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[bipolarmango]

OCPD things I wish people would understand

I have a hard time showing I'm not good, or better yet, perfect at something. I was learning my ex's language and he laughed at me and said I sound like someone who has had seven bottles of wine. I never spoke the language when he was around ever again. Other people can't understand why you just can't show up at a dance class when you havenever danced, or speak a new language badly, or sign when you know you can't hit the high note.

Nothing less than the score I've set as my "good enough" limit will do. Going below that is failing and it's just unacceptable. It's not "just one thing", it's something to beat yourself over until you've proved that you perfected the thing you failed at. Many times over. It's nightmares for 15 years because you failed a course in high school and it won't leave you alone.

Hobbies are never to just have fun. You must perfect them.

People just don't do stuff well enough. You hate yourself for having to rewrite, replan, redo everything other people - even your friends and family - have done because it's just... not good. You want for them to succeed but they suck and you must redo the stuff.

You suddenly have not had a date for a year, seen your friends for months, or invested time in hobbies, and you're on the edge of burnout because you just work and study. And do it better.

You have to deal with your own moral and ethical code all the time, and it's high. It dominates your studies, your work, your consumption, your relationships, everything. And if you break it, you will feel the consequences. It's not like you can just stop caring about it. Literally, you may lose tons of money because you can accept a job that goes against your values.

Everything needs to be on lists and schedules. Excel files will drive everyone crazy but you can't stop. You have your budget planned for five years in advance.

[bipolarmango]

You are absolutely correct: everyone experiences hypomania differently. I apologize if the post made you or anyonw else feel invalidated.

The original post was mostly aimed to educate people as there was, at the time, a ton of content circling around the social media where people referred having a hypomaniac episode when they had a lot of energy for a day, which doesn't really meet the criteria for hypomania (

Just to clarify, according to DSM-5, hypomania symptoms include

grandiosity or inflated self-esteem

a decreased need for sleep

increased talkativeness or feeling pressured to keep talking

experiencing racing thoughts

being easily distracted

increased goal-directed activity, which may be social, sexual, academic, or work related

psychomotor agitation, a feeling of anxious restlessness that causes a person to make involuntary movements

excessively pursuing activities likely to have painful or unwanted consequences

One with a hypomanic phase must have experienced at least three symptoms or prolonged mood changes over a minimum 4-day period (cyclothymia excluded, its episodes can be shorter).

They also have to experience the following conditions to have a confirmed hypomanic:

uncharacteristic changes in their daily functioning

a noticeable change in mood and function

their episode does not have psychotic features, does not cause significant impairment in functioning, and does not require hospitalization

recreational drug use or medication does not cause the episode

My aim was never to minimize anyone's experience, just to give examples on what hypomania can be as many people seem to believe it's simply a day of being active and having a ton of energy tondo nice things, and even some health care professionals don't take seriously the damage a hypomanic episode can cause to a person.

There's no one correct way to be in hypomania. Hell, I've experienced so many different kinds of hypomanias that I, for one, know it. But the point was:

Energy for a day ≠ hypomania

If you think you might be suffering from hypomania, please contact your GP or ER to get a medical opinion.

I hate it when people think (hypo)mania is just having a ton of energy to do all the chores you have when in reality it is

not being able to sleep because you can't, meaning you get up in the middle of the night to go to cycling or for a drive

not finishing your actual chores because you need to write a book, learn how to play violin, or solve world hunger

spending money you don't have in things you don't need, like a pony or a new car or fifteen pairs of shoes

having to take medical leave from work so you can focus on your current project, such as writing a book or solving the world hunger

having rage towards other people because no one but you is competent enough, smart enough, or fast enough

your thoughts going so fast you can't really do anything because your mind can't process anything but your racing thoughts

[bipolarmango]

Comorbities are fun

OCPD: We must have everything under control, the house must be neat, all the cupboards and closets must be in order, life must be in excel files, money must flow in the bank account

Depression: I can't get out of bed, I literally can't clean, I can't work or make money, I can't update our excel files, I don't know how much money we have on our bank account

Panic disorder: Guess it's my time to shine

OCPD: We don't spend money, we don't do impulsive stuff, we plan, and we have everything under control

Mania: Guess what I'd like to spend all our money and never plan anything also here's our new horse I just got

Panic disorder: Yup it's me again guys

OCPD: Every detail must be perfect, all the things must be well thought of, everything is planned and we'll though and we'll succeed ---

AD/HD: Also I just came up with ten new ideas we could add to this thing because we must think outside the box and see the big picture also moving on to the next thing

Panic disorder: It's me again

AD/HD: Ahhh this new TV show is so good we'll spend the next five years obsessing over this

Mania: Lol you sure it's not just me again?

Panic disorder: Guys I'm not doing good we must contact a doctor

OCPD: Must get all these important things in excel files and analyze this data and wrap up all these things so I can then go and see that the other people haven't fucked things up like they always do

AD/HD: Hehe can't focus, people are speaking here and there's internet and social media and also do you think they give tigers tick meds at zoo?

[bipolarmango]

I've been feeling like a fraud because I've got a panic disorder diagnosis but I haven't had a full-blown panic attack since 2022 when I often got stuck in supermarkets and had to stop the car on the side of a road. I'm still regularly having attacks where my chest hurts and my arms and legs start to go numb (my biggest telltale signs), accompanied, of course, by anxiety, but im not feeling like immediately dying. People don't have to come and collect me from places when I'm stuck and can't move. These attacka usually get tolerable when I max out (or even take too much of) my medications (Atarax and Lorazepam). Some days I go in haze as I immediately take more meds when I feel the effect dissipating and the telltale signs coming back.

Today I learnt that the reason why my doctor has kept me on the antidepressant I am on, even if it doesn't really help much with my depression, is that it's a rather strong anxiety medication and he has hoped it would allow me not to rely on Atarax and Lorazepam. All this time I've been taking a big daily dose of medication for my panic attacks WHILE taking two additional meds for them AND still having attacks YET still feeling like I'm a fraud because I haven't gotten stuck in the supermarket for a while.

[bipolarmango]

[bipolarmango]

[bipolarmango]

When you've had a tocix relationship that starts like a movie and feels like something all the love songs are written of. When he makes you feel like the most beautiful, amazing, and interesting person in the world. When he is willing to spend all the money, all the time, and all the effort for; fly you around the continent for a weekend or fly over to see you for two days. When you've felt like the love stories tell you should feel like, like your dad told you should feel like when with someone, and you find it's because he was tocix, overly possessive, jealous, abusive, and the relationship was not built on a healthy basis, how are you supposed to teach yourself that you're supposed to be happy with something "just fine" because that high means it's toxic?

[bipolarmango]

As a European, I've just been shocked to death to learn that it takes around six months to become an EMT or a police officer in the USA??

To compare, in my country, to work in an ambulance, you must complete minimum a three year vocational college degree (Vocational Qualification in Social and Health Care, Emergency Practical Nurse) or, more commonly, a four year university degree (Bachelor of Health Care, Paramedics). If you have completeled a Bachelor of Health Care, Registered Nurse, you need to take another 30 study points (around six months) to further educate yourself to get a qualification to work in an ambulance. (There's also a specialized masters program for the development and management of emergency care: Master of Health Care, Paramedics).

To work in the police force, you must complete a four year Bachelor of Police Services, which is naturally a university. You study things such as laws and how to implement them, criminal investigation, use of force (legalities, minimal use of force whenever possible), negotiation and communication skills, and criminology, but they also have a certain number of courses booked for optional courses that they can choose from things like sociology or various different languages that help them to better communicate with people.

All these studies require writing a thesis as a part of the graduation process, as well as completing certain hours of practical work in internships.

Having grown up with these requirements, it's absolutely mindblowing for me how someone can become a police or a paramedic with less than a year worth of studies??

[bipolarmango]

One thing no one told me about c-PTSD is that when you start digging all the old things up, it's not just traditional nightmares that come. It's violent drems where the ones who hurt you and those you, even silently, team up against you, and you're being the violent one. The one who breaks people's arms and kicks them in the stomach, breaks their phones when they try to call for help, terrorize the whole family/other group, the one who is so violent there's blood and police and unimaginable rage.

It's horrible how trauma comes out, especially when, in real life, you're not a violent person at all and are strongly against physical or emotional violence.

[bipolarmango]

Anyone else ever dream of going off their mood stabilizers while still on antidepressants so the everlasting depression would finally go away and hypomania would hit? Anyone? Just me?

[bipolarmango]

You know what sucks? When people say "you need help" and you go to get help and it doesn't go like in the movies where you cry a few times in a therapy, go for a jog in a park, have a couple of drinks with a friend, move to a new apartment, change jobs, and then meet the love of your life at a house party.

In real life it might go like gaining weight from your medication, self-isolating, starting to drink or to abuse meds and having to process that too, finding out you have comorbities, having to deal with pre-existing trauma, becoming hyper-vigilant for abuse/manipulation/you name it, getting fired from your job, having to move back to live with parents, applying for social benefits, feeling like no one should date you because you are a mess, questioning your whole existence.

[bipolarmango]

I cannot stress this enough: it's important not to push someone with a trauma to process it faster than they can. I am looking at you, mental health workers.

I once was at a mental health institution due to a major depressive episode that presented as a part of my bipolar-2. I am a grownup, over 30, so I mentioned to my doctor that I am not on the best of terms with my family and gave them a brief overview of my childhood. I also said that most of my childhood feels like it belongs to someone else, like I've read it from a book (I'm totally emotionally disconnected from it), and I have massive gaps in memory.

For unknown reasons, instead of focusing on the current events, such as the physical health issues I had been diagnosed with, the pandemic, my ex leaving, you name it, the doctors and psychologist decided to focus on digging as deep as possible on my childhood literally everyday hours after hours. On top of that, my psychologist and I didn't really get a long well.

During the first week of these sessions, I had some of my typical dissociations, these vague feelings like you're living what I call a movie moment -- a moment stolen from a movie. Not quite real, not quite unreal, but in between. Moments when you suddenly are not sure if your hand is really your hand. They got worse as the week progressed.

After a week, on Friday, I found myself sitting on my hospital bed, and suddenly a feeling like I was a little scared toddler took over me. I had to hide. I crawled under the bed, just like little kids do when they're afraid. If someone would've tried to talk to me, I'm sure I would've sounded like a toddler, I would've behaved like a toddler. My whole mind went back to the same mode it was when I was that small.

When the toddler episode ended, the next stage started. By Friday night, I was in so deep in dissociation that I literally saw these light grey, mostly transparent curtains that separated me from the real world, and behind me, there was another set of deeper grey curtains that separated me from another world. I knew it was another world, and I could just open the curtains and step in and disappear if I wanted. I literally wasn't part of the real world, I was following it behind a curtain, ready to completely disappear if things got even a little bid worse.

Luckily, my whole team was off for the weekend, so the concerned nurses alerted a more senior doctor who sat me down and asked me question about what's going on. He called off the questioning about my childhood as he concluded the stress was just too much for my brain to process at this speed. I was placed under constant supervision. My symptoms kept developing. I started having auditory hallucinations that my own medical team dismissed for some reason. I also had minor visual hallucinations that also got dismissed by my own team for some reason. I started getting random symptoms that I didn't know if they should be accounted for mania or something else (ie. I felt a massive urge to take a wheelchair and run with it through the hallway, push it through the massive window and fly with it from the fifth floor to the ground, not to die but to fly and to, just, well, just to do it. I also wanted to "run away" and literally jump off the walls, scream at the top of my lungs, climb to the roof of the hospital just because. Mind you, I am usually very quiet and withdraw person, and my hypomania doesn't include this kind of behaviour).

It took a month for all these symptoms get back to normal (I do often have dissociation but not on the level when I had at the time, auditory and visual hallucinations I haven't had for years). My own medical team made me understand that they believe I was faking it for attention.

I got a new medical team soon after.

I believe that the stress of trying to force me to process the trauma to fast caused me a massive dissociation, hallucinations, and possibly my first ever mania that should have changed my diagnosis from bipolar-2 to bipolar-1 had I have a team that took me seriously.

[bipolarmango]

Credit to drelizabethfedrick

[bipolarmango]

My parents: your childhood was just fine

Me: what about these guys then *vaguely gesturing at my c-PTSD, dissociation, panic disorder, and ongoing personality disorder investigations*

My parents: *squinting eyes* well well well maybe you were the problem then

[bipolarmango]

I'm not fine at all

[bipolarmango]

[bipolarmango]

Also, please remember that there are us who have genuinely suffered abuse from a narcissistic person.

My sister, my half sister (bio daughter of my dad and stepmom), my dad, and myself all have been through therapy after a life with my stepmom (my dad and my stepmom divorced years back) and all of our medical team (psychotherapist, psychiatrists) have separately agreed that my stepmom seems to meet the criteria of a narcissistic person. She will never search for help as she sees no probelm with herself, so we will never know for sure, but four different medical teams in three different countries coming up with the same end-result after long diagnostic consultations is rather telling in my opinion.

I am currently on a process -- while safely 2,500km away from her since seven years ago -- of trying to understand what happened in my stepmom's brain that made her act the way she did that made me and my family's life a living hell and caused me to try and kill myself at the age of 16. Similarly, my sister decided to leave the country to get away from her. I am still learning, at the age of 33, what a healthy family life looks like, and I'm unsure if I can ever have children of my own out of fear that I make their life the same living hell than mine was. It's a long process, and while I am genuinely trying to be open and understanding towards people with NPD, I find it very hard due to the very biased experience from my past. I want to apologize for that.

So yes, narcissistic abuse is real. But before you use it, perhaps make sure you understand what does it mean, what does it mean to be a narcissist, and don't use those labels when not necessary. Not every shitty ex or a mean friend or a skunk who slept with your man is a narcists, they're just stupid people who only considered what they wanted, probably nothing more.

you have any fucking word in the dictionary to describe your abuse. please stop using the one that describes a personality disorder