I feel like I am a different person each month. I entered a manic stage about two months back. 3 months of peace after the depression then boom......this. My wife claims she wants the old me back. So do I. I'm doing things I regret guys. I have slept with other people and desire doing crazy things. Not thinking correctly at all and getting little sleep. Bipolar has to be one of the biggest obstacles we face but I know our God is bigger. However I feel out of control sometime. Anyone else there with me?
I've been there before. First question I have is whether you have a way to get more sleep. My psychiatrist gave me tranquilizers and that made a big difference. Medicine isn't going to fix the thinking, but it can help you get sleep.
As far as urges to do evil, I had many as a part of my "Dark Night of the Soul" experience. In case you're not familiar with it, for me it was kind of an "under construction" phase that lasted 12 years, marked by severe bipolar disorder with mania most of the time, and I think a little dissociating mixed in.
At one point when I "quit fighting," it seemed as if I was being guided by forces beyond my ability to perceive, predict, or understand. It was actually a freeing experience in one way, because it is simpler to go with the impulses than to fight them. For some reason I felt I was in very good hands, though, and trusted the Holy Spirit would get me through. Well, I did do some dangerous and wrong things. But I am over it now. A lot of this behavior was in the middle of the night when I'd get up and take off in the car at one in the morning or something and go downtown to find people to talk to -- in bars, homeless people, whatever. One night when I was particularly manic I actually had sex with a woman I'd never met before. My wife found out about it and we discussed and determined and came to an agreement that I have no idea "who it was" that made the decision to cheat (for the first time in 25 years). Afterwards it seemed surrealistic and in fact I am usually good with numbers and I was not able to find the address anywhere in the area where I was. Usually when I go from one "realm" to the next my numbers can carry me through and tie things together; so the fact that I couldn't find the address "by the numbers" made it more convincing that I was under influence of something that "wasn't me." That's kind of a clumsy explanation, but it's the first time since it happened over a year ago I've tried to put this into words.
Anyway the point is, I did engage in bad behavior, but a) my wife understood and accepted it as part of my disordered behavior, b) I didn't get caught or locked up or hurt anyone, and c) I grew out of it and am very happy and serene, and under control now.
One comment: don't believe that bipolar is necessarily a lifelong sentence. medicine can't fix it, but healing is possible. Medicine controls the symptoms. My shrink says it's like a cast on a leg, in that it holds things together to prevent further damage and allow the leg to heal itself. So how does the mind heal? In my experience from a great deal of love and heroically patient support from family and friends, and much study of philosophy and spirituality -- interspersed with comedy along the way -- and I have found True Healing. My illness is not "under control" or "being managed" anymore; it is healed.
Thanks and praise to the Holy Spirit, aka the Divine Therapist.
Alan
