[Becoming]

I always feel more messed up than others think that I am. It's just because I have Bipolar. Yes, I get the moods and stuff that change frequently. I don't see a pattern yet.

I always ask people if they relate to certain things. They say thoughts move fast for anyone...so how are racing thoughts a symptom of hypomania? They say they are anxious sometimes...so how is anxiety associated with Bipolar? They say they can relate to the feeling of paranoia...of being followed or stalked...so how is paranoia related to Bipolar?
They say they get songs stuck on their head in repeat for long periods of time or short snippets that pop in and out...so how is this annoyance part of bipolar?

What is Bipolar then if so many people can relate? Everybody's mood changes. What makes ours so different? The swift change? The cycles? I'm so confused after learning that people relate to things I go through.

In addition, I feel I need to get some medicine for depression cause I suffer that a lot. Lamictal isn't enough for me. Suggestions? I will schedule an appointment with a therapist and psychologist when I move back home for the summer.

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[Crazy Hitch]

A great post.

Thank you.

OUR thoughts are stated as racing fast by ourselves.

So it is irrelevant that others who do not have Bipolar state that their thoughts race fast too.

It simply means when we are hypo - we battle to hang onto a thought for too long because no longer has a thought fleeted through our mind then we are suddenly flung widly onto a completely different thought making it challenging to hold one specific thought for too long. We get very easily distracted.

Anxiety is related to Bipolar. Especially during Episodes. And even MORE so during Depression. Sometimes, Depression leads to a lot of Depression Speech. Depression Speech says to us: "You are useless. You can do nothing right. You always mess up. You are the worst person ever." And this Depression Speech makes us BELIEVE this to be true.

So we start panicking. How do I end myself being useless?

There may be only one option left.

And then we get ANXIOUS. What if "this" IS the only way out?

That is how badly Depression Speech makes us feel!

I sing songs when I have intrusive thoughts.

Constantly.

It is my WEAPON.

Against intrusive thoughts.

It is my WEAPON against Depression Speech.

I choose Life.

Daily.

I AM RADICALLY DIFFERENT. I KNOW WHO I AM AND I AM UNIQUE. I EMBRACE THIS.

________________

YOU ARE TITANIUM Becoming! ->

I'm bulletproof, nothing to lose
Fire away, fire away
Ricochet, you take your aim
Fire away, fire away
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
I am titanium
I am titanium

[dshantel]

This is why my husband says he doesn't get what makes people bipolar and not him or any other normal person who isn't bipolar, because everyone goes through these things.

For me, when manic, I have an altered state. It feels like I am drunk or stoned, but I am not. And it goes on and on and spirals out of control.

I can't think clearly. I am distracted. I can't function.

I don't think non-bipolars feel that way.

[Crazy Hitch]

Yeah, I can see how people would say this too (((dshantel))) I simply believe I have a different spin though on that concept.

I totally and utterly disagree with the notion that -

"what makes people bipolar and not im or any other normal person who isn't bipolar, because everyone goes through these things"

as much as you do dshantel.

We know better

[Sinking Feeling]

The difference is the severity and frequency. It's different then being a little down or just happy or nervous about some thing. For us it pretty much takes full control of our lives and dictates our actions.

[RisuNeko]

For me mania feels like hardcore drugs. Normal people dont experience that. ( not so much now that im on geodon, but i still get blips of feeling like im on ecstacy) and normal people dont feel the depression with the level of needless guilt that we do and in regular or roughly regular (or according to stressors) cycles.

[BipolaRNurse]

No one who isn't actually bipolar can understand what we go through with this illness. We just have to let remarks like "everybody's a little bipolar" go because we know differently. We can't worry about what other people think or say, we are who we are and we experience things the average person does not.

[raspberrytorte]

I don't know. I'm confused now. But when I have racing thoughts I can't focus on anything and my thoughts are about the mysteries of the universe, etc., and trying to figure out what certain phrases mean. Usually stupid things that I wouldn't care about normally.

Also I can't stop writing in my journal, like I'll have ten pages paragraph free written.

It's just distinctly different than the way I normally think.

[raspberrytorte]

Oh, and for med suggestion, I really like the seroquel I'm on. It's really helping with my anxiety and keeping me level. Only thing I don't like is that it's making me gain weight suddenly! I'm normally 122, and now I've gone over 130. Hate hate hate!!!!

[Alone & confused]

Normal people THINK they know what we go though. And, in a way the do. They may have the same emotions, racing thoughts, anxiety, and what they call depression, but the difference is the extremities, and the intensities that we have, the lack of control, and normal people have "normal" reactions to things, where our reactions can sometimes be triggered by irrational or unexplainable causes. Like, when I get anxiety, I don't just become worried or scared about something. My throat starts to feel like it's closing off, I get numb, short of breath, chest pains, light headed and such. When I'm manic, I don't have so many things on my mind that I can't keep track of all my "racing thoughts", I have a series of random thoughts that aren't relevant to whatever is going on or to the conversation I'm having, and I get what I call a "two second memory". I can't remember what I just said, did, or thought two seconds ago. (Norms don't do that.) And our depression isn't that we're sad, hurt, mad, bored or worried about something that has happened to us (although those things CAN be a trigger) , because if that were the case, we could do something to make ourselves feel better. With clinical depression, you can't just go to a party, or do your favourite things and make it go away. It's a chemical imbalance, not just a bad mood brought on by bad circumstances. We can be triggered by things that wouldn't bother normal people, we can have anxiety over things that aren't even real, or for unknown reasons. Things go to extremes with us.

Originally Posted by Alone & confused

Normal people THINK they know what we go though. And, in a way the do. They may have the same emotions, racing thoughts, anxiety, and what they call depression, but the difference is the extremities, and the intensities that we have, the lack of control, and normal people have "normal" reactions to things, where our reactions can sometimes be triggered by irrational or unexplainable causes. Like, when I get anxiety, I don't just become worried or scared about something. My throat starts to feel like it's closing off, I get numb, short of breath, chest pains, light headed and such. When I'm manic, I don't have so many things on my mind that I can't keep track of all my "racing thoughts", I have a series of random thoughts that aren't relevant to whatever is going on or to the conversation I'm having, and I get what I call a "two second memory". I can't remember what I just said, did, or thought two seconds ago. (Norms don't do that.) And our depression isn't that we're sad, hurt, mad, bored or worried about something that has happened to us (although those things CAN be a trigger) , because if that were the case, we could do something to make ourselves feel better. With clinical depression, you can't just go to a party, or do your favourite things and make it go away. It's a chemical imbalance, not just a bad mood brought on by bad circumstances. We can be triggered by things that wouldn't bother normal people, we can have anxiety over things that aren't even real, or for unknown reasons. Things go to extremes with us.

It is the extreme intensity and our inability to control it. We can't just "will"our moods away. It is much more difficult to do that than for people without bipolar.

Hey honey

Bipolar is such a broad term that covers this side of the spectrum of mental illness. Everyones bipolar symptoms aren't exactly the same, and to what degree of severity.

Normal people think that we're crazy, attention seeking, wimps and can't handle things, or making it up.

Hypo makes me spin in circles. I start one thing then get distracted and start another, hardly finishing anything because my mind is going faster than I can handle. This also causes me to stutter because my mouth can't keep up, because my heads on another thought mid sentence.

Bipolars understand Bipolars because we get it.

I'm on Lamictal also, but it stabilizes me on the depressed side, so we added a touch of anti d to bring me up to baseline. Too much though will make me hypo, that's why I need exactly 25 mg.

[Alone & confused]

Originally Posted by ValentinaVVV

It is the extreme intensity and our inability to control it. We can't just "will"our moods away. It is much more difficult to do that than for people without bipolar.

Exactly! Norms may say they're depressed, anxious, have racing thoughts and so forth, but it's a WHOLE OTHER LEVEL for us.

[UCMATH]

It's on a level a normal person would have to use meth on a regular basis to reach. When a normal person says their mind is racing, they mean they have been thinking about a lot of things lately. When a Bipolar person says their mind is racing, it means they can hardly remember what they were thinking about two seconds ago.

Bupropion is thought to be useful for Bipolar depression when taken in conjunction with a mood stabilizer. Remeron can help with treatment-resistant depression, but I don't know if it's safe to use for Bipolar.