Do you get OCD-like when hypo/manic?

[AnneMarie]

I find myself repeating words or sentences in my head sometimes but not always. I think it happens more when I'm not purely euphoric. It's also hard to recognize sometimes. Ah, where is awareness when you need it? I now know that this is a good sign to pay attention and if need be call my pdoc.

Anyone else?

[Anelize]

I'm driven to repetitive motions. Pacing, rocking, fist-making, things like that. I find it soothing, I guess.

[Phoenix_Rising]

Yup. Lots of rituals, especially when I'm in a mixed state. I obsess all the time, but it increases a lot when I'm depressed. and compulsions. I can't stay seated and I feel like I have to do everything I think.

Peace,

Phoenix

[dreamless]

Never thought about it, but actually yes. My hypomanias are short, 2-5 days. The first day or two I'm blissfully embracing the world, I can literally be overjoyed at the lovely shade of grey of rain clouds. Then my head speeds up more and more until I feel uncomfortably pressurized, and in that state I often repeat words or short phrases over and over in my head to drown the mind chatter, or sometimes not even words, just sounds, "gah gah gah". Eeek.

Thanks for reminding me why I'd better take my meds.

[Rabbit37]

Yes. I become obsessed over something and start losing time. I also start counting. That's been a big issue since childhood, I count everything on my fingers, mostly syllables, but I count physical objects too. I also lay awake at night with negative/irrational thoughts racing through my head, and I can't let go of them. My current cocktail has largely taken care of this, as long as I take them faithfully.

[r2mnot]

I'm a little that way anyhow, although I don't think it's exactly pathological. When hypomanic, I count things as I'm putting them away, make sure that towels are hung so the tags don't show, actually use the iron, Dry the dishes after washing and put them away immediately, separate the salad forks from the dinner forks and so on.

Other than the counting, I mostly do all this stuff anyway.

When I'm depressed, I don't do any of that. Towels end up on the floor, dishes rot in the sink, and I don't care about any of it.

When mixed, I get pissed off at anyone who isn't all anal about which way the towels go or whatever. God help the poor soul who tries to help.

Funny, I'm only like this with the kitchen, bathroom and laundry. The rest of the house (and my car, which my family calls "Mom's mobile trash can") is normally a somewhat controlled chaos of books, papers, (some trash, some important, in no particular order) computer parts, shoes and whatever. None of that ever bothers me.

[AirMarshall]

When I get very stressed by something, usually an immediate deadline, or having to leave the house to meet a strict appointment, I will often get a snippet or phrase of a song or melody that begins repeating in my head and often have to hum or silently follow along. Also despite my usual house chaos I am suddenly driven to straighten things, clean, make things orderly, even at the expense of accomplishing my original goal or deadline. The song repetition is the most disturbing since it tends to derail my train of thought and is very difficult to overcome since it gets "louder" or more overpowering as my stress builds. The responding to the cleaning urge actually feels comfortable except for the fact that I get sidetracked doing some trivial task at the expense of more important things.

Cymbalta has helped tremendously.

I'm glad to hear these stories similar to mine, as I've asked before and not gotten much response.

a.m.

[r2mnot]

I get sidetracked doing some trivial task at the expense of more important things.

Oh yeah.

Nothing like organizing the junk drawer or scrubbing the TV remote with a Q-tip when the living room is a fire hazard.

[BirdDancer]

I find myself repeating words or sentences in my head sometimes but not always. I think it happens more when I'm not purely euphoric. It's also hard to recognize sometimes. Ah, where is awareness when you need it? I now know that this is a good sign to pay attention and if need be call my pdoc.

Anyone else?

I'm so glad you mentioned this. I thought I was the only one that did this. The repeating gets so fast that it becomes almost nonsense at times. It works me up to explosion and hysteria. I've done this many times and it has led me to being hospitalized. At the end of its build up I sometimes get catatonic.

[AnneMarie]

That sounds intense, to say the least. When I was first diagnosed, made extremely hypomanic by the AD that pulled me out of very bad depression, I found silence in my head when Lithium hit the therapeutic level. Then I got sick and had to stop it. The noise came roaring back. It wasn't racing thoughts, it was a hurricane raging where my frontal cortex s/b. Words kind of pealed off, it was scary and made concentration nearly impossible. Anyway, if it got a whole lot worse, I think I would have been inpatient with you, and even then, I suspect that my experience wouldn't match that intensity.

I really do find myself monitoring for repeating words or sentences. If it happens once in a while, I just watch for more. Too many, "It's time to go home. It's time to go home. It's time to go home," while I'm already driving in my car home, I start to think about calling my pdoc. If my sleep starts going funny, too, then I'm on the phone. Hey, I'd rather take a little extra Seroquel than amp up and start telling myself to wash my hands three times again and again. I am lucky in that I don't have OCD, so this is an obvious clue.

[SashaSue]

When I'm hypo/manic, in a bad kind of a way, I get very, very obsessive. It's really one of the most

intolerable of my symptoms, and tends to be the one that convinces me to call the pdoc & up the seroquel.

[lostinthoughtandjaded]

I find myself repeating words or sentences in my head sometimes but not always. I think it happens more when I'm not purely euphoric. It's also hard to recognize sometimes. Ah, where is awareness when you need it? I now know that this is a good sign to pay attention and if need be call my pdoc.

Anyone else?

Holy crap... YUP.

I'm driven to repetitive motions. Pacing, rocking, fist-making, things like that. I find it soothing, I guess.

I clench my fists and compulsively wipe my palms on my jeans.

...My hypomanias are short, 2-5 days. The first day or two I'm blissfully embracing the world, I can literally be overjoyed at the lovely shade of grey of rain clouds. Then my head speeds up more and more until I feel uncomfortably pressurized, and in that state I often repeat words or short phrases over and over in my head to drown the mind chatter, or sometimes not even words, just sounds...

Similar for me, short hypomanias and even shorter manias... a couple of days to a couple of weeks for hypomania, 1-3 days for mania, depression can last up to several months... Starts with the world being lovely and I'm capable of whatever I want... never lasts more than a day or two... Then things speed up and the noise rushes in and people in my head have conversations with each other and I try and think my thoughts out louder to try and control it all, but then it just falls aparts into repeated sounds and phrases... For me, it seems to be the phrase "I just don't know" or a hook from a song or jingle playing over and over and over...

When I get very stressed by something, usually an immediate deadline, or having to leave the house to meet a strict appointment, I will often get a snippet or phrase of a song or melody that begins repeating in my head and often have to hum or silently follow along. Also despite my usual house chaos I am suddenly driven to straighten things, clean, make things orderly, even at the expense of accomplishing my original goal or deadline. The song repetition is the most disturbing since it tends to derail my train of thought and is very difficult to overcome since it gets "louder" or more overpowering as my stress builds. The responding to the cleaning urge actually feels comfortable except for the fact that I get sidetracked doing some trivial task at the expense of more important things.

I get sidetracked doing some trivial task at the expense of more important things.

Oh yeah.

Nothing like organizing the junk drawer or scrubbing the TV remote with a Q-tip when the living room is a fire hazard.

Yup yup and yuuuuuppp... I was trying to explain that exact situation, with a chunk of a song repeating and getting louder and louder as my stress builds... does yours speed up? Sometimes when I get super stressed, the song doesn't just get louder, but it speeds up, and next thing you know, "Hotel California" is playing double time like Joe Walsh and Glen Frey are racing each other...

[hopelessromantic]

My repetitive motions I link them to anxiety...hair twirling, foot circling, ring twisting, these all come around when my nerves are bad....though it could be both I guess

[LaurenMichigan]

It seems to me I get some OCD like behavior when I am depressed. I don't feel that way in the manic stage. It is winter, so I am cycling down and becoming depressed again. I am about to enroll in a partial hospitalization program to get back on my meds because this crazy clinic I go to can't get me an appointment until March. I should have done this right away. They released me on Lithium and Lamictal two weeks ago, but now I am out. To be honest, I was scared of weight gain with Lithium, but I know it is the first line med for this horrific illness I have. Lamictal alone does not cut it, but I felt some mood stabilization after 10 days. Like an idiot, I quit because I was so afraid of weight gain. I may need to see another doctor as I feel monitoring patients every 3 months is ridiculous. Especially with a med like Lithium where levels need to be checked. I hope I can get into the program tomorrow. I really need it. I have had suicidal thoughts the last few days.

[thunderstorm]

Do I ever.

I get the music thing too (Im really not a fan of popular music, and one time I got the 'umberella-ella-ella-ella' 2 second bit from that rhianna song stuck in my head on a loop for TWO DAMN DAYS), but I get hyper-obsessive about things like locked doors and the stove being on, even if I havent unlocked or used them! It's to the point where, if Im really bad, my boyfriend will come and check them with me so when I inevitably ask 2 minutes down the road if they were *really* locked, he can reassure me that they are. It's enabling the paranoia, I know, but it makes me feel more secure and helps me stop worrying.

also with the 'noise' in the head thing - that didnt stop when I went on mood stabilisers, only on antipsychotics. Im off them now, and I really missed my head-chatter when it was gone, though at the time it was a nice break, because it was pretty poisonous stuff for a while. I've got continual music and conversations (both ones Ive had and ones I want to have) floating around in my noggin, and it feels just too... quiet without it. Like going from a crowded room to standing by myself. I actually find it difficult to concentrate without all the internal stimuli, funnily enough.

[gizmo]

When I'm manic, I focus on tasks that normally don't take me a long time, and instead spend ALL DAY doing them. Last time, it was 16 hours of installing parts and the inevitable tweaking of an old computer from parts in my daughter's room. When you're doing computer work in the dark while you're daughter's in bed sleeping, that's manic behaviour. I also get into "throwing stuff away" modes. I have a pile of papers (just one, I'm not a packrat or housekeeping slouch) in my kitchen that I haven't touched in 6 months. Three days ago it all got thrown away, including some things I later found out I needed.

What am I doing today? I've been on this board for four hours now :-) Haven't eaten, haven't done anything else. Only bad thing, I'm acting like this and depressed at the same time.

[Sara Tonyn]

Like I needed this... But it's sorta funny.

For the past few days I've had music repetition in my head. The same piece playing over and over: Stars and Stripes Forever (And Ever and Ever, in my case). I have no idea why my brain chose that particular song; I haven't been to any parades lately and I'm not in a marching band.

Anyway, I was relaxing on the couch and watching TV coverage of the presidential inauguration. Afterwards, TV announcers were rehashing what had just occurred while cameras panned the huge crowd. And in the background I could hear a band playing a patriotic song... Yes, that one. I may never get rid of it now.