Anyone AS and Bipolar?

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Even though I am not bipolar myself at one of my bipolar siblings are about and NT as one could get. She loves parties and partying extremely sociable and can drink a four litre cask of cheap wine in one night. She is also a serious compulsive gambler.

Well, thanks for the responses. Dr. does think I've got some kind of BPD- bipolar II or cyclothymia(sp?) - milder versions of bipolar. I have another thread where I asked if anyone's been on Zoloft- where I stated this too. So Dr. is trying "conservative treatment" with Zoloft to help with axiety, cyclic mood patterns, and sleep problems. Time will tell if it helps or not.

Jennyfoo, be very careful to chart your moods for the next 6 months and see if your mood is ever affected by ovulation or cycling. I've seen women diagnosed with bipolar only to discover later that the problem is actually PMDD (Pre Menstral Dysphoric Disorder) Notice if your moods change up to 2 weeks before your mensus is estimated to start. Just chart on your regular calendar.

I was thought to be bipolar, or "manic depressive" as it was called then. (Late 80's) The reason my parents insisted on treatment for me is that I had unpredictable mood swings. The thing is, as I've learned more about myself, they weren't unpredictable. I don't take changes from my own schedule very well. I like to plan everything I'm going to do for the day, and if something affects the plans I get increasingly agitated, even angry.

There would be times that I would plan on an activity with my friends or family and have lots of fun. There's be other times when something would alter the plans, and I'd be miserable. To everyone else it looked like mood swings, the Dr. agreed at the time, so I guess I was "officially" bipolar, but not in reality.

Yeah, my mother and my brother say I am bipolar at times.

My mood chances with my stomach.

Wow, your stomach must not change for weeks on end then. LOL! It's a common misperception that bipolar means rapidly shifting to extremes in moods. That's not the case at all. Bipolar or cyclic mood disorders are when someone has sustained periods of mania, hypomania, depression, melancholy, etc- for weeks on end. You can have longe periods of time in-between where you're mood is "normal," and "mixed" states when you're changing cycles too.

And it's not PMDD. PMDD depression does not last months on end, followed by a 2-4 week manic episode.

I'm officially DXed with BP. I cannot trace it in the family, but AS traits stick out like a sore thumb. It's possible I'm both BP and AS, it's really hard to tell at this age. But after some 10 years trying meds for BP, nothing worked, even the combos. Some how I got lucky with this one and it never was designed for BP specificially, I'm not sure there really is such a drug. If there are, there are very very few. I'm going to be very interested to see if they do clinical trials for AS with it. They do not understand how this one works exactly. They're all pretty much epilepsy oriented or another mental condition and found that it can help those with BP. The road with the drugs can be very long one, but worth it if you can fine tune it or get a combo that works. Or you might nail it on the first one. AS fits like a glove and BP never has, with me. They also were thinking epilepsy at one point long ago. BP isn't a death sentence, but the survival rate compared to the normal isn't all that great. If you think you might be, don't fool around with it, it can be a killer. Life with a good med is much better, I can actually say I'm happy for about the first time in my life, on most days. That in itself can look rather manic, when you're going through the culture shock of a new out look on life. And manic does not have to equate to happy. Rage can be manic and an obsessive passion for looking for illness related things, they will pin you to being manic. Which actually I don't do, but when they train me to be observant of moods and I go into detail and with my normal obsession with subjects that interest me, hello Catch 22. Careful, find a doc that knows their stuff, just like picking out one for AS. There are a lot of things and combos of things that can mimic BP. You don't have to be born with it either, it can come about with brain trauma.

I am no authority on it, but I can tell you just like AS, those with BP will be as wide on that spectrum as those with AS.

No. You can have the long cycles with cycles inbetween as well. Which very often are the rapid. Weeks of depression would be a blessing sometimes, try months. Normal? Wtf is that? Show me someone normal and I can fix them.

Right you are!

And to the women reading this- another thing that can mimic bipolar in females is hormonal birth control (pills, injections, sub dermal implants, etc.)

I just wanted to point those things out because a lot of women don't know about it.

It's my understanding one of the first attempts at trying to fix BP was through hormonal treatment. Didn't work. I had a major brain storm and thought it might be something to look into, the doc set me straight in short order. They'd been there and tried that.

When my mother told a psychiatry student that I was so depressed and anxious I was seeing black holes, she asked, "Are you sure she's not bipolar?" Several people on this board also suggested I might be bipolar. I think I may just have mild cyclothymia (and major depression).

OMG
And I thought I was imagining it. I thought that it seemed a bit unlikely that I would have had mood-disorder , ( hypo-mania/full blown mania , and depression) aswell as AS, and Sensory Processing Disorder.
Thank you, thank you thank you ! !! !!
Little freak out of sadness and amazement going on here as take this in. The article was just so what I've experienced.
Childhood a bit spacy but bright and energetic aspie ,puberty "lazy, selfish" increasingly spacey aspie, followed by the gradual , perhaps alcohol fuelled, perhaps dope fuelled, perhaps social-success fuelled build up to mania , and over 3 years blow out and descent into hell , and what has seemed at times like permanent depression , until now know many of signs were actually aspie difficulties and Sensory processing problems. ( and my dad and my sister fit in there really well too! )

And discovery that can practically eliminate or at least substantially reduce
a)the depression
b)the climb up to mania tendencies , grandiosity etc
c)the sensory freakouts ( esp about noise)
d)the difficulty with eye contact and being with people
e)the out of body floaty unsubstantial feeling
f)Stimming
g)the jabbery noise in my head of non-stop thinking stuff
h)the loss of "contact" with people as real

etc etc BY cutting out gluten.

But this is so wild to find out that a connection has been discovered.
I was trying to explain it to myself by saying that the narcissistic personality disorder , including the mania which grew with it , etc , was my Autistic persons survival ( in world which represented way too much data processing if continued to believe peoples had real feelings etc) response under the "enabling" influence of gluten ( opiate-similar effects on brains of those whose systems, presumably for genetic reasons of faulty enzyme production, allow it entry undigested ) which "encouraged" an out of body/in the head existence. And that after years of abuse of body , alcohol, mad eating , junk eating , etc on top of a genuinely intimate adult relationship which made it obvious that people did have real feelings ? , the system ( of numbness and grandiosity) collapsed , "exposing" my AS "being"; a fragile slow self.
They go together. WOW!

How, why etc? Where does sensory processing difficulty fit in there? I only follow a little of the neurological and biochemical explanations but it sounds like there is a real link between the two mental phenomenon.
Thank you so much for this thread , and for the link.

I've been told that I'm Bipolar, BPD. Up until I found out about AS I was also self-diagnosing myself as some type of ADD/ADHD. I now believe that if I still had insurance and could ask about an AS diagnosis I would almost certainly fit the bill. Though I can't say for sure if my other diagnoses were misdiagnoses or if I have them in addition to AS. I'm one screwed up individual, so I wouldn't doubt that I have multiple disorders.

My best advice to anyone screwed up in the head, is to know your symptoms. Once you can pinpoint which behaviors are your own, and which are your disorder's, you can more easily control them I think. Or at least become aware, which was a big help to me.

Just the other day I realised that I could pretty much account for almost everything I've ever done with ASD , sensory processing disorders, the mood-disorder if take it as separate, an OCD or two at times, and gluten intolerance ( possibly dairy and sugar too).
This felt very weird and worrying, and potentially a little sad, until I realised it was an insight into the fact that personality is an illusion, it is an unreal thing. It was like looking at my life in crystal clarity. I am nothing but my brain chemistry!!
Which feels oddly enough quite wonderful!


PS; I think I realised this the first time I ever got stoned. But didn't know enough to understand it!

Omg, nothing better than stoned realizations

I jusr read through the article again, that Taken posted on page 1, it is sooo brilliant. It just really totally makes sense to me.
Here it is again:

http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/c ... l/16/2/199

That they say there are TWO taxia , types of AS , those with "straightforward"characteristics, and then this significant subgroup , for whom mood disorder is part of the package , as it was for me.
I'm going to have to read it again at least another couple of times to take it in properly , but at least on the second reading I think I "got" the Part I, description stuff.
Recommended for anyone else on WP for whom the standard AS stuff doesn't cover it !