Latuda

Bipolar – Hidden Emotions

/ Robin / Leave a comment

After months of not really feeling anything accept sever anxiety, my emotions are waking up again. I’m hoping that all the months of counseling have prepared me for my feelings, my moods.

I took a poetry class this last quarter. I had a difficult time writing the poetry because my emotions were packed away in a closet inside my brain. I wrote very clinically, very much cerebral and didn’t feel inspired or moved at all.

I’m enrolled in the disability program at the college and one of the things I get is time and a half for exams. Of course there aren’t exams in poetry, but the first quarter that I had this professor with I’d gone in and went over my disability papers with her and explained about how this was my first year back to college and I that was having a hard time. I took a chance and told her about my having Bipolar. I haven’t really thought it was necessary to tell my other professors what my disability is, but I felt like I was connecting with this professor and I also felt like I would be able to come and her and talk if I needed to.

I talked to her about how my BP was affecting my writing and she suggested I read “Touched with Fire” by Kay Redfield Jamison to see how many artistic people have mental illness (especially Bipolar Disorder). Funny thing was, I have read it. I’ve spent so much time in it that the pages have come off the spine of the book and nearly every page has notes and things underlined in it. It is in such bad shape that I purchased another copy so I could read it again. This is one of those books I bought in paper back and not as an eBook. If I have a book I want to markup I always get it in print. It’s just easier for me to make notes and find things in.

The first thing I encountered in Jamison’s book was a through recounting of all the symptoms having to do with Bipolar Disorder. Having been only anxious and not having mood swings for a few months per se, I was shocked as I remembered all the emotions that are currently hiding behind my medications.

I’m glad that I read what the symptoms are again because of the fact that we’ve lowered my Latuda and I need to be on the watch for symptoms to return. I have to admit, I’m worried now. I forgot how bad it has been for me. I rate on the top of the Bipolar Disorder Type 1, but I’m also high functioning so I’ve been able to hide it from most people. At least I think I have. Who really knows what others think of us when we’re in the midst of an active outburst of violent emotions.

So here I go, with an intentionally lowered mood stabilizer, and me waiting to see if any of my old enemies come sauntering out of the closet. I must remember not to hold my breath.

Bipolar – Anxiety Rising

/ Robin / Leave a comment

(Sept. 04) I’ve been sitting here trying to think of how to begin writing this and I’ve been getting nowhere. School is coming and I’m stressed out about that.

I have tremendous back pain and I go to a pain management doctor for my pain medication. The doctor that I’ve been seeing for like two years has stopped working in pain management and has opened a family practice. She was great. She really worked with me and worked to manage my pain knowing that I have Bipolar Disorder, PTSD, GAD, ADHD and so on. She was the one who prescribed my chill pill (medication anxiety) that I started taking during the school year last year when I had an anxiety meltdown.

The new pain management doctor started out by accusing me of selling my oxycodone and refused to refill my chill pill. I had a prescription of Oxycodone at the pharmacy to pick up which she didn’t take into account. I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t like her. I don’t trust her with my health. My next visit to her she accused me of breaking my pain management contract by not bringing in the second pain medication I’m on. I was never told to bring the bottle in with me. Oxycodone yes, the other stuff, no.

My back has been bothering me.

My facial tick is back. It comes with anxiety like snow falls in the mountains… when the cold and precipitation is sufficient, the snow comes. Actually the vicious tick came with my beginning to take Gabapentin gain instead of Lyrica (Gabapentin can also be used for anxiety as well as for FM, which is why I tried taking it again).

FAST FORWARD TO TODAY Sept 28

I’ve been taking my chill pill daily. I survived my first day of classes because of the pill. I usually wake up in a cold sweat whenever anything remotely stressful is going to happen during the day. Like, for instance, going back to school.

Anxiety is such a huge part of my being right now that although I’ve lived in my new house for about two months I haven’t been to the grocery store by myself even once. I needed to buy some poetry books from the bookstore about 20 minutes from my house and instead of just going and getting them I called my eldest daughter and bribed her (I’d buy her a book if she’d come with me) to come with me. I just find it stressful to do things alone. I do not have a rational reason. I’ve done all the thinking and reasoning about my anxiety that my counselor and I have come up with and the anxiety does nothing but get worse.

I stopped taking the Gabapentin and the facial tick immediately started going away. When I’m stressed it comes back. I hope it isn’t permanent.

I see my med. Provider (the gal who manages my mental health medications) Sara in the morning. I’m asking her for something to treat the sever anxiety on a long term basis. The chill pill is great but it’s for a crisis and not meant for long-term consumption.

I get so wigged out about things that earlier tonight I already mapped out in my head the route that I would take to get to see Sara and then called my daughter to make sure that I could get to the grocery store from where I was coming from. I’m planning on going to get some milk on my way home in the morning. I need to do it on my own. I think if I have the chill pill I can.

It’s amazing. I wish I could take it all the time. I’ve been having to use it to go to sleep at night. When I don’t take it I’m awake until after 2 or 3 in the morning. Then I wake up sweating. I’ve even resorted to listening to relaxing meditative music/waves on YouTube all night. I found a channel on my TV provider to listen to that works as well called Soundscapes.

The struggle I’m having with anxiety is so severe that I’ve not been willing to blog and that makes me sad. My counselor has put forth the idea that perhaps my mania is manifesting as anxiety and that It’s really part of my Bipolar Disorder. I sort of hope that’s the case. If it is, I’m confident we can deal with it.

Why haven’t I been in to see my med. Provider sooner? She’s been booked. It’s been over a month since I last saw her. I’ve talked to her on the phone and my counselor talked to her on my behalf too.

Hopefully tomorrow I can communicate clearly how absolutely painful this anxiety is. My counselor is supposed to go to that meeting with me. I hope she can actually make it. It would give Sara a clearer picture of what’s going on with me.

Now, I’m going to listen to Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song” then I’m going to go to bed. I might read for a few minutes. Maybe one or two. Seriously, that’s as long as I’ll read.

I have high expectations for my visit with Sara and Rebecca (my counselor) in the morning. We got this. I have to believe, we got this.

Bipolar 1, ADHD, FM, PTSD, Anxiety, Chronic Pain, OA – Now What??

/ Robin / Leave a comment

If I’d started my blog off listing all my bits of my alphabet you might have clicked off and dismissed me as a hypochondriac. Personally, I might have too. However, the fun facts pile continuously up and I wonder if I might be much older than my drivers license says I am.

I’m 51 degrees old. Wait. 51 years old. Yes, that’s it. I think it’s time I leveled with you and give you my “medical” life. I am much more than my medical stuff. I’ve had my right knee replaced twice – in just two years. I know, that’s very young to even have it done once, but twice on the same knee… Skip that. Here’s a “brief” list. Each item is a medically real thing for me.

Bipolar 1
ADHD
FM
PTSD
Anxiety
Chronic Pain
Degenerative Disk Disorder
OA
2 Total Knee Replacements
Cataracts
Allergies – environmental, biological and food
Depression
Manic
Stress – Excessive
Obsess
Asthma
Dentures – Full

I’ve also had a ruptured appendix, broken ankle, blood clots, carpal tunnel syndrome, rage… I think you get the idea.

Over the last couple of months I’ve thought I’ve been falling asleep while driving. It freaks the freak out of me. No matter what I do I don’t seem able to prevent it. I even pull over and try to nap just so I can complete a 40 minute drive home. I’m not able to nap when I pull off the road. I try. No go. I can sleep in a parking lot when I’m too tired to drive, but it’s not working now. I sing, I scream, I pound my feet on the floor, I hit my steering wheel… Nothing helps.

It’s very scary. No, it terrifies me. Suddenly I’m about to rear end another car or find myself drifting to one side or the other. I’ve been asking my health care people what it could be. I eventually got around to my pain management specialist. I described it to her and asked if she thought it might be any of my many medications. Like my med provider, she didn’t think so. She wanted to know if I was born prematurely. Nope. Seizures? Nada.

Michelle, the pain specialist, asked if I could describe what happens as a “loss of time”. Maybe I’m not really falling asleep. Maybe I’m just losing time and tune back in just seconds later. Do I remember actually falling asleep or feeling sleepy. No. I’ve even tried coming home and trying to sleep. Not sleepy. No naps.

She sent me home charging me with looking into Absence Seizures. She knows I love to research stuff. I appreciate that she lets me learn and talk with her about my health care. I have read a bit about Absence Seizures. I think she might be right. Before I left she agreed she would get me in to see a neurologist she likes to use in a city about an hour from here. I’m going to have an EEG to see what’s going on.

New bipolar med on Wednesday… Friday a possible new diagnosis to add to my alphabet soup. Know what I keep thinking?

… Well shit.