As many of you know. I am Bi Polar. The diagnosis came in 2007, I denied it until about 2010. I just couldn't accept this was going to be my life. Why me? How come? What did I do? I mean it made sense, it did. My PMS was like no one else's and sometimes, not really timed to my cycle. A little undeniable fact, if you have PMS like mood swings and it's not PMS time, likely you have some other issues. I tried to fight it, the diagnosis. I heard horror stories about people and them losing their minds on a regular basis. Of them feeling so great and high they went off their drugs periodically and ended up in psychosis so badly they got committed to hospital frequently. This can't be my life, it just can't.
Up until 2007 I was extremely successful in my career. I made a lot of money and I was known all of my industry, the financial services industry. People knew my name. People asked my opinion. I was someone. How could I accept this building insanity inside me? I couldn't. I knew I was out of control. I was so angry sometimes. Sometimes so low I could walk around the office for weeks and barely speak to a soul unless I had too. In the end people started talking about my mood(s) and my explosions. I wasn't handling stress very well. It was time to accept something was wrong.
I left work in 2008, a year after diagnosis of Bi Polar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Eating Disorder, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I am Bi Polar II, where I am more often lower than high. I don't experience Manic episodes, mania, (the highs) often. I do get them but they are not over the top. I don't feel like I can take on the world and like I am so good I don't need my medicine. I get lows, horribly low lows. They can come over me out of nowhere and they are horrific. 9 times out of 10 I want to kill myself. It's sad to admit that so frankly but it's true.
By the time I was ready to admit to being Bi Polar I was already on an anti-depressant and it wasn't doing the job. I still had mood swings and these uncontrollable lows. The anti-depressant likely reduced the depth of them. I don't know how because they are so incredibly low. What the anti-depressant also did was help with chronic pain which is something I have struggled with since I was 17 and had an ATV (motorcycle)accident. Instead of taking me off the anti-depressant my old psychiatrist added in a Bi Polar drug. Everyone is kind of new to Bi Polar, as are the drugs. I was put on a new Bi Polar drug, not lithium. I was scared of Lithium. I had heard it made you a zombie as well as killed your kidneys. I've learned more now, back then, eeek.
Years later, as I got peri menopausal the moods didn't seem under control as much as they had been when I first started taking the Bi Polar med. I think this disease is very organic, forever changing. My psychiatrist had moved to Hamilton. We gave up, sold our home in Toronto, for Bobcaygeon. I was now facing a 3-4 hour drive to see my shrink. Because everything in Canada is free I had to apply for a psychiatrist in my "catchment area". The area in which I live. It only took 3 months for my application to vet and another 6 weeks for me to get into to see my new shrink. UGH! By then I was in bad shape. I needed more help.
I was now seeing the head of the Psychiatry Department of my local, small town, hospital. I had always seen a doctor in a private practise before. I kind of felt like I was going into the loony bin. I know that sounds awful because I am technically loony but it's how I felt. Like a patient in a hospital, someone who gets exactly 7 1/2 minutes with the doctor sort of thing. "Making rounds". I met my new doctor and within 7 1/2 minutes of meeting him he indignantly told me I needed to be on actual Bi Polar medication. That an anti-depressant would do nothing if not potentially harm me, and the supposed Bi Polar med I was on was for patients already stabilized. So I asked why I was on either then? He basically brushed off that question and gave me instructions for this new drug and sent me on my way 13 minutes later. I didn't listen to him. I never filled the script.
6 weeks later I went and saw him again and explained I was still not doing well but hadn't taken his prescription because I felt like he didn't even know me, how could he know what I needed or didn't, he was just rhyming off drugs. He was very disappointed and told me as much. He said, "you could be already feeling so much better". We talked longer this time and I got the assurances I needed that what he was doing was the right thing.
I went on the new drug.
My life changed. A month later I felt like I could take on anything and survive. I took a bunch of courses and got my head out of my own ass. I became very self aware. It was great. I admitted to my family I could be around them now because before that time I took everything they did or said personally. I was a changed woman. I went crying to my family doctor and my shrink again, crying tears of happiness.
I was stabilized.
I was wrong.
I had a couple more high and low attacks. I personally at the advice of a friend, started taking the anti-depressant 3 times a day, 30 mg at a time. "To ensure it's always in my system" instead of wearing off over night. I took all my drugs basically at night time. I told my shrink this and he told me that the lower dose would mean I wasn't getting near enough. I asked him what the point of an anti-depressant was with someone Bi Polar and he advised that sometimes it can help with the lows, sometimes it can counteract with Bi Polar people. I asked why I was on it. He really seemed to ignore the question and told me that because I have chronic pain I should take all 3 doses in one shot, preferably in the morning with my Bi Polar drugs. I didn't even know I was supposed to be taking this stuff in the AM, I had been taking it all at bed time. I figure the best time for a drug is night time so you can sleep off any side effects, guess that was wrong.
Once we moved everything to the day time and all at once I started having the worst anxiety, almost panic attacks where I felt I couldn't settle down, sit still, nothing. It would build and build until I ended up in tears because I couldn't relax. And then I broke. I felt suicidal. I couldn't handle this feeling of unrest. We rushed back to the psychiatrist and he finally agreed to take me off the anti-depressants and the original Bi Polar drug that I really didn't need. I felt such relief, like I was removing toxins from my life.
I was wrong. Again.
In going off the anti-depressant my pain went through the roof as I have already mentioned in earlier posts. My bursitis, tendinitis, my chronic back pain...all of them, almost unbearable. I was still getting to the gym, barely in the am. But in the afternoons I was almost unable to do anything. Luckily I wasn't antsy anymore so I could sit still now and relax. If relaxing means being so angry you want to punch your husband in the face. See I guess the anti-depressant softens up a person's temperament too. And my temperament is ugly. I remember it was in the past, I just didn't think it was still part of me. I had become so soft and loving. A big pile of mush in recent years. Not anymore. Going off this drug was now making me miserable in a different way.
What the fuck.
Today was the first day I decided to increase the dose again to see if I can't get the pain and anger under control. You see I can't just run into my shrink when I want, it's 6 weeks to get to see him. I have to do all this with the help of no one other than my husband, who takes the brunt of this temper. He agreed we need to increase the dose and see if we couldn't change my mood. So this morning I took one of the two doses I will take. Breakfast and dinner.
It's such an overall bitch of a thing. This drug can counteract with my Bi Polar meds but also, it could help with pain but only if I max the dose, which could mess with my Bi Polar med but the only way to handle the pain is to max the dose....you get the idea. It's a lot of conflicting information. Maxing the dose DOES make it counter act with my Bi Polar meds but it does help the temper and the pain. What to do?
Been there done that. I increased the dose today. And today I want to rip my own lungs out through my chest I feel so anxious. So what choice would you make? Hate everyone around you? Hate your own husband for anger sakes OR do you feel anxious and unsettled all day? When that can lead to suicidal thoughts. What's worse?
Fucking hell this disease really sucks.
I have a room on the waiting list for a psychiatric center in Ontario (here in Canada) to get a full assessment done and see what, who, what, where, and when. I can't do this anymore myself with random doctor's appointments. I can't lose every time I turn my head with this disease. I hear so many people say they live a balanced life on their drugs. They function.
I need to function. I really want to function.
I know I write a lot of cool shit about how self aware I am. Self awareness is probably my biggest problem being Bi Polar. I feel every single change in emotion down to even slightest. I am so self aware I notice everything. I am so empathetic to others, they affect me, more than I can afford to give. I will get there, I know I will. I pray I will because I can't take much more of this shit, I really can't. I know you think I am strong but there's only so much I can really take. I am human after all. Only human.
The only consolation prize here is the fact my step daughter is here this weekend and she's got a broken foot. Poor thing. She is keeping me too busy to stop and think about how much this sucks. Otherwise I would be in tears.
I will talk to you later. This anxiety dictates a nice long dog walk on this crisp spring day. Don't worry, we will be okay. I promise. My 3rd personality just gave my 9th one a good talking too.
Oh and I am not making the kid crutch her way through a long walk, Dad's turn to take care of everything. I need a break.
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