[Crow King]

What's your story? What have your experiences been like? Did you always have psychotic features with it, or did those start after other symptoms? What kinds of things have you seen? Do types of hallucinations always match your bipolar states?

Just write about whatever experiences you to.

[Skeezyks]

Hello Crow King: The subject of your post is not something I can comment on personally. However I believe this is your first posted thread here on PC. So... welcome to Psych Central. I hope you find PC to be of benefit.

[Jedi67]

I don't have anything really substantial to comment on regarding your post but I wanted to welcome you to PC, Crow King. I hope you find this a great place to share. everyone here is amazing.

Hi Crow King. Welcome to Psych Central and the bipolar forum!

I have had psychosis as part of some (not all) of my past severe episodes, but only when in severe episodes. According to my hospital records, I have been psychotic during full blown manias, mixed episodes, and even once during a very severe depressive episode. Mostly I've been psychotic during manic episodes or manic with mixed features.

An interesting thing that has happened to me many times during severe episodes is manic blackouts. They're almost like en bloc or fragmentary blackouts that alcoholics sometimes experience when severely drunk. I only remember perhaps six of my 10 hospitalizations. And not all times of the six that I remember.

I have had various types of psychosis, but delusions were most common in my experience. They were sometimes extremely amazing/wonderful; grandiosity so extreme that I thought I was the most important person in the world, to thinking that Bono of the band U2 was coming over to my house that day. Sometimes they were a bit scary to downright frightening; when my car was floating in the air and difficult to control to me screaming at the top of my lungs, beating myself in the head because I thought that the devil was trying to eat me alive. I was dragged to isolation rooms in the hospital several times because of hysterical and violent behavior (forced injections), and once they isolated me in my own room and had a hospital security guy follow me around the ward for part of a day. What happened when I don't remember, I don't know, but the records indicated an extremely low number on the Global Assessment of Functioning Scale.

I've had a number of hallucinations. Some were bizarre (the ceiling was a sky full of moving clouds or the digital clock had racing numbers) to frightening (the devil, two men in white suits slamming on my door, someone yelling my name over and over again). I've also had paranoid type delusions, like thinking that all of the people at my previous job were out to kill me or that a woman at the airport gave me a pen that had anthrax on it. For a bit, I also kept thinking that planes were flying low over my house dropping biological weapons. It was almost as if I was trying to survive a war. It didn't help that my state is right next to NYC, where the World Trade Center came down on 9-11. Also, the anthrax scare in the US, shortly after, affected my town directly. My mother had suddenly died during that period, too. Then because of my manic behavior, my employer threatened to fire me. I was actually right to a degree about people at work. I was told that six people went together to Human Resources to wage a formal complaint. I had been screaming, punching my keyboard repeatedly, yelling at people, kicking the side of my work station, acting extremely bizarre in other ways...you name it. Sometimes my thoughts were racing so extremely fast that I was in a kind of wild state of mind. I can remember typing at what seemed like 300 mph, just banging on my keyboard. During such states, I didn't make any sense anymore. I flat out frightened people.

A lot of it was traumatizing. I suffered consequences even afterwards, like fearing the devil lived in my basement for a year. I developed a fear that I would choke on meat, so I ate little or had to chew on it for several minutes before swallows. I developed agoraphobia and barely left my house for a year, or when I did, I usually had panic attacks and had to return home immediately. I started to have terrible musical hallucinations. I would go through periods when I had fits of speaking rapid fire gibberish. I experienced all kinds of dissociative symptoms (hallucinations, out of body experiences).

I am extremely vigilant, nowadays, about my treatment and preventing manias. I bow down in extreme gratitude to my bipolar medications...especially my antipsychotics. Whenever I fear (or people around me indicate concern) that I'm getting manic, I take action. I have no romance with mania. I don't think I'm better when hypomanic. I know that becoming manic only turns ugly for me. The days of wine and roses, in terms of hypomania, are long gone. Too many years of being untreated, and too many years severely ill, killed them...forever!

As far as looking at depression, bipolar depression killed my youngest nephew. Literally!

[Nammu]

No I don't always get psychotic, my depression tho is far worse than the mania psychoticly but the manias tend to be more destructive to my social life.

[Pookyl]

I’ve had a small number of psychotic episodes linked in with mania. I’ve also had hallucinations ironically whenever there’s a medication change.
I primarily have delusions but only when manic. When very manic I think I’m able to fly and I’m a real danger to myself.

[~Christina]

I’ve had full psychosis actually numerous times. They totally suck.. i don’t like hearing about what they were and how I reacted to them after I came out the other side.

I do have “psychotic features “ on a regular basis , auditory, tactile and it’s almost a constant that there is a crowd of people behind me, most all the time it’s simple to just ignore “ it” but when I’m really struggling it starts as a mumble then eventually turns into hearing random words then they turn into telling me to do things.

Welcome to Pc

[sophiebunny]

My most intense mania with psychosis resulted in me seeing painful bright colors, hearing warped sounds in cluding people's voices, and I was certain everyone on the hospital staff had been possessed by alterdimentional forces who were sent to subdue me from my mission to save the earth from a catastrophic event. I believed I was on a mission from G-d and the hospital staff had been coopted by the alterdimentional forces and were out to destroy me. I climbed up on a radiator and screamed and fought everyone trying to calm me down and remove me from my perch. I ended up in restraints and heavily sedated. I was manic and psychotic for 5 straight weeks and it took another 4 weeks to return me to baseline. 2 months in the hospital. What I remember most was that my brain was completely fried. I had no short term memory and long term memory was sporadic. My psychiatrist reassured me that this was normal after prolonged severe mania and my memory would return. He was gentle and he was right.

[Under*Over]

I have schizoaffective disorder bipolar type.

I have psychotic symptoms... ALL the time. I mean. Not all the time. I dont have them 24/7 but I do have them consistently even when medicated- there arent really any time PERIODS where I dont have symptoms. Like I dont just have symptoms when Im manic or depressed- I have symptoms in periods of regularity too.

But the content of the psychotic symptoms tends to reflect my mood state. When Im in a depressive episode the things I hallucinate tend to be dark and scary. Things like snakes and spiders and the voices of demons and monsters and that sort of thing. When Im manic they tend to be more... either religion focused or just plain bizarre. The voices I hear tend to be more... friendly sounding too. Like. Younger. Lighter. Less intimidating. When Im in a period where my mood is stable- Ill get more neutral things mostly. Cats and other small animals. Voices that talk to each other that are mumbling and impossible to understand.

My hallucinations...they dont ever happen constantly but multiple times a week- yes- 3 or 4 days a week where Im symptomatic with psychotic symptoms for some period of time- you bet.

I tend to hallucinate more than I am delusional. But delusions come too. Mostly during periods of stress or when I go off my meds. Especially when I go off them.

I struggle with my mood irregularity/swinging- more than my psychotic symptoms. My mood symptoms tend to happen first- the worsening of those. And then my psychotic symptoms worsen as my mood state gets more extreme.

When Im on meds. I hallucinate maybe once a week. Off them its multiple. On meds the hallucinations are brief. Off them there is no promise of that.

This isnt as clear as id like it but yeah. Thats badically it for me

[fern46]

I experienced psychosis once for about two days. I was hearing things. My thinking was very delusional. I had a number of religious experiences. I had visual hallucinations. At one point my small children disappeared before my eyes and I completely lost it. I thought I could fly. I thought I was experiencing some sort of altered state of reality. It was really bizarre.

I had out of body experiences and I also blacked out for a lot of the time. Bits and pieces have come back to me over time, but there are many blanks in my memory. It was extremely disturbing and felt like I was in a nightmare. I did not rationalize any of my thoughts. They simply occured and I acted on them immediately like you do when you are dreaming.

My moods are typically very stable. I get irritable every now and again, but no real ups or downs. My doctors cannot really explain why I flipped the way I did.