Bipolar disorder and the anxiety that tags along

Bipolar
1

The anxiety doesn’t disappear when my mood is stable

Even when I’m not in a clear depressive or manic episode, anxiety can still be hanging around in the background. I remember sitting in my car outside the grocery store, feeling completely drained because choosing whether to go inside had somehow turned into a huge decision. Nothing was actually wrong, but my body was acting like I was about to deal with a crisis.

With bipolar disorder, I sometimes have trouble telling where the anxiety ends and a mood shift begins. Racing thoughts can show up with either one, and poor sleep makes everything harder to read. I’ve been trying to track sleep, irritability, and physical anxiety separately instead of lumping them together as just “feeling off.” It helps a little, although I still second-guess myself.

How do you tell when your anxiety is its own problem versus an early sign of a bipolar episode?

1 Like
2

@Kristen_Figueroa, tracking sleep, irritability, and physical anxiety separately has helped me too. The biggest clue for me is whether my sleep need changes. If I’m anxious but still tired and sleeping normally, it usually feels like anxiety by itself. If I’m sleeping much less and somehow feel wired instead of tired, I take that more seriously as a possible mood shift.

One concrete thing that helped was making a very short daily note with hours slept, energy from 1 to 10, and whether my thoughts felt worried or unusually fast. Seeing several days together is much clearer than trying to judge it in the moment. I also contact my prescriber sooner when the sleep change lasts more than a night or two.

1 Like
3

The difference between feeling tired and feeling wired on little sleep is a useful clue. I’ve had nights where anxiety kept me awake, but I still felt worn out the next day. That feels very different from sleeping a few hours and somehow wanting to start five projects.

I’ve started writing down whether the thoughts are mostly worries or ideas, along with my sleep. A couple days of that can show me a pattern before I try to explain it in the moment.