I was dx'ed with Bipolar I disorder as a teenager, after my psychotic symptoms and severe insomnia couldn't be explained by an autism dx.....more than a decade later I still question if I actually am bipolar, but I'm pretty sure I am.
I do experience depressions but they are atypical. They usually occur in the fall and early winter. I never feel sad, I never cry, and I'm never suicidal. I do experience anhedonia and a flat affect similar to that found in schizophrenic patients....I also have alexithymia, so maybe I am sad...I just don't know that I am. I become very withdrawn, and sometimes won't talk for days. I lose my appetite simply because I'm not even motivated enough to eat something....food doesn't taste good anyway. I lose interest in my obsessions and the only thing I am interested in doing is sleeping, which I'm very good at when depressed. There is actually something comforting about my depressions.
My hypomanic and manic episodes occur in the late winter to early summer. Sometime in mid-January I wake up feeling like just woke up from a very restful sleep. I have the motivation to cook for myself once again. I shower regularly, I make sure I brush my teeth twice a day....I even wear makeup and sometimes high heels. I go shopping for new clothes, shoes and handbags. I start going back to the gym. I suddenly want to socialize, I want to go out and drink. I still get overwhelmed though when I find myself in crowded, brightly lit, or noisy places. At work I'm on top of everything....motivated, creative, and extremely productive. My house is clean....actually a good sign I'm headed toward mania is how clean my house is.....
My perception changes. Colors are more vivid. My sense of smell becomes more acute, my sense of taste comes back, and food tastes amazing. My skin becomes hypersensitive to touch....all of my senses become heightened.....also I become physically stronger and I have way more endurance at the gym......
I then get random impulses to buy expensive things, and go on spontaneous vacations. I want to quit my job and go to medical school or get a PhD....actually why not both. I want to buy another house, I want to get married and have kids....all at the same time.
Then this other train of thought appears in my head. It derails my main train of thought....tries to make me laugh, tells jokes, makes rhymes, sings little songs.....then another comes in pictures....then another in music. Soon my head is filled with constant chatter that I can't shut off.....I can no longer sleep through the night. Ideas come so fast I can't even write them down before the next one comes. My speech becomes pressured and disorganized.
Then I start to hallucinated. I keep seeing things out of the corner of my eye....flashes of light...people or figures moving. I hear my name being called....my phone ringing, someone knocking on my door.....half the time I don't know what's real and what's not.
Once I've been awake for five days in a row my reality starts to fall apart. Familiar places become foreign to me....I could be a block from my home and have no idea where I am.....this part of mania is the most terrifying....to logically understand you should know where you are but your surroundings are so foreign and bizarre......lucky for me this means a crash is no more than 72 hours away......when it happens I will stop where I am....literally pass out and sleep for 24-48 hours straight......then I wake up feeling like I've just woken up from a very strange dream....I usually have no recollection of the past two weeks.
20 Apr 2009, 11:56 am
