Do bipolar racing thoughts differ from what "regular people" call racing thoughts?

My boyfriend says he has racing thoughts in the middle of the night, that keep him from falling back asleep. I suspect he learned the term "racing thoughts" from me. He is definitely not bipolar, not a depressed person. I wonder if "regular" people who do not have bipolar have madcap, extremely fast racing thoughts? Does anyone know?

My racing thoughts cause me to DO everything that pops into my head --esp research answers online to my various curiosities and trivialities, when I should be getting to sleep at night. Like now.

From my personal experiences and interactions with people, it seems that some people without Bipolar experience racing thoughts with anxiety in high pressured situations or at night when they are thinking of too many things, as a result of stressors they are experiencing: or not even anxiety, but racing thoughts based on things that happen during the day, like you said, things popping up in the person's head.

What I personally experience with BP, my racing thoughts distract me from carrying out responsibilities, or the thoughts jump and skip around in a disorganized way that interferes with my day or night. I become very speedy from them. Or with anxiety, they sometimes cause me to hear voices at night. During the day and especially night, the racing thoughts get loud in volume and cause me to be very agitated....even confused at times, often very unfocused.

Hi Flowerbell,

I am not bipolar, I do have anxiety though. I have racing thoughts and find it difficult to get thoughts about something that happened during the day out of my head. I become edgy and hyperactive which causes my anxiety to increase.
I've had insomnia since I was a child so my edginess doesn't help with the sleep situation.

Take care,
Pinkrose

My racing thoughts drive me nuts. They overlap and are not full thoughts and they go so fast that I get a headache and I literally can't stop them, it often makes me lose sleep, and my brain just feels tense and I get really bad anxiety and basically feel like my head's going to explode. So.... that's me. haha I don't think other people who don't have bipolar/anxiety experience it the same.

Anxiety can cause racing thoughts. I guess the difference for me at least is that when I'm manic I can keep up with my racing thoughts, but others can't. So I don't really experience them as being too fast.

I experience racing thoughts as those which seem to believe they need to be thought all at once.

I get anxiety-producing racing thoughts that I can't get rid of.

Once I start getting racing thoughts I know I'm headed for an episode. Other class symptoms will also be present. I've never heard anyone non-bp mention experiencing racing thoughts on the same level of mine or that others in the bp forum have described

Thank you for your response and sharing xRavenx. I experience racing thoughts similar to what you describe, but not auditorily. Here's what rings true for me, as you say: "my racing thoughts distract me from carrying out responsibilities, or the thoughts jump and skip around in a disorganized way that interferes with my day or night. I become very speedy from them."

Hello, Pinkrose, thanks very much for a different perspective (since you are not bipolar). My dad had a dx of anxiety disorder, and had insomnia. I used to have insomnia, but I think the bipolar meds have helped a lot to not have it. Other than that, your experience with racing thoughts is different from mine. Mine tend to be about fascinating and interesting things -- and I want to (and sometimes try to) do them all, or research them on the internet.

Thanks to everyone! for posting descriptions of your racing thoughts. Several people mention anxiety or stress. Each person is at least slightly different at how the experience them. Mine are usually creative ideas that I feel like I need to follow up on. I have learned though, to focus my lifie (mostly) on the things I do well, and not take on new skills or interests.

my racing thoughts range
sometimes it's everything I need to do_ be _create right now!
other times it snippets of words with music conversations lyrics parts of movies all melded into a big soup of heading towards an episode
or thoughts so fast they are not really thoughts but fragments

I cannot now comprehend myself when I'm in a racing thought mode. It's like a different me an alternative state of being. I remember though that other people can't stand to be around me as I'm very pressured and indecipherable to others. I have no idea if a regular person can truly have racing thoughts.

Hello, Nammu, I've heard of experiences like you describe. I don't have anything like that, in fact, my racing thoughts are kinda fun -- just very disruptive of focusing on what I need or want to do.

I just read your original post again, and you do describe perfectly something I also experience where with each thing that pops up in my head, I feel the need to research it and everything is very "urgent," if that makes sense. At least that's how it starts out for me in the hypomanic phase.

This is an interesting thread. I've always wondered how others experience this. Here's my experience with them:

I get some that are anxiety driven. But they are more just not being able to stop thinking about something in particular and thinking catastrophically. These are different than my bipolar ones. I think "normal" people may have a lot of ideas but can explain them logically.

Hypomania. I think a lot about ideas for all sorts of things. I research a lot. So I'll get a random idea and I HAVE to Google it right now, and then that idea spurs some other idea, and so on and so forth. Next thing I know I've Googled 15 things. They all relate but others wouldn't know how I got from A to B. I also tend to try to understand the universe. I'll go through major theoretical ideas very quickly and understand them all but probably couldn't explain it to others. I disproved my religion in my head in like 10 minutes. Have been atheist since.

I also get racing thoughts in what is probably "depression with mixed features." Similar thing but all the topics are dark and morbid, pertaining to death and sui.