I am also a big salt eater and get chided for it when I eat with a group. Seems like being a salt eater is getting as bad as being a smoker. Focus on a new favorite food, television show/series, or a new author has to run its course until I am no longer craving or interested.
What about dreams? I dream every night and most of my dreams are vivid enough to stay with me long after I have woken up. I can have different variations of the same dream themes: moving, teaching, and hiding. I am either moving out with a uhaul trailer in the driveway, a house that hasn't been packed yet, no money, and destination unknown. Or, I am moving into a house that looks small and low rent on the outside, but inside it is huge with an endless number of bedrooms and bathrooms. The kitchen cupboards and freezer are filled, but the food is spoiled and outdated. Drawers, shelves, and closets are filled with all kinds of treasures, but belong to the owner. Sometimes I have moved into a house with an evil presence so strong it wakes me up. Teaching dreams usually find me substituting, running late, unable to find my classroom, or having forgotton my schedule. I can't get the chalk or dry erasers to write dark enough, and my classes have dozens of students that won't stay in their seats or even in the classroom. The hiding dreams usually involve some eminent threat outside, like bears, and I can't get the doors to latch or lock. It is usually a slider that won't stay closed no matter how many times I try. Then, before long, I notice that the walls aren't sealed and coming apart and I can feel the threat getting closer. Finally, I also have what I call movie dreams. Lately they have involved an alien invasion and the desperate struggle to stay inside and hidden because if you are outside you turn into one of them. They intuitively know where we are hiding. They usually get us one by one.
I also don't do well with unstructured time. I need a regular routine and feel like I have accomplished something everyday. I have a mental list in my mind and review it several times a day, marking things off as I accomplish them. This makes me feel focused, in control and secure. When I don't have this, I feel rudderless. I usually get depressed and spend a lot of time in bed watching TV. I build up a real good case of self-contempt which makes me just feel hopeless and worthless. It is so ironic because when I am stressed and tired, I long for sometime to just relax, do nothing, and vegetate.
Finally, it is hard for me to make friends. I tell myself it's because I don't have the emotional energy to maintain a friendship, but I think it is really more about not believing that someone would want to be my friend. I see women all around me with best friends, or a group of friends that they regularly hang out with, and I have always wondered what's wrong with me? Why am I different from most women around me? What is missing in me?
Don't know if anyone else out there can relate to any of this. Let me know if you do. Jen
I definitely get on a meal kick and can't stop eating the same meals or snacks until I'm sick to death of them and may never go back to enjoying them. I also have a hard time stopping an activity (like facebook or reading) just to go eat (which isn't good for my diabetes).
But on top of that, I do have extremely vivid and repetitive dreams with slight variations, and I too have a hard time making friends for the same reasons: it seems like too much work to maintain the friendship and I can't understand why someone would want to be my friend. With the one friendship I have now I fearfully anticipate that I will eventually get sick of it (like a meal) and want to stop it altogether. I've actually done that with another friend, to my chagrin.
I have frequent and strong cravings for salt, butter and chocolate. Also I find that I cannot control the quantity of something I like. I will eat it until I feel sick.
I DEFINITELY crave salt. Though I have totally eliminated it in my cooking and no longer have a salt shaker in the house (I use a herb blend or dill instead, dill is awesome once you get used to it), I sometimes MUST eat something with salt. I also crave butter which I eat VERY rarely. So you can guess that when I crave both I pig out on buttered,salted popcorn. I will eat it until I feel sick and STILL want it again the next day. The same with chocolate.When I eat chocolate, I cant stop! I can eat two or three family size bars in a sitting!
When I am experiencing mania, I cannot eat! I dont have the time because I have to get everything done. And when I am depressed I will eat almost anything because I have nothing else good in my life.
So definitely food does have some tie in to my disorder but I am not sure if it is a physical relationship or a mind set.
Chocolate, Chocolate and more Chocolate. It "helps keep me awake when I'm auditing" (yeh, ok) Sometimes rib eye steak which probably sounds sickening. I can't stand cooked tomatoes and I use to love to cook chicken marengo. I can only stand soft cheese, no cheddar for me. I too get stuck on a food. Right now it's portobello mushroom ravioli. It use to be baked chicken with herbs and just brown rice. I lost 20 pounds on that craving. I was asked many years ago when some intake person was trying t diagnose me if I "craved carbos" I lied and said no. Found out later that can be an indication of the presence of some bi-polar tendancies.
I can make the same food over and over and not have a problem..until one day...I suddenly have an aversion to it. Except for sweet carbs. I always thought my cravings were a side effect of my atypical anti-psychotic. But I can eat ice cream until I am sick. I will just keep going and going. Cookies, cake...anything sweet and usually not good for you...and once I get started, I am on a roll. I have these things in my house for a treat for my daughter, and I have a very hard time resisting them. I have put on weight over the holidays.
I have very vivid dreams...typical anxiety and loss dreams. My anxiety dream consists of a scenario where I can't rescue everyone from a bad event. My loss dreams are dreams of genuine loss..I'll dream of my Mom or a sad event. They are pretty easy to interpret.
I find I spend way too much time doing nothing. I will read forever...but it helps turn off the constant noise in my head...I have a hard time with repetitive music in my head...it seems I can't get the last song out of my mind and will hear it over and over until I hear a new one...then I hear that one. My meds help some but don't stop it entirely. This annoying symptom goes away when I concentrate fully on something, anything.
When I am manic, I become obsessed by things. When I used to work, I made my own forms for entering information. During manic episodes, I would rewrite the forms over and over, making minute changes but insisting new forms be used immediately. I would spend hours researching items and information. I will research a purchase, like a pair of shoes, on the internet for days. I went through a ton of money during a manic phase on ebay. Spending is a problem when I am manic. I have no impulse control at times, and obsess at other times.
I have a terrible time making and keeping friends. I feel like a burden at times...who wants a depressed friend? At other times I feel bored with the company I keep, and let the friendship fade or keep it very superficial. With some people, I feel like I keep putting out effort, only to be rebuffed. Am I really that boring? I guess so.
I also feel...different. Before I was diagnosed with bipolar, I felt like I was different from other people, but I just assumed it was a "quirky" nature. I still feel that way. Not different in the sense that others don't understand my medical problems, but different in terms of my personality overall. It is very hard to explain this. Maybe I hold myself apart...but for reasons I can't fathom.
You are like the 3rd person who has mentioned the repetative song issue. I thought that was just something everybody went through, or at least musically inclined people. Listening to the music in my mind has helped me to pick up harmonies naturally and keeps me on key when singing. I have had family members get irritated with me though when I keep singing the same refrain over and over throughout the day, especially when I am focused on something. I will whistle the same melody or harmonies off of it all day long too. Didn't know this might be a bipolar thing.
About feeling different.. I think that is definately a bipolar issue. Not being able to flow through life and cope with the daily challenges it brings- big or small- with a degree of stability, definately makes me feel different and inadequate at times. Not facing life with the same ease of confidence as most of my peers, makes me feel different. Not being able to unravel the knot of emotions, thoughts, and anxieties in order to clearly see and articulate where problems lie, definately makes me feel different. I am not able to advocate for myself, am always second guessing my right to feel wronged or hurt, and feel angry for not standing up for myself. That sense of helplessness makes me feel different, small, and inferior.
I also have super sweet carb cravings. if I can stay away for while, the cravings go away but if I let myself have more than one or two a week, I'm doomed again to binging.
As for the song repetition, yep, common for me. Feeling different, have felt that way since I was a tiny girl.
I used to have layering and more layering of thoughts. I told the doc that diagnosed me that I thought it was normal, that everyone experienced it. I didn't know it was a symptom of bipolar. When hypomanic, I also have racing thoughts, ideas that have to be perfected...the changing forms example...yep, had done that so often when I was working. I've learned to adopt an attitude now of "it's good enough". Especially now that I'm in grad school. I can't spend hours on a paper trying to use the right words or compose my sentences in a perfect way. It would drive me batty! So I've had to let go and I've found that I'm still doing well.
I know my practice of mindfulness in the past year ...concentration on breath...doing yoga...being in the moment...has caused the bipolar symptoms to decrease substantially. I have long periods of peace and usually just one thought stream and sometimes even absence of thought. I like it.
When the brain revs up again, I know I'm heading into mania with flight of ideas or depression with rumination. I can't stop the episodes but I can lessen the severity by returning to solitude and mindfulness.
I also am a huge salt eater...I buy pretzel rods just to eat the salt off them! My friends thinks Im so strange to do that.
Also, onions literally make me throw up because of my medication. Does this happen to anyone else?
Generally, the only meal I HAVE to have is dinner but besides that it seems like my medication makes it easy to skips meals and just have little snacks all day.
Interesting article!
Hi, i have just stumbled onto this website while trying to find some way of organising my very muddled, painful, hectic and useless life, day after day, for more than 6yrs, getting worse each month with no answers from GP, he is good, helpful and does tests, medicates etc, but when he said , after many tests, mri's, cat scans, blood tests and opration and pain management, that hasn't worked, he said it may be fibro, and if i could find anything that might help he would see if i could be treated by nhs, my daughter researched my daily changing symtoms,meds etc, gave me a chart to fill in,then spoke to me about bp, she recalled my behaviour going back 20yrs, upto present, it seems very likely i am bp and fibro, your blog is the first time i have seen the 2 connected, or at least in the same conversation, i take zomorph, cocodamol, and amitriptlyn, i really don't like amitryptilin, also buscapan, high bp med, hrt,have taken all except zomorph for over 15yrs, zomorph for 2yrs, i hurt all the time varying from bad to excrusiating, i am either awake, talking rubbish, restless, sweating, heartburn, vomiting, or eating non stop, especially salty savoury thins and apples,oranges, pears, crisps cheese with everything, then i can't keep awake, don't want to eat or drink at all, get very chesty from laying down so long, can't wee, get cystitus, when i become active again, usually 36-48hrs, i gradually, eat drink and wee alot, then it starts again for about 3days and nights i am restless, talking fast, disjointed subjects, don't feel remotley tird, but don't do anything constructive until i go sleepy again, i have had a rota cuff injury operated on last year, have degenaration of the spine, upto vertibra 8, have trapped nerves from this, had injections for this, not worked an op on my spine has been advised, but need to be fitter than i am, how do i do that, sorry i am going on but i got really excited when i read the comments that there was others who had simular symtoms, don't wish it on anybody but did think i was a hypercondriac at times, i know i don't feel good and my life is miserable, i still don't know what to do or how to do it, just feel a bit relieved to know that i am not on my own, thanks to all who bother to read this, thankyou, god bless x chris x
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i hate certain foods with gross texture...will eat things till
i am sick of them....will crave salt. i think it does have
to do with bipolar too.