Dear Lindsey:

I want to understand your situation better, so I looked up Wikipedia’s entry on bipolar disorder. I will ask you a few questions about what I read, not as a medical doctor or a health professional, which I am not, but for the purpose of wanting to understand what you mean by suffering from a bi polar disorder. (As always, you are of course free to not answer any of my questions).

Wikipedia states regarding bi-polar disorder (which is a spectrum of disorders: Bipolar 1 Disorder, Bipolar 2 Disorder, and Cyclothemia) : “The core symptom of mania involves an increase in energy of psychomotor activity”, or psychomotor agitation, which Wikipedia defines as “unintentional and purposeless motions and restlessness… Typical manifestations include pacing around a room, wringing the hands, uncontrolled tongue movement, pulling off clothing and putting it back on, and other similar actions. In more severe cases… (ex.) ripping, tearing, or chewing at the skin around one’s fingernails, lips, or other body parts to the point of bleeding”-

1.  Is this true to you, this psychomotor agitation element?

It also reads: “Mania can also present with increased self-esteem or grandiosity… mania is a distinct period of at least one week of elevated or irritable mood, which can range from euphoria to delirium“. Regarding delirium, Wiki states: “It may also involve… perceptual disturbances (e.g. hallucinations and delusions), although these features are not required for diagnosis”

2. Examples from Wiki’s entry on delusions: believing that someone replaced all your internal organs with someone else’s, or that you are under constant police surveillance, or that a news anchor on TV disapproves of you, or that you are a god, or that an extra limb is growing out of the back of your head- did you ever experience delusions?

3. Hallucination are sensing (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, sensing)  what is not really happening (including sensing such things as insects crawling under one’s skin or being touched by someone when there is no one there). Did you ever experience hallucinations?

4. Did you sometimes, while in a manic stage, experience euphoria- a sense of great unhappiness and well-being- for no apparent reason, as in out of nowhere, and for a long time?

5. Wiki states about grandiosity: “an unrealistic sense of superiority, characterized by a sustained view of one’s self as better than other people, which is expressed by disdainfully viewing them as inferior; and refers to a sense of personal uniqueness, the belief that few other people have anything in common with oneself, and that one can only be understood by a few, very special people”. Do you exhibit grandiosity sometimes?

6. Wiki states: “At the most extreme, a person in a full blown manic state can experience psychosis: a break with reality.. They may feel unstoppable, or as if they have been ‘chosen’ and are on a ‘special mission'”- ever experienced psychosis?

7. When were you diagnosed with bi-polar, what subtype and how does your ex husband use this diagnosis agaist you?

anita