[Closed] Mental health, what do you struggle with?

What's the question ?

I was wondering that, too...

Oh I've just realised that the question is in the title. Well "life" is the answer then I guess.

We are all in [i]recovery[/i], just some more than others.

I'm guessing, it'd be something like
"Mental Health, what do you struggle with?"

I mean that's just a wild flailing stab in the dark but my keen insightful mind has identified that sentences with a question mark at the end constitute a question.

I don't mind talking about it now as i've kept it locked up for so long.
About 5 years ago i was diagnosed with depression, over the years it has come and gone but over the last 18 months I've really been suffering from anxiety + panic attacks. It's linked in with my IBS, it's a viscious circle (the more i worry about my ibs coming on the more likely it is to come on) It's now affecting all aspects of my life to a point where i can't do simple tasks like go to the shops with out feeling so axnxious. I'm currently off work for 4 weeks with it but i can't see myself going back anytime soon.
Social life has been killed off by it, I've missed good friends weddings, I don't see my riding mates, I'm meant to be doing HONC on Sunday but don't know whether i'll be up to it as I get panic attacks when i'm driving/stuck in traffic
Currently changing my medication so that has me feeling really low as i've come off one and the new one hasn't made any improvements yet. CBT has helped a little but work won't allow me anymore time off to go to the sessions.
So overall I'm feeling the lowest i ever have 🙁

Maybe we should all declare our positions on [url= http://apps.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online/ ]ICD-10[/url]??

I'm not sure people really want to do that - it's a bit personal, isn't it??

Rachel

There's no need to take the piss out of us who suffer from dyslexia samuri.

You've gone against the sentiments behind the thread already 😐

I wasn't taking the piss. You should add 'paranoia' to your own mental problems.

You cruel man.

Mental health, what do you struggle with?

everyone elses mostly..

If depression is a scale that we are all on, I am at the opposite end, I am genetically chirpy, always shake off the doldrums in no time, usually find the best in things and can always be relied upon to be chipper and optimistic.

IT IS PURE HELL!!!!

I struggle with the retards on here, does that count?

I struggle with the idea that people trying to deal with serious mental health issues which are both complex and personal think they'll get anywhere by posting about them on a mountain bike forum

I'm naturally cynical but I'm actually always happy. So can't really help.

Anyone want a hug?

I am genetically chirpy, always shake off the doldrums in no time, usually find the best in things and can always be relied upon to be chipper and optimistic.

IT IS PURE HELL!!!!

For people who have to listen to it.

I ****ing hate happy people - they get right on my tits. There's **** all to be happy about, life is shite.
So don't go around with all your laughing, singing, joking, whistling, bollox.

I mean that's just a wild flailing stab in the dark but my keen insightful mind has identified that sentences with a question mark at the end constitute a question

My name is Samuri and I have a problem with excessive sarcasm.

My main issue actually (this is molgrips now) is what they call bill phobia. I get into trouble for not paying bills, taxes, filling in forms etc because I just hide from it - I have the money, that's not the issue. Just afraid of it, so I put it out of my mind.

Well don't i feel stupid for posting now

Thanks for ruining what could have been a very helpful thread

I found converting to a hedonistic stoic belief system was very helpful

I may start a church

Thanks for ruining what could have been a very helpful thread

It's only ruined if you give any value to the opinions of people here. Which you shouldn't do. You shouldn't feel stupid either. No one here should matter. Neither should their opinion of you.

wow... cheers guys!

some people do find it useful knowing where in the ICD-10 they stand, giving their feelings a label does help some people.

some people find it useful discussing things, and sometimes that's easier with strangers...

wow.... just wow.

I'm amazed that people are coming out with the usual crap after reading Houns' post. Very poor.

I'm another one that has had mental health issues, and if you're going to troll and make jokes, can you at least put a bit of effort in? 🙄 😐

There is still an awful lot of misunderstanding and stigma attached to these issues, and moronic comments like these just contribute to that. And again, if you're going to be a sarky **** you could at least be funny/witty with it.

For people who have to listen to it.

😀

Laugh and the world laughs with you, except when you have an annoying laugh that irritates the already slightly grumpy people in the vicinity, as the old saying goes...

Hi I'm roper and I'm addicted to spiders.

Houns, I may be wrong but I think you have made too many conditions (and it's Mon morning).

Unless you've lived with mental health difficulties then no matter how close you've been to someone who has... you can't truly understand what its like.

iDave - hedonism is very underrated, and gets bad press. I consider myself a hedonist...

Every person I've known with serious mental health issues has had a wicked sense of humour, including towards their own condition. And in fact some of the very best comedians imo, have been people with serious mental health issues. I wouldn't take anything too seriously.

I consider myself a hedonist...

Me too, and I suspect that iDave has read the Road Less Travelled by M Scott Peck which is a superb book and should be looked up by anyone who is looking to understand themselves a little better.

Every person I've known with serious mental health issues has had a wicked sense of humour

Unlike most of the people in this thread trying desperately to be funny and failing miserably then.

So your criticism is based on the quality of humour, rather than the humour itself.......fair point.

I've cared for someone with mental health issues and I would say, at times, I understood their condition better than they did. The problem with some Mental health problems is the person with the condition can't always tell what is happening, or when the condition comes on

there's a difference between knowing a lot about a condition and suffering from one. insight into ones own mental health is another subject in my humble opinion.

Torminalis - As with most books of it's ilk, I didn't get past the first chapter. But the first three words of the book are all you need to read and absorb.

'Life is hard'.

After that, you decide what your response will be to the fact that life is hard. And you respond in order to make things OK for you firstly, and leave others to respond to what you did in their own best way. As it's entirely their choice, it's not your problem.

And deciding that you're not in control, is still a making a choice.

None of which may make sense.

I found converting to a hedonistic stoic belief system was very helpful

I can see the T-Shirts! Confront your problems...Hedon!

But the first three words of the book are all you need to read and absorb.

'Life is hard'.

+1

As a 16 year old it had a profound influence on me, it is the only book I have ever read in the 'self help' category and I didn't really know what it was when I started flicking through it, the first three words did somewhat capture my interest.

Life is bastard hard. Accept that and it suddenly becomes much easier.

I would not say that life is hard as such.

I would say that life comes with a lot of problems. You need to figure out which ones are the most important and work on solving them.

I do not believe it is inevitable that life turns out to be hard - just likely.

I'm bipolar. and have a disassociative disorder as well to really complcate the issue.

Being bipolar means I have massive mood swings, the manics are great, you get loads of stuff done, everything around you seems to happen really slowly so you get loads done. However you also spontaneously buy yachts, motorbikes,fritter money away,start arguements, Punch people in pubs and generally behave in an incredibly irresponsible not a care in the world manner.

The downs are 'kin awful, the first thing is you begin to feel really bad about the stuff you did when manic, this makes the depression pick up speed and pushes you further into the depression.

After a few weeks of the depression, you simply can't face getting out of bed,you stop going you reach the point where you can't even speak to family and friends,many times you can't even look them in the eye.You stop eating and drinking.You may even stop getting out of bed to go to the toilet.If it's a full moon, you'll begin to turn into a werewolf as well, so it becomes unsafe to open the door to anybody for their own sake.

After a couple of months, you haven't spoken for three weeks,if the doorbell goes, you pretend not to be in because you just don't want to see anybody for any reason, you may even have barricaded the door so anybody with a key cannot get in. You've still got plenty more to go.

By the time you dont even bother moving about the bed anymore, The Local Mental Health crisis team are usually invloved, and by now, you REALLY don't want to open the door to them because you know that'll mean you being sectioned and spending at least a couple of months on a locked ward.Eventually, they do make their way in, you do get sectioned and taken onto a ward.

After a couple of months of anti-depressants,anti-psychotics and mood stabiliser,making the right faces and body language when psychiatric nurse come round to do your observations, and telling psychiatrists what they want to hear, they'll eventually start letting you out on leave a little at a time.eventually you'll be allowed to leave and go home permanently.

Wait eight months and start the whole cycle all over again.

Does that answer your question?

I would not say that life is hard as such.

nutter 😉

I do not believe it is inevitable that life turns out to be hard - just likely.

I think it is pretty inevitable, examination of your own motives in this life is a challenging and unending chore but one that is necessary to be truly loving. Acceptance of the failings of yourself and others, forgiveness, empathy, the courage to stand up, the courage to back down. All hard. All vital to be truly happy.

Avoiding these hardships only makes life even harder.

IMO of course, YMMV.

Does that answer your question?

Yes I think that's the sort of answer the OP was looking for tadeuszkrieger.

with you houns. sounds like my own case notes(though not ibs, other health problem)! still working with it, good times, bad times but getting there, it is a hellish place sometimes. ive remained always medication free(despite drs wanting me to at times, but i also rule out nothing). i largely put i down to the priveliged situation im in with lifestyle, and my wife, family, work being flexible and supportive, plus my absolute belief that we have the tools to change our patterns. getting it right with 'stepping back' or 'stepping up' is hard and ive got it wrong a few times! mail in profile if you want to talk some more. if you don fancy honc i live nearby so welcome to have a mellow ride and a chat anytime.

Houns, i've suffered the exact same issues as you over the best part of 25 years and what started out as a stupid phobia gave me panic attacks for years, BUT I must say that it never stopped me doing anything. I think you need psychotherapy NOT drugs. Beta blockers etc are a poor doctors answer to panic attacks and you need to get to the root of the problem, you need to see a psychiatrist.

I had hypnosis for mine and worked a treat. Doesn't work over night and I still have the stupid phobia that was linked to the panic attacks and I still have them but through managing them I conquer them, they happen about once a year tops and it lasts seconds.

ping me an email with your number to michaelreay@rocketmail.com with your number if you want to chat mate. I genuinely feel for people in this position, and non sufferers taking the piss compound the problem and demotivate you more.

Like tadeuszkrieger's post I think I have an element of Bi-Polar, I have the ups but don't have the severe downs. I'm ridiculously poor with money and it makes me feel great spending it, I'm good at earning it though so it helps, but since November last year I've spent about £13k on MTB stuff, all emotional purchasing and i'm a very average rider. I just 'have to have' the in things, all the gear and no idea type person. I'm overtly confident and I think that hides a lot of insecurities from a troubled past....

I think it is pretty inevitable, examination of your own motives in this life is a challenging and unending chore but one that is necessary to be truly loving. Acceptance of the failings of yourself and others, forgiveness, empathy, the courage to stand up, the courage to back down. All hard. All vital to be truly happy.

Avoiding these hardships only makes life even harder.

+100

Thought so 🙂

It becomes easier to live with in some ways because you alomost get used to it, I've accepted that I'm quite seriously mentally ill, so have accpeted that sometimes I will get worse and need intervention. It's not like I'm going to be cured. I just have periods Where I'm fairly normal and stable,periods where I'm a bit skittish and obsessive and periods where I'm conpletely 'kin batsh*t.

The hardest thing is spotting when you're beginiing to go, as I said the manics are really quite good fun and many people who are bipolar actually look forward to them Unfortunately,each episode tends to mean that the next episode will be sooner and more severe.Knowing this menas that you know that you will put your family and friends through more and more trouble as the years roll on. There's only so much you can laugh about it.

As regards the disassociative disorder, that basically means that I quite often have periods where I can't remember what I've been doing or where for anything upto a week. I just disappear for days and suddenly come to after a few days having no idea where I've been or what I've been doing, that's quite scary for me and my loved ones.

I can entirely understand why people kill themselves to relieve their family of this burden and worry and have seriously considered it myself many times, and I honestly don't know whether I will or I wont at some point in the future.

tadeuszkrieger, thank you 🙂 (and the others who have taken the thread in the way it was intended)

S'quite alright, I'll probably have forgotten I did it by this time tomorrow anyway.

Tang and Geordiemick - Thanks for your replies, I'll drop you both a mail later today

some numbers:

http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-statistics/

considering the statistics above the numbers suggest there should be a big number of forum users who suffer from something... it saddens me that in 2011 people still react to "mental" people the way they do, especially when its more common than a lot of illnesses people wouldn't dream of reacting negatively towards.

had a guy say to me recently "how can you work with psychos?! what if one attacked you or something?!" the complete lack of insight showed by the guy was incredible... i know he's got a history of starting fights when 'out with the lads on the lash' and the "psycho" i'm about to drive to a review with his CPN is too scared to use a bus because he's so scared of the general public.

IBS really does sound like a viscious circle

had a guy say to me recently "how can you work with psychos?! what if one attacked you or something?!" the complete lack of insight showed by the guy was incredible...

Have you seen the 'back to work' adverts about people with mental health issues on TV? They presumably are intended to help but to me just create the idea that people with mental health problems are likely to flip out or act weirdly at the slightest trigger.

[i]Have you seen the 'back to work' adverts about people with mental health issues on TV? [/i]

Yeah, i'm not sure they would make anyone particularly keen to admit to having had a mental health problem !!

It is a bit sad to see some of the posts on here especially in light of the recent threads that Phil mentioned. If someone came on here to talk about a serious physical illness, such as cancer, i'm pretty sure the reactions of most people would have been very different.

It is a bit sad to see some of the posts on here especially in light of the recent threads that Phil mentioned. If someone came on here to talk about a serious physical illness, such as cancer, i'm pretty sure the reactions of most people would have been very different

indeed.

haven't seen the advert... will go find it now.

http://www.mind.org.uk/timetochange

that advert?

Yes that's the one. Apart from the fact it seems to be made in the style of a 1970s advert it just seems to give the wrong impression ie. you might get a normal response but then, as Grum said, the guy might just flip out at the slightest mention of it.

Well, I've been a psychiatric nurse for 23 years, and for about 20 of those have suffered with anxiety and depression. Oh, and a brief spell (4 years or so) of post traumatic stress disorder following a near fatal rta. I've managed for much of this time without medication, due mainly to my own stubborness and unwillingness to admit I had a problem - kind of goes with the territory, sadly, as a nurse, you assume that youre the one that's supposed to help people, and not the other way around. Crap, I know, but there it is. Some days are better than others, but there are still times when I just want to go to bed and cut myself off from the rest of the world. I'm incredibly lucky to have a wife and kids that I love very much, and that's what gets me through. Mental health is an issue that can and does affect indiscriminately, but sadly, there's still a lot of stigma attached, even among those working in the field itself.

unless i've not noticed something in the advert i can't see it suggesting he might flip out?

B'mitch, definitely noticed the discrimination even against people working in the field... wont say which job i was in that the time but the Md of the company i was working for and I interviewed someone who would (in my humble opinion) have been perfect for a job role we've been advertising for AGES... MD decided he wasn't employable the moment he heard "i've been off from my current place of work with stress".

i've got mrsconsequence designing a knitted support suit that pairs with a velcro empathy suit.

There's a much longer and more absurd version of that ad though (unless I imagined it).

Ooh, that'll go lovely with my appliqued antidepressant pouch 😀

grum, if you find a link i'd be quite interested in watching it 🙂 considering the organisations involved in this current push to reduce the stigma i'm intrigued to see how they've done it...

Sorry Phil, i only watched the first few seconds. That's not the one i saw on TV, although it is along the same lines.

I do get the message they are trying to convey, and applaud any attempts to get the message across, just think it could be taken the wrong way from the advert that's all.

[i]have been perfect for a job role we've been advertising for AGES... MD decided he wasn't employable the moment he heard "i've been off from my current place of work with stress".[/i]

Part of the reason i ended up in IT. In my 20s ended up sectioned for 6 months due to depression etc.. and i have never put that on my CV. IT has a lot of contract work and they don't really care too much about your medical history when you are a contractor.

Sometimes wonder what would happen if i did add it to my CV but never felt i could be open about it with employers.

S'quite alright, I'll probably have forgotten I did it by this time tomorrow anyway.

Even if you didn't mean it to be, that is one of the sharpest lines I've heard in a long time...
😀

I've had pretty severe and crippling OCD all my life with intrusive thoughts, associated depression and quite a long spell of anorexia/bulima, bit of a bummer really.Given time and support though it's amazing how you can learn to cope with things and move on.There's still a huge stigma attached I'm afraid but a number of high profile celebs (Stephen Fry, Ruby Wax and others) have been pretty open about their own struggles. [url= http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/ ]Time to Change[/url] seems quite a prominent campaign.

Stephen fry and co have been excellent, shame about the kerry katona factor jumping on the bandwagon and blaming everything on bi-polar for a while 🙁

Pjay

Sympathise with the OCD, same here. My depression definitely stems directly from having it.

After deliberately smashing the frame of my last bike over 3 months ago (OCD caused) i still can't choose a new frame because of this damn illness and biking is probably the one thing that keeps me totally sane (even though i'm still pretty crap at it 🙂 )

And in fact some of the very best comedians imo, have been people with serious mental health issues.

I don't think their general mental health is any different from anyone else's!

Comedians are usually highly intelligent people who realise that mental issues are part of being human. They are smart enough to realise our limitations and make light of it, which is probably not a bad thing.

If the rest of us weren't so terrified of mental illness, the comedians' jokes on the subject wouldn't be so funny.

PS. I'm mad and I don't care!

I'm fine and I have a bit of paper to prove it, which is more than most "normal" folks I know 😀

Similar issues to Houns with the anxiety and panic attacks. Can definitely relate to the avoidance of going out, and I get horrible anxiety being stuck in traffic or on trains.

Essentially I force myself to do it, and eventually it's got better over time. I realise I'm not going to die, or passout, or whatever if I do these things. The more I do them, the better I feel, but then something mite put a spanner in the works, and I'll go back a few steps.

I don't really understand myself sometimes. These issues are big to me and have in the past stopped me from going out, stopped me from going to family meets at christmas 'n such, yet I can hop on a bike and pedal around one of the busiest's city's each day and I'm fine.

mancjon sorry to hear you're struggling mate and I do hope you get a new frame sorted soon. My cycling's been a real lifesaver but for some reason the OCD's pretty bad around it.

I've done a fair bit of group work (CBT based), a lot of counselling and take a fair bit of medication but the combination has really helped. I don't think you can ever 'cure' yourself of OCD (or a lot of mental health conditions) and mine's still a struggle pretty much on a daily basis, but it is possible to manage them more effectively. Feel free to email me if you want any pointers.

Not bothered reading the rest of the thread yet (I will later, but need to eat now!) but from the first post... WELL DONE PHIL!

Pjay

Thanks for the offer, much appreciated.

Have done CBT before and am trying out new meds at moment so fingers crossed. Know what you mean about it being a daily struggle !

Just out of interest, i have been doing meditation for about 3 months now and it certainly seems to help as well. Not for the really big issues, but a lot of the day to day background stuff seems to be less.

Ditto, if i can help in anyway just let me know.

I have Bipolar. I was diagnosed severely depressed some 15 years ago, but after the second major crisis I was hospitalized and popped out a freshly stamped Bipolar mentalist. I'm rapid cycling. This means I can spend months on a flippin roller coaster ride which wrecks everything in my life. Consequently, I have few friends. Family are stuck with me 😆
I'm recovering from a 2 year spell of total chaos.
I have had outstanding care from the NHS, and support from my employer. It is humbling. I just put in the graft to stay well.

I also have severe anxiety from time to time, and bloody insomnia. These are the standard bonuses for any mentalist I think. I take meds specifically for those.

Interesting subject this, have had some mental issues of my own. Actually had councelling at one point as a victim of domestic violence.

Here we come to what I percieve to be a huge part of the problem. Pretty much most people get a bit ****ed up sometimes, but no-one ever wants to admit it. So we all go round pretending we're ok.

Now my sister has problems, to the extent that she has never worked for a living in her life, and she's 43 now. It's far easier for her to say "I'm bipolar and can't get on with people" than it is for her to get her shit together and pull her finger out. She managed to go to university in her early 30's and get a degree whilst being too unwell to work, after all.

I also have a friend who has mental health issues at the moment, and in my opinion, uses it somewhat selectively as a reason not to cope with things she doesn't want to cope with.

It's difficult because I sound like I'm criticising these two people, and in a way I am, but having suffered myself from abuse and depression, it's all too easy to fall into the trap of being a 'victim'. This Victim mentality is self perpetuating and exacerbates the problem, so I've now just talked myself up my own arse and decided that we should all pretend we're alright all the time after all, and then maybe more of us will be.

[i]It's difficult because I sound like I'm criticising these two people, and in a way I am, but having suffered myself from abuse and depression, it's all too easy to fall into the trap of being a 'victim'.[/i]

I understand what you are saying but trust me, if i could get rid of my OCD tomorrow i would not hesitate. Coping with a continuous mental illness is really hard and although looking in from the outside it may seem as though people are using it as an excuse, if they really do suffer it really isn't as simple as getting your shit together. But obviously you know these people and i don't.

I don't think of myself as a victim but i do know pretty much everyday is going to involve struggle of some form or another. And after a while it just simply wears you down to the point where even the most trivial things can be a huge hurdle.

I also have an official diagnosis of bipolar disorder. I was diagnosed about 5 years ago but it is only in the last couple or so years that I have finally come to accept it.

I now recognize that if I want any resemblance of a normal life then I will need to stay on medication for the rest of my life, otherwise the risk of me becoming severely ill is too great. Actually it would just be a matter of when rather than if it were to happen, and taking meds is no guarantee that I will not become ill again.

I now have few friends, either because I have just neglected them and distanced myself from them due to severe depression or pissed them off during my highs.

The frequency of my episodes seems to be increasing and for the last 12 or so months I have suffered from rapid cycling and mixed episodes which can be difficult to recognize and manage, especially by my GP in between visits with the pDoc. I also tend to misread the symptoms of dysphoric mania with depression although my pDoc has started to put me right

The biggest problem I face is just not knowing how I am going to feel from one day to the next, this means I find it hard to make and commit to plans. For example, I haven't been on holiday for 5 years, despite working for an airline with all the travel perks that entails. IIRC I haven't wanted to get out of bed since June 18th 2010, and on that day I was bouncing off the walls by midday. Or I can be low in the morning and then high in the afternoon.

The other problem is that exercise makes me manic and agitated. I think there is some interaction between the meds and hard exercise. So much for exercise being good for your mood 😆 So I don't cycle as much as I would like to as a result.

Mancjon when I read my post it didn't seem as empathetic as it was intended to be.

My experience of mental ill-health was obviously my own experience and every one else's is their own, I didn't recover through my own strength, it just happened that the job I had been looking for arrived and my life took a turn for the better (along with finalising my divorce).

Also must admit that I'd not struggled with long term mental issues previously; must be honest now and say that I still have some issues three years on and maybe always will. Maybe the delineation between 'normal' and 'mentally ill' is really about how well you cope, rather than whether or not you admit to having issues at all. After all, looking at the statistics posted earlier, women are more likely to suffer mental illness. So how come men are more likely to commit suicide? Because they can't admit to being unable to cope in the first place. You're a man, you have to cope. There's no-one else to do it for you.

Have to say though, and this won't make me popular but I'm not sure being normal is all it's cracked up to be. 300 yards from me is a home for people with Downs Syndrome, and thay always look a lot happier than 'normal' people do. The pressure and speed of modern life make it increasingly difficult to cope, and at the end of the day there are very few people who can truly say they are in control of their own destiny; the rest of us are just coping day to day.

thanks guys, glad this thread has turned around on the second page.

i want to live in a world where people can feel as comfortable saying "my minds a bit broken" as they would "my legs a bit broken". the media has a massive part to play if that is ever to happen, Stephen Fry et al did great things with the media and bi-polar... eating disorders and body image always seem to be in the media for the right reasons but then any good work is destroyed by the first cheap magazine that puts a red circle around a celeb's cellulite!

[i]Mancjon when I read my post it didn't seem as empathetic as it was intended to be. [/i]

No worries, i wasn't offended or anything, just trying to offer a different side to things.

Phil - yes, nice to see the thread turn out this way. Thanks for starting it.

as this forum is populated by mainly guys i hope any women reading this wont be offended by me posting this:

might seem a bit odd to post a video but this was made by a charity that do some great work... if you're reading this thread and struggling then i urge you to check out

http://www.thecalmzone.net/

got a lot of respect for what they're trying to do.

It's difficult because I sound like I'm criticising these two people, and in a way I am, but having suffered myself from abuse and depression, it's all too easy to fall into the trap of being a 'victim'. This Victim mentality is self perpetuating and exacerbates the problem, so I've now just talked myself up my own arse and decided that we should all pretend we're alright all the time after all, and then maybe more of us will be.

I agree with this. I've been to all manner of self help groups, therapy, had time on acute care ward, etc etc. Like every other disability how you cope is a personal thing, and one of the things I've always found interesting is seeing how others cope. Some take it on board as their identity and become a victim, others objectify it and fight it. I'm in the latter group, and it's seriously hard work. I do it because I have a family to support and a job I love. Both also help to keep me well.
Some others have absolutely nothing, except the illness.

"I'm rapid cycling. This means I can spend months on a flippin roller coaster ride which wrecks everything in my life. Consequently, I have few friends. Family are stuck with me"

That sounds horribly familiar..... I used to cycle really rapidly,almost from one day to the next leaving a trail of devastation behind me. After about two years on mood stabilsers(sodium valproate) and anti psychotics(seroquel) I've stabilised on about an eight month cycle now.Which is better in some ways,the highs aren't as high and the lows aren't as low, but both last a lot longer which is a pain.

I've also just realised today I'm on a bit of a spending spree,getting the urge to phone people up to tell them something "really,really important" at three in the morning and getting quite didactic in my pronouncements so suspect I may be picking up speed towards a manic again, whoops. Time to hand my credit cards to somebody else and hide everything I can take to pieces.:)

getting quite didactic in my pronouncements

Should fit right in on here then 🙂