is very difficult for me to tell.

[cmorales]

I am relatively stable right now. I'm still not used to it because I went most of my life without meds and even though they have been stabilizing me for months, I am just not used to it - I don't know if I will ever get used to it. I understand the "boredom" previously mentioned. It's almost doesn't feel right or natural to be stable and I sort of miss my mood swings because, even though I am "stable" I don't feel normal. It doesn't feel like I am me. It still feels like instability is my norm and this stability I am feeling now is not the real me. But I know it's for the best to feel this way as opposed to the extremes - I guess.

I first started to realize my stability when I stopped feeling things so intensely. My emotions were hushed a bit, you know, they stopped being so extreme. My mind slowed down a bit. I still can't concentrate much but at least I am not jumping from one thing to another to another to another. I stopped getting so agitated over the littlest things and I sort of just chilled out a bit.

[WorkhorseDVM]

Originally Posted by cmorales

I am relatively stable right now. I'm still not used to it because I went most of my life without meds and even though they have been stabilizing me for months, I am just not used to it - I don't know if I will ever get used to it. I understand the "boredom" previously mentioned. It's almost doesn't feel right or natural to be stable and I sort of miss my mood swings because, even though I am "stable" I don't feel normal. It doesn't feel like I am me. It still feels like instability is my norm and this stability I am feeling now is not the real me. But I know it's for the best to feel this way as opposed to the extremes - I guess.

I first started to realize my stability when I stopped feeling things so intensely. My emotions were hushed a bit, you know, they stopped being so extreme. My mind slowed down a bit. I still can't concentrate much but at least I am not jumping from one thing to another to another to another. I stopped getting so agitated over the littlest things and I sort of just chilled out a bit.

I am sooooo NOT stable yet. But you just described what I have been thinking / wondering about. What / Who in all this is me? I do know that I need to be calm cool and collected to keep my job.

[BeckyM]

I'm glad you seem to be doing so well right now! So happy for you! Sounds like you have a good Doc! Have a great day! Be happy, you deserve it!