Hypersexuality in Bipolar Disorder - Why Does It Happen?

You had asked us to share experience w this... recognizing hypersexual feelings is a great way to be aware of impending mania. It sounds weird, but i used to not be able to tell until hit with the aftermath. I still can miss the symptoms sometimes. It sounds implausible, but it doesnt come on as concrete, conscious thought.

i become hyper-social, have been told i am unusually charming and funny; act archly flirtatious.... social rules don't apply in this state, & I'm unconcerned with marital/relationships status, if they are a consenting adult and i fancy them i have zero shame. And zero preferences for female, male, or any other gender expression. When emotionally sober, i skew mostly straight.

I also have minimal concern for self control/decency - which has been embarrassing after mania fades into drpression/shame. What i mean is i haven't been too discrete about the act or the location.

What helps me immensely to minimize fallout:
Correct medication
Med compliance
Cbt and dbt classes
An understanding, nonjudgemental therapist who holds me accountable

Another help is having a plan:
When notice triggers/indicators of behavior, i
- slow down (am usually tearing around)
- shut up ( i have become glib, seductive)
get to safe space to regroup (my home, work rest or breakroom, my car -somewhere w some privacy)
- take an antianxiety med
-short nap or soothing rest(have blanket, pillow in car), something calming to distract
Or take walk, some physical chore

If i can go home, i allow myself time to "take care of myself" as long as doesn't interfere w chores, job, relationships. I even schedule in time for this before/after work or other event, anytime i can do so discretely, in privacy of room. If have partner, i discuss w them, let them know what's going on. I let them tell me frequency they are comfortable with, and then let them reap the whirlwind!

If not in relationship/seeing someone, i try to just self-please. I've found my judgement so poor during these times that, though consenting adults, it seems to always lead to trouble.

If i can recognize the subtler behaviors before feelings hit, i can mitigate some of the damage.

Writing frankly here embarasses me, but hope it helps someone.

I’m super blessed, after 10 years of marriage, didn’t cheat, my wife lets me hit it when I’m manic and she’s good looking. Thank God.

How on earth could anyone want a relationship with a person like this...

I have been masturbating a LOT lately! I regularly have a HIGH sex drive but it gets a little tooo much sometimes. My partner sat me down last week to converse about me wearing him out. It’s like when I’m manic my clit throbs all day! Horrible!

Hi. I have recently found your channel. My fiancé has been diagnosed with Bipolar. He is incarcerated. The prison only provides Lithium which he has a reaction to. Mental health is not addressed there at all. And the diagnosis was briefly mentioned, in less than 5 minutes.
Is there anything I can help him with? Certain books maybe? I tried to send him Bipolar workbooks but the mailroom denies them as “threatening nature”.
He has spent about 15 years in Solitary Confinement due to prison structure and now it’s a different facility where he is suddenly around a lot of people and adjustment is difficult.

My father has undiagnosed bipolar disorder. He repeatedly cheated on my mother with several women. He now has 20 children. None of us are in his life because he's severely unstable and abusive. I remember as a kid he would be gone for weeks then return home and act as if he hadn't just abandoned us and went on a cheating binge. As a kid I knew something was wrong with him but it wasn't until I was diagnosed with mixed bipolar that I fully understood my father's ways.

Hahaha omg Dr marks showing up in the dreams so funny

Interesting!

This women nails it. I overeat, watch lots of tv and lately drink first thing when I wake up.

Nice content, thanks a lot for sharing. Tks for Brasil.

Sex positive therapy and therapist, please go visit one. We are very holistic and we help you with out of control sexual behaviour. We will equip you with strategies and psycho Ed to recognise it, manage it and cope with it.

I get this when I’m drunk and can’t help commenting about everything even if it has nothing to do with me

I’m watching porn while watching this so I think it’s time to seek help

thanks video helped alot

Honestly tired of bipolar people

My ex cheatec on me when i told her to take her illnesses seriously

I found ma problem … omg 🤦🏿‍♂️🤦🏿‍♂️🫶🏿🫶🏿

Thank you Dr Marks for your insight, you are so right. Shame, confusion and a deep feeling of being alone are also after effects. Appreciate you, Dr. Marks

I've managed to control myself by bottling everything up and resisting temptations to indulge myself in the swamp of impulsive cravings. I'll never let myself unravel like that again. I would've became a womanizer and a drug addict if I listened to my cravings. Thankfully, I stopped doing drugs and stayed away from the hard stuff despite the kind of circle I hung with... I let myself go one time and hooked up at a party when I was younger. Now I stay away from romance and burn bridges with any potential partners who take interest in me. After everything I've been through and put others through, I'd rather suffer in silence than setting myself on fire and burning everyone around me. I know this is unhealthy and will take a toll on my life, but it is what it is. When you hit a breaking point after diving deep into yourself and assessing the madness within you, you come to a realization that life has so much potential and everyone is a manfestation of something much more beautiful. So while suffering sucks, you learn a lot and I'll do anything to not contribute to the devlish influences that plagues this world

I have depression and love addiction. I recently had a manic episode. I had become involved with a family friend that had a sexual adfiction. I became manic in breaking off what I saw as an oncoming train wreck. Lots of masterbation with both parties - loss of friendship - split with my sister that sees this guy as a victim.

For me, social media has really made my hypersexuality harder to control. Its so easy to be overly flirtatious in a virtual message. I've found disabling my accounts for breaks is the only way to help.

So I have a friend who is hyper sexual from abuse as a child (and a rape at 15). While I get that she's doing it as part of control, it leads to constant abuse and self destruction. Every single man who comes into her love abuses her and takes advantage of her condition, and disappear...which makes her feel even worse. It just leads to endless loops. She's a beautiful young lady who is slowly becoming less beautiful, desperate to get married and will never get there based on this behaviour. Solving it is the big thing, how the F does someone solve it. She refuses counselling. Trying to help her is like being dragged down into quicksand.

I think I had my first maniac episode 2 weeks ago. I had the urge to have sex with other guys that were not my boyfriend (I didn't cheat). I had sexual fantasies all the time and couldn't concentrate on my homework. I even almost broke up with my bf😢 It lasted about two or three weeks, and looking back I don't recognize myself

I become hypersexual if and when I become sleep deprived.

Thank you

I have BP2, adhd, gad, and ptsd that I know so far. These things you speak of have all happened to me. However, my hyper sex drive doesn't die in depression phase, it can increase as a stimulant to FEEL better. Short lived. For some of us bipolar, we can't tell if we are manic, depressed, or cycling fast or confused or misdiagnosed. One thing is for sure with myself, I have to have masturbation almost twice daily.😮

its to bad i got such crappy doctors and no other choice being on Medicaid

Is it possible to have bp only in that part ? And other parts of your life is under control? Like my biggest problem is sex ! I try my best to control it but I feel like there is a huge energy speaking inside me all day and I don't know what to do with it

Struggling with my relationship with my husband. He has bipolar disorder and abuses substances such as alcohol and weed. The weed keeps him manic. The whole time he’s manic he’s very hyper sexual, and wants me to act out all of his porn fantasies on him (which are not just normal heterosexual things, but require great physical effort, stamina, and creativity on my part, and require me to want to be "dominant"). I am a new mom with another on the way, and he does not help me with any of our life's responsibilities besides going to work. Thus, I am usually quite exhausted and don’t get enough sleep. If I say I’m too tired to be dominant, but I’d still like to be intimate, he has no interest and feels rejected by me, and instead watches porn. Porn has caused so many issues in our relationship. I could handle if he just masturbated without porn, but his porn habit radically shifts things in our sex life and causes me so much more stress.
There are so many areas of our relationship that are struggling, as he has little interest in spending time with me or our child, and expects to be cared for like a child himself. But the sexual expectations are the icing on the cake.
In our entire relationship, I have managed to keep a fiery attraction to him despite his manipulation and abuse. As more pressure gets placed on me, and he acts more careless and selfish, I am losing attraction for him and struggling to have sexual interest anymore. I have always been the one in our relationship to initiate sex, and have wanted to be sexually active most days of the week. His behavior is starting to change that for me though, and I’m not sure how much longer I can stand it. He says life isn’t fun without substances, and that when he’s on his meds he doesn’t feel like himself. I can’t force him to do anything, and he refuses therapy or couples counseling. He also cheated on me years back, and blames me for it.
I love him and want to spend the rest of my life with him, but I feel like I can’t be a good mother with him acting this way. He is not behaving like a good husband or father, more like a rebellious teenager who is sticking it to his parents. Not sure what to do so I’m finally considering separation. It breaks my heart and brings me so much distress, but so does staying with him. I don’t want my daughter to grow up with him and look for a man to marry who is like him. I don’t want my son to grow up and treat his future wife the way my husband treats me.
When I mention divorce, he’s all on board, saying he just wants freedom and someone who will have all the sex he wants. He says these things when he’s manic, which is most of the time. He’s not okay, and he knows it, but he refuses to get help. He lies to his psychiatrist about taking his meds.
Yeah I’m really just feeling like I am out of options at this point. I have put up with so much over the years, and he has continued to worsen and become more abusive. I’m exhausted. I need advice.

Relate much to this, I just got my diagnosis of bipolar 2 disorder. Looking back I've had days where half of my day would be spent watching p*rn as I'm trying to satisfy myself w/o going out and having casual s*x

Hyper-sexuality during manic phase is so dangerous. It causes a lot of embarrassment and even romance fraud if you happen to connect with someone on social media. All other symptoms of manic phase also compounding the result because a manic depressive excessive talking and articulation and willingness to spend money on the other prey or predator! Sometimes I might think that bipolar is some curse from above for some grave sin, but how popular it is and how indifferent to who you are makes it a unanimous wrath. I really think that the partner has much to do with it. Some partners take advantage of the surge in sexual desire of the manic person and start to place unusual demands on the manic even use their sexual needs met with deprivation as a way to punish for past events or get a sense of importance the need for which wasn’t manifested before. Bipolar is more serious than I thought and it should qualify for hospitalization but much more of a resort environment except for close supervision. What do you think?

I was diagnosed with Satyriasis. After your page trying to find help with a situation I’m dealing with in my Polly relationship, I am realizing that so many dots are connecting. I don’t want to be on meds (I’m a vegan and a naturalist) but I hate having triggers that add to my hyper sexuality because it’s a pacifier/ coping device cause it’s so natural to flow with a constant desire. It’s only a year and with 1 real major hiccup I don’t want to allow this to be a killer off my relationship. It’s like aDr Hyde and Mr. Hyde (yes Hyde it’s always there but worse at times than others).

I was diagnosed with Satyriasis. After your page trying to find help with a situation I’m dealing with in my Polly relationship, I am realizing that so many dots are connecting. I don’t want to be on meds (I’m a vegan and a naturalist) but I hate having triggers that add to my hyper sexuality because it’s a pacifier/ coping device cause it’s so natural to flow with a constant desire. It’s only a year and with 1 real major hiccup I don’t want to allow this to be a killer off my relationship. It’s like aDr Hyde and Mr. Hyde (yes Hyde it’s always there but worse at times than others).

What sexuality.....

I am a 22 year old virgin who doesn’t have much sexual experience. I haven’t been diagnosed with bipolar disorder but I think I may have it and when I started antidepressants I was horny all the ducking time!!!!!! Then eventually I wasn’t horny anymore but I was always thinking about sex and just needed to be touched by someone I was attracted to. I was literally always masturbating and always thinking about how it would be like to have sex. Now it feels like I have no sex drive at all and I had to throw away my vibrators because I was masturbating while not eve being horny/turned on. The orgasms weren’t even real orgasms anymore!!! I was just bored and lonely. Now I can’t wait until I start being able to be turned on again

Am using resperidone But am so much suffering with lose of libido some time i fail to have sex totally please help me.

omg this is so s[pot on to what im going through ... no wonder i feel so conflicted.

i sometimes forget to tell my partners i have a hypersexuality and i hate when i do it and when i tell them i feel so bad cause i didnt tell them before and i feel like im in a episode right now because i got depressed a while ago and it gets worse cause ive been off my meds for a year

Thank you. Can you do a video on ADHD with sexual compulsion? And video on sexual compulsion versus sexual addiction?

Also a result of being sa,d

The reason why I am visiting this site is because of the experience I had on public transportation today. When I stepped onto the bus I noticed that it was a female driver and there weren't many people on the bus. I sat in the back close to the door. I noticed that a young guy shoulders were moving. I said to myself I know this guy isn't doing what I think he's doing...sure enough when I was exiting the bus his genitals was out. I became extremely concerned for the female bus driver and warned her because the bus was getting emptier as she drove closer to the end of the line. Luckily an elderly man said he was riding with her to the end of the line. Also , as an elder I had a few choice words for this young man and he got off. My question is how long can this go on before its considered a threat and or dangerous? This was a young man! Why isn't this country not taking mental illness more serious? I'm still trying to unsee what I saw! This happened in broad daylight! Please do more on this topic because it's getting scary.

As a man I really appreciate the car analogies lol

Can I ask a question? I'm not bipolar but chronic major depression and PTSD. My psychiatrist and I started a med change, and I feel like I'm experiencing hypersexuality. Is this common?

Hi thanks the video is very helpful.

You post great content, but to be blunt, I don't understand how a responsible psychologist can normalize pornography. The research has been done and it's incredibly addictive and incredibly destructive.

But why don't they just have sex with their partner instead of going outside of the relationship?

I follow you and have learned a lot. I have bipolar 1 and have struggled since childhood.
I just watched your video about hypersexu😅

I’m so thankful that I’ve seen your video. I know that I know I am bipolar and hyper sexual everything that you just said is something that I experience and my relationship partner asked me to stop doing to her but I have to and I feel so much shame and guilt And she knows I love her but I just abuse her when I’m in a manic state, I thought I just like experience and some intimacy a lot a didn’t know I was being excessive I was triggered everybody wanted to have sex like that but they certainly don’t. My sweetheart is gone as we speak and that’s why I’m watching this video. Thanking you because I’m definitely gonna go to the doctors tomorrow and talk to them about bipolar disorder medication treatment.

Is it true that predatory people like sociopaths like to become therapists?