[Moonshadowfey]

Do you ever get used and start being okay with being normal? My medication has me in the normal emotional range and I absolutely hate it. Everyone (psychiatrist, therapist, friends, family) says I'll eventually be okay with it and will start to like it. Is this true? Right now I don't believe any of them.

[seoultous]

What do you miss?

[Moonshadowfey]

Originally Posted by seoultous

What do you miss?

I miss both the highs and lows. I mean the lows suck, but I've always considered it the price I pay for having the highs.

[Guiness187055]

I am pretty stable and I always feel flat. I can't get used to it. I feel like a different person all together. Maybe this is what normal is. All I can do is give it time to see if I get used to it.

[SorryShaped]

Flat I don't like, but with some ups and downs is ok with me. It's the extremes that are not ok. I do like full mania while it's on, but hypo is uncomfortable and depression is horrid. Mixed scares me every time. It's not really worth the price and the fallout and ruin and relationships ended and money lost aren't ok. I've grown to not like the manic me and the things he's done. That's why I take the meds... For me. I don't have anyone left to take them for, but me.

[Unrigged64072835]

I'm getting used to it. I have ups and downs, but I can deal with not being hyperfocused and irritable or being so down that I only move from the bed to the couch.

I don't feel as flat as I used to on some meds. Part of it also is doing things that I feel happy to do. I think that helps quite a bit.

I’ve gotten worse, so I had to go on the lithium. When #### you said while hypomanic shows up on your job review, well, then what else can you do? The crash down from that hypomanic event was terrible too.

So, it’s been a few months now. I don’t know when I’ll get used to this. Price I have to pay. I feel very blah. I don’t care about anything. I can’t reduce the lithium because I’m in the suboptimal range as it is.

I suspect that I will forget about hypomania. My employer has already changed their view on me. You might laugh, but my boss thinks I changed my behavior because he pointed it out to me. I can’t just say, “it’s the lithium.”

I just got a raise.

I like this money, so, I’m going to dance with it (lithium).

[Zigy]

I wish I was "normal" and flat. My current low state is a nightmare. I don't miss the highs neither, they got me into financial trouble. Few years lost paying bills.

[Tucson]

Flat is OK with me. I do not like being “drugged up” by my own emotions. For instance, being hypomanic and playing tag with others on the road. I do not need to be hypomanic to be happy. Actually I think being hypomanic together with the way it can make you feel is not the same thing as being happy. I like to have all of my senses and be in control of my life. I am just surprised that everyone does not want this for themselves. Unfortunately, this being in control of myself and my emotions is elusive to me.

[LadyShadow]

I have to admit, the flat feeling has left me empty. I hated it for a long time, especially since I lost my connection to my spirituality.

One thing that I have noticed is that, I can ACTIVELY change the way I feel and think by doing things that bring me joy, (having a luxurious shower, writing, and painting). You can pull yourself out of the flat feeling if you give yourself a little joy.

My medication does what its supposed to, but I still experience bursts of mania, especailly when trying to sleep at night. I won't ask for a med increase though, I'd like to retain what's left of my humanity and emotion, so I will just have to work through the spikes and dips in feelings, just as long as I don't fly completely out of control.

[sonjaward809]

My meds have leveled me off now and I'm feeling the same way, flat as ever. No emotions at all .. it's kinda driving me nuts. I'm having some side effects on the Risperdal though and they might have to be changed, so I'm not sure what that will do to my mood. Hopefully I'll feel alive again instead of just existing.

[palerefraction]

I started Lamictal (the generic, whatever it is) and it yanked me right out of my mania. Tried to explain to my boyfriend of the time that I kind of missed the hypomania, all the energy and focus and productivity I could get out of it! He did not understand.

I had my own kind of mourning period for the hypomania and have just been trying to work forward and find my own "baseline"

[~Christina]

I don’t use the word “ normal”

I find baseline fits me better, I experience neurotypical emotions, I have reasons to be mad or sad and it have not a damn thing to do with Bipolar.

[SorryShaped]

Originally Posted by ~Christina

I don’t use the word “ normal”

I find baseline fits me better, I experience neurotypical emotions, I have reasons to be mad or sad and it have not a damn thing to do with Bipolar.

Well said! May I steal that? Personal use only. Ok I'll share it, but as anonymous

[annielovesbacon]

I never got used to feeling "ok" before I crashed again. I asked my therapist, What's the point of getting used to feeling ok if I just know I'm going to be depressed again?
She said, Well Annie, you probably will feel depressed again. That's just how it is. But you just need to live in the moment and enjoy feeling ok while you have it.
But I'd rather prepare for being depressed, than have it take me by surprise. Idk if that makes sense.

[Moonshadowfey]

Originally Posted by palerefraction

I started Lamictal (the generic, whatever it is) and it yanked me right out of my mania. Tried to explain to my boyfriend of the time that I kind of missed the hypomania, all the energy and focus and productivity I could get out of it! He did not understand.

I had my own kind of mourning period for the hypomania and have just been trying to work forward and find my own "baseline"

I've had a similar experience just trying to explain it to my husband. He struggles to understand it but tries. I used an analogy that finally made sense to him.

Analogy: Imagine that you can be a multi-billionaire, but then some people come along and say that's not normal and they drop you down to middle class. There is nothing wrong with being middle class, but you know what its like to have more, so you want to be a multi-billionaire again. The problem is that you can't be that. Everyone tells you it is okay to be middle class and you will get used to it. That being middle class is the normal thing.

To throw in the lows in the analogy, I said that in what you had before you could be a billionaire for weeks to months at a time, but that sometimes you be middle class and sometimes you would be in poverty. In my world, you were okay with the poverty because you know that soon you will be a billionaire again.

[99fairies]

WoW! You put that into actual words that anyone could understand. Well said! I'm very impressed!

[emgreen]

I have highs & lows, but very much like "normal" - whatever that means. I also liked SorryShaped notion that it's easy to mistake ordinary happiness or anger as being BP-related, & I think the same can be said of feeling "flat." I wish I could stay between the lines all the time.

[Guiness187055]

I am jealous of those of you that feel happy or sad. I feel nothing no emotions what so ever.

[SorryShaped]

But then again...
Do the norms get to be elated without it being an episode? If someone falls in love, aren't they supposed to feel like it's the best thing ever? What about the birth of a child?
Then the flipside, someone dies, a relationship ends (ok this one can go either way), jobs end, auto wrecks, financial ruin, or just get monopolar depression...
I don't know if the norms get that manic feeling, but I know they don't get it for long if they do.

[SorryShaped]

Originally Posted by Guiness187055

I am jealous of those of you that feel happy or sad. I feel nothing no emotions what so ever.

Some of them are quite miserable. Perhaps your meds are overdoing it? I don't know though

[Wild Coyote]

I am usually trying to climb out of an abyss. I get closer and further away from reaching my former "normal" (out of the abyss); yet, my baseline is at some level of the abyss.

I think I'd be very glad to feel my former "normal."
Who knows for sure?


WC

[~Christina]

Originally Posted by SorryShaped

Well said! May I steal that? Personal use only. Ok I'll share it, but as anonymous

Be my guest

[giddykitty]

I swear I was asking this same question myself on the 3rd, but you got it into a post before I thought to do so. Ha! So thanks! This is a good question. I'm newly diagnosed and I've not had too many or too extreme highs or lows, but have had them all my life, now that I'm medicating, I'm wondering what normal is gonna feel like and wonder if I'll miss the moods. I recall more depressive episodes, so I worry I'll forget my highs feelings and be on the low side of normal. I dunno. Sucks! But there have been a couple of reassuring responses here, so I'll try to stay positive.

[ForestWasp]

While I admit that the highs that i use to experience were amazing and I wouldnt trade them for anything. I do like the medication in knowing that i am not going to have a super deep depression like i was experiencing before. I dont know if i would say that I miss the lows but I definitely miss the highs. Life seems so well stable nowadays. And stable isnt always well fun!