[mssweatypalms]

This has been going on since Monday. I thought I could just ignore it. I've noticed the sluggishness and lack of energy since last week. I'm pretty sensitive and have crying spells at night. Now, I still drag myself out of bed and generally not motivated to do anything. I force myself to work, but now, I'm having a problem while I'm teaching. I suddenly have racing thoughts so I can't concentrate completely. Last night, it happened too, so I had a hard time sleeping.

Has anyone experienced something like this?

[Crook32]

I hate the racing thoughts when you have no energy to get out of bed to try and tame them. Instead you are stuck in bed not able to do anything other than sit with them and get mad at yourself for not being able to get up and try to use it to your advantage. When I have racing thoughts I try to clean and make good use of the time. That is why I feel guilty when I can’t get up. I am not even sure what I am saying makes any sense or if it is helpful in any way.

Hope for the best.

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[buddha1too]

When I was teaching it sometimes helped if I focused solely on the needs of my students. Of course, I wasn't always successful. I'd talk to your doctor to find out if anything can be done to get you out of this difficult space. Good luck!

[*Beth*]

I might call that a mixed state. How are your meds working?

[Crook32]

Originally Posted by BethRags

I might call that a mixed state. How are your meds working?

Yeah that is probably the best term for it. Sometimes the depression is dominate and sometimes the mania is.

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[Alive99]

My mixed episodes were more like... manic racing thinking all over the place, believing in some positive stuff/thoughts making me manic like that, with negative emotions hidden or shut down, and some undigested anxiety background (it was not felt). I call them mixed because I just wasn't manic enough to run around and do things like that and sometimes I did end up having symptoms of the undigested anxiety too. The episodes that were more manic than mixed, I did do and say things, in the mixed episodes I would be keeping the thoughts to myself and I had my baseline of "low" in terms of physical energy. Only the mental energy increased plus of course I did not feel the need for sleep either, but that was the only thing physically that was increased energy. Physically the only other thing that was increased energy was if I had a crisis during the episode and went through it and then I had energy and motivation to get tasks/work done and was very driven to do them.


So I didn't feel sadness, didn't cry, but the racing/quick thoughts (slowed over the years and then disappeared, having sorted out some of those thoughts) could be very negative and crazy scary without me noticing. Some of it would be very positive too though, of course.

BUT YES, having quickly coming AND scary negative thoughts, now that's the extreme experience. I do always read that mixed episodes are the worst.



I know in my case the hidden anxiety had to play a big role in that, because I found out over time that taking plain Xanax - as needed - would prevent the lack of sleep and these quickly coming negative thoughts from developing into a full episode. But then, I used to not want to take Xanax unless really had to, and so I would often go over into the full-on episode and it would often become a crisis and then I had to extract myself from it but then I learnt from them, I think. May have been what contributed to the episodes disappearing over time. Plus using Xanax as needed, taken in time, would help with prevention too. Then I could solve the issue before it would turn into a crisis, that helped too, more effectively maybe, yeah.


Taking Xanax did not affect the presence of the positive/manic thinking though. For that, I had to use very sober rationality, understanding what reasoning I needed and willingness to let go of it and so on.



Disclaimer: I may not have had very strong bipolar though, or I just gave it enough years to work through it, I can't tell which it is. A mood stabiliser, Lamotrigine (also called Lamictal) did also work for the quick racing negative thoughts though. I recommend that if you don't mind the side effects. Not a professional recommendation of course. I did personally mind the side effects so I did not take it longer than a few weeks (I could afford saying no to it I guess).



Also to differentiate between medication options: I think Xanax didn't shut down the whole mindset of too much/quick thinking, it only shut down the extreme anxiety/allowed sleep, Lamotrigine did shut down that WHOLE thinking though. Xanax would stabilise the thinking to the point where it would not be extreme to keep me from sleep, but it would still be there and only Lamotrigine made it entirely go away, if that makes sense. But I felt like it also meant I was not going to be able to think about stuff, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. If it helps find more effective thoughts, then it should be a good thing. It just killed my working memory half of the time (off/on constantly) along with that thinking and I didn't want to play with that side effect. I would've if I had been forced to, but I thought I could afford quitting the medication.

I think in another post someone on here mentioned the issue that they suspect the Lamotrigine makes them too depressed. I would say this is possible too because when my working memory and the thinking with it was killed, I would be left with a pretty slow mind so that should be depressive in some way. However, I also felt content and stable, rather than negative or dysphoric (which I would feel in a very bad way after I shut down mania thoughts). So maybe it is not depressive but simply not a sped-up mind, that "pretty slow" mind, just a normal mind, but I still don't think it's as simple as that. Because it was slow also because the working memory wasn't functioning.... My personal, very unprofessional speculation about neurotransmitters is that Xanax helps with increasing GABA to slow and relax your mind and Lamotrigine helps with decreasing glutamate to shut off that extra "fast" "energetic" thinking. OK, I'm going to find that post now.

[*Beth*]

Originally Posted by Alive99

...

I think in another post someone on here mentioned the issue that they suspect the Lamotrigine makes them too depressed. I would say this is possible too because when my working memory and the thinking with it was killed, I would be left with a pretty slow mind so that should be depressive in some way. However, I also felt content and stable, rather than negative or dysphoric (which I would feel in a very bad way after I shut down mania thoughts). So maybe it is not depressive but simply not a sped-up mind, that "pretty slow" mind, just a normal mind, but I still don't think it's as simple as that. Because it was slow also because the working memory wasn't functioning.... My personal, very unprofessional speculation about neurotransmitters is that Xanax helps with increasing GABA to slow and relax your mind and Lamotrigine helps with decreasing glutamate to shut off that extra "fast" "energetic" thinking. OK, I'm going to find that post now.

Thanks for the info on Lamictal. Lately, I have been feeling that it's causing me to feel depressed. I'm going to ask my pdoc to lower my dose.

[mssweatypalms]

Originally Posted by BethRags

I might call that a mixed state. How are your meds working?

I was suspecting it could be, but this is the first time this happened. I'm taking 300mg Seroquel and it still helps me sleep. I also take 200mg Lamictal which might have been working fine until a week before.

I think it's getting worse. Yesterday, no racing thoughts at night, only in the morning. Felt sad and helpless before I fell asleep. However, last night, I woke up around 10 times. Once, I went to the bathroom, and the other times were just awake and took some minutes to fall asleep again. Now, I'm so sleepy and my work starts in 10 minutes.

I'm trying to book an appointment with my doctor, but the earliest is 3 weeks later, so I have to just try and survive these days before then.