blackpudd1n Posted July 19, 2012 Share Posted July 19, 2012 I've been mulling over a discussion I had with my psych nurse the other day. He mentioned something about my propensity for psychosis during mania. I turned around and said, "nah, dude, I only get psychotic if I touch drugs. As long as I stay away from drugs, I'm all good!" And told me that my risk of psychosis during a manic episode was 90%. I was like, 90%?! You're crazy, dude! He went on to explain that my risk of psychosis was so high because I am prone to delusions of grandeur while manic. That was the point that I stopped arguing and went, oh, yeah, that's right. One of the biggest delusions of grandeur I ever had, and it was accompanied by quite a bit of psychosis, was that I was going to write a book about my life and it was going to get published and be a bestseller. I did end up finishing it, and I did send it off to a publisher. It got rejected, and a while later, when I was doing quite a bit better mentally, I sat down and read it again. And it was terrible. Ever since, I've been too scared to write again. Every time I get the urge to write, I fear that I am going manic and I stop. But that was not the point of this post. The main point was that that discussion with my psych nurse really brought home to me that I had made the right decision to not have kids (pregnancy and childbirth are triggers for psychotic manic episodes, and I am at a higher risk than I even realised), and that atheism is most definitely best for my mental health. I have said so many times that religion and mental illness just don't mix, and it has never been truer for me. No wonder the further away I got from christianity the better I became mentally. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oddbird1963 Posted July 19, 2012 Share Posted July 19, 2012 I'm glad you're finding your non-Christian worldview to be so stabilizing. I hate to think that the fear of your illness is keeping you from writing. But I also understand that you want to tread carefully as you try to manage it . Best wishes for you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackpudd1n Posted July 19, 2012 Author Share Posted July 19, 2012 I'm glad you're finding your non-Christian worldview to be so stabilizing. I hate to think that the fear of your illness is keeping you from writing. But I also understand that you want to tread carefully as you try to manage it . Best wishes for you! Thanks OddBird I may get back into it one day, just not sure when. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RankStranger Posted July 20, 2012 Share Posted July 20, 2012 I don't know how common psychosis is with bipolar. But I know that when my dad gets off his lithium and really gets wound tight, he gets paranoid and starts seeing shit that ain't there. Never seems to happen when he's depressed- only when he's manic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackpudd1n Posted July 20, 2012 Author Share Posted July 20, 2012 I don't know how common psychosis is with bipolar. But I know that when my dad gets off his lithium and really gets wound tight, he gets paranoid and starts seeing shit that ain't there. Never seems to happen when he's depressed- only when he's manic. I couldn't tell you myself, simply because bipolar affects everyone so differently. I knew that psychosis was probable if someone was experiencing hypermania, but hypermania tends to be experienced more by Bipolar type 1 sufferers, whereas I have bipolar type 2. From what I can work out, in my case, I tend not to go so high, but because of the type of delusions I am prone to while manic, my risk of psychosis is high. My psych nurse is very highly qualified, to the extent where he mentors Masters students through a university, so I'm guessing that he's basing that estimate of my risk of psychosis on research between different delusions and incidence of psychosis. That and probably a good deal of hands-on experience; he only spent 40 years working in the public health system, much of that in mental health. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Positivist Posted July 20, 2012 Share Posted July 20, 2012 Good stuff, Pudd! About writing--you could try writing a chapter here and there, join a writing club, and make it a long term project. I'm writing a novel currently but it's gonna take years to get done. It's fun to work on as a side project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
London Posted July 20, 2012 Share Posted July 20, 2012 I say write. You could even keep a journal (it does not even have to be daily) on the things you don't want to forget, or opinions you have or things you've learned. A journal can easily be reformatted into a novel, and you will have most of the info there. Don't sell yourself short, you are quite smart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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