Hi, I'm new and just had first full-blown mania...

Hi all. My name is Tess. I'm in my late 20's, single, and have a son who's going into 2nd grade. I just decided to join this forum because I had my first full-blown manic episode recently and needed to connect with others who have had this experience, as it's something I don't think non-bipolars can ever understand.

I've been diagnosed with Bipolar II for 5 years. I cycle pretty rapidly, tending to be by default severely depressed and then having 1-2 hypomanic episodes at certain times of year. During hypomania typically I spend too much, but not enough to put me out of house and home (yet! ), flirt inappropriately, talk a LOT and fast (so fast that I trip over my words and no one can follow me!) and exercise a lot. So nothing that's ever troubled me a lot. My depression's always been the real killer, debilitating me for months at a time when I can't get off the couch and just sit and sob all day, or self-medicate a lot.

In addition to bipolar, I am diagnosed Autistic, and also have PTSD from sexual abuse as a child and physical, verbal and emotional abuse in adult relationships. So as you can see I have quite the cocktail to work with, haha.

I've been in therapy and on Rx drugs since I was 13. Tried almost all the antidepressants on the market to no avail.

Everything changed for me a little while back while my son was away with his dad and my friend/roommate was also out of town. I'd been hypomanic for a few days and then the trouble started, though it certainly didn't feel like trouble at the time. I started hearing voices from the stars telling me that I was the chosen one to lead humanity through science toward its interplanetary future, and that science articles all contained coded messages for me. I was in ecstasy and of course I had to share my wisdom! So I alienated all but a very few of my friends and family by bombarding them with grandiose, nonsensical "instructions" on how they should be advancing science and their consciousness.

Typically for me when the mania finally subsided, having basically ruined my life, I went straight out the other side into the blackest of depressions and all I could think about was death and destruction, all I could feel was self-loathing. I started to believe that the police knew about me and were coming to take me away to the psych ward... product I suppose of previous very traumatic experiences in hospitals.

So that's been my last couple of months. Naturally when I told my psychiatrist (feeling of course like a complete fool ) what had happened, she immediately switched my diagnosis from Bipolar II to I and put me on an antipsychotic.

Whew boy... this is a long post, and I only meant to introduce myself! Anyway... I hope to meet others who can understand my experience here. Thanks in advance for any replies!

Wow, you've been through a lot lately. How are you doing now? Is the AP helping?

I started out with a BPII diagnosis too but it quickly was changed to 1, within a few months. I think that at first they were thinking the rapid cycling was the biggest issue and then time told them more than that was a big problem.

Going through all the ADs often is something that happens to people who are not diagnosed with bipolar but should be. I read once somewhere that after 3 ADs fail, especially if they work and then stop working rapidly, that the dr should immediately consider bipolar seriously but that this isn't widely known among drs, especially those who aren't psychiatrists. I have been on pretty much every AD that was out before 2009 except a couple that were either SSRIs which I absolutely cannot take or that were related to something that I'd had trouble with previously. I'm now on an MAOI called Emsam and have been for 6 years without any problems except that the dose needs to be cut back when I'm agitated.

Anyway, welcome to PC and hopefully you'll find lots of support here.

welcome

It's good to see you here

Hello and welcome. You have been through a lot. And you're right about it being hard to repair friendships after an attack of full blown mania. I hope some of your friends are willing to learn more about being bipolar.

I hope with the change in meds things will get better for you.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Welcome to PC and the forums. Yes it sounds like you have been through a tough time of it. Here you will find people that can relate to your experiences, so once again, welcome, look forward to chatting with you!

Welcome!!!

Welcome!! We're glad you're here!

Hi, welcome to our little corner

Hey, I can totally relate to your experience (though mine was a little different of course).

I'd been diagnosed as bp2 for years. About five years to be exact. My hypos were never any trouble. Just a lot of creativity and me being silly. I never spent tons of money. I didn't do anything reckless. I just felt really good and did a lot of writing.

Then, I don't know what happened, but I had my first full blown manic episode at the end of january. It was awful. I believed I was enlightened, that I could save the entire world with my positive energy, that I was dreaming, and in order to release all of this positive energy I had to "wake up", and the only way to wake up was to take a bunch of pills for some reason. It was really intense, and I ended up inpatient after a pathetic attempt at an OD.

It was really traumatizing. I'm still recovering. Luckily for me I wanted to keep my enlightenment a "secret", so the only person I told about it was my husband (and the inpatient doctor when I was IP). I also had hallucinations, though non audio. I was just psychotic and out of my mind manic. I read some of my journal entries from that time, and damn, I was so out of my mind.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that I relate.

Just, horrible experience.

Never want to experience that again. It was NOT pleasant.

I hope neither of us experience anything like that again! (Though yours sounds like it was an euphoric experience, and mine was just terrible.)

Oh, and needless to say, I got upgraded to bp1.