Hi everyone, I'm in my 20s, Male, single.
I have either mild-to-moderate bipolar (as a psychiatrist claimed) or extreme mood swings. Been on tonnes of medications of which none worked.

I also suffer from:
Social anxiety, ADHD, ODD

I've previously suffered immensely from panic attacks (for around 10yrs of which the first few years were crazy which ruined years of my life (from a human point of view - obviously from G-D's point of view it was all for the best)).
I'm seeing an amazing therapist who successfully helped me overcome the panic attacks and is trying to help me overcome my lifelong social anxiety.
When I told him I was watching p*rn, he helped me stop (basically I had managed to uninstall the filter and was too afraid to tell anyone besides him (and even then it took a few months to work up the courage during which I became more and more addicted to p*rn) but he helped me get around that fear of telling someone and get the filter reinstalled and have someone else have the password) but he told me that seeing as I have social anxiety and therefore crave connecting with people which is very hard to fulfill due to the social anxiety, therefore it is possible I became addicted to p*rn as the content is considered like people connecting, is there any truth in that?

I haven't admitted to him that I have been doing hz"l for 2yrs but i have spoke to him alot about addictions in general and with his help I've been able to reduce the frequency and then stop hz"l except in the following scenario:

If I'm in a negative bipolar mood swing (which coincidentally hypersexual feelings are a common sympton) I can't control myself and stop myself. It is easier to control myself for a week if I don't have a negative mood swing than it is for even 20mins of a negative mood swings+hypersexual feelings. I don't think I'm addicted to hz"l as it seems if I would only have none negative mood swings I would be able to stop completely.

During a negative mood swing my mind turns on a "I don't care" attitude. Therefore if I try tapschic I will just be oiver on the shvuah.

what is the best method to help me stop for my particular circumstances seeing as i dont think this I'm addicted? (current frequency is approx once a week - down from upto 4 times a day)

BipolarMe wrote on 13 Apr 2018 13:00:

You have a therapist- you should really open up and tell him what you need to. Secrets from him aren’t helping you, and secrets in general are toxic. You may have bipolar but some of what you describe doesn’t sound any different than a million people here.

I’ll go out on a limb here and say that if you open up to your therapist, and work on issues of secrets and shame, you will see an upswing in your mental health. 

Workingguy wrote on 15 Apr 2018 23:12:

is this a share or advice?

ieeyc wrote on 16 Apr 2018 01:56:

Both. I’ve had periods early on where I thought holding things back from my therapist was better for me, and then when I opened up to him and my Rebbi, I saw how much better it was to get it out in the open. 

And that seems to be the majority of experiences here, and considering that it is pretty central to the whole effectiveness of therapy, I’m comfortable giving it as advice, because even if it doesn’t improve things in regard to acting out, it will be better for therapy. 

Welcome! Ditto to WG.  If you have a good therapist, make the best of it.  Keep posting.

Hi username: Bipolarme,I also have Bipolar and ADHD. I can very much relate to what you are saying (you are not addicted but every now and then have moods where you completely don't care and therefore it seems impossible to get help). Personally, it effects much of my Avodas Hashem...especially keeping Minhagim such as waiting 6 hours after eating meat to eat dairy..to doing anything which is not a clear cut de'oreisa or darabanan..this can even include maariv and krias shma al hamitah. For me I know when my attention deficit is treated with an amphetamine I become a serious Ben Torah. Except for this addiction...but even for the addiction I'M Significantly better..and with meds like depakote it's greatly improved. In general those moods of not caring tend to be less on the amphetamine and my shmiras einayim is better on Vyvanse in particular (as opposed to Adderall). Ritalin makes the issue much worse. I struggle however because the amphetamines tend to make the bipolar worse (as opposed to Ritalin). If you have any advice for me please let me know. Btw this is in response to a post you put over a year ago..i haven't seen the updates in your situation

Hi Shmuu
Glad to have found someone who can relate to my "dont care" attitude. I can def relate to some of what you posted. My circumstances have changed somewhat from the post i wrote 3 years ago (still have a lot of issues, some have improved somewhat, whilst others have worsened, and some new ones appeared, but overall my day-to-day "moods" have improved immensely). I survive day-to-day moods using tonnes of different coping techniques, and I am happy to share them.
I noticed your reply is from 1.5 years ago, are you still around on this site?

I'm looking at this sight for the first time in many months if not years. I see that the title to this forum says bi-polar. That is of interest to me. 

I'm confused...am I the one who started this forum? It's been such a long time ago I don't remember.

BipolarMe wrote on 13 Apr 2018 13:00:

First of all, welcome!  I defintiely can relate to the fact that when I go into deep depressions, I also have the "I don't care, it's not like I will ever make it to Olam HaBa anyway" attitude and go the whole 9 falling hard.

I currently see a therapist for depression/anxiety that specializes in addiction.  After I found that out after not knowing at first, I opened up about everything, not only to the therapist, but my immediate family about my M/P addiction and it has been extremely helpful.

Keep posting & hazlocha.
חג כשר ושמח

Hi ILFT,
It's been 3 years again since I'm seeing your message. I don't remember if I responded or not. For the most part I have not been around but I'm around tonight. Are you still around here? 

HiI know your post is from 6 years ago but a response might still be helpful. I think you articulated your different categories well. I was wondering if you would be able to use the shvua method but include in the shvua that this shvua does not apply when I'm in a negative mood and etc... I'm only asking this question. My thinking is that in theory this might work if the negative mood is also clearly defined (like a watch that turns black when in bad mood). But since the negative mood is never really clearly defined it could serve as a justification to transgress the shvua. On the other hand, there might be a way to put that into the shvua as well. This would greatly limit what the shvua is capable of doing since it would only be valid in limited circumstances. Nonetheless, it would be valid when your clearly .not in a negative mood and would work at least in that situation. 

The challenges I had due to bipolar disorder were only when I had negative moods and the Taphsic method would be useless, probably increasing anxiety and causing a higher frequency of falls. I found Urge Surfing, SOBER, journaling, exercise and Connection to be the best tools for negative moods of anxiety due to bipolar disorder. I found Exercise and Connection to be the best tools on GYE for depression. I haven't had hypersexuality or severe mania since joining GYE and I don't know of a solution. I assume that some of the things I mentioned will work for mania but I never had the chance to try them out and I don't know whether there is a solution for hypersexuality.

Hi yitchakm,
It looks like you just replied to me. If so, thats pretty cool because our other comments were seperated by 1.5 to 3 years. 
If I'm hearing you right, you are saying that since joining GYE you haven't experienced hypersexual severe mania unlike before you joined. I assume that you are making this connection as being more than just coincidence. Are you able to share to what you attribute this level of healing to? 

I learned through GYE how to highly regulate my mood through all the techniques I mentioned in my post. Although I joined GYE because of M, GYE was the best tool I ever had to heal from bipolar disorder. I have a therapist and I journal on Word in detail throughout the week everything I am experiencing that effects my mood or feels significant. I resolve 2/3 of my issues simply by journaling and the other third by sharing my journal with my therapist and discussing what I wrote. It makes therapy extremely effective and my therapist is having a blast because he has everything that is going on in my mind expressed clearly in writing. I journal when I have severe anxiety in a different format that I described in my post on December 31st. ​I frequently listen to Urge Surfing and SOBER audio exercises I redeemed with coins. I have a list of cues and appropriate responses from the toolbox and some additional responses that work for me and I already worked out well what to do in every situation. I had to update my list many times but recently I haven't had sexual urges and I already know the appropriate responses for negative moods without thinking. Posting on the forum is a form of Connection and it does a good job at regulating my mood.

I post my daily progress on the dashboard, including whether I had urges, the intensity and what I did to overcome them. At the moment I have a low sexual drive due to medication but I still have negative moods which are my urges when I do have a sex drive. Therefore, I write in my daily progress chart that I had an urge if I had a negative mood even if it wasn't sexual, and I write the mood intensity and what I did to overcome the mood. I then copy and paste what I wrote onto my journal so that my therapist reads it.

Before joining GYE I had panic attacks and now I can get anxiety but it doesn't lead to panic attacks, acting out or getting into a fight with anyone. I am very prepared and I use my techniques immediately when the negative moods surface so they usually don't have the time to develop into something serious. Occasionally my anxiety level is high due to having too many triggers at once but I live with my family peacefully because I don't get overwhelmed by it. I treat it on my own, sometimes with medication but usually with the techniques I wrote in my previous post until it dissipates. Since my mood is regulated the risk of mania is much lower than it was before joining GYE.

My intention when joining GYE was to treat M but as you can see I benefited from GYE more than I could have imagined in my wildest dream. I am forever grateful to Dr. Avrohom Yehoshua Twerski z"tzl for his input, to the GYE founders, staff and donors, and to the people posting for everything they have done so I can heal.