ADHD

Less Stress is Best – For Everyone

/ Robin / 1 Comment

In my last post, I shared a laundry list of things I felt were related to times of extended and elevated stress. As a person who has Bipolar 1, I’m acutely sensitive to stress in my environment, my social life, my home life… Well, you get the idea… in my head. You might say, “Robin, everyone experiences stress and might have cause junk to happen to them.” Fair enough.

I can only speak to my own experiences and circumstances as I interpret them. And it isn’t just that. I have to notice them too. Sometimes I get so preoccupied with something that I just don’t see what’s right in front of me.

Let me give you a quick example. I have battled IBS-d since I was married way back in 1989. Of course, it wasn’t a “thing” then. In fact, I never mentioned it to my doctor. There wasn’t a commercial on TV alerting me to the notion that I might have this thing, this real thing, called IBS-d.

Bipolar Disorder is supposed to be a “mood disorder.” Taking that at face value, let’s assume that stress is going to make managing my symptoms (the rolly-polly moods) incredibly more difficult. Let’s also assume that the stress and resulting crushing weight of experiencing increasingly intense stress (wow, too many words!).

Listen, in my experience as a person with Bipolar 1, ADHD and PTSD I can tell you with certainty (you know, because I experienced it and that makes it true) that stress caused me to have IBS-d. How do I know that and didn’t I notice myself making fun of myself just one sentence ago? Sure, I noticed. We’re talking about subjective emotions though. Think of it like that pain chart they use in the ER at any hospital in the US. “Rate your pain. Which smiley face??”

Seriously? You’re going to treat me based upon what I think my smiley face ought to be?

How are you feeling today Robin?
“My anxiety feels like it’s crushing me. I can’t sleep or think. I’ve started waking up violently angry. I’ve started yelling again and throwing things. I just can’t get it all to stop!”
Have you been able to focus?

Excuse me?

I graduated in June of last year (2018) and within two months of that time, my “IBS-d” disappeared. Creepy right? I know! Like aliens…

Alien, nigthmare, spirit...
Creepy… I think that guy might have had some comet!

Seriously though, haven’t had a blackout or eaten Comet since then. Well, I think there was one more blackout… but my memory can be sketchy at times so yes? No? Beats me.

We’re talking about emotions.

Emotions are NOT measured by drug tests.
Emotions cannot be quantified by subjective human talk therapy.
I can’t even relate to you my emotions so that you’ll understand what I mean.
In every single college class I’ve been in when the professor asks for opinions or invites discussion, no one ever agrees with everyone (sometimes anyone) across the board. Nope. Nadda.

Does this seem like a jumble? Am I talking about IBS-d or how to describe emotions? Actually, what am I talking about? Have I lost focus?

No, I haven’t. Not this time.

I no longer have any symptoms of IBS-d.

Is everything else better? Oh hell no! But, I’ll take this victory and I’ll hold onto it because I’m not locked in my house 24/7 every day anymore.

At least… not right now.

Bipolar – Verbal Dump

/ Robin / 1 Comment

megaphone

I have Bipolar Disorder and ADHD. I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder over twenty years ago. At least, that’s about when my brain says it remembers it happening – I’m super reliable when it comes to the passing of time. Umm, no way! Don’t let me tell you otherwise. I was diagnosed as having ADHD only a few years ago.

The other day my mom told me she’d had a major breakthrough in her thinking about ADHD. Apparently, she’d talked to her realtor and she had told him that I have it. I know she shares stuff about my brain (problems) to people in the town/city we live in and with Rhett (the fellow I just mentioned who sells property) who lives in another one.

That’s two.

Back to the breakdown.

I know my mom loves me. She expresses it in a sort of micro-managing way, but she loves me nonetheless.

I’d hate to have had a child like me. How did she not accidentally roll over me in the family car? I would have had a daycare person come take me away. A nanny. Anyway, Rhett told her that he has ADHD too. {Deep sigh coming from my side of the conversation.}

You know how we can look up literally ANYTHING online? I really don’t think she understands that she can Google Bipolar Disorder and ADHD and not have to rely upon the information she can glean from a single person. There are many fantastic sites to visit that contains a lot of very good information on both BD and ADHD.

But, you know what, the idea that she can talk to someone about me, without asking me first, and telling him my very personal business is just bad.

My mom thinks of Rhett as another son. (I have a brother.) She knows more about him than she does about me. Sometimes I discover I have feelings of resentment and anger toward the nice guy. I don’t like feeling that way.

I guess accepting and understanding something about Bipolar Disorder have to continue to wait.

I believe, that if she understood a little about Bipolar Disorder and how I present, we would get along better. We might even want to spend more time together. Maybe she’d trust me more. Forgive me more. I admit, there is much I want to be forgiven for. I think she’s better at letting things go than I am so maybe she doesn’t need to be able to forgive me once she understands I don’t really control myself sometimes.

My experience with Bipolar Disorder is that about 80% of the time I’m manic. All the time I’ve been alive, I’ve been either straight up manic, or in a mixed state featuring the bits that tend to “intensify” my emotions. I’m confused, being depressed while manic.

My most blatantly obvious symptom… I never, ever stop talking. When the rare moment does happen, my friends ask me if I’m okay. I think that even Bailey notices. (Bailey is my support dog. She’s wonderful.)

Bailey is my emergency brake. When I’m frustrated, angry or yelling, she finds me and sits directly facing me, very close, toes to paws, and with her beautiful sad brown eyes and waits for the noise to stop. Honestly, she won’t budge even if I tell her I need to pee. No mercy from my faithful pup.

My chart at the mental health place I go to says that I say I think I’m smarter than they are. My current counselor asked me if I really believe that. Without a pause, I said, “YES.” I reminded him of how they let my stress / anger / mania / and anxiety cause all the suffering I experienced while I was going to school. over the last year, my symptoms intensified, and I broke.

Have you heard the axiom do no harm or through inaction to cause harm?

So, the reality is that they watched and did not intervene. They listened and didn’t reach out to catch me while I fell and fell farther and farther down. If you think about it like that, like what role they played in my unwilling self-destruction, then YES, I think they’re morons and I really am so much smarter than they are. My counselor asked me if I thought I was smarter than he was. I grinned and told him, “that remains to be seen.”

Delusional? Grandiose thoughts? Delusions of grandeur? Or brilliant or very smart? And who’s to judge which is which?

ADHD, Bipolar… Let’s figure it out. I promise I’ll own it.

You have just been exposed to an often irritating and yet integral bit of my brain in all its glory. It’s what I call, “a verbal dump.” My kids prefer saying I barf words. Wait, maybe it was that I vomit words. Well, in any case, it’s not great.

Please write to me or leave a comment. I love hearing from you.

Be well,

Robin / Un-niche-able Me

Learning What Mental Illness Looks Like on Me

/ Robin

During the last few months I’ve begun to realize how I wear my illnesses.

What I mean is that I’ve always been pretty aware of what’s been going on in my head, but I have never looked at myself from the outside – in.

Because of this new awareness and the sense of warning and alarm that’s come with it, I’m going to post what I was originally going to post tomorrow. I’ve made so many changes and worked on it so long that what was supposed to be a simple thing has tied my brain in knots.

I can “see” these imaginary knots in my head. That’s just fine. What you might see when you read the finished post will probably be different than I intended.

I don’t want you to read any of my posts and be turned off by it because it sounds like I’m unhinged. I might be, but I don’t usually want people to know about that. I like to think that I’ll give you some kind of warning if that happens.

I’m lear.ning what I might seem to be saying to someone when I hear myself say something I think is completely innocent but turns out to be something horrible.

So, when I’ve slept, had some exercise, eaten and warmed up my brain I’ll try to talk about what’s on my mind right now.

Yeah. Clean out the memory cache. Power down for the night.

It’s time to stop myself from doing anything else, but go to sleep.

Goodnight friends

Robin

Drugs – Niche-Me…

/ Robin
Doctor messes up.

I’m… well… very angry. If I could get this guy fired and reported to some agency to keep him from prescribing medications, I would. Darn straight! 

This “doctor” (He’s a PA-C. I don’t even know what that is. I know what a PA is. What’s the “C”? Crackpot?) Okay, back to why I’m so angry. 

Last time I saw this guy, let’s call him JH, he was reciting out loud what medications he was sending electronically to the pharmacy for a refill. As he was reading them, he said, “Lamotrigine–” To which I said, quite firmly, “No, that’s not one you fill. You’ve never filled that. S fills that.”

The guy’s never ordered this for me. Why would he? This is my mental health person’s job. He’s NEVER filled this for me. (I know I’m repeating myself. I’m hoping the Universe or something will smack him.) He does Oxycodone, Lyrica, and the one for restless legs. He’s my pain mgmt prescriber. (This should be scaring you.)

“Do NOT fill that drug.”

I was so mad. The pharmacy told me to call his office and inform them of the mistake. So, I did. No one would talk to me. I was sent to his PA’s voice mail. No one ever called back. 

I also called my mental health clinic and left another message, this time for them. I wanted them to be aware of the problem. A floater nurse called me back pretty quickly. We were on the phone about 18 minutes. She had no idea what the heck was going on. Eventually, about 2 minutes before I needed to leave to go to her actual building to see my counselor, she let me go. 

You know what the result of that conversation was? She concluded that my regular MP (med provider) had been weening me off Ritalin and that now I should have stopped taking it completely. 

I responded the only way I could – “Yeeeeessss?” I mean, what if she found out that I was still taking them? I was already getting paranoid at this point so I didn’t know what to say. I’m really am supposed to be taking it. My counselor (L) and I had just decided that I needed to ask to have it increased!

When I got to see L, he told me that he’d already gotten the email telling him what had happened. I told him about the Ritalin issue. He looked at my chart and immediately said that it was clear that I was was supposed to be on it. In fact, I was supposed to be taking the two pills. 

Sigh. So, now I have too much Lamotrigine and no Ritilan. I’m angry. 

This morning we took my Emotional Support doggie to the vet. She vomited blood right after vomiting on my bed. Thankfully, she’s going to be okay!

I’m stressed and weary. 

Angry. Stressed. Weary. Sigh. 

Idiots. 

My Millennials help me now. I have three. They help monitor my meds. The one that lives with me fills my medication box thingies. The second one lives down the street and comes by to visit and help out pretty often. The youngest is married and about to graduate from the same university that I did. 

I will not be killed by people who value my life so little that they cannot take the time, or get help, to read my chart properly or return my phone calls. 

I have managed all the stress from raising kids. I have not killed myself. I won’t be killed by these morons. I will protect myself. I will stand and not let stupid people sneak up on me. I fight with myself every day and I survive. I will survive these people too. 

Mel Robbins (I think it’s her) says that at the end of the day there will be no White Knight riding in to save you. No one is going to rescue you. You have to do it yourself.

There are frequent times when I can’t do this for myself, but today, this week, this moment, I can. I’m protecting myself. I’m going to do what I can to make certain that the people responsible for these screw-ups, won’t be able to do it so easily again. 

I’m pissed off. I haven’t killed myself. I’m not about to let incompetent medical professionals kill me. 

This is MY day. I will live it MY way. I will not let ANYONE take it from me. Not ever. 

Opioid Dependence and Mental Illness

/ Robin

Pile of pills

I’m not an addict. I’m not! I’m mentally ill. I have Bipolar Disorder. I also suffer from chronic pain in my lower back.

My primary care doctor (PC… PCD? Uhh… let’s go with MD) had been prescribing me oxycodone for the server and persistent (chronic) pain that I’ve had for years. After being active and doing something super strenuous like gardening for 15 minutes I think I’m dying. I’m exaggerating of course, but when I work as hard as Atlas does while holding up the world my eyes leak, I whimper and sit down. Sometimes I end up laying on the floor. The floor is such a very bad idea. If I straighten my legs my whimpering becomes desperate and I realize I’m crying. If I forget myself and straighten my legs I’m done. I can’t move. The pain paralyzes me.

I’m NOT an addict.

When I can think again, I try to find my phone. If I can’t find it right away I feel the panic rising and it triggers thoughts and emotions I thought I’d had under control.

This last time I thought I was managing my mania and depression (mixed state, rapid cycling) pretty well. I haven’t bought piles and piles of books on ducks or Oprah or how to be an astronaut. Honestly, I really haven’t. But please, don’t ask me what I’m thinking about. Also, I’ve been able to get out of bed AND wake-up in the morning and even go for walks. My depression skips through the dandelions with the mania comingling into a mixed state, which is always confusing.

I’m not an addict.

After many months of giving me a legal way to get my the Oxycodone I take for pain legally, and for free. The label on the bottle says I’m to take the little unassuming pills three times a day. They are 20 mg. Currently, I’ve convinced the assistant fellow at the pain clinic to reduce my Oxycodone to 20 mg twice a day.

I’m not an addict.

I’m mentally ill. I have Bipolar Disorder, ADHD, chronic pain, and other stuff.

I was referred to a pain chronic clinic… ah… chronic pain clinic, where my Oxycodone prescription was reissued. A five-minute verbal probe, that’s what it took for the doctor to determine whether or not I needed the narcotic. We didn’t talk about Bipolar Disorder or any potential interactions the Oxycodone might have with drugs that are meant to manage my wild emotions or tame my fantastic panic attacks. I’m not certain she has any record of my current medications. She asked questions, and I quickly tailored my answers to fit what I thought she was waiting to hear. She made a few notes on a paper as small as her palm. I wondered if she was actually making notes that she could refer to later. She thought for a few seconds and then wrote the prescription. I sighed in relief.

I’m not an addict.

A while later, like over a year or maybe two, I’m still taking the narcotic. The clinic has new owners and staff. They no longer asked me questions. Sometimes they required a urine test. Then, they stopped asking me anything at all. We spent my appointment chatting. I started asking if we could please try to figure out what was causing the pain and try to deal with it by correcting the problem. I wanted the pain to stop.

They didn’t listen. They wrote the prescription without hesitation.

I’m telling you, I’m not an addict.

My mental health drug dispenser began paying attention after I updated her about my drugs and included Oxycodone in the list. She stopped talking about whether or not my meds were working to stabilize my moods and started talking about “Black box” warnings.

She had my attention. I started to panic.

At the time I had over five medical people prescribing medications. They didn’t know what the other office prescribed me. They relied on me to tell them the truth. I didn’t have to tell anyone I was taking Oxycodone. That got me thinking.

I’m not an addict.

Later…

I’m still asking the medical folks to figure out the cause of my chronic lower back pain. I’m still not getting results. I’m getting way too much Oxycodone every bloody month.

Because I can, I’ve been researching my of collages of illnesses, disorders, and psychological malfunctions.

Ah ha! Black box warning. Do NOT take anti-anxiety medication (benzine’s) – death may result.

Oxycodone 20 mg

I recently saw Dr. T, my very superior knee surgeon. He saw the condition of my spine when he was looking at the x-rays of my hips. He was making certain that my persistent knee pain, post second replacement, wasn’t being caused by anything running amock in my hips. He was eliminating any possible cause of my knee pain before he even considering using surgery to further correct the inept effort Dr. B made the initial knee replacement. Dr. B successfully replaced my knee, but that’s where the project ended.

It sucked. My leg from the knee down, well, it kind of turned the wrong way.

Dr. T corrected the first replacement. He tried to minimize the damage his surgery could do while trying not to blow up my entire joint… okay, the joint that was already gone.

Dr. T showed me the x-rays he’d just had taken and explained where and why he left Dr. B’s “efforts,” while replacing the replacement. A month ago we tried a shot to relieve the pain and keep from having to have surgery again.

Nope. I’ve had no relief from the pain. In fact, my brain was overjoyed and thought that my knee was doing awesome. Holy cow! I should NOT have knelt down like that! Looks like surgery is probably what our next conversation will be about. I’ll need to be on pain medication again…. I intend to be off Oxycodine ASAP. I would really like to have some kind of painkiller to take after surgery – assuming I have it. Always be prepared! Sigh…

I’m not an addict.

After my constant complaining about my back pain that happens every time, I do regular human type activities involving the lower back. I’ve finally had x-rays of my back taken. Holy heck. Next stop is at a spine doctor.

The online personal information provided by my medical organization includes this: Opioid Dependence.

My chronic pain clinic instructs me to continue taking the Oxycodone. I haven’t been able to identify any specific relief from the pain in a long time. I have never felt any “fun” results from taking it. It has never made me feel sleepy.

I have found that taking Oxycodone at bedtime with the medication I take for Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) helps me to get to sleep and not wake up in agony caused by the RLS.

Am I an addict?

“Taking opioids over a long period of time produces dependence, such that when people stop taking the drug, they have physical and psychological symptoms of withdrawal (such as muscle cramping, diarrhea, and anxiety). Dependence is not the same thing as addiction; although everyone who takes opioids for an extended period will become dependent, only a small percentage also experience the compulsive, continuing need for the drug that characterizes addiction.”*

I’m mentally ill. In my opinion taking any medication, especially one that alters my brain chemistry (opioids do this), should be thought about and discussed with other medical personnel who are also responsible for my continued living – and to live my best life.

Am I an addict?

No.

I have Opioid Dependence.

Dependence. I can live with that, but look, let’s get rid of that too. Okay?

{I have Bipolar Disorder. I’m a little manic now. I’m using it to write and post while I can. So, for now, I will post often because tomorrow, I may be depressed and unable to say what’s on my mind. I may not have anything on my mind.}

* https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/opioid-addiction