Bipolar/Aspergers support and chat thread

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I think the best thing you can do is try to understand your own disorders and how they affect you. Use that to find resources and supports which do help even if it is by far one of the hardest things to do. If you have AS and have only been focused on the psych DX than maybe you should give more focus to AS because I've found if I chose one over the other I have worse outcomes, than when I focus on me as a whole. I get depressed sometimes because of my AS symptoms but I'm also prone to being overwhelmed by both at the same time making my life more debilitated. If you think you have AS and still don't have a DX, do some research an focus on that for a while.

It's just exhausting.

I think the bipolar pattern is basically a post-traumatic stress reaction that only compounds itself with time. I wonder how to get out of it. My environment was significantly more stressful than it should have been. I avoid saying that cause I don't want to be whiny and ungrateful but come on. Can't solve this if I don't get at its mechanism. Anyway. How to get out of it. The pattern is: expend all your energy on fight-or-flight response, then lie low exhausted, repeat. I need to get out of it. I feel like I am without end getting put through a meat grinder and then miraculously finding myself in one piece again only to get ground up again. The joy of finding yourself in one piece is not something someone should experience more than a few times in a lifetime cause it means you keep dying. I feel like I've lived a lot of lifetimes and I don't want to have. I want to live my real life.

I completely understand what you are saying here. This is what the last few years were like for me.

Are you on any medication? I've found so far it's helping, although it took me going completely off the deep end to reach this point.

I think the problem is that for us - people with Aspergers and Bipolar, we are pretty much doomed because no matter what our environment IS going to be super stressful due to Aspergers issues. I feel, for myself, that bipolar onset was in some ways inevitable.

Last edited by sunshower on 08 Dec 2011, 8:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I keep going up and down. Just when I feel calm and I think I'm going to get a break, it starts all over again.

I'm exhausted.

Hang in there! *hugs* Have you tried taking some time out for meditation and calming your mind?

Yes. Meditation just isn't happening.

I get times like that too; when my mind is too fast or too slow. If it is too fast the thoughts just won't subside; if too slow I fall asleep! I've found meditation best when my mind is steady and I'm quite alert. It can be quite profound then.

That's been my exact experience. I find it quite frustrating when I can't concentrate enough to meditate.

I've found I'm unable to do meditation in the traditional sense of the word - however I sort of have my own self-invented form of meditation where I empty my mind of thoughts and replace them with external sounds (I listen to the sounds around me in the external world and they drown out the thoughts). I find this can be very calming.

That's one method I use. Generally, when meditating this way I use music. Enigma and Hyperbora are favorites, though I've been known to use techno as well.

Could you link to a few youtube vids of music on here? If you could that would be really great.

Sure thing! ^_^

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8mMWh62XpU[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l40IJ1kpMHA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPupWusf_8w[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5JNugezYmw[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l5eHZtii0s[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60OJW0zlbNQ[/youtube]

Hello, I originally posted this in my own thread, but I was advised I might get more support in here.

I should note that I don't think I've ever been euphoric, but I've had brief periods where I've felt on top of the world, had all these fantastic plans for the future, etc. But it usually fizzles out pretty quickly.

This sounds very similar to my hypomanic episodes. I do sometimes get euphoric, though, and start cleaning like a mad-woman, making big plans, starting fantastic projects... etc. I'd have to say the euphoric episodes come and go when I'm not stressed, and the others when I'm stressed to the max.

There are times that I get hypomanic episodes. Sometimes they last a very long time and other times they last just hours. What I mean by a very long time is 6 months. But due to my pills I didn't stay up all night. I did have more energy though. Just not enough to stay up. I had grandiose ideas and racing thoughts. Also, I would talk so quickly that no one can keep up with me. I would have to keep on moving around because I couldn't sit still. It was harder to concentrate. The good thing is that I didn't have any of the dangerous parts of it like risk taking. I did spend a little more. I believe when I had the 6 month long hypomanic (or manic since I did have grandiose delusions) I spent hundreds of dollars on a pastel set that I never used. Just remember I am on SSI payments so I don't have that much to begin with so hundreds extra on something that I was manic about is a manic kind of thing. Sometimes I overspend on model airplane kits as well. I do love building them though but I really don't need to spend hundreds at once! I am schizoaffective bipolar type so I hope I am able to write on this thread even though its meant for bipolar. The good news is that I don't hear voices all that much, in fact its pretty rare for me to hear them. That makes me happy. I always have this annoying smile on my face even while depressed and suicidal. This causes people to become suspicious of me. Sometimes they think I am not depressed because of this massive smile on my face along with laughing and joking around. Even while the world ends I would do the same thing. That is just who I am. The only emotion I show properly is anger. When I am angry it shows. I have sometimes several episodes a day of either depression or hypomania but at the same time I also have longer ones several times a year around birthdays or stressful events. Pill don't help me with that. I actually have episodes within episodes. I am sometimes having a small hypomanic episode within a depressive episode. The hypomanic episode lasts just a few hours while the depressive episode lasts sometimes months. I truly enjoy the manic or hypomanic episodes because it is literally the only time that I feel overly positive. 99% of the time I am the most negative person in existence. When that suddenly changes there is a chance that I am heading for either a hypomanic micro episode or a full episode. Right now I am kind of mixed. In some ways I am up but in most ways I am down. The way I am up is because someone wants an original picture. The way I am down is my dad has serious health problems, my mom has serious health problems, the company that my dad works at is doing crappy and I predict he will get laid off, my brother's app that was supposed to save our lives is doing worse than expected, my art is mostly doing crappy except a few people are helping it there are probably more reasons to be extremely stressed out but that is all I can think of right now.

I like to buy on impulses alot too. I actually do it more when I'm depressed than when I'm hypomanic. When I know I'm going to be in a spending type mood I stop going to places I know I'll want to shop at. To feed my little addiction I let myself buy little dollar store things I can use for crafts to keep myself occupied. This week I bought some cheap beads and stuff to make custom jewelry out of. It worked out well because it wasn't something big that I couldn't mentally handle finishing. I definitely feel that there is something horribly wrong with my brain's chemical reward system.

This thread should be appropriate for both. I think I have schizo affective over classic Bipolar.

I can sympathize with you. I don't hear voices very often either. I've smiled and giggled to myself while thinking about committing suicide. The people around me at the time would be like "oh what's so funny"? So I lie to them and say that a joke is stuck in my head. People don't usually notice when I'm actually feeling really suicidal. Sometimes I'll be out with my friends and they'll think I'm depressed because I'm not making any gestures to show I'm enjoying myself. Meanwhile I could be manic having a horrible time and people will think I'm having a great time

I experience something similar I can't tell if it's very rapid cycling, mixed state, or just my AS. Sometimes I'll know whats bothering me and why and sometimes I just have no idea.

OMG right now I really really want to be hypomanic. It's the only time I actually feel good about anything. I had really bad melancholic depression at one point. I was so pessimistic it was scary. I couldn't even fake that I wasn't depressed. My little brother told me I was more depressing than Marvin from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I actually felt embarrassed because I couldn't argue with him.

Anyway depression is not the problem I have right now. It's Avolition and other negative cognitive affects that are bothering me. Over sleeping is a major problem too. I'd kill to be manic right now. Even though I love being hypo/manic it definitely increases my chances of becoming suicidal and usually leads into a major depressive episode.

Life's up and downs definitely don't help me at all either. People who think I'm complaining when something in life gets me down just don't see the domino effect it has on me over all.