Bipolar/Aspergers support and chat thread

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This is funny, because I just stumbled upon this thread and the title is funny.

BECAUSE my mom has BiPolar I have Aspergers and she suspects BiPolar as well.



Surely I have something to contribute to this thread.

Oh, but I don't think I have BiPolar.

So, my mom has bipolar.

And I have Aspergers.

She is extremely social, while I am not social at all. (My social eptness is 2%)

She is off meds, so she can be a bit... emotional, sometimes.
And I always misunderstand her.
Though we have a good relationship, I would like help on how a BiPolar and an Aspie can really go along together.

If you have both, it's a strange mixture.
I'm also different when I'm hypomanic than neurotypicals.
Very often I'm still for myself and stuff I order is not that expencive, but many books and stuff.
I stand up very early, but go to bed pretty much the same time because it's my routine.

But in hypomanic stages I act more like an NT than in depressive stages.
Hans Asperger himself said that autistics and depressive people have similar thought patterns.
It's still something different though, but there seem some paralels.

So, my mood:
january: mild depression
february: mild hypomania
march: normal (until now)

I have Asperger's and Bipolar II disorder. I have recently realized that I need to admit to myself that I am experiencing a major depressive episode. Unfortunately, I really have no faith in my current psychiatrist, and am on no medication right now.

Interestingly, I have noticed that depression is different for me now than how it was in my 20's- probably because back then, I was on anti-depressants that made me sleep for 21 hours a day, and deepened my depression. (Thank you SSRIs for stealing my 20's). Now I just feel completely unmotivated, lacking in energy, hopeless, but I am awake most of the day, sleeping about 5 hours a day on average.

Besides the fact that I am sensitive to light in general, when I get depressed it seems like everything is bathed in a bright glare, and there is a kind of cold rubberiness to things: the conversations I hear, facial expressions, movement. I usually want nothing more than to sleep when things are like this, but I can't sleep. My brain won't turn itself off. Normally, I analyze everything that goes on around me, but now these analyses are smeared with paranoia and fear that I am somehow destroying the few social connections I have left without meaning to.

Time to get a new psychiatrist I reckon! That's interesting how you describe light. When I get depressed I get into this state where everything outside of me somehow seems unreal. There's no better way to describe it really. Almost like it is detached from me.

Hello, strangers!

I have never been diagnosed by a doctor. I don't believe in strong, strange drugs that make you depressive or manic, or give you bad side-effects (I'm quite sensitive to that, I've tried stuff my friend had from his doctor (yeah, I know, sharing's not generally approved), that didn't help him either, I've also read tons of info about ADs and I seriously don't want to get hooked on that), I'm worried that an official diagnosis might eliminate most of job opportunities (as I do crappy warehouse jobs and have a study loan), I don't want my oldest relatives to have a heart-attack or think I'm gonna kill myself one sunny day. So I'm basically an off-grid self-analyzer, I'm self-medicating with different herbs, learning mediation, going obsessed about finding the true meaning of all this and doing lots of other hippy-ish stuff.

I have been very socially awkward ever since I remember myself. With time, the awkwardness grew into anxiety, cause apparently in school they don't like bookworms or people that are mostly interested in things that the average adolescent doesn't give a s**t about. The communication problems didn't help either. Since the age of 16 or so (I'm 23 now), it's been so bad my hands shake and my facial muscles twitch when I'm not in my comfort zone or something like that (well, not always, just very often). However, I've got loads of friends and likable acquintances, you could say they are not quite the average peas in the pot + I have studied philosophy, and most of them have taken that path too at some point in their lives.

I came to this thread, while researching Aspergers link to social anxiety. As I dont fancy being officially diagnosed, but I need to put these things in the right shelves in my head in order to avoid another breakdown, I would love to read other opinions. I think that it's a very believable scenario - one thing links to another, it's a very complicated net in your head, and no psychiatrist can look into it better than yourself. In the end, it's just labeling disorders, but what you actually need is to avoid chaos and loss of control over your fears and triggers. I know that when you're depressed, there isn't really much hope for regaining control (I should know, my story's a blockbuster), but I've discovered that strong drugs and trying to explain yourself to someone only drags me deeper into the Black Hole, which my galaxy orbits around.

Ok, now I've said too much, but anyway, what do you think about the link between these two conditions? And if there's anything concerning bipolar too, I would gladly hear (read) that. Thanks for reading all this emotional nonsense.

yeah, and I've been halucinating, I have OD'd some bad stuff while manic and ended up in a hospital between bums and delusional drunks, I have cycled in lightening speed into depression and wished to vomit my existence out, I have periods when I'm completely empty of emotions that it hurts in a way like being stabbed with a blunt knife. Then I usually just repeat the behavioral patterns in order to be able to talk to people, but I rather don't communicate at all, I'm not awkward in these periods, I'm a barren land.

Hello Sturmlieder

If you need medication or not depents on many things. How many cycles you have, how "bad" they are and so on.
I'm also not totally into medication, but lithium for example could really help and also exists in nature.
If you have Bipolar I, you should always take a mood stabalizer, especially to ADs. But many just need a mood stabalizer.

The problem with Bipolar is, if you don't treat it than the cycles can get more frequent. Also in the beginning they are usually triggert by stress and so on, but they get more and more independent from influences from the outside. So it gets harder to regulate and to control.

So Bipolar can get better or even worse, depending on your stressors and what it is done to treat it and so on.
So if I were you, I would think about getting a good shrink, because it is very possible that your next mania or depression ends in a hospital and there is no need for that if it's treated correctly.

Thank you for your reply.

Yes, I have considered mood stabilizers, but I'm concerned about two important side-effects: suppressing sexuality and messing up the metabolism (getting fat). Though I'm not really into sex while depressed, it still helps to "feel alive" when depression is less severe. And the lack of it just kills relationship and makes the situation even worse! Complicated, huh?

And I have considered getting a shrink, when I'm rich enough, but it has to be like having an equal opponent next to you. Where I originally come from (and plan to return to), psychiatry isn't really an advanced science, how am I supposed to talk to someone, who hasn't got a clue about how critical thinking works? Ok, let's consider finding one in UK, but I still haven't got enough information to do so.

My bipolar friend recently said that it seems like anti-depressants are just postponing his depression. Maybe the cycling is unavoidable?
Some folks have found that eating lots of fish and red meat kind of helps.

Strumliner - anti-depressants are the wrong medication for bipolar, that's not the medication you should be on anyway. Although weight gain is a risk for some bipolar medications it's not inevitable (I've been on all kinds of medications and although I have gained 3kg (9lbs) in the last few years, it's not due to meds - it's natural weight gain as I was underweight for my body type (hourglass/curvy) to start with - currently I'm 5'8" and 134lbs and I'm on 5 different medications for bipolar including a mood stabilizer and an anti-psychotic). Suppressed sexual drive is more of an anti-depressant side-effect than a bipolar medication side effect (can't remember having that as a main side-effect for any of the bipolar related medications I've been on).

You misunderstood me, in my country, we simply call all of it anti-depressants. I don't know what exactly is my friend taking. I'm quite informed there are many kinds of medication for these problems, however, I wouldnt research every single one of them, as I cannot prescribe it to myself, ergo it would be kind of pointless.

Thank you for clearing up the side-effect problem for me. I will consider going to a doctor, though, I really cannot afford an official diagnosis right now. They always want to know if you have any kind of depression-related problems, when you're trying to get a job that's a bit dangerous, but I don't have much of a choice right now.

New bipolar video I created using photographed pages from my journal. I put a lot of work into it but I feel happy with the final product.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2aAMGTgS2s[/youtube]

A lot of work you put into there, good that you are feeling better now.

Sadly my diagnostic situation is still not totally clear, but I have a mood chart now since two months I'm supposed to continue. But I have the strong feeling my shrink want's to lable me with something, but waits until my name change is through (I'm Transgender).

Kind of odd that they'd wait for your name change..? Normally a diagnosis is made either once enough information is obtained or if it is deemed necessary for treatment (whether the positives of having the diagnosis outweigh the negatives). I think diagnosing bipolar is harder in individuals like us because our symptoms present differently. For example my mum was telling me the other day she'd spoken to all her friends and they all agreed my behaviour was "normal" for somebody my age - but "normal" behaviour for an NT is not normal behaviour for me (like over-socializing, spontaneity, etc). It's like when I am hypomanic I behave "normally" because I loosen up, break routine, and become quite social. But these things cause me a lot of consequent anxiety.

Well, it could get more difficult for me to get through with everything and maybe he is also not 100% sure, dunno. I don't have many cycles. I'm by my new shrink since over a half year now and I had one slighly depressed and one hypomanic episoce, but the hypomania was in between apointments, because I'm just there all 6-8 weeks. So he didn't see it in person, but I wrote down the hypomanic state in my moodchart, that I had in february for approx. 3 weeks. Right now I'm mostly symptom free. So I'm no rapid cycler and I also apply "just" for Bipolar II. I'm doing astoningly fine at the moment - actually since a while - but I'm still not that stable like I want to be, but it could be a lot worse (One year ago I was still doing terrible and was also treated terrible wrong by another shrink, so it's just recently that I'm doing mostly fine).
But he talked about labels the last time and asked me how long my name change still takes!?
(In my country I have to go in front of the court to change it)



Hm, people very often think that I have ADHD when I'm hypomanic. Because I still have myself better under conrol than most NTs would have, but still different. But a girl with ADHD and borderline in my University called me "Bipolar" when I was hypomanic in february without me telling her.
Usually when I'm hypomanic I buy mostly books online about my special interest.
So nothing what NTs would do...!

I have bipolar type II, rapid cycling, mixed states. UKs kinda by so great with mental health treatment, so it took me a long time to get admitted into the system. By that time I had already made two suicide attempts and overdosed more times than I could count on anti-anxiety pills. I ended up in ER before anyone took me seriously. I still don't know what Im supposed to do. II was told by someone I was expierencing "normal issues that everyone has". Which was BS .

I'm now seeing a psychiatrist every few months or so, Im on the waiting list to receive therapy, and CMHT (community mental health team) are seeing me every so often. Amazingly, they listened when I told them I couldn't go four months without incident (such as another suicidal one, or starting to overdose again) let alone stable. I didn't expect them too. I never expect them too anymore.

I more stable than I was, but I don't know how long that will last. As I saw on a poster at the hospital today, my mood is "more boom and bust than the economy" (that was a weird poster).