Thought I was better

[teaBee]

I thought I was getting better. Yesterday and today I was feeling really good and happy. No anxious thoughts and I felt like a normal person again. But something set me off. My boyfriend pointed out that I over plan things and I plan to do things but never do. It made me upset. 1 because I know he is right and 2 because I don’t know how to stop. I plan every second of every day. Every conversation. Every detail. What I wear, how I look, what I do, who I’m with. I don’t know why but I think things that are too different or spontaneous scare me. See but I can’t figure out if this is a bad thing. I manage everything so nothing gets out of control. I have to carefully budget because we don’t have much money. And plan meals and shopping. I get stuff done. It does feel like too much sometimes. Occasionally I will plan a short sentence in my head 100 times before saying it. You know getting this all out and reading it makes it seem really stupid. What am I so scared of? Not being perfect? Getting judged or laughed at? I have a problem with needing to know everything and feel in control of everything. But I know it’s not really possible. So why am I trying?

[white knight]

Hi, welcome 

We can't diagnose but as a lived experience champion I can relay some similarities for thought.

Mania is half a problem if illnesses like bipolar and ADHD broadly speaking, with a flip side of depression. I'm 67yo and up till 53yo had bipolar and therefore mania most of my life until diagnosis and subsequent meds corrected a lot of it. My mania resulted in things like- having 90 jobs, 80 cars, accident prone events, rampant thoughts, excess spending and dwelling on issues without control.

However it was my then partner in 2009 that led me to get diagnosed, most other people just wrote me off as some form of fool or nutter!.  Reputations stick so I had a life of ups and downs.

Hence, as you appear to live a life of symptoms beyond the boundaries of normal behaviour and how that effects your partner, a proper diagnosis is essential. I urge you not to worry because whether you are diagnosed with a mental health issue and get treated or confirmed your symptoms are purely character/personality caused, either result is a win situation.

Start off with a visit to your GP. Your partners presence would be beneficial.

TonyWK 

[therising]

Hi teaBee

I've found becoming more conscious or being led to become more conscious is definitely not always a happy unicorns and rainbows kind of experience. Sometimes it can become anxiety inducing and even depressing in a way. If becoming more conscious involves some sort of 'wake up call', that wake up call can feel alarming. Kind of like when you're in a deep sleep and the alarm beside your bed suddenly goes off. Not a pleasant feeling, that's for sure.

So now that you're awake to your form of planning, the quest has begun to understand why it exists, how it leads you to feel, how you can manage it, how and when it started, what mental programs and emotions are connected to it etc. Any significant quest for greater self understanding will, by nature, hold a heck of a lot of questions. By the look of it, given all the questions you've begun asking yourself, you're officially on a quest.

Of course, absolutely nothing wrong with creating some form of order in life, some organisation. I think it's when the degree of order begins to create a sense of disorder that things start to take a turn. While far from a healthy balance of order and flexibility, an extreme sense of order tips the scales. Speaking from personal experience, I love to write lists of things to do for the day. List writing has a great feel to it. List writing/order also triggers internal dialogue. Kind of like 'Look at that. You're an achiever. Look at what you're going to achieve today/tomorrow' or 'You're so organised. You should be proud of yourself'. Can go the other way too. If I don't tick everything off the list by the end of the day, the dialogue can sound more like 'You're hopeless. Tomorrow you need to be tougher on yourself'. So, the next day the sense of order can become almost obsessive, just so I don't have to feel upset. The sense order is a way of managing inner dialogue and emotions. You mention not wanting to be judged. Not wanting to appear 'lazy' to others is a way of managing their dialogue as well as our dialogue and emotions.

I wonder whether you've ever gone through a period of almost complete spontaneity. While I tried this myself, it soon took a really challenging turn which I was able to make sense of eventually. If you can imagine we have an 'In box' of all the things coming in that we need to get done and as we do them they then get put in the 'Out box' or the 'Done box'. The feeling of suddenly realising the in box has a pile miles high can be so incredibly anxiety inducing and it can set off some really depressing inner dialogue. Suddenly spontaneity can feel like a bad thing and something related to anxiety and/or depression.

Thinking before we speak can come with experience. What I mean is sometimes it can be a matter of 'If I plan what I'm going to say, I can't get in too much trouble, like I have in the past' or it can even go to extremes for some people who condition themselves not to speak at all under certain circumstances. This way they don't have to fear being judged on what they say.

Nothing you say sounds stupid, not at all. I think we come to be a certain way for good reason. Figuring out what the reasons are is the challenging part. There will be a reason behind everything you do. Now that you're on your quest, you will gradually come to know them. Some will even prove surprising.