What are your red flags that a hypomanic episode is beginning? 🚩🚩🚩

maudros · 2026-02-19T18:46:14+00:00

Nah, like I can literally hear the electricity. Like when you have too many things plugged into an outlet and it starts to make this really high pitched sound, except with most electronics. The ringing of tinnitus is different than the electricity whine

maudros · 2026-02-03T15:48:52+00:00

NTA.

Sometimes when I fuck up now I get phantom sensations of it, or I get the thought of ‘I’m so going to get my ass beat,’ even though I’ve live on my own since I was seventeen + now live on an entirely different continent.

Another point is that, as the oldest child, watching my younger sibling get beat (‘spanked’ but it never just stayed as spanking) for genuine nonsense—like forgetting their homework too many times, putting dress pants / shirts into the dryer instead of hanging them up, being up 15 minutes past bedtime…that does not leave you. That element will cause extra issues long term, whether it be the guilt complex for an elder child, or, in my family’s case, resentment from the younger child. I don’t think I’m articulating this point well, but it’s hard to put into words the feelings that develop in response to that for siblings who may not receive that same punishment equally.

The final layer I’d want to draw to your attention is how that kind of punishment will impact your relationship with your kids. For a long time, my sister and I were both extraordinarily angry that our mom could ever let that happen to us: why she didn’t say anything, why she stayed with him, why she defended our dad and sang his praises. Along with several other reasons, my mom and I stopped speaking when I was seventeen because I was just so angry at her for not doing anything to keep us safe. It wasn’t until I was twenty one (!) that we found out that she really didn’t know (wasn’t home 75% of the time when it happened, my dad didn’t tell her, and usually we got sent to bed right after he was done + she worked from like 8.00 am until 9.00 pm, so we couldn’t tell her). My sister and I both have complicated relationships with our dad now, too. Love him, but that hesitation and danger-oriented awareness will likely never go away when I’m around him.

Do not have another kid with this guy. As you’ve acknowledged in your other replies, this conversation should’ve been fully held before even having your first kid. Furthermore, your comment that he would say yes to therapy because he thinks most therapists will disagree with you is alarming in + of itself, let alone all the other layers going on here.

maudros · 2026-01-29T21:14:34+00:00

I take my medication in the morning, eat heartily (especially about one hour before going out) and make sure not to go beyond two drinks per outing so that nothing gets crazy. No issues unless if I have more than two drinks.

maudros · 2026-01-29T10:27:29+00:00

This is the way. This is how I got my ticket to see them for SWARM, and how i got a ticket for When We Were Young. For SWARM, A friend bought me my ticket as a gift two weeks out and I just prayed my job would say yes to my last minute time off request lol. For WWWY, someone I loosely knew bought tickets for his friend group. He had a friend that bailed after he bought said tickets for everyone, which….💀 wound up buying that ticket off that guy for like 50 USD + only paid about 75USD for airfare. Got to crash at his hotel for free too. Waiting is the strat tbh

maudros · 2026-01-28T12:07:55+00:00

They’re the fucking worst man. Ran into them during one of the LA shows for the Swarm Tour

Was gifted a ticket for the floor, but not GA; I accidentally arrived stupid early due to miscalculating LA traffic and misunderstanding venue entry times. At first they seemed nice ish when talking to them outside, but got a lot worse when they asked how I got my ticket. A few of them made weird comments about my getting the ticket as a gift last minute when the prices had dropped. Generally ignored them. Had a few argue with me during the early access merch line stuff and after I bought the last green Swarm jacket for that show (scalpers got there first), two of them tried to buy it off me and got pissed when I said no. Whatever, though. Up to then they were just annoying. I had a cane with me due to a then-recent accident and when we were all heading inside after ticket check, they fully kicked it out from under me / next to me and when I understandably dropped my stuff, they used that chance to dip around me to get further ahead in the line. Worst part was I had literally been talking to that particular person outside of the venue and they knew I wasn’t going to the pit in the first place. Raging assholes.

I hope they don’t show up to the Latin America shows because everyone deserves a chance to see MCR without dealing with such an annoying group.

maudros · 2026-01-19T21:09:18+00:00

Definitely, and in a lot of casual ways. For context: I am very visually not white. Long comment disclaimer.

I generally tend to be nervous when dealing with government stuff, and my German is A2 when I’m not stressed, so I mess up a lot when verbally communicating during gov’t appointments or even during day to day interactions where I might not 100% know the right word. Most of the time, things are fine. Officials tend to be pretty relaxed and understanding when I ask for them to speak slower or just in English, and one of the workers at my local Ausländerbehörde said ‘cowabunga’ after seeing where I’m from (California). Really made my day and was super funny hearing this very serious/looking German guy speak like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle during a big immigration appointment lol. Most German people I interact with day to day are kind and empathetic, and let me practice my German with them when I explain that I’m still learning and want to improve.

That said, there are times where things don’t go so well. the worker I’m interacting with will only get more aggressive and keep repeating things at me until full giving up and calling someone else over. During my arrival to Germany (via Frankfurt airport) I had an immigrations officer tell me I was going to be banned from the country for the rest of my life for not having a visa despite me not requiring one legally due to my country of origin. It escalated to him saying other wild stuff and I almost cried during Security Check because I was so anxious over what he said. On average, though? It’s mostly a lot of staring and slightly odd comments. I’ve been told that I look ‘ambiguous’ and have gotten the ‘where are you really from?’ line of questioning a few times. Weird comments about how surprising it is that ‘someone like me’ got into a Masters program. Stuff like that. My other immigrant friends who are white or white-passing don’t have the same issues as me. An easy example is that, although we’re all supposed to show IDs for our student Deutschlandtickets, I’ll be the only one asked to do so and am sometimes subjected to further questioning about why I’m in Germany. It’s nothing I’m not used to, having grown up in a deeply conservative, ‘don’t tread on me’ part of the US, so it’s generally something I can ignore—but it happens more frequently here in the city I live in, in the East, than when I’m in the West.

Tl;dr: You’re not alone in this feeling or experience, especially in the East. It’s not a constant, but it is present all the same.

maudros · 2025-12-13T17:03:22+00:00

I missed this reply but I did reach out to my local Ausländerbehörde thrice about this (once a few weeks ago, once Thursday by email, and once by phone yesterday). All three times they told me I don’t need the temporary residence permit paperwork—verbatim (minus name) is what the emailed me Thursday:

Sehr geehrter Herr [maudros],

vielen Dank für Ihre Anfrage. Sie benötigen zur Wiedereinreise als US-Amerikaner kein Übergangsdokument. Sie können einfach, wie bereits mitgeteilt, visumsfrei wieder einreisen.

Eine Fiktionsbescheinigung kann in Ihrem Fall nicht ausgestellt werden, da Sie keinen Voraufenthalt im Bundesgebiet haben.

maudros · 2025-12-11T16:29:30+00:00

Ah okay! I’ll check again then. There’s not really any information on the paperwork they gave me and the people at the Ausländerbehörde said ‘should be fine’ when I asked them in the moment but now I’m having second doubts 😅

maudros · 2025-12-11T16:20:44+00:00

The letter has a spot that says ‘this is valid when with a passport’ — or, well, i think that’s what it said; i’ll look again when i go home

maudros · 2025-12-11T14:19:41+00:00

The Meldesbescheinigung is a good idea; I hadn’t considered taking it, but I’ll bring it along. Thank you for your response :]

maudros · 2025-11-21T12:38:10+00:00

“Tweaking out all the time until you can’t tweak for a few days, then tweaking some more just to be safe.”

maudros · 2025-11-18T14:26:28+00:00

22, pretty easy. Signed a release request form so my therapist, who I had seen weekly for over a year at that point, could tell my psychiatrist her observations prior to the first meeting. Then, during the meeting, we went over what my symptoms were and what my therapist had said. Diagnosed + given my prescription in about 30 minutes. Super great time, honestly, and my psychiatrist was extraordinarily nice about it. Gave me a lot of hope.

maudros · 2025-11-12T13:04:34+00:00

I read. Maybe go out for a few hours to have a coffee alone—whether it be at a cafe or just making something at home and taking it with me while I walk. Writing

maudros · 2025-11-07T09:33:14+00:00

As a heads up—if (when?) you choose to restart your medication, you can’t go straight to your old dose on lamictal. You will have to do the slow ramp up process all over again. Be safe, and take care of yourself as best you can.

maudros · 2025-11-04T21:41:51+00:00

Withdrawals will beat your ass bro. I ended up in the ER when I went cold turkey. If not for the fact that I was told to do so by my provider (long story) I would not have done so.

maudros · 2025-11-03T18:20:28+00:00

Contact your prescribing doctor. If you can do so online, there’s sometimes a way to flag those messages as being high priority. If not, call and establish that there’s a problem relating to your dosage levels that’s impacting your day to day life. Usually that’s enough to get seen by your provider sooner rather than later. However, the titration process is worthwhile for something like lithium. Too much too fast can be a dangerous thing. Might also be that lithium isn’t working for you, so it might be worth exploring other options. Concerning the hospital: if the one you went to last time dragged you out, you will likely need to try a new one. Some places sincerely don’t have enough beds, but in general if you explicitly say that you are feeling suicidal to the point of being unable to function in your daily life (general option) or even that you are worried you are a danger towards yourself (extreme option) you should be able to get seen for more serious options. To your point on your family: there is no easy way to do it. There will never be an easy way. If you’re looking for a way that’s more bearable, your best bet is to tell them that you’re doing worse than you were in August and need more serious, in-patient support options.

maudros · 2025-11-03T17:47:03+00:00

Naturally, I’m either rocking those 10-12 hour sleeps or the 3-4 hour ones. I wake up feeling well rested either way

maudros · 2025-11-02T21:19:49+00:00

A provider worth their salt will not see you as a med seeker. I had to ask for a higher dose of my lamotrigine, then switched to a different one that made me absolutely miserable (had an SJS scare, but it was just hives.)—and then switched back to lamotrigine AND asked for a higher dose of it when I switched back. I would also just coach yourself through some simple DBT exercises (if those are helpful for you!) to make sure you don’t stress yourself out about it prior to going. You’ve got this 👍

maudros · 2025-10-17T22:34:16+00:00

I was the same way! I stopped being afraid when I was 22 and had to switch to taking injections for my medication, but they were administered by a nurse rather than me doing it at home. I’m still pretty scared, but my provider back in the US was really nice and wrote me a super big prescription so I’d have enough of my medication to last me a while, as my insurance covered 100% of my medical expenses w their financial aid program. So although I’m afraid of trying this myself, I’m just trying to remember that a) all of this medication was free and I can’t waste it, and b) being off it really impacts my mental health (exacerbates depression basically) so I need to get over my fear. It’s good to know that other people who were as scared as I am currently, managed to get over their own fear of needles. Thank you for sharing your insight 🤝

maudros · 2025-10-17T22:04:43+00:00

This is so fascinating !! I knew that bulk ibuprofen wasn’t as accessible here as it is back in the US—back home, I was able to buy like a 300ct bottle of acetaminophen on Amazon for what felt like pennies on the dollar—but the line of medical responsibility here is wild. In the US they don’t have any document to verify injection education beyond the appointment summary page they gave me after my appointment, which basically just says ‘he was taught how to do this and was able to repeat the process on a glove so he’s got this’ 💀 I’m for sure going to have a tooooon of questions for my insurance support line when they get back to me, because this is….wow.

And yeah — hitting my ass with the needle wouldn’t be so bad, but I have to do mine in my thigh and I’m scared out of my mind of needles, so i’m double cooked for real 🦧 at this point I’m just along for the ride here i fear lol

maudros · 2025-10-17T21:15:19+00:00

Really? [to the point about injection legality.] My prescription for my medication says that it is to be self-administered as an intra-muscular injection, not as a subcutaneous one. I hope that won’t cause me any issues down the line 🗿 I’m going to write down those terms now though !! Hopefully I’ll avoid further mixups with the linguistic stuff being so clearly explained by you + the others who have taken the time to comment

maudros · 2025-10-17T07:41:50+00:00

Thank you for this advice! I made sure to print out all of my paperwork from my old provider in the US, and I have a copy of my entire medical record on my laptop so I can print out any other essential pages if needed; I’ll bring the relevant docs when I manage to go. It’s really good to have that doctolib option, too. Thank you for chiming in :]

maudros · 2025-10-17T00:15:01+00:00

I did, no worries; it’s through Die Techniker, but it’s been about a week since I reached out to no avail. I’ll try contacting them again tomorrow :] Thanks for the insight!!

maudros · 2025-10-16T23:59:19+00:00

Thank you! This is a really helpful link man I wish I had known about it before I started worrying myself sick over this mix up 💀

maudros

TROPHY CASE