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!

Listless

I’m bored. Bored and annoyed at everything and nothing at the same time, I guess ‘depressively listless’ would best describe my current mood state, it feels like I am killing time but until what I still don’t know. 

Right now I could be cleaning the house or in the garden or (attempting to) bake something or some other domestic goddess style feat but no, I’d rather sit at the computer drinking coffee and trying not to binge eat out of boredom.

As I type this my internet isn’t working (again) satellite internet is really, really dodgy but beggars can’t be choosers and I should be thankful to have internet access at all. Right now this means I can’t check Twitter / Facebook or read blogs and that’s a little bit more frustrating than it healthily should be!

I have been thinking a lot about this bipolar lark. I am at a stalemate with my illness and I am sick of participating in its games. I don’t want bipolar any more, I want to be able to make and honour commitments, sleep at night without going over the 100 ways in which I could kill myself first and I sure as hell don’t want to take these bloody meds anymore.

Meds have changed me, yes life these days is totally void of any sort of euphoric (hypo)mania, I feel connected to absolutely nothing including my family and have zero motivation, zero libido and next to no enthusiasm for things I used to love. When I used to stay awake all night at least I used to achieve stuff, I excelled at the work I can no longer cognitively do, now my head is fog and my memory is goldfish.

The one benefit is I have saved a lot of money not feeling the desire to purchase vast quantities of things I don’t need – and I haven’t felt the desire to gamble which becomes a nasty habit during my “up’s”. Yes, the only hypomania-esque symptoms I get these days are racing thoughts, paranoia, insomnia, irritability and angry outbursts.

So basically I am either totally numb or suicidally depressed, I just want to be happy.

Part of me is thinking I should just turn up the self-denial knob and refuse to have bipolar, perhaps if I deny it for long enough it will magically go away by itself. I have already basically made the decision to stop taking my meds, but I am going to go about it the right way, with the help of my psychiatrist whom I will finally see on the 31^st August.

Frankly the worst thing that could happen if I stop the meds is a full blown manic episode and I am willing to take that chance, meds have done nothing to reduce my suicidal depressive episodes so I am not going to be at any higher of a risk of suicide than I am on medication.

The withdrawal symptoms of stopping psychiatric meds can be pretty full on so I need to find out how to taper safely rather than going cold turkey on my own, as tempting as that has been lately, I do know I need my support system around me if I am going to be successful.

What’s your relationship with medication? 

Do you think it’s possible to maintain your mental health without it?