One of the things that always puzzled me about myself is how I could be so "smart" intellectually and professionally, yet make so many stupid choices in my personal life. I had a therapist tell me years ago that while my IQ is very high, my EQ (emotional quotient) was much lower. That's putting it mildly. I haven't read the book on EQ, but I'd guess that if the standard is similar to that of IQ, my EQ level would render me at least mildly retarded.
According to Sam Shein, a Teaneck psychologist, "people who suffer from untreated bipolar disorder tend to make the most pleasurable and most convenient choices but not the most logical decisions in life... The problem with bipolar disorder is that, if we did an X-ray of the head and the mind, it would look like a switchboard with 20 calls coming in... They take the call that feels best emotionally. They don't do the logical thing. They don't do the thing that is the right behavior. They go to the feelings."
Boy, is that an understatement! The problem is that the feelings that people with bipolar disorder feel during episodes of mania or depression are not necessarily the same feelings, and certainly not with the same intensity, that we feel when our moods are more stable.
I often see the scenes in movies where the woman wakes up after a night of hot sex (much of which she probably doesn't even remember because she was drunk), and she rolls over and can't believe that she's in bed with the guy she just met the night before.
Now imagine a similar scenario, but instead, replace alcohol or drugs with the mania of bipolar disorder, and replace the night of hot sex with weeks or months of what seems like the "perfect" relationship with "Mr. Right". Then imagine gradually waking up to realize that Mr. Right is anything but right - for you - and imagine going so far as to marry the guy!
For me, it's not the hypomania that's the problem. It's a wonderful time when I'm in the midst of it. I feel as if I'm living my life in technicolor, rather than the many shades of gray that I live with most of the time. The choices I make seem perfectly logical at the time and I'm able to be quite persuasive in my ability to rationalize my decisions. The problem comes when the hypomania fades away and I'm left with the consequences of my hypomanic choices which all of a sudden don't seem so logical or rationale. I've learned the hard way that cleaning up a big mess is a lot harder than making one.
According to Sam Shein, a Teaneck psychologist, "people who suffer from untreated bipolar disorder tend to make the most pleasurable and most convenient choices but not the most logical decisions in life... The problem with bipolar disorder is that, if we did an X-ray of the head and the mind, it would look like a switchboard with 20 calls coming in... They take the call that feels best emotionally. They don't do the logical thing. They don't do the thing that is the right behavior. They go to the feelings."
Boy, is that an understatement! The problem is that the feelings that people with bipolar disorder feel during episodes of mania or depression are not necessarily the same feelings, and certainly not with the same intensity, that we feel when our moods are more stable.
I often see the scenes in movies where the woman wakes up after a night of hot sex (much of which she probably doesn't even remember because she was drunk), and she rolls over and can't believe that she's in bed with the guy she just met the night before.
Now imagine a similar scenario, but instead, replace alcohol or drugs with the mania of bipolar disorder, and replace the night of hot sex with weeks or months of what seems like the "perfect" relationship with "Mr. Right". Then imagine gradually waking up to realize that Mr. Right is anything but right - for you - and imagine going so far as to marry the guy!
For me, it's not the hypomania that's the problem. It's a wonderful time when I'm in the midst of it. I feel as if I'm living my life in technicolor, rather than the many shades of gray that I live with most of the time. The choices I make seem perfectly logical at the time and I'm able to be quite persuasive in my ability to rationalize my decisions. The problem comes when the hypomania fades away and I'm left with the consequences of my hypomanic choices which all of a sudden don't seem so logical or rationale. I've learned the hard way that cleaning up a big mess is a lot harder than making one.
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