3 ms·
Just venting out: I remember the exact day and moment that, for the first time I felt that my mind was clear as crystal water, silent, and could be used at com
by ltr_ 6y ago
Just venting out:
I remember the exact day and moment that, for the first time I felt that my mind was clear as crystal water, silent, and could be used at command without any effort. 0 anxiety, the inner voice in my head disappeared.
At the time i was unemployed just reading/watching math/philosophy/CS books/videos, I was stuck understanding concepts for months, just reading things without really digesting them, just to pass time. but at that second, everything started to make sense, without any effort, I started to make connections between concepts and applications, recalled that day as one of my best days of my life and changed my way of thinking in a good way, forever. i was just laying in bed completely immersed and exploring a new world in my mind. my memory was like it was a movie that could be rewinded,paused and analyzed at will.
The next Monday i visited my doctor at the time (i was been treated for ADD), I said - thanks you!, when i entered his office, thanks you for curing me!. I explained what happened and how i felt, he looked at me, took a paper and sign my definitive diagnosis : bipolar 2. he cut my antidepressant and prescribed my new treatment, and he told me, that how i feel was not going to last, and the way down could be really hard, and indeed, it was really hard for me to think that this was going to go away, I remember every morning of that month waking up and checking my thoughts. over the course of 2 months, i went back to the 'normal chaos', also i just landed a new job (which i quit 2 months later), so my worries intensified. I still have the false hope that I was the real me during those months and that sometime in the future I would be that way forever.
I really want to feel normal, sociable , logical, assertive and articulate as I am during my states of hypomania , which are no longer than a week, very frequents, but not as high as that episode 2 years ago.
Life treated me well,i had extremely good luck with my understanding partner, my friends/colleagues and family, they know how to turn my weirdness and chaotic mind into something useful and productive. I still have no monetary stability and I feel I'am at one catastrophic disease/event to be on the streets or dead, I have been broke several times in my life, but as an 'above average' IT guy in a third world country with a simple life style, it was easy to find a job and shine for a while and get the money to get back on track and then throw it all and repeat.
Now, Im 'stable', under quetiapine/concerta, unemployed and with zero will to work ever again in something with a boss or teams, resisting the urge to engage and get exited with projects with other people, because i know ill disappoint at some time. Im feeling frustrated that i cant do anything valuable with what i know, i simply don't have the discipline nor the stamina to do something that matters and it is slowly eating me from inside. I dream of having a little opensource projects that involve everything I enjoy from math/cs/art, all my "projects" , code , ideas that i wrote get deleted in the next system reinstall. I don't know how/where to get more valuable help, i had tried a lot of things (mindfulness meditation, exercise, drugs, prescription meds, charity, collaboration on OS projects,diets...), things that at sometime seems to be doing the right thing on me but, they stop working or my energy just vanish, so i dismissed the effects as a placebo, which leads me to believe that is the only effect that works on me.
- throw32891 6y ago> I started to make connections between concepts and applications, recalled that day as one of my best days of my life and changed my way of thinking in a good way, forever. Interesting. Did you continue to feel that way after the episode? People with ADHD often get racing thoughts and are restless. Also it's possible that you had some insightful moments at the time. When things connect or we're making progress, we tend to feel happy/euphoric. So what is the reason that the doctor recognized the above as bipolar type 2? When does "feeling optimistic" end and where does "bipolar" start?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mjayhn 6y agoI'm adhd and bp2 and while I can tell some of my symptoms apart a bunch of them seem so similar (reading texts and comprehending nothing for weeks, executive function issues, racing thoughts, emotional outbursts) I'm constantly trying to pry them apart to know which one I'm experiencing. And now adhd seems to be going more the executive function disorder route so when I read through /r/adhd I wonder if a lot of the people I'm reading about are bp or if I'm not even bp2 but I'm just adhd. I guess in the end it doesn't matter if I find a way to manage the symptoms instead of focusing on labeling them. I'm glad for posts like this because I had the same issue where I refused to believe my dx because my bp mom is far more serious and media/tv portray it so far from what I have, what seems to be a fairly mild case. It wasn't until I started reading bp-in-tech/etc stories on here where I realized the spectrum range is so broad.
- ltr_ 6y ago> Did you continue to feel that way after the episode? yes, but not without effort,its like that episode taught me how to make connections more easily, or be aware of them more consciously. I remember it wasn't rare to be told on my work: - how the hell did you know it was that? when i was asked to take a look into a problem/tools/frameworks even areas not related at all to what I was doing, my answer often was, i don't know. it happened to me so often that i thought that the information was there and the connections were made without being conscious. Also happen that is extremely hard to express my self or explain things that i know i can handle in my mind, but i guess im just shy. > When things connect or we're making progress, we tend to feel happy/euphoric. So what is the reason that the doctor recognized the above as bipolar type 2? I guess i was very talky,remember commenting him that I memorized/learned a bunch of stuff and i was able to recall it at will, I was very exited, too much I guess. he told me "a little bit more.. and you are going to think you can fly and jump off a building", so he told me to call him every day that week to report, I was delusional. Also, the diagnosis made me think of the past, and saw a very clear pattern of ups and downs. I don't feel depressed when I'm down, I just become apathetic, bored, angry and results in frustration , the energy is there,and its too much, but I'm there paralyzed. also my ability to express ideas, opinions or just the use of the words degrade substantially. > When does "feeling optimistic" end and where does "bipolar" start? In my experience with states of hypomania: the optimism is just not proportional to the achievements I guess, but you aren't going to be aware of that. you become another person, your confidence go to the roof, and your anxiety to 0, you feel at the top of the world, you can easily become a con artist if you want. that is when you start to do things that puts you in danger, physically, monetary , sexually,etc... *sorry for my English, not native speaker. edit: new line