Well, I do also do some things for no apparent (at least as far as I can tell) reason. Not dangerous things, but weird things like laughing. When I get asked why I'm laughing I can't even find a reason. I just felt like laughing. That is what I consider doing something "just because."

There are probably similar cognitive reasons for why I do these things and why manic people just do things, namely poor impulse control. However, as you no doubt already know, you can't simply take a symptom and go "Symptom A is a sign of Disorder B."

Also, with poor impulse control, the action occurs pretty much simultaneously with the impulse. Their is essentially no conscious thought involved. When I was climbing buildings, I would plan my route to the top (because I was lazy and didn't want to have to come down halfway to find another way), so it was definitely not doing it on an impulse.

That's one of the most obvious symptoms, yes. Though, I also miss a lot of what to other people would be obvious clues.

Good points, but I can assure you I'm not bipolar.

I'm not saying you're saying that... I mean your not saying your saying she said he said.. what?

Speak for yourselves

I know... I meant yourselves as in you and all your multiple personalities.

I didn't know which of you I was talking to.

It is kind of what I did, and the second paragraph what I do now with my time off (but then, I am exhausted during my time off). I used to do this sort of thing, when I was younger...

I have had 24 motorcycle accidents and a number of other close calls doing other risky stuff, including climbing a known active volcano (Tungurahua) and it erupting when I was almost at the summit (ruined a camera with ash). I started BMX at 10 years old and I think the number of times I skinned my elbows or cracked my head (no helmet, in those early days!) at the skating rink must exceed 100. I was always elated for days after these events, even if I was injured, and I still regard them as the high points of my existence. Colors were brighter, senses sharper, time slower; that sort of stuff. Golden moments. The low used to come when I had to get down to picking up the pieces after the crashes, which was always a long and costly process, especially with the motorcycles.

This I still do, though infrequently now...

...and though people laugh with me to start with, they soon stop and wonder why I have not. It is uncontrollable, and the subject that started it keeps coming back and tickling me again. It is hilarious.

Finally, 8 years ago, I got this, too.

Don't know about the Dysthymia bit, and I did not take anything except painkillers (and it was the worst pain I have known). Likewise, I have never gone to a doctor because of my "things", I just regard it as part of my character. Anyway, I overworked myself into a physical wreck by single-handedly taking on a task at work that nobody wanted to touch even as a team. It was like a dare, or a personal crusade for me, and I did it, but at a cost. Still have parethsesia in zones down my left arm and in my hand (two fingers and thumb), and pain in my shoulder. I also got and still have IBS, during that period. Maybe it was related.

I still do a very high profile job (a well known, high stress job), with up to twelve hours of duty period in 24, six days a week, with a highly variable time table (ie; any time my cell phone rings, sometimes at 03:00 HRS). I would feel dead without that job, now, and it has taught me responsibility and a high regard for safety.

You know, this thread is the first time in my existence that I have been able to address these issues, just because there are other people describing similar things? It really is a lonely, cold world.

well I am a weirdo, but thats a completely separate issue

That's when you sue your therapist for putting you in a room full of boring normals.

You are definitely not alone. I have had clinical depression all my life. I have been fighting it big time for the last year and haven't been able to work for the last 2 mos. I have taken anti-depressant for the last 15yrs and they were working great until I hit menopause, sorry guys I have to bring up the word, it screws with our hormones and makes everything that was working STOP! So what is my point? I am not sure there is one, I am still struggling, I go back to work 5/20 because I have a mortage to pay and can't afford not to but sucide is never an option. It only hurts those who love you. So you put one foot in front of the other, that is as soon as you force yourself to roll over and set up and keep on movin because there are no do overs in life.

Buddhists have been saying for millenia, that there is no single I, if at all. It seems that we are composite minds that move and change all the time, it is only our struggling to maintain a sense of identity that causes mental anguish. This is something I tend to grok with sombunal the times.
It also seems (and in all cases I can only ever speak for myself), that silencing the internal dialogue through "meditation" has given me the gratuitous grace that I long for, though I find it difficult to maintain this inner peace for long in my environment. Particularly for no reason I seem to love thinking, the pointless art of philosophy. Though equally I am aware that it seems my best thoughts are not thunked, but rather arise seemingly spontaneously. I am also learning that I am not my thoughts, and that it is just one part of my consciousness, which extends in many non-verbal/linguistic areas/experiences. Indeed my consciousness seems to escape this mortal coil, and sometimes it is hard to know where I am meant to stop outside of the bio-feedback I receive from the traditional physical senses. It seems there are as many if not more "me's" as there are people in the world. I would tentatively suggest we are all "connected" but I don't want to speculate more, as it involves personally experiences, the content of which would be likely meaningless to another.

Anyway I think my depression is a fucking fantastic thing, that at least reminds me I am not a robot running on a shitty operating system, like the rest of the somnambulists around me. I have also learnt to be discrete about my feelings, thoughts and experiences as "they" seem quite ready to crucify anyone for speaking out of turn.

I also find programming helps my depression, especially dealing with so many "maybes", possibilities, potentialities, miracles, and other flux like mutable realities. There is something reassuring and logical about coding, knowing that for the most part I control all the variables, and if something does not work the way I intended, it is due to my own mistake/lack of comprehension, and something that I can rectify, overcome. There is comfort in those 1's and O's.

N.B. None of the above requires the presence of any flying spaghetti monster from outer-space.

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http://www.explosm.net/comics/3171/