Bi-Polar?

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I want to communicate with anyone who has been diagnosed with this. I am fairly sure I have it in one form or another and did mention it to my Gp recently...tho why he prescribed me some sort of anti psychotic for mood swings, I don't do, lol. (Olanzapine)

Basically, since a young teen of about 12, I have spent weeks, sometimes a month in deep depression, but in between I have had shorter spells where I have stayed up all night with these incredible urges to create endless poems or drawings etc etc, or these periods where I experience this odd mixture of elation and melancholy and go out and buy things. It is hard to describe. In between, I seem to just have these states where I do not know how I feel at all and seem to feel nothing, which is rather disturbing. The periods of each mood have been getting shorter and shorter lately, so I am swinging pretty wildly between depressed and elated/depressed.

Can anyone tell me if this sounds like bi-polar? The material I have read seems to describe pretty much this.
I hasten to add that when in the depressed states, I lose all motivation to do anything and become suicidal but lack the energy to consider it seriously.

But when I am in the odd euphoric + depressed state, I get a lot of suicidal ideation.

I thought i might be bi-polar but my swings are not extreme enough from what i have read and i have 1 day of complete clarity every so often. Apart from your elation bit i don't know how old are you? I had that while i was in teens but it stoped maybe you do have bi-polar but there are other mood disorders like bi-polar 2 ,uni-polar and the milder Cyclothymia and even milder Dysthymia.

Graelwyn, you sound exactly the way I feel at the moment. I have been going into these weird kinda trance states, I feel depressed and then happy. I have had suicidal thoughts but the seem to pass, I can't connect with any of my feelings. I stay awake at night till all hours and recite poetry in my head. Then when I want to write the poetry down it won't come out, like writers block. I want to talk to people but something stops me from doing so. I feel disconnected from the world and I don't like it.

One of my friends suffers with pi-polar, her personality is alot different than mine though. She is running around talking nonsense one week and the next she is on a high. Her personality is quite scary though, she also has quite challenging behaviour. Actually maybe she has a dual diagnosis of schizophrenia and bi-polar.

I am sorry I can't help you out more, I really don't know what it could be. Could you be suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)?

My ex-boyfriend from when I was a teenager, whom I'm still friends with today, is classic Asperger's AND he displays hypomania (which I think is associated with, or a "type" of Bipolar). He will go through periods of insane productivity and then suddenly crash into a near vegetative state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypomania

I have experienced most of what you describe Graelwyn. I have periods of depression and hypo-mania often with a 'mixes state' that is hard to describe or fully understand. I am diagnosed with Cyclothymia but not being medicated for it.

Yup, know this one all too well. It can come in degrees to differnt people just like AS. I'm curretlyDXed with it. Manic can be misinterpeted very easily, it isn't always elation, kinda nice when it is though, add in the brain race and it can be more then nice. Very very very rarely do I go manic. That was the first sign something didn't fit. This was a question or very close to it I asked when I first got here, BP and AS can come together. I have not ruled this out, in me, at all.

The thing is it (BP) didn't/doesn't fit it all, too many gaps, missing parts, with me. Doctor laughed at me over the phone when I brought up AS, I'll slap him later. Counciler is listening however and is learning about AS now. The last get togther with my brief self discription was an eye opener for him. I'm older and things have a way of getting complicated, just having gone through the school of hard knocks. But it's all so simpiler to see now, for me. Like I said this place has been a huge gulp of fresh air. Now add in a few other "friends" that I have and it can get even more complex. Looking at PTSD now, add in AS and it can look a lot like BP. But the underlying thing, the one that fits well, is AS.

I need a med to help control the brain race. Even during the depressions. Been a long road here. can't even begin to remember all of those. I can now understand the why of it now. This isn't the first time I've been misDXed. Got lucky found a drug that worked, least it does now, it may not forever. The thing about the drugs is this most are used for something else, they observe that it sometimes helps with a thing it was never designed for, hence the trial and error can go on for a while. This stabilizer works for depression I haven't had a bad one since I've been on this stuff. Still chasing down the correct dose, but think I know I need to go up 25mg and stay there. They very often will observe you and switch doses before you've had a chance to feel it long enough. Please remember this about meds, only you know what they're doing, tell them what you think you need to do. It's their job to suggest only, they cannot feel it. Odd, one of my warning signs, with a med that isn't working right, is very dark circles under my eyes. Ring a bell?

Graelwyn, PM me if you'd like to discuss it more. I have no cures and I don't preach. But I can listen and let you know when we can relate to this thing and what else I think it is, now.

Just my 2 cents worth.

PS asked The Wife, she said I was on this one Olanzapine at one time too. Doing Lamotrigine now with a side order of Valium.

Last edited by postpaleo on 02 May 2007, 1:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.

BP doesn't have to have extreme swings. Some are slow, some are rapid cycle and you can have long periods of just one or the other and you can have a combo of all of the above. Fun stuff isn't it. Like right now I can feel a slight swing, but they're over before I even knew I had them. I know that doesn't really make sense. upping my dose another 25mg should pretty much stop that. It's like I missed 2 meds by accident and went to a strange place (not really, just been a while), was forgetting to eat, obsessing, etc I didn't notice, but, I should have noticed my stimming with repeated songs, my fist clenching, etc. normaly that would be a buzzer for me. My wife had to intervene and we both got a little worried the med was failing, then I noticed I still had 2 pills in the boxes that I had forgotten to take. BP may be there, but it isn't the real joker in the deck. The great thing is it (med) seems to be working for both or just the one, who the hell really knows. No cure, I don't want a cure, but those depressions were not a good place at all. There are gifts that come with this stuff, just like there are curses. I will embrace the gifts, the rest of it can go to hell.

Just a fast note. The last real depression I had was med induced, actually the one I'm on now. Wrong dose. Sucide was rampant. Even scared me. It wasn't the fleeting thought, it was there big time and didn't want to leave. Finger nails in the desk to get through that one. Even started 2 posts for here, but just writing it out got me through it. I keep strange hours, it gets bad, give me a yell.

This sounds like what I've been going through.

Thanks all... postpaleo...you are dx'd with Bi polar then?
I am in a numb state at the moment... one of those periods where I cannot feel anything, which I hate.
I used to be a lot worse, but I lack the energy to go crazy with my thoughts due to a thyroid issue that leaves me mostly tired. But sometimes, I literally wake up with thoughts racing through, talking to myself lol. The 'manic' phase sometimes manifests as impatience, irritability, aggression, anger... it really depends, Other times, I feel as if my heart will beat out of my chest from the feeling of being high and wanting to move and talk fast.

That does sound like bipolar,
I would recommend seeing a psych and not a GP,
is that medication your on called Zyprexa by any chance?
Becareful and monitor your weight,
because that med is known to make you blow up,
but some are lucky,
I don't mean to scare you,
I just know you have mentioned before you have a history of anorexia,
and so do I and weight gain from this med made me relapse.

Sounds like me. But there is power
in the euphoric stages which isn't
worth losing.

Thats affirmative on the offical DX..BiPolar. Thing is he isn't open to very much else, my early med records from the Army are, let us just say missing in action, fools thought they were doing me a favor getting rid of them. Back then they thought I was epileptic, I doubt he has even read all of my record, different docot every couple of years or monthe(they burn out fast) with long spells of none at all, different doctor, different DX, not very different, they've all been stayin with the BP pretty much, but then none have tried to relook at it all either. Welcome to the VA, Veterans Administration, here in the states.

The thing is so many other things can mimic it, Cobos of things. The one good lady that I first had, described it as, it very often brings "freinds" how true, how true.

But yeah been to the doctor lessons on BP, know it pretty well and like I said I haven't ruled it out fully. AS is there, I have no doubt.