Mania is so hard for a family to deal with as it’s so selfish. It’s hard to see the needs of others- or even to care about the needs of others if a manic mood swing is in full force. There is also such a lack of insight the person can’t listen to reason. This is why the manic person becomes the center of attention and takes so much family energy.
Mania makes you think of how the world relates to you and only you. Depression can be very selfish- but it’s different. Depression makes you whiny and lonely- mania makes you noisy and bossy. All of it can annoy others!
Bipolar disorder is a tough illness to deal with in any family. I believe that families as a whole need a treatment plan. It has to be a family affair.
Julie
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Hi Julie,
I often have the reverse problem with Mania. Instead of being too selfish I get way to generous and helpful. I donate more than I can afford, offer to do too much for others, try and establish charities, or community improvement projects etc. All of them are nice ideas, but during my last bout I was literally harassing a bank (thankfully only via email) for funds for my project. After all they owed it to the community as they had been virtually robbing the residents with their fees, credit card interest etc. Needless to say they didn’t give me the $70 million that I thought they needed to pay back to the community:)
Hi Lisa,
You are SO correct that this can happen. Mania can make you feel so involved- it’s as though the wall that exists between reality and a dream simply disappears and you make terrible decisions! I certainly understand.
Julie
I can look back and see where my whole life has been a ‘ give away ‘. I had no idea at the time that it was because of BPD and hypomania. I have given so much away that it startles me ,even now. I have always given away more than I could afford. I still have real problems with this- on a lower level. I have this ‘need’ to give, give, give. Then, when I get irritable, I feel like no one really cares and everyone takes advantage of me, people stink and life is yuk? Can you relate? BP seems to distort everything!
Hey Julie!
I hear you loud and clear. I’m having trouble with letting go of my mania. I suspect that once I give it up and mourn the loss I will get better. At this time I am still quite hypomanic to the point of putting my 17 year marriage at possible risk. I feel like I’m at an enormous crossroads in my life but I can’t be trusted to make great decisions right now. How do I make good decisions about standing up for myself when it may be the mania tricking me?
- Melissa -
I always know if mania is the problem because I look at my Health Cards lists and look at what I think, say and do when I’m manic. There is no way I can remember what I’m like unless I write it down first. Mania distorts everything! If you look at my sample Health Cards, you can see that I always say the same thing at first when I start to get manic: I say:
“I’m not getting manic am I? This isn’t mania is it?”
That is what I always say- and it makes me so angry- because I am feeling so very good and it’s so very unfair that it’s mania. But I know that the decisions I make after I go in that direction are always wrong- they are always based on a false belief that all of my choices will be good ones. My mind says- So go for it Julie! Things will be great!
This is not true.
It doesn’t work that way- my choices are always poor when I’m manic- they just feel good. I have learned to choose the behavior and its consequences instead of making choices based off feelings. Outcome is what matters.
Evaluate your current behavior and thoughts-= which ones will damage your relationship with your husband? It’s probably the same things that caused damage in the past. Smart people know to stop now – before relationships are ruined. I know that you’re smart because you are here learning about this illness and you are thinking of your own behavior. Now is the time to make smart decisions based off of what you want in your future- not what bipolar tells you it wants right now!
Use your Health Cards and choose wisely. I believe in you! Julie
I am trying to evaluate my behaviors with the Health Cards. So much of yours are just like me. I find this overwhelming and I can’t concentrate. My recall is the pits and I just can’t focus very long. I just spent 45 minutes on the phone with someone and I can recall little of the conversation. Maybe it’s because I talked too much. What is it about a BP person that makes us feel compelled to keep talking and talking and talking? I don’t think it has anything to do with the mood I’m in. Or does it have everything to do with it? I’ve read a LOT and seems this is a core issues with all who live with BP. Can you shed more light on this subject? I have truly tried on my own and I just can’t make this change. I just want peace in my brain. I have it in my heart because of my Faith. I want my brain to catch up!
Julie:
I am just learning about BP and I need much insight now. My boyfriend of five years, who’s bipolar, recently up and left me for another woman with no warning. He called me from his work and just told me.
I want to be very careful here because I know not all behavior can be attributed to BP, and I don’t want to offend BP sufferers.
My BF is on meds, but he doesn’t display the real low, depressive moods. I have seen him when he’s manic. Once he targets something or someone, he starts to obsess.
His finances are a wreck, he’s been in trouble at work and the woman he’s with now has a severe addiction.
My BF already has an addictive personality, has boundary issues and I fear that she will easily pull him down.
When he left me, it was as if he was singularly focused and not even aware of how deeply he was wounding me. I had no idea he was looking around, although I caught him on Match.com. I repeatedly asked him not to look, that this was hurting me. He said he would stop, but obviously that wasn’t true.
Then he calls me shortly after he broke up with me and asks how I’m doing. It was as if he totally erased the five years we were together and had no idea of the impact of his decision.
I have been reading your book and he has said many of the leading comments in one form or another.
I take his betrayal personally and I am just trying to make sense of this all. I don’t know where BP begins and his personality starts.
Could all this be a sign of mania?
Thank you!
Ok. So so do I have something that doesn’t fit into any of these categories or am I just mis-reading it? I find myself ‘quiet’ when I’m not around other people, but if I drop something, I hear myself yelling at myself or whatever I dropped…as if it can hear me. I’m still so irritable I can’t stand myself and then can become the life of the ‘party’ when I get with other people. I either feel really great and energetic or I feel claustrophobic and antsy, can’t stand noise and lights etc. There never seems to be a middle ground for me. If it is, it doesn’t seem to last very long. The older I get, the more irritable I become. Sometimes, it seems that I am both ways at once or feel great one minute and ‘down’ and irritable the next. I can feel pretty good but still be so irritable. Sometimes it feels as though I am in both moods at once with alternating feelings of overwhelming anxiety (that I don’t verbalize)and my brain feels like it will never go to sleep. Even when I sleep, my dreams seem so stressful. Hypomania? Dysphoric hypomania? Euphoric mania? Seems that if there was just a majic switch to calm my thoughts, all would be well. The constant checks and balancing act is debilitating. What would it be like to just relax? Can’t take meds. And I get really hacked about that. Why can’t I be like other people that get help from the meds? And then the woe is me cycle starts all over again…. I’ve read so many books and gone to so many docs; most of them WISH they knew what to say and how to help), yeah, right. They mostly care about their bank accounts. That’s been my experience. Anyone out there going through similar stuff? I so want to be able to get to the bottom of this and live the rest of my life in some semblance of peace and ‘normalcy’. Hmmm. could it be that I am still in denial of sorts? I hate being this way! Any comment would be appreciated.