[cashart10]

Making it all up? What if I don't realize it? Don't know any better? If so, my pdoc and meds really don't matter. What if I'm a phony and it's just all in my head? How do I know? I know I'm blowing up the boards...I'm feeling sick.

[HALLIEBETH87]

You are not alone! I think this all the time. The something happens and I realize its real. And then those thoughts come again. Its so odd, isn't? How our brains work.

Just know...we're all here for you during those sick times. We understand. ((hugs))

[cashart10]

I mean seriously, who goes from completely depressed, :

Possible trigger:

suicidal

, her *** glued to the couch (almost literally--even with kids around), to a perfectly kept house, better attended to kids, and drastically improving mood almost overnight? It defies logic. Could a medicine really have done that? Seriously, I feel like I have to be faking it. Like those were theoretical sugar pills. I honestly am living like a different person (the person I was prior to my breakdown 3 years ago) and I haven't even been "saved" again...in other words, this doesn't feel like a "Jesus thing". I feel like I'm in the video for R.E.M.'s Shiny Happy People. I don't know what to think.

[Crazy Hitch]

(((cash)))

Yeah I've known you for long enough to know - this is very real.

Hang in there!

I've responded that quickly to meds a couple of times. Doctors used to say it couldn't happen, but during the last couple of years I've read some theories about how it could be possible.

[BipolaRNurse]

For me it took a hospital stay and some serious med changes before I finally got it---that I wasn't making it up, that I really WAS sick and needed treatment. I felt like the world's biggest faker up until that point. Of course, now that I've been well for a few months that little bit of denial has begun to creep in again, but I'm trying not to give in to it. I know I'm BP and I can't get rid of it no matter how good my medications are. I also know I can't manage it without meds, and that's not all in my head either.

Hang in there Cashy. We love ya!

[cashart10]

Thank you BipolarNurse! Yep! We should start a support group...oh, wait. I have been hospitalized and, more importantly, I documented the most incredibly bizarre psychotic episode I've ever had during the episode! I revisit it at times like now and even then can still sometimes justify it as "the Lord's work." That is also insane perhaps!

I can relate to this as well. I have felt that everything is fake at times because a combination of medications, therapy, and my self working together can make me feel normal. I actually talked to my therapist about this before and she more or less was like hey remember where you were at one point; are you willing to throw all your progress away because of these thoughts. She is very stern about staying on my medications and she has more or less lectured me on it. Looking back I am glad she did because truly I don't want to be in the place I was before again.

The locking myself away and just wanting to sleep, the anhedonia, the constant negative self talk. Or on the flip side running around for 16 hours a day, emailing my director multiple times with super outlandish requests for our work environment, the racking up of debt, not being able to keep a thought and trying to get everybody on bored with all my plans.

I remember crying out I am sick of this I just want to be stable and in the middle, which is where I am now. Stay strong and shut that negative talk down by reminding yourself of where you have come from to now.

[RisuNeko]

I feel like im pretending especiallly when my symptoms arent intolerable. Its just the way our brains work i guess. Its easy to forget deep depression because your memory gets impaired, same with extreme mania, you can only really tell by the effects it has.

[wildflowerchild25]

I completely understand! I feel like this quite often. Especially when depressed/mixed and when I get hospitalized. I feel like I'm just being dramatic and that my symptoms aren't as bad as I'm making them out to be and certainly don't require hospitalization. It took a serious psychotic episode to get me to wake up and accept it as well!

I still feel like I made my life exponentially harder than it needed to be. Who goes to the hospital six times in a year and a half? I MUST have been making it up for attention. I'm always worried about that because when I was a kid I did make up injuries/illnesses for attention. I still feel horrible about it and that was twenty years ago.

But when I feel like this, I remember my favorite Harry potter quote:

Harry: professor, can I ask you a question? Is this real, or is it happening inside my head?
Dumbledore: of course it's happening inside your head, Harry. But why should that mean it's not real?

[raspberrytorte]

You're not faking it. I always respond to meds right away. Even with the lamictal. Some of us just do.

It's great you're feeling better! Just enjoy it.

[jacky8807]

I feel you
This type of thinking is ruining my life
This last hospitalization. ..almost lost my job. ....my family is tired
And right now i know its because im in denial

[Capriciousness]

YES! I'm so glad you started this. I think about this often. Just yesterday I was pondering it again. It was this thought that kept me away from trying meds for so long until I had to see that it was real. That I couldn't control it. And you know what even if I was making it up I needed help anyway.

And ya know what makes me realize it is real sometimes is coming here and realizing that it just can't be possible that all of us from all over the place not even knowing eachother could be making up the same ****. It just can't be true.

Either we are ALL making it up or we all do and say and feel the same kind of stuff from the same "disorder" the doctors have collectively decided to call Bipolar for the moment.

[HALLIEBETH87]

I always thought I was alone in this thinking. Mine has been so hard to manage I thought I was faking.

[jacky8807]

Originally Posted by Capriciousness

YES! I'm so glad you started this. I think about this often. Just yesterday I was pondering it again. It was this thought that kept me away from trying meds for so long until I had to see that it was real. That I couldn't control it. And you know what even if I was making it up I needed help anyway.

And ya know what makes me realize it is real sometimes is coming here and realizing that it just can't be possible that all of us from all over the place not even knowing eachother could be making up the same ****. It just can't be true.

Either we are ALL making it up or we all do and say and feel the same kind of stuff from the same "disorder" the doctors have collectively decided to call Bipolar for the moment.

Beautifully said

Originally Posted by cashart10

Making it all up? What if I don't realize it? Don't know any better? If so, my pdoc and meds really don't matter. What if I'm a phony and it's just all in my head? How do I know? I know I'm blowing up the boards...I'm feeling sick.

I know how you feel hun, it scares me to talk about it because I feel like it's all fake, that my brain can't be trusted. Between, bipolar, DID, derealization and depersonalization, I just don't believe it sometimes. I'm afraid of starting therapy and to be told that I'm just acting.

Getting stabile on meds tells me that's the way I always were, till I quit meds and then lose it.

I hope you get to feeling better Sweety.

[cashart10]

Originally Posted by raspberrytorte

You're not faking it. I always respond to meds right away. Even with the lamictal. Some of us just do.

It's great you're feeling better! Just enjoy it.

That makes me feel better. I just keep thinking there is no way a med could work that quickly. It's good to know that it can indeed do this very thing. My mom said the same thing, "just enjoy it." I am such a freaking worry wart!

[cashart10]

Originally Posted by AlwaysChanging2

I know how you feel hun, it scares me to talk about it because I feel like it's all fake, that my brain can't be trusted. Between, bipolar, DID, derealization and depersonalization, I just don't believe it sometimes. I'm afraid of starting therapy and to be told that I'm just acting.

Getting stabile on meds tells me that's the way I always were, till I quit meds and then lose it.

I hope you get to feeling better Sweety.

I'm sorry Alwayschanging! I sure hope no one would think you are acting, you seem like such a genuine person. Thank you for your kind words.

Originally Posted by cashart10

I'm sorry Alwayschanging! I sure hope no one would think you are acting, you seem like such a genuine person. Thank you for your kind words.

Thanks, not taking anything away from you, I get how you feel. Nobody deep down really wants to think that there is something wrong with them. When I get that way, all denial and disbelieving like, I just look back at my life's story and I can see the truth.

[Capriciousness]

I meant to add that I have quick changes like that within an "episode" while on or off meds anyway. And that is one of the things that makes it so hard to believe I'm not just some weak weird depraved attention seeking individual making it all up.

Bipolar is ridiculous