Julie A. Fast's Blog, page 27

Join me on Facebook at Julie A. Fast and Julie A. Fast Books

After you enjoy the posts on this blog, I hope you will join me on Facebook and leave your comments on my more personal posts. I also do a weekly Q&A session on Facebook that is a lot of fun! Click here to read one of my posts about athletes and mental health. Facebook readers help me with research. Here’s an example regarding bipolar disorder and focus problems.

Click here to read a Q&A session. The questions and answers are posted in the comments below the post.

The best way to reach me with your bipolar disorder questions is through one of my live sessions! My next session is

Sunday, May 14, 2017 at 4:00 PM PST. Details are on my Facebook page.

Julie

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Published on May 09, 2017 08:34

BIPOLAR DISORDER MANIA 101: Do you know the difference between dysphoric and euphoric mania?

Here’s the basic info about bipolar disorder mania. It’s MANIA 101!

I’ve decided to label mania each time I talk about it. All of the different terms we use can be confusing, dysphoric, mixed and euphoric, for example!

Let’s start at the beginning. There are two levels of mania: hypomania and full blown mania.

People with bipolar disorder II (two) have hypomania only. People with bipolar disorder I (one) have hyomania and the very dangerous and very life disrupting full blown mania. I have bipolar disorder two, but I’m one of the unfortunates- My type of hypomania is right on the verge of full blown mania. If I ever do move into full blown mania, I will then have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder one. Fingers crossed that never happens!

Within these levels of hypomania and mania, there are two types of mania: Euphoric and Dysphoric mania. It’s simple to describe the difference between the two.

What are the signs and symptoms of euphoric mania?

E[image error]uphoric mania feels better than the greatest sex a person can have. It feels like falling in love, getting a dream job, winning an Oscar, traveling the world and seeing flowers bloom. You get the picture. People with bipolar disorder get these feelings without any of the actual events. People tell me that cocaine has a similar feeling, but unless you have experienced euphoric mania, you will not understand how good it feels. It feels so good it gets people with bipolar disorder into a lot of trouble. I met my boyfriends and two husbands while manic- then they had to deal with my depression! Wonderful guys- they stuck with me- until I left! Often when manic. (In case this sounds stressful- I should let you know that this is NOT my pattern now. The Health Cards helped me cure that manic behavior!)

When the euphoric mania strikes, I’m more artistic, sing karaoke with no stage awkwardness, talk with anyone and I mean anyone, can pick up any guy and talk so fast it’s hard to stop myself, but I donl’t really want to stop because it feels so darn good!

What are the signs and symptoms of dysphoric mania?

Now for the tough, tough, awful dysphoric hypomania and mania. It’s easy to describe this mania as well- it’s often called a MIXED STATE because it’s a combination of the very high energy of hypomania and mania combined with agitated depression. There is no feeling of good will or peace or fun- it never feels good. The body is restless, jumpy and the mind is always irritated, often aggressive and swirling like a blender full of ickiness! Once again, there is little way to describe it unless you have experienced it.

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Dysphoric mania is often mean, accusatory, unreasonable and fickle. Nothing is every right with life when you are dysphoric manic. I had a big episode a few years ago where almost every moment of the day I thought- I have to leave Portland. I must get out. My life is terrible -people are terrible- moving is all I can do. Luckily, I once again had the Health Cards and they got me through it. Much of this episode was internal. I wrote about it in my Bp Magazine column. Dysphoric mania has a high rate of road rage and suicide. Most of the people in jail who have bipolar disorder are there because of a full blown dysphoric manic episode.

Both levels of mania and both types of mania have some very specific and shared symptoms. 1. It’s extremely and I do mean extremely hard to see that you’re manic. 2. Pressured speech. That’s why I used the mouth graphic for this blog post! 3. Need a lot less sleep, but are never tired the next day. 4. Increase in non thought through and unsafe behaviors- such as driving way too fast or sleeping with someone you don’t know- something you would not do normally. 4. The behavior is not part of your life while stable.

There are many more symptoms of course, but those are the main ones the two have in common! One thing I should add- there is one very big difference between the levels of mania: people in a full blown manic episode often have full blown psychosis. This is especially true with dysphoric full blown mania. Hypomania rarely has any psychosis.

My book Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder has an excellent description of mania- as well as a management plan. To be honest, I work well when I’m mildly to moderately depressed- but mania! Wow, like anxiety, it’s tough to recognize and treat. This is why preventing euphoric and dysphoric hypomania and mania is the ONLY treatment path that works!

If you have mania, I wrote a lot on my Julie A. Fast Facebook page about my last euphoric and very funny episode – involving the picture below. Mania can be managed, but it has a nasty way of slipping back into your life when you least expect it!

Julie

PS: Mania and Depression are two side of the bipolar disorder coin. One is not better or worse than the other- they are both BAD. I’m putting this picture on here again. I write books on bipolar disorder. I’m pretty good at managing my symptoms, but mania is a tricky, tricky mood swing- I look at the cart below and realize I went merrily through an entire store and didn’t realize I was manic until I woke up out of my daze at the check out stand. Wow, we have to have a plan in place to stay stable- mania is too strong to just wait and see what happens!

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Published on May 05, 2017 00:01

Bipolar Disorder and Psychosis: Yes, we can have paranoid delusions!

Here is an example the BipolarHappens.com Newsletter

Today’s Topic: Bipolar Disorder and Paranoid Delusions

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by Julie A. Fast

Paranoia is a type of psychosis called a delusion. A delusion is a false belief.

For example, paranoia can be the belief that you have done something wrong and that a person or an organization is upset with you. This is a scary experience as it feels so real.

Paranoia used to really cause me a lot of trouble. I’ve worked hard so that I can at least recognize paranoia before it makes me do something stupid.

I often get the feeling that my friends are ignoring me and that they have met friends they like a lot better than myself. It’s a terrible experience. Luckily, I know the signs of paranoia and don’t act on them, instead I call my friends and ask them to hang out. When they say yes, I know that all is fine. My friends are the type who will tell me if something is wrong- so my paranoia is always rooted in bipolar disorder and not reality.

Paranoid delusions are FALSE, but you have to be careful because they are VERY sneaky.

– Paranoid worry is often based on at least some factual evidence which makes it hard to figure out what is really happening.

– Paranoia does not stand up to factual questioning- but for the person in the paranoid episode, it feels more real than anything they have ever experienced. If you try to talk a paranoid person out of their beliefs, it won’t work. It’s like trying to convince someone that the sky isn’t blue.

Here are some examples of paranoia. Have you seen these in yourself or your loved ones?

1. Believing that someone is standing across the street staring at you through your apartment window, but when you look outside, there is no one there.

2. Feeling with great certainty that your coworkers have a plan to get you fired. You know this because when they are in a group and you walk up to them, they all scatter in different directions without saying hi.

3. Once, when my former partner Ivan was in the hospital, he was very, very paranoid. I went in one day to say hello and he looked at me and said, “Why is your face so red? Have you been doing something wrong that you aren’t telling me?” True paranoia. He told me later that he really believed I was seeing someone while he was in the hospital.

When you are well, these thoughts never even come up. You know there is no one outside and you know that your colleagues wouldn’t have time to plot against you even if they wanted to! They simply go back to their desks when they finish a conversation. You are not the focus of their day.

Paranoia is dangerous when the person takes action such as calling the cops on a neighbor or trying to break into their own office building to find cameras directed at their desk.

What is the best treatment for paranoia? The first step is a symptom management plan like I teach in the Health Cards and Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder. Once you have identified the symptoms, you can get help. I use a combination of my trigger management plan, lifestyle changes and medications to manage my psychosis. Anti psychotics work well- the lower the dose the better due to the side effects. Paranoid symptoms must be caught early so they don’t move into destructive behavior.

Education and prevention are key!

This is what I have done, so it’s possible to stay stable and steady when you live with psychosis.

Julie

PS: There is a nice man I sit next to in Starbucks who has a lot of paranoia. It mostly comes out when he is reading the paper. He says all of this very quietly.

They are rearranging everything to see you. It’s the big pharmaceutical companies. What are they not telling you? Look at that picture all of those men. Too much stuff. It’s garbage. It’s all it can be. There is no reason to be there anyway. There is no reason to be there. It’s a prison. All that stuff- 10s of billions. (Laughs.) I’m not gonna hang around for Obama Clinton. They do not acknowledge a single one- not one. Like the Tea Party. My mind is made up.

When he talks with friends- he still has the paranoid thinking, but it sounds more like an average conversation. His paranoia is around big pharma and I can understand that!

Julie

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Published on May 04, 2017 10:21

What I Do When I Can Tell I’m Getting Depressed or Manic

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1. I feel a bit sad for myself and upset and worried and lonely and scared and bummed out and pissed and…… you get the idea.

2. I ALWAYS look for a trigger. If I can find the trigger, I change the trigger. This is always upsetting because my trigger is usually doing too much work and I LOVE to work.

3. If it’s depression, I do everything possible to stay out of bed and keep myself from isolating. I use the ideas in Get it Done When You’re Depressed ever minute I’m depressed. There are a lot of ideas in this book that work immediately and I truly use them.

4. If it’s mania, I work on my sleep first. If I can’t get it to calm down with my management plan, I take 5mg of lithium orotate and that often knocks is out.

I HATE getting sick. But it’s ok. I will survive. I stop it early now. I am so much better than in the past.

I have to adapt to the hand that life deals me.

Julie

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Published on April 30, 2017 00:03

Bipolar Happens! Receives Best Individual Bipolar Disorder Blog on the Web Award from HealthLine

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I have some great news. My blog BipolarHappens! received a top blog award from the HealthLine website. This is quite an honor and one I want to embrace with great gusto.

Thank you to HealthLine and congratulations to my fellow award winners.

Click here to read the full list of The Best Bipolar Disorder Blogs of the Year from HealthLine and the other great bipolar disorder bloggers including Bp Magazine!

Julie

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Published on April 29, 2017 00:03

On the Road with Bipolar Disorder

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You can plan for everything when you travel. You can work on your bipolar, deal with the time change, make sure your relationships are good back home, study languages, save your money, pay for a great place to stay, pack your bags well, DO IT ALL!

But you will never be able to control the situation created by the people you meet.

My trip to England last year could be described as a perfect storm of what you don’t want to happen when you arrive in a new country.

The first day I arrived, I was attacked by a huge and I do mean huge dog. On the second day, I realized that my friend’s marriage was abusive and falling apart before my eyes. I was staying in their house.

I already had anxiety. I left my life in America to move to Europe for a year. This wasn’t a vacation. I had to make it work![image error]

My friend and I had it all planned. I would stay at her house for six weeks and then go on to France. I saved my money. I changed my work schedule so that I could do my coaching from England. I did everything RIGHT. Then a fractured marriage and a huge dog changed everything. I realized I had made a grave error. I assumed that all was fine where I planned to stay. This was not the case.

If you are staying with someone, think of where that person is in life and how their behavior might affect your bipolar disorder.

I know how to manage my illness, but my friend’s extreme stress got to me. My anxiety went through the roof and I started having anxiety thoughts:

This isn’t going to work Julie. You are going to have to find another place to stay. She is upset with you. Your stuff is in the way. You need to keep out of the way. You made a mistake, you are NOT welcome here. She is kind and you care about her, but she is having a tough time. You have to get out of here.

This is hard to hear in your head the first few days you are in a new place. It eventually turned into paranoid psychosis. This was not how I pictured my exciting move to Europe.

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I tried every single day for weeks to manage my bipolar disorder. I simply couldn’t. The atmosphere in the house was too much of a trigger for this illness. I finally left. This was devastating as you can imagine, but managing bipolar disorder has to come first. If I were a regular person, I could have stayed and then gone on my way in six weeks.

But I am not a regular person. I have a serious mental illness called bipolar disorder. I learned an important lesson about myself and traveling.

Travel is one of the greatest opportunities in life. It is also a great trigger of bipolar disorder symptoms.

Think of my story the next time you travel and plan ahead. Where you stay and who you stay with truly matter.

Julie

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Published on April 25, 2017 17:39

Signs a Loved One with Bipolar Disorder Needs Help

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1. Current behaviors are not in line with past behaviors. For example, – a person who has been empathetic throughout life suddently becomes selfish and callous and says, “I don’t love you and never have! You are finally seeing the real me!”

2. They stop paying attention to what has always been important. This can include being with their children. People who once cared about helping animals will forget to feed them or might kick them for example.

3. They don’t listen. And when you point this out, you are always the one with the problem.

4. They simply can’t see that they they are doing or are about to do isn’t going to end well.

Julie

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Published on April 20, 2017 21:14

I’m not as disciplined as you might think………

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I often read comments that I must be very disciplined in order to write books and do a blog. If you guys think I’m disciplined- think again. HEHE! It’s a daily struggle and sometimes a minute by minute struggle for me to get things done. Ask the people I work with and they will all say the same thing.

Working with me is like herding cats.

Work is a huge issue for me- a lifelong struggle with focus that started when my bipolar got serious at age 19, over 30 years ago. I also have a right brain injury from a 2012 biking accident that greatly affected my memory around dates, times and numbers.

I think I had a breakthrough today as to why I have not been able to improve my focus over the past few years and it’s not about the brain injury. I call this…….

#SocialMediaQuestioning

How much of my extreme focus problems are due to social media being on my work device?

I am easily distracted- many of us with bipolar are this way. What does it mean for my brain that the computer is literally my work station and at any second, I can click off of my work and look at something that gives me a hit of dopamine?

I am addicted to the Daily Mail Newspaper in a bad way. I feel better when I look at it even though it is filled with destructive stories. I see this as calming myself down when my work anxiety is high. Maybe it is the opposite. Maybe the dopamine is calming- but it’s also distracting and addictive. The research is VERY clear on this now that social media and our instant access to information has been around for a decade.

Dopamine. What a lovely feeling. But it is NOT helping me work in any way. It is distracting and destroying in terms of my focus.

I also see how this affects my beloved 15 year old nephew.

It’s not pretty.

I am doing something about this. It’s experimental and I am not sure of the results in terms of working, but I have to do something. There is too much I want to accomplish. Not being able to focus is harming my life.

My Social Media Limitation Experiment

As a brain researcher and someone who wants to get better every day, I am now limiting my social media. For the first time ever, I turned off my phone while watching my beloved football (soccer) this week. And today while watching Barcelona LOSE TO JUVENTUS!, I turned off my phone and put it in my bag.

I have decided that when I am with friends, the phone goes off. I am addicted to information. I want to be fully present for my friends and family.

It starts with me.

The next step is figuring out how to write without having social media so easily accessible. This may mean using a different computer with disabled internet access for working on my book project. Then, I will come back to my MAC when I have to do my social media work.

I am not able at all to simply NOT look at the social media. I go to it automatically as most of us do. I have OCD and simply saying no while it is still turned on has not worked.

We are adaptive creatures. We can manage our brains.

Join me!

Julie

This pic is by Eron Hare. I love it!

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Published on April 20, 2017 14:36

A Moment of Beauty to Calm a Worried Mind

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Published on April 18, 2017 15:08

It’s Normal to Be Worn Out if You Have Bipolar Disorder

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It is normal to get worn out if you have bipolar disorder. And before someone writes and says, “Everyone gets worn out Julie!” Please know that the type of WORN OUT that those of us with bipolar disorder experience is NOT experienced by the general public.

This is bipolar worn out!

Julie

PS: Click here to read my latest blog from Bp Magazine on the topic It’s Normal to Struggle if You Have Bipolar Disorder.

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Published on April 13, 2017 15:16