I imagine it's pretty par for the course, but I've done some whacky stuff during manic phases. I think fortunately (??) since I tend to get really paranoid, for the most part people around me don't really know the extent to which I've gone off the rails. But I had one specific 3 week episode that like, haunts me to this day. I was incredibly fixated on the idea that I was deeply in love with this random person I hadn't talked to for years. I lived in a different state from them, which is what probably saved me from doing anything really really weird, but I was still really obsessive about it. Like, I stalked them online incredibly hard. 

Not in the sense of just looking at their social media, but I found their address, phone number, family members, etc. I literally dug through everything online I could find about anyone that was linked to them online, I'd stare at their house on google maps and read every single post on their mom's facebook account. I found their phone number and called it just so I could hear their voicemail, found videos of them online through other people's social media accounts and re-watched them for hours, etc. I'm fairly sure that if I had been physically able to do it, I very likely would have ended up camping outside of their house just so I could see them.

Obviously I'm aware that everything about this was incredibly invasive, disturbing, and morally wrong. When the manic phase ended and I returned to a not completely off the rails mental state, I immediately felt really disgusted with myself. Like, I really firmly believe in the importance of privacy and respecting other people's boundaries. If I knew someone had done this to me, I'd feel incredibly unsafe and violated. but that doesn't change the fact that I literally stalked someone for 3 weeks and at no point during that time did I ever feel like I was anything other than justified and deserved in doing so.

I'm on meds now and I haven't had any bad episodes ever since I started taking them. I feel a lot more stable than before (still unstable, but it's manageable now). But as much as I want to tell myself that it was 100% the mental illness and that it wasn't "me", I don't think it's true; like how can I say that it'll never happen again if I didn't think I would ever do something like that in the first place?

 I've been terrified of being in a romantic relationship ever since because I feel like I'm a bad person and a possible danger to people around me. like, if anybody knew about this, they'd be disturbed, and I've tried very hard to hide the fact that I did anything in the first place. But at the same time, that 3-week span of my life has ended up deeply impacting my view of myself and my approach towards relationships, and it just feels like I can never be truly honest with anyone close to me. it just makes me feel like I can never trust myself again, if that makes sense? I just want to have a normal life and have a significant other that I can be honest with, but now I feel like it's impossible for me to be safe and healthy for another person to be with.

has anybody experienced something like this? how would I even fix this? even though I've been so much better since I went on meds, I feel like I'm just waiting for the axe to drop because how can I say for sure that I won't end up doing something worse in the future?