Mania, Meds & Awesome Shrinks

So if you happened to read my last few rather novelesque blog posts I would like to apologise for the format and the whinging. My mania escalated somewhat and after averaging around an hours sleep a night for quite a while there and being unable to hold my shit together in public an emergency visit to my psychiatrist ensued and meds were increased and Valium was added to help me sleep.

As I think I have mentioned before my psychiatrist is absolutely amazing, she is an empathetic and kind woman who actually provides proper talk therapy as well as writing scripts. She also takes the time to explain everything she is doing and her reasons why.

She and I both want me to stay out of hospital if at all possible as she understands my family dynamics and how impulsively I can act when I feel like I am trapped and agrees that that situation isn’t likely to actually help me but just complicate matters at this point. 

She also is acutely aware of the ‘higher the high the lower the low’ issue with bipolar and wants to bring me down firmly but steadily to hopefully reduce the depths of the low that will no doubt follow rather than with a sudden massive dose of meds as they would in hospital which will make me crash head first into depression.

We are very mindful of this particularly at the moment as I am getting very easily irritated and angry when my senses are overloaded and it is now the first week of the two week Easter school holidays here and we discussed ways of coping with having the four children home all day fighting and asking for things and – well, being normal children I guess! 

The other issue that was quietly hiding in the background and is now becoming a bigger problem again is my eating disorder. The tablets seem to make me nauseous and supress my appetite, although I was feeling funny & less hungry before I started taking them too so it’s hard to tell what is side effect and what is just a result of the mania.

I’ve lost 7kg (15.4Lbs) in the last 10 days.

On one hand this has me doing the happy dance, I fit into my nice clothes again and I actually feel good when I look in the mirror which is a very rare feeling. On the other hand, I am knowing that that it is extremely unhealthy to lose that much weight that fast and I have very quickly become trapped in the “now that I am this size I can’t gain weight again, therefor I can’t eat even if I do get hungry” mentality and I’m starting to blur what is side effect that will pass and what is eating disorder that will get worse.

It’s currently 8am on the first Monday and my daughter is the only one awake, she is quietly watching a movie in the other room. I slept last night, a full 8 hours too! But I am still quite jumpy this morning but more ‘very hypomanic’ than ‘manic’ as I was able to sit still long enough to write this. It’s going to be a big day, I have to take the kids to town to get hair-cuts and maybe do the groceries, depending on how I’m coping, then I have to drive into the city for my brother in law’s birthday dinner. 

Dinner. Shit. It just occurred to me that not only will I have to try and curb my outwardly hypomanic symptoms which is nearly impossible, I will also be expected to eat a regular sized meal. In the interests of surviving the day I am going to try and compartmentalise it and direct my anxieties to the first half first.

So that’s what’s happening here at the moment, thanks to everyone that sent kind messages. I feel very loved and I appreciate it!