Hypomania Feels Like Being High

Sometimes hypomania feels like being high to me.  Music sounds better, perception is altered, thoughts are scattered, I'm a bit forgetful, etc.

If you're high and don't want people to know, a good trick is to not talk much.  If you don't say anything, you might not be found out.  Sometimes when people get high they tend to talk a lot, and talk fast.

A classic symptom of mania or hypomania is pressured speech, or rapid speech.  When I'm hypomanic, I feel like my thoughts are flying fast, and it's hard to keep up.  Fortunately for me, my thoughts still make sense when I'm hypomanic.  

If I know I'm hypomanic, I'll usually try to act normal.  One of my tricks is to remember not to talk too much.  This not only helps hide a symptom, but it also makes it less likely you'll say something you'll regret.  It also helps me to control myself.

I'm not suggesting that you hide your symptoms, but for me, I'm just going to have them sometimes. And I often want to function normally. 

(Side Note:  I've listened to someone talk while completely manic, and it was way beyond just fast speech. Their thoughts jumped from one idea to the next and they didn't make much sense. They needed help.)

Mood Update for August

The following days I had mood that I considered not "normal."  Normal for me means that I functioned fine throughout the day, with little or no symptoms.  This list is in lieu of keeping a regular mood chart.

8/7/11 - mild depression

8/10/11 - brief anxiety, maybe because of not sleeping long enough

8/11/11 - brief anxiety, maybe because of not sleeping long enough

8/16/11 - depressed & anxious

8/20/11 - moody and definitely depressed

8/24/11 - morning hypomanic, late afternoon & evening anxious and depressed

8/29/11 - hypomanic, all day.

8/30/11 - hypomanic, all day.


I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder NOS (not otherwise specified), although I consider myself to have some variation of Bipolar Disorder II, rapid cycling. It's not uncommon for my mood episodes to last just part of the day, or 1-2 days at a time.

Phenibut Makes Me Dizzy

I love how phenibut feels except for the dizziness.  When I take phenibut, it completely erases anxiety, and it makes me sleep very soundly.  I get the best sleep on it.  I wake up refreshed the next morning. Except that I am always dizzy the next day.

I've searched the internet, and generally the dizziness is supposedly only associated with high doses of phenibut, but I'm taking low doses.  Usually I only take 540mg, and this last time I only took 220mg.  The 220mg dose was effective, but I still got dizziness!  Now this makes me wonder if I'm super sensitive to it, or maybe when I'm sleeping my body doesn't metabalize it the same way. I could try taking it during the day, and see if I get dizzy, but I don't take phenibut just for fun. I only take it for anxiety. So I'd only take it during the day if I got really anxious during the day... which hasn't happened yet.

It's interesting to note that I didn't have this dizziness problem when I first starting taking phenibut, and I don't know what has changed.  I don't take it every day, and this dizziness occurs even if I only take it once a week.

Anyway, it's just a mystery that I'd thought I'd mention, in case other people have this problem too.  Next time I'm going to try an even lower dose.

A Doctor who has Bipolar Disorder

It always helps me to read about someone else who's had some of the same experiences as myself, and with that, I thought I'd link to an article about a doctor who has bipolar disorder: Normal is a Place I Visit

So there's some weekend reading, a day or two early.  Enjoy! :)

You know it's a hallucination when.....

I don't hallucinate, as a general rule, at least not very strongly.

However, when things get weird for me, I start seeing shadows and have minor hallucinations.

A few days ago, I thought I saw a spider crossing the floor. And it stopped when I looked at it. I was so convinced that there was something there, that I kneeled down on the carpet and inspected the spot. No spider.

I told my husband about this, and he said, the clue is that spiders don't stop when you look at them.

How true.

I used to hullucinate that my phone was blinking green (which would indicate a message), or that I heard my phone beep.  The clue I found was that the beeping or blinking would happen after I thought about whether I had any messages on my phone.

In the movie A Beautiful Mind, the main character with schizophrenia realized that his friend wasn't real because her age never changed.

It seems that to hang onto reality, sometimes we have to see if our sensory perceptions agree with logic. If not, we might be hallucinating.

If we know it's a hallucination, then we can deal with it.  It's when we're convinced that the hallucination is real, that it becomes a problem.

Mood Update - June and July

Since in May I said I was going to keep tracking of my sick days, I thought I should let you know where I stand.

June was an uneventful month.  No sick days to speak of.

For July, I failed to keep track of sick days, but I had more than my usual. Business has been slow, and so I've been stressed, and that causes mood problems.  I had lots of depressed days and my mood was up and down.

Now it's August, and I'm going to try to keep track. I'll let you know at the end of the month :)

Medical School

I was supposed to go to medical school.  I was studying for the MCAT but my bipolar disorder was raging. My moods were up and down, and I couldn't concentrate well. I was struggling with the physics section and had a hard time sitting for an all day test. I was going to go to medical school because it was what other people thought I should do.  My heart wasn't in it. So I stopped the process and didn't apply to medical school.

That was about 6 years ago.  Now, I find myself wondering if I should have.  My moods are doing way better. I'm passionately interested in medicine. I love helping my mother-in-law with her diabetes and blood pressure. I love learning about medicine. I love self-medicating myself. I love going to the doctor with her.

I know it's never too late. However, I also know that I can't do the things that applying to medical school and going to medical school requires. When you apply to medical school, you have to apply to several, and then move to the city of the medical school you get into. And then for residency, you get matched to a specific teaching hospital, and you have to move again to that new city. And then there are the long hours of residency.

Unfortunately, having to move would make my bipolar disorder go crazy.  It's a big trigger for me. Also, just a day or two of a messed up sleep schedule can make me manic or put me in tears. I'm not mentally rugged enough for medical school or residency. And then there are the high student loan bills, and the uncertainty of the future of medicine in the United States, thanks to Obamacare and regulation.

So no medical school for me. I didn't even mention the cost of flying around for the medical school interviews.  Did I tell you that money problems also make me stress, which also makes my bipolar disorder worsen?

So if I am going to do something in medicine, it is going to be something else. That's OK.  There must be a reason for this bipolar craziness.  My weakness might turn into my strength. I'm meant to do something else. Maybe it's to be there for my Mother-in-law, for now.  And then something else.

By the way: I always find myself thinking about career changes when I'm on the manic side. I get all worked up.  I have to remember to wait before making any decisions and see what I think about it all in a month or two.