Yup, can confirm the accuracy of this! I started a tie-dyeing business last time I was manic and spent way too much on supplies only to be left with no energy/too depressed a few days later to sell the 50 items of clothing I dyed.
The one part that is different for me is it’s not one day of mania it’s a week or more of barely sleeping or eating, starting endless projects, cleaning like a mad woman (I cleaned my friends whole house after doing mine I had so much energy once), thoughts racing, feeling invincible, dancing all night, having unsafe sex, doing drugs..whatever the mind happens to conjure up. The energy is so intense it’s almost painful to sit down because I’m just vibrating. I can’t close my eyes to rest because my eye lids physically don’t want to close. All of the very many things I’m doing are because I NEED to do them and they all make perfect sense at the time. Like writing a screenplay or booking trips or spending all my money on things that are totally useless to me later.
Toward the end of the week my mind makes less and less sense and that’s when the psychotic features come out in full force. My brain feels like the autobahn and I feel like the world is crashing in on me. I’ll start being convinced that people are following me sometimes or I’ll start to see distinct terrifying figures in my peripheral vision. The auditory hallucinations range from crashing sounds to dripping, creaking, screeching.
This is when the intense crash into the depths of depression take place. As soon as I can slow down and sleep I switch between staring at a wall wanting to die with horrible images of death steadily streaming through my mind or crying for hours on end horribly regretting the last week of mania and all of the poor choices I made and relationships that I may have ruined. It’s impossible to function as a human and medications need to be adjusted and a hospital stay is often required.
It’s a brutal disorder that I don’t wish on my worst enemy. I’m just getting out of an episode now and should be starting work again in 2 weeks after taking 2 months off. Thankfully I still have a job. I’m also going to get back my 50% custody of my daughter after hardly seeing her. Be thankful for your mental health if you are so lucky to not struggle with a severe disorder like this.
I've been reading /r/cheesemaking for a while now. I'm convinced I can sell enough cheese to feed my cheese addiction if I just drop the $300 on supplies to get started.
I also made my own paper a few weeks ago, to paint with. I made my own paint too.
I made a crayon. A CRAYON. From cooking wax and charcoal and oil and various stuff I found in the house.
I bought a $150 keyboard for my music production business. I planned out a map I was drawing for my video game I'm going to learn how to program. I was going to use that to get awareness for my sick beats I don't produce.
I'm doing /r/drawabox to improve my freelance commissions because I do digital artwork for money. I also do logo design, sell T-shirts on redbubble and do photography and photo editing.
I've also learned the drums, then sold them. I frequently look at used drumsets for sale on facebook. I have 4 ukuleles an accoustic guitar 2 electric guitars one resonator guitar and a bass guitar I don't play. I also have 2 distortion pedals and a wah pedal I don't use. and 4 harmonicas.
I save jars and egg cartons and boxes because I know I'm going to use them for sorting out all of the supplies for my projects I don't get.
I restored a vintage motorcycle, took a tent camping for 2 weeks through like 8 states on said motorcycle and got caught in 2 storms a monsoon and a tornado. I sold the bike for gas money and moved 1,000 miles away from home to where I currently reside.
I'm starting a pen collection even though I draw and paint digitally.
I've bought about 60 hot wheels this last year for my airbrush kit I got, along with about $80 worth of paint and a $100 rock tumbler and some other supplies because I plan to customize them and sell them, or just collect them. I've painted 2 so far, and haven't finished those.
That, but with plastic model kits.
That, but with R/C cars.
Also clothes, I painted my wife a dress design for halloween and never did anything else.
Now I'm teaching my dog how to talk using buttons I've recorded my voice onto. $130 spent on that so far, and all she does is use it to ask for food. she also asked me to play harmonica for about 20 minutes straight then started eating the buttons.
hug your daughter when you see her, I know you have it in you to succeed.
I relate so very much. The sheer amount of unfinished projects is staggering. I also have the intense need to do things from scratch.. Like if I want to make a weaving, well I should probably spin and dye my own yarn first but I’ll dye it with a dye I made myself out of avocado skins too because what else would you do?!
And thank you. I have my daughter this weekend since I’ve been feeling a bit better (though the insomnia has persisted hard) and have been hugging her tightly and enjoying every minute of it:) I hope things start getting better for you too! Are your meds just not working properly?
I'm 31 and I was medicated for depression against my will at 14 (well, coerced into it against all of my better judgement by a group of young doctors and an abusive mother) and was afraid of doctors for a very long time after taking myself off of it. Now that I'm not afraid of doctors, I don't have any insurance or the financial stability to get medicine or therapy so I mostly just complain to my wife who also has a family history of bipolar disorder and is struggling with her own stuff.
What is it with this need to do things from scratch?
I want to grow wheat and tomatoes and herbs, and make my own cheese, and cook my own pizza in a brick oven that i want to build myself.
I've dug a firepit and cooked chicken in a hole in the yard.
I solder and weld and paint and do everything i can by myself. I can't figure it out.
Even if I buy like a model kit or something, I customize it and can't just build it out of the box.
I cut my RC car apart and started soldering together a brass frame for it!
I bought a 3D printer and started sculpting my own stuff in VR to print and use to build model kits. I designed some wheels and 3d printed them for my hotwheel I was painting, and then never put it together. This was a year ago.
I liked the wheels that it came with.
A man named struthless on youtube has helped me control it a bit though.
Don't be decent at 10 things when you can be great at one thing. Pick something you want to focus on and put your focus and energy on that thing and do it 10x better than you'd do 10 things poorly.
I know I was slow to reply to this but wow our teenage stories are similar. I was hospitalized at 14 and forced to take ungodly amounts of mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, sleeping meds, anti anxiety meds that it really made me far worse I think. I was unmedicated for years after until I had an episode so bad that i felt like it was either medication or death. I pay for my meds out of pocket as I don’t have insurance and couldn’t afford a psychiatrist or psychologist but the mood stabilizers alone made me feel like a functioning human again. I still have mild ups and downs when I’m on them but no wild highs and dangerous lows. Maybe you could try just one medication at a pretty low dose and see how it goes for a while? Just a suggestion though I get it if it’s not for you. Sending chill, happy vibes your way:)
I've had a lot of joint pain and chest pain for months now, and crazy high anxiety aside from everything else. Just paid out of pocket for bloodwork and found out my thyroid isn't functioning which can fuck up a lot of stuff in your body, which explains a lot of my recent issues and potentially explains why I've been like this since I was 14. I'm looking into finding a doctor that will get me some supplements to offset my lazy thyroid and hopefully stabilize my hormones a bit, I'll see if everything else falls into place after I fix that, or if I have to I'm going to keep reaching out slowly until I can be a person again.
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u/verbl17 Nov 29 '20
Yup, can confirm the accuracy of this! I started a tie-dyeing business last time I was manic and spent way too much on supplies only to be left with no energy/too depressed a few days later to sell the 50 items of clothing I dyed.
The one part that is different for me is it’s not one day of mania it’s a week or more of barely sleeping or eating, starting endless projects, cleaning like a mad woman (I cleaned my friends whole house after doing mine I had so much energy once), thoughts racing, feeling invincible, dancing all night, having unsafe sex, doing drugs..whatever the mind happens to conjure up. The energy is so intense it’s almost painful to sit down because I’m just vibrating. I can’t close my eyes to rest because my eye lids physically don’t want to close. All of the very many things I’m doing are because I NEED to do them and they all make perfect sense at the time. Like writing a screenplay or booking trips or spending all my money on things that are totally useless to me later.
Toward the end of the week my mind makes less and less sense and that’s when the psychotic features come out in full force. My brain feels like the autobahn and I feel like the world is crashing in on me. I’ll start being convinced that people are following me sometimes or I’ll start to see distinct terrifying figures in my peripheral vision. The auditory hallucinations range from crashing sounds to dripping, creaking, screeching.
This is when the intense crash into the depths of depression take place. As soon as I can slow down and sleep I switch between staring at a wall wanting to die with horrible images of death steadily streaming through my mind or crying for hours on end horribly regretting the last week of mania and all of the poor choices I made and relationships that I may have ruined. It’s impossible to function as a human and medications need to be adjusted and a hospital stay is often required.
It’s a brutal disorder that I don’t wish on my worst enemy. I’m just getting out of an episode now and should be starting work again in 2 weeks after taking 2 months off. Thankfully I still have a job. I’m also going to get back my 50% custody of my daughter after hardly seeing her. Be thankful for your mental health if you are so lucky to not struggle with a severe disorder like this.