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Quick question. Let's say I've been obsessed all day with solving the prison/mental health system. I'm a psych nurse, and their was a case I didn't think was handled great or quite right. So I didn't just ask a few questions, I basically wrote two position papers about it in the last couple work days. Things about laws, rights, etc. I'm home now and have already written out a plan to have doctors (and which doctors i could get to volunteer) take call at certain hours , what a prn med list would be, how people would get flagged when they got to jail, what the follow-up plan would be. And kind of have that 'i'm special' feeling, that I basically know everything and others don't much. Not in a mean way. In a 'I'm chosen' way. I don't think I'm jesus lol. But maybe a good friend that has a similar vibrational frequency. I'm pretty sure I'm hypo, so please comment. I hate saying I'm hypo if I am, even if I know, bc a) it feels so great, b) it means I have bipolar still, c) it will end and when it does I'll have a day when I'm so flat I can barely get out bed.

obsession is my weakness .... it is a problem I need to work on ... just a thought ...

Well, I'm apparently not good at it either bc I can't stop right now. But I at least stepped away from my notebook. And maybe should eat since I barely have today.

I stopped writing my plan and ate. That's good. Now I'm somewhere in between thinking I just made a total *** of myself at work and that I can pull off this off and change the system. i feel like my thoughts are racing and I can't sit still or focus. I don't know what anyone replies meant. Now I'm questioning some of this maybe, I would just like to feel a littler slower.

Your position papers and plan may be brilliant, but I might be inclined to wait until I came down to baseline before submitting them. At the very least have a colleague look them over before you do anything with them. Keep us posted.

When that happens to me I don't feel like i'm chosen, but more like i've found my path, kundalini rising if u kwim

Well, I already sent them. To the whole treatment team.

I like that Zepchic. It does feel like I've found my path. There's some special in it but I would describe it as a transcending vibrational harmony.

The way you said you feel 'unique' and 'special' sounds to me like you're hypomanic. At least you still have insight. I know what you mean about realizing it'll be finite and you're still bipolar and that the pendulum will swing the other way eventually. I may be in the same boat as you are as i'm getting some small signs that hm is impending now that early Spring is finally[!] here. Let's keep an eye on each other!

It feels like I'm tapped into a different energy right now and I might have made as *** of myself but I'm right and I'm the person to pull it off. How do great things get accomplished if not for this? Brief moments of pure, enlightened engagement with what we are all capable of. I'm just tapped in right now.

Back in the late eighties when desktop publishing was just coming out, i learned PageMaker and put together a manual for one of my apps. I thought it was the greatest thing. I even sent a copy to my mom. And it certainly was good-looking. But months later i came across it and read it and realized it was full of typos and mis-spellings and wrong words. I was so embarrassed.

Not to offend you, but you sound manic, not hypo. You're reminding me of a time in my life when I went totally manic and had to be hospitalized. I would talk to my pdoc if I were you, ASAP. I could be wrong, but that's just from my experience.

I took meds. I took a prn. This is not a good feeling now. I'm hypomanic so I acted like a freak at work. And after work. I've been on the up since I had about 3 days of depressiona few weeks ago now. There was the day I didn't stop laughing the whole day, including during a meeting and had to get up and leave. Then that settled some and I was a nice even keel slightly elevated for at least 10 days, not too much, not too little. Just right. Then a lot more anxious type stuff the last few days, and then today I pretty much thought I was king of the world and could solve all of the problems in prison and healthcare. It really felt like I could. It all made sense. It still does. I also know I feel exhausted at the same time I feel really really wired. If I rated my mood it would not be 'normal' range. Earlier it felt so good and now it feels agitating to be out of the normal range. Because I'm recognizing it. This is really frustrating. I don't want to have bipolar anymore. I have it though. I'm on a psych board. It's spring. It's normal to be on up side. I just have to control it better and function better through it. That's what I've been doing for months. I'm able to work consistently, I do well. I feel embarrassed people at work are either going to think I'm a narcisstic jerk, or that I'm crazy. Probably crazy bc I'm pretty sure people don't think I'm a jerk. It's not normal for me to write a full page plus email with a detailed analysis and plan to correct, when I wasn't asked to in any way to do it. I made it seem like I can fix it single handedly. I really felt like I was kind of god like earlier for a few hours. It was so intense and beautiful actually. Calming to think about now. I still have bipolar. It will be ok. Maybe my plan is actually brilliant, like somebody said. "The disease of genius", my therapist once said. But that might just be me being hypo. I've been writing this for a long time now. I can go to bed and sleep, and not get up if I wake up early and try to go back to sleep. If I wake up at 1am totally wired, which I did last night, I just need to tone it down and take another prn. If you listened through all of that, thanks. Peace Out.

This is the kind of thing that wrecked my own nursing career. I had a high-level director of nursing job, but I loved hypo/mania so much that I let it run rampant...at one point I was so manic that I couldn't hide it anymore and had to take medical leave. Two days after I came back I was fired. The Americans with Disabilities Act didn't do anything to protect me; companies always have an office full of lawyers at their disposal who know how to work around the ADA.

I know how enticing hypomania can be---I've been wrestling with it a bit lately myself, but then I don't have a job to worry about. But you have to get that beast under control before you do something that makes you look reckless and foolish. Nurses unfortunately are held to a higher standard than most professions; and though we carry enormous responsibility we also have very little authority. That makes us vulnerable to judgment, not only by supervisors and administration but our own fellow nurses.

Please use your PRNs. You're hovering over the line between hypomania and mania, and it's going to affect you at work. Good luck to you!

I get periods where I have huge bursts of creativity. For example during my last manic episode (not the one I am going through now) I barely slept and started sewing replicas of costumes from shows like Game of Thrones. No patterns, just a dress form, fabric and pins. I have the unique ability to look at a piece of clothing, deconstruct it in my head and then recreate it without a pattern. During this episode I must have spent 450 hours sewing, weathering leather, hand painting fabric, hand setting studs and grommets ect. I couldn't stop, I had to keep going and going until the costumes were exact replicas of the designs I was copying.

When I get manic I can get obsessed very easily with projects. Whether is sewing, painting, making jewelry ect. I start thinking I could become the next Vivienne Westwood or become a known artist. Or I could become obsessed with studying history or literature or something. My mania either manifests in several ways. This one, where I become obsessed, or it manifests as very intense panic and anxiety, fear and violent mood swings or finally it manifests as living really fast and hard and taking a lot of stupid risks. (The last one has not happened to me since I was in my mid twenties)

I felt like this last summer, but I was hypomanic. I too thought I had the cure for the mental health system within the correctional setting. I enrolled in a grad school for a degree in forensic psychology (one of those online schools). Then I was starting my third class and was like, what am I doing? I withdrew from the school. That's not to say that your plan isn't good. But maybe look it over in about a week or so before going straight to your supervisors about it.

I agree it sounds like you are getting close to leaving hypomania and becoming manic. Try to sleep more, nap, cut out drugs, alcohol, etc.

If PRNs aren't slowing you down, see your doc. Nursing is an important job!

You guys are great. Thank you. I woke up 3-4 times but I got at least 7hrs of sleep. I did pop right out of bed no problem. I do feel a little groggy at the same time from extra meds but my hyper-ness kind of balances it.

I feel like I'm still on the up side. I was manic or close to yesterday.

Some of you mentioned my job, etc. For the time being I'm in a non-direct care role which I've done pretty awesome with. I haven't missed a day since I started. I feel totally embarassed now, I would not normally send stuff out like that. I would think I was either crazy or a total jerk if someone did that. I can not tell you how intense it felt during the day yesterday though. Then I had that peak moment for a few hours in the evening. I didn't think I was god just that I was really special and in tune, and had access to everything. It's euphoria type stuff.

I'm still on the up side but maybe my insight and judgement is better. I can't believe I did that now. I made a fool of myself.

I am working a half-day and then going to be off a couple days to see a friend out of town. Hopefully that is what I need to settle back down. I will probably stay on upside a few days and then have a crash back down. That never feels good. I can take a prn the next couple days if I need to.

Thanks for listening. This seriously helped me alot and dialed me down some notches last evening, which led to meds and prn, which led to sleep. I knew I was off base but parts of it felt so amazing I didn't want it to be true. I'm still off base but I think it can be reigned in better from here.

Well, a good cry never hurt anyone. It will all be ok. Hopefully I can get through work OK and then I'm leaving at noon.

Maybe you should hold off on sharing those papers for a week or so and then reread them. Or give them to a trusted friend and have them vet it for you.... don't just jump into this. There are probably reasons and protocols for the situations you are experiencing.

If you can control yourself enough to not send any of your recommendations, work on them but don't send them.

If you have to send them, send them to a politician: they are used to receiving stuff from crazy people and might be crazy themselves.

More importantly , what is your plan? (maybe post it in the Healthcare thread, only if you want to and there is no personal stuff and such)

Just wait at least a depression and a mania to re-evaluate and rewrite. If it's still great, it's great. We're geniuses but we don't show it and can't express it (with hypomania that might not be true, but for mania it is). Also, we're often wrong. Geniuses always are.

You should call your pdoc you sound pretty off. Try and sleep a bit more.

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I've taken extra meds the last two nights. Very groggy today but is passing some. Feel slow & sedated. On my position papers, I had a nice talk w my bosses bosses boss, & got it arranged to meet with the head psychologist at the jail. I have a plan for them to not abuse our patients when they end up in jail. A pre-set of basic prns for severe agitation and self harm, from the MD on call, I have the list & dosing/time schedule, & follow-up eval. Was I a little manic & basically trampled over 3 levels of management, & maybe make an *** of myself? Yes. Do I have a chance at getting it implemented ? Yes. Am I more in balance today? Somewhat. Do I still have bipolar? Seems like it. Am I getting more functional even during unstable times? Yes. This is good. Thank you all.

Also I left work early yesterday & am off till Friday.