How a Person with Bipolar Thinks
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his is an interesting question: how does a person with bipolar disorder think? Of course, it’s hard for me to compare it with your average person as I have bipolar disorder. I don’t have the two thought processes in my one brain to compare.
This is not to say that we all think the same way; nevertheless, I do have some ideas on how people with bipolar disorder think that seem to stand out amongst the “normals.”
Obsessive Bipolar Thoughts
Your average person may have obsessive thoughts, now and then, I don’t know, but what I do know is that people with bipolar disorder have obsessive thoughts a lot of the time. These obsessive bipolar thoughts may be a repeating song from the radio, scenarios (such as a suicide scene) or a replaying of events (often negative ones), but obsessive thoughts seem to be the rule rather than the exception.
Note that research bears this out indicating that people with bipolar disorder have higher rates of obsessive-compulsive disorder than the average population.
Extreme Bipolar Thoughts
It seems to me that simply by the virtue of extreme emotional experience, people with bipolar disorder think in the extreme quite frequently. Everything feels like the end of the world (catastrophizing). We’re not upset, we’re depressed. We’re not suspicious, we’re paranoid. We’re not happy, we’re elated. And, of course, there are all the thoughts that go along with these things. If our boyfriend looks at another girl he must be cheating. If we have a disagreement with a friend they must hate us. If we’re criticized at work we must be getting fired. It’s not that we don’t necessarily understand these things aren’t reasonable; it’s just that we can’t help the way our brain thinks, the way it leaps. Not everyone jumps to the extremes, but people with bipolar seem to have that tendency.How a person with bipolar thinks
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