Is it accurate to say that most of my habits are attributed to my diagnosis of bipolar?

Question

For example, my spending is out of control when I have money. I get easily agitated and irritable at the slightest things. Is there anyway to tell what behaviors are justifiable or just my illness? Since my diagnosis about 2 months ago, I have read some about the disorder and have found a lot of my behaviors are similar to those of other people with bipolar. I am so confused. I am on an anti-convulsant and anti-depressant, but I still have some major mood swings, mostly irritability.

Answer 1

If you have been diagnosed than you will know about the highs and lows of BP. Manic behaviour in adults tends to often be too much spending, too much working, too much partying, just too much!!!!! What you are describing could be manic behaviours.

If you have only started on mood stabilizers in the last couple of months, you may be a long way from being stable. It often takes several trials of diffident medications, and dosages to finally help a person become stable.

Unfortunately most of these types of problems are combined with other issues and problems. So, you may have impulse control issues, you may be dealing with a number of problems. They key is that they are not justifiable, whether they are illness related or not, they are still with in your control and you are responsible. It is never okay to blame them on BP.

I don't accept that from my child. She is still the one who ultimately makes the choice and does the action. She has had it most, if not all of her life and can be very violent. She is severely BP with a number of other problems as well. But she is responsible!!! The medication does not make you behave differently, it just helps to make the choices easier.

Take some time and get your meds sorted out and work on you!

Answer 2

For me, when things arent going well, I get anxiety when I dont perform my set actions. Some of those used o include doing drugs and that ate up quite a bit of my $.

The other poster is right though, compulsive spending is another thing.

The mood swings sound like me. So, in short, I think you can attribute alot of it to the illness but that does not let you off the hook of at least TRYING to control your moods. Just breathe. It works. When you get anxious your breathing gets all out of whack and your brain does not know what to do.

Diet, exercise, blah blah too

Sorry, thats the best I can do. The disease sucks

Answer 3

yes i think they can be.after being told that you are in fact bipolar or any other personality disorder like having a psychosis you are then left totally confused as to what are your good attributes or unaffected traits and what are your bad ones.Confused??? I am since doctors said i had it ,now i relay am two people inside always questioning myself its so time consuming the questions the questions all the time .So yeah i would say so

Answer 4

I was diagnosed 18 yrs ago and medicated that long as well. I have difficulty with spending too, but it might be a lack of saving will power. As for irratability, that only happens if I am not taking my meds right or they need fixed, tell your doc.

Answer 5

I don't think your money problems are bi polar caused. My wife is bi polar and handles money well. You are likely a compulsive spender, which is another problem altogether. Mood swings, likely. However, my wife don't have mood swings. She is at one happy mood for a long period of time, and then plunges into very deep depression. I think you are generally unhappy with your life. You need to look at the positive things and forget about the negative things. Do things for other people and get your mind off yourself.