I experienced something like this in my early twenties. It was very scary. I was fully incapacitated for two weeks where I couldn't do anything or make decisions, even play games, and I couldn't touch code for months.

I pushed myself too hard with too little sleep and that was combined with pressure from family.

There was a feeling in my mind of something snapping and it was like throwing a switch. One minute I was tired but still myself, the next I was incapacitated, delusional, paranoid, unable to sleep or relax or focus.

Have you recovered entirely by now? How long did the symptoms last for to get back to normal, did you take other measures to recover or just giving some time and less stress did it for you?

I took lexapro (anti depression drug, ssri class drug). It took about 1 month to be mostly functional again and about six months to be back to normal.

I took all the pressure off, stopped coding but continued university. I still finished the semester with excellent grades - but it was business school.

Never experienced anything like that ever again. I work hard, usually 7 days a week, but I'm careful not to push past my limits and I keep stress down, exercise, sleep well, and try to eat healthyish.

Thanks for sharing the details. Glad you made it through pretty fast, sounds like a valuable experience to know your limits.

That physiological (it seems phy to my lay self) snap at the onset is really interesting.

Is the understanding that it is a TIA/mini stroke?

I don't think so, but I remember the moment it happened. That day I was feeling more stretched and tired than I've ever been. It was the last day of university before spring break. Then my parents started pressuring me over my recently declared non belief in Christianity, and I felt like something in my "spirit", just broke or snapped in that moment. It was clearly defined instant in time where I was completely changed afterwards. I don't remember if it was like a physical pop, but I knew as soon as I felt it that something in my brain had just dramatically changed for the worse.

The words on that webpage were in no way what I was expecting when I clicked on that link.

I wonder, what could other people have done differently, so that you'd found help sooner?

What signs could they have reacted to, and then done what, I wonder, in case I meet someone with similar undiagnosed bipolar some day?

Nice sketches -- I wonder, you sketch the avatar (the wolf / wild dog) yourself? Seems like fun.

Do you still experience yourself as a wolf with paws and wind in your fur?

No, but I have developed a different issue with disassociation.

If I’m outside under bright sunlight in an open area, I can sometimes see trees starting to become pixelated. I slowly find myself thinking in a character in a video game. This is somewhat dangerous. Actions in a video game generally has few meaningful little consequences. In the real world, death has a annoying tendency to be rather permanent.

This will sound very stupid or like a joke, but I'm not joking: Maybe if you play (almost) exclusively games with permadeath, where the consequences of dying are bigger, could at least hard-wire some kind of survival instinct in your head in case you get lost in this surreal feeling? In the worst case scenario you played some good games.

I don't think it's stupid or a joke. It's actually a pretty interesting suggestion that may work pretty well under different circumstances. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to focus on video games for a long time. What little energy left after work goes into the continuous maintenance that is life (showering, eating, cleaning). Sometimes I have enough focus left to sacrifice one of those to write stories.