Bipolar Disorder

Licked by Lamictal

/ Robin

Licked by Lamictal. Yep. I had requested that we lower the dosage and find another drug to use for my Bipolar 1 mixed state because I’m fair skinned (millions of freckles) and as soon as the sun made it’s annual appearance I started burning… in the shade, with sun screen on and with a long sleeve shirt. I mean what the heck is that all about? I didn’t want to go through it all again so I begged my med provider to change it. Not my shirt, the drug.

We backed off from 200 mg twice a day to just 200 in the evening. Within 2 weeks my youngest daughter (17) was actively searching for large boards to bonk me up side the head with. Yeah, I really sucked eggs. The really sickening things about it this time were that “I” chose to lower the medication and “I” slid head first in the inferno that is my brain roaming freely like a blind cat on a boat in high seas.

I called Jane, my med provider, and asked to come in to see her much earlier than my scheduled appointment. I was in her office in two days. We changed the dosage, raising it again over 3 weeks. I had met my new counselor when I was rapidly sliding into the pit and was a manic momma for the first two visits. Then, this week I had my third meeting with her.

I sat calmly and we talked. We talked back and forth. We worked together. It was nice. She mentioned that the change in me from the first two meetings to this one were remarkable. Indeed they were, they are. I asked her, “If you met me today and I behaved as I am doing now and I told you I’m a raging Bipolar 1 mixed state would you believe me?” Her answer was exactly what everyone says… “No.”

The Lamictal gives me the ability to fence in a lot of my insanity and I can pretend I’m “normal” and that I don’t really want to jump up and tell you how stupid you are. I’m smart. I know how to fake “normalicy”. It has come in handy (in fact I felt it was necessary to keep my ex-husband from getting his moronic, I live in another plane of reality, over the top and burning in hell as a terrible father, rotten Christian and ex-husband). I didn’t want them to take my babies away from me. No way. I fought myself like hell. I learned how to fake it really well.

At the end of our meeting I asked Julia (counselor) if she had just met me for the first time today would she believe I was as overwhelmingly Bipolar 1 as I say I am. Absolutely not. I let my secret out with more than a little pride I must confess. I told her that when I met new medical people (new to me) I always “let the crazy out” enough for them to believe that I’m more than a tiny bit messed up. She was amazed. Then I reminded her of my situation with the kids and that that desperate motivation and my above average intelligence giving me the messed up strength to stumble on each day. Mostly… Kind of. Sometimes. Blah…

Now before you jump up and down and up again shouting that I’m suffering from our common trait lovingly referred to as “megalomania” or “delusions of grandeur” understand this: I have lived most of my life believing that we each need to have an accurate estimation of our abilities. If you’re amazing, it’s perfectly fine to think it and sometimes, when the time is appropriate, to say it. “I am a high functioning Bipolar 1 mixed state. Very high functioning.” Never let that fool you into lethargy and believing wrongly that I’m perfectly fine and don’t need to be watched with due care. If you do, you are a moron.

Got good meds that are working for you? With your med provider’s help? Then keep taking the bloody things. Don’t ever risk sliding down that dark shoot to the garbage bin of your soul. Will you do that for me? Trust your people. If you can’t, find someone you can trust.

Just never, ever, stop your meds without a safety net.

I mean it. Watch it.

Mind the gap.

I Am . . . Afraid

/ Robin

I’m still depressed. My Lamictal dosage is rising steadily and is currently at 350 mg daily. Maybe it’s starting to work because I already was taking 200 mg daily. Maybe I realized how afraid I really am. Oh sure, I go to see my med provider every two weeks again (back up from once monthly) and my counselor weekly, but somehow I “feel” worse off. It’s almost as if having my mental/emotional needs addressed again with such intensity tripped me up really hard. I’m at a place in life where I am so afraid… it’s the kind of fear that sucks your brain out and leaves you stunned and unable to think straight. The depression, anxiety and anger seem like they are swarming about me. They suck at my soul. They lap at the fallen corner stone of my very being…

I’ve lost my purpose and I’m so afraid.

I was trying to think of an image that would demonstrate how I feel. It’s pretty hard to Google “afraid, depressed, anxious, without purpose” and expect anything helpful to pop up. I thought of Leonardo de Vinci  and some of they dramatic faces he drew. I looked at a few and this one seems to come kind of near to what I want you to see… my fear. The man is shouting. The setting is the Battle of Anghiari.

 

da_vinci_shouting_man

da Vinci’s “Shouting Man”

Let me try to explain to you my friend, what I mean. During some of my very dark periods I was able to hold on to one thing, one certainty, that kept me going and gave me purpose… a reason to live. That purpose was to be the best mom that I could be and raise my kids to be the best people they could be. Growth them strong.

Now, they are old enough to not need me to keep my hand locked firmly on the tiller of their lives. They steer themselves. They are moving on and I am lost. From the time my eldest was born in 1992 my passion, my calling, my purpose, was to be “Mom”. I’ve thought that I have had other purposes along the trail of my life, but somehow being “Mom” over shadowed them all and now I am fighting myself just to remember what I believed I needed and wanted passionately to do… to be.

I am afraid that I’m a failure. No one needs me any longer. I keep to myself mostly. My family and I are not particularly close. I don’t work or volunteer. Putting it short: I don’t feel that I have anything to contribute to the world.

My fear has driven me off my path. I allowed bushes and hedges to crowd my chosen path and completely obscure it from my vision. I know, well, I think I knew what my “vocation”, that is what my passion was. I feel empty and bruised. I don’t want life to touch me. I seem to think it will injure me by exposing my worthlessness to me.

I’m trying to pull together my wits and engage in the monumental fight with myself to reclaim who I am and what I’m about, my purpose.

And, my pain meds for chronic back pain (degenerating disks all up/down my spine have kicked my butt and I just nodded off. Tomorrow I’ll attempt to pull myself together enough to begin discussing with myself how to deal with myself this time. I’ve already worked it out in advanced, but this lack of purpose, this is new and frighting.

I’m letting the drug induced sleep take me away from the fear for a time. Starting physical therapy this last week had kicked up my pain, as I knew it would. It makes the whole of me even more difficult to deal with. At this particular moment I feel like in the morning I can begin to pull my will back together. That is, unless I conveniently forget what I intend on doing with myself, again.

Time to sleep.

Not Feeling Especially Smart

/ Robin

I’m moving all my calendar stuff to my smartphone to make things easier to keep track of. My kids can add their stuff to it which is good because we have one car, two drivers, another driver in training and life 25 minutes and are from civilized town. An hour appointment takes at least a two hour commitment. But that’s not what I want to talk about.

At one o’clock today (well, now its much later. That appointment was June 18th) I had my first meeting with my new counselor. This will be my third counselor at this facility. No, I’m not knocking them off (though the last one was starting to torque my screws an awful lot of the time). Their lives have given them cause to move on. And thus, out of this auspicious place I frequent. Sigh… I don’t know what I’m talking about now…

I was going over in my head how I wanted to approach Julia (my new counselor). I’ve had probably over a dozen through the years. I’ve had lots of practice breaking them in and then hoping they’ll go away. I have found that the first few visits tend to set the stage for the life of the professional relationship. Unless, I’m mostly off my rocker at the start. They seem able to adjust when I get my footing again.

Today I talked over with what I wanted to talk Julia about with myself all the way there (remember the drive? 30 min. plus today) and decided I needed to explore anger and anxiety. These were to be my platforms upon which I would begining a hopefully fruitful relationship.

I’d chosen these two topics because of the study I’ve been make of myself, of my mind and who I am. How I am. I always hunger to learn more. I hope that I change myself and my behavior because of understanding, knowledge, wisdom that I gain in my studies. I cannot correct my behavior or change my thoughts or emotions if I have drugs… but no understanding. Focus. Wisdom. Contemplation in the light of … well, light.

TRANSLATION: Anxiety and anger are smackin’ me across the face!

I’ve thought for some time now that my mental health people and I need to re-focus and add to my nice and untidy Bipolar mix the delectable… anxiety.

Anger. It seems do go hand in hand with anxiety. Hand in hand with depression and pretty much every facet of Bipolar. At least that’s my experience.

I was very excited and full of dread. I was right on time leaving the house. Ran into very heavy traffic half way there and before I ever got to the highway. Finally, slipping around and going faster. My brain started to rattle around and I knew something was amiss. Yep. I parked when I arrived and opened my calendar…

… and saw I was exactly on time… PLUS 60 MINUTES.

Damn, damn, damn!!! I missed my appointment.

Yes, I was angry. I stopped and thought about it. I decided I was going to be angry till I calmed down… If you get my mesning. I had been thinking on my way that being late or not having something be the way I thought it should be was a serious problem for me. I suspect it probably is for everyone. It is one of the major starting places for/of anger with me. One of my difficulties, being Bipolar, is that I very much do not/cannot control my reaction when I irritated. All too often … damn. I just nodded off.

Think of it like this. 1. Get angry. 2. Refuse to accept that I am angry. 3. Refuse to think about it. 4. Refuse to acknowledge that I’m angry and I’m the one making myself angry. 5. Blood boils. 6. Voice raises. 7. Things fly.

Ok, I exaggerated, but you get the picture?

I’ve been pretty drugged up for years. I’m on the light side of a consistent state of medication right now. Meaning: I’m more or less stable and I asked for my Lamictal dosage to be lowered or stopped (to try something else) because of the serious and sever sunburns I was getting. Get this… I was getting sunburned through my cloths. Add this additional annoyance and I’m beginning the feel itch of those disruptive emotions.

I’m aware I’m playing with fire. My watercolor drip is starbursting more than I’d like it to. I’m trying to say that “bad” bits of my Bipolar are quietly disrupting the steadiness.

I messed up. I wanted to see this woman and talk about anxiety and anger. I got angry, which is my habit, when I made this stupid mistake I at least was punctually.

However, I realize I’m unused to trying to squish my anger. I’ve been medicated into being mostly under control for long enough that my “self” was having difficulties keeping me from popping out the seams. I’ve been getting irritated. Annoyed. Angry. Lots of things.

My youngest daughter especially doesn’t understand. I didn’t realize what was happening between us until I’d yelled at her recently… more than once. Ok, not exactly “at” her. I just yelled. I’m noisy at the best of times. When I’m angry . . . I’m loud and ugly and scary.

See what happens when I write to you and I boil my brain?

Time for sleep actually laying on my bed with my head on my pillow.

Now what was I talking about?

The Adventures of My Ass

/ Robin

I’m serious folks. I am not kidding. I wanted to talk about pain. You all know what pain I mean right? That peculiar mental,  emotional pain that burns you alive and freezes you right out of your own life?

I have a few additional medical difficulties. I avoid talking about them because they are Legion. .  I have chronic back pain. Each disk in my spine is degenerating… Degenerative Disk Disease.

The physical pain is often marginally intolerable.  Meaning I can cook dinner 30 minutes after taking 10 MG of Oxycodone… for about 10 or 15 minutes.  Then I sit down and switch from trying to tolerate the pain long enough to cook (I can’t quite make it just yet) to fighting the overwhelming urge to abandon all remaining control and cry hysterically. 

I have such pain in my siatica area and shooting down my leg that I don’t want to breathe. Have you ever had physical therapy where they used the stim thingies? Yeah, the patches with electrodes that zap a current into the tissues they are rehabilitating.  The thing where the like to turn it up as high as you can tolerate.

Take the most discomfort/pain this has ever caused you, multiply that by the pins and needles felt when a sound asleep body part wakes and freaks your body out… multiply those together and add a dose of desperation and you’re getting closer than you were.

It is now 2 weeks after I began this post. Since then my medical people have narrowed down, if one can narrow it down, to the pain starting my L4 and L5 disks (spine). Like the rest of my spine they are degenerating.  Degenerative Disk Disease. 

After several failed attempts to ease the pain we settled on Tramadol as my base pain killer with Oxycodone as my breakthrough medication. They worked. And they made me completely loopy.  I backed off to 5 MG from 10 MG (Oxycodone) and that was better but I still shouldn’t drive.

And then the headaches started. I hoped that I was wrong about getting headaches after taking Tramadol for several days. No joy. It also brought nausea.  Nothing calmed that.

This morning I’ve stopped the Tramadol and taken Excedrine Migraine.  I hope it helps.

As for my Bipolar brain… I’m at a lower dosage of Lamictal but I’m doing surprisingly well. Chronic pain can be made less intense with anti-depressants. It is possible that my pain intestified recently because my Lamictal dose is lower.

These medical people also tell me I have FM (Fibromyalgia).

Terrific.

I guess I’m not a hypochondriac after all.

Again… terrific.

I Wish I Were Bipolar

/ Robin

I can’t believe I just said that either.

“I wish I were Bipolar. Yes, ME.”

I’ve fretted over when/if/how to approach what to say.   Again… another issue to stifle me me and stuff my hands with word stopping globs of goo. (Do you get what I’m getting at? Stay tuned.)

I can’t possibly explain who I am. Not even close. I’ll say one thing and think I’ve given you enough. I’ll pause my monologue and think I’ve given you space to consider me, what I’ve said. I hear my own voice raise over all the silences and questions I’ve left with you. Like…

“What the hell are you going on about woman?!”  I got no clue.

Lies. I’m lying. Laying? Damn words.

I honestly do wish I were Bipolar. Just Bipolar. It would make me.. my life.. so much simpler, even more possible. More probable.

I keep nodding off so I’ll keep this much shorter than I’m naturally inclined to do.

Last night (Wed night) I slept for perhaps an hour or two. It was horrible. My brain began alright. It is still flirting with every tomorrow in this newly less medicated state. We, my brain and I ended in the wee hours (Thur morning) stuck in the turnstyle under a boat load of cement. I couldn’t sleep. I almost did sleep.

Lies. I slept.

I slept for as many hours as I have eyes. Maybe.

I’m so tired.

I have chronic pain everywhere. Pain in every joint, every muscle, every imaginary and real messed up bit of me. I see a chronic pain specialist at a “pain clinic”. They specialize in, well, chronic pain that isn’t easily treated by ordinary means. That just means that in my case for example my MD isn’t comfortable prescribing high and long standing doses of Oxycodone day after week, after month, after year.

I take 10 mg of Oxycodone three times daily (assuming I’m not going to be driving) to try to control my lower back and bum pain.

It rarely works well. I keep taking it whenever I safely can. I bank on the thought that I can trick my mind into believing it really does help. Via my med provider and MD and so on my pain cocktail consists of:
10 mg Oxycodone 3 times daily
50 mg Hydroxyzine 4 times daily
800 mg Ibuprofen every 6 hours
Excedrin Migraine two every 6 hours
Ice, ice, ice, ice
Heat, heat, heat

No joy.

It is now 13 minutes after midnight. That’s 13 minutes into Friday.

So far today sucks. I have heartburn and my pain is nicely controlled at about an 8 (10 being the worst pain I can ever imagine) at the moment.

If I’m not sleeping because of my brain, I’m not sleeping because of my pain. Often the bodily pain causes mental pain…  making sleep an even less likely reality. I need to sleep. My jumbled writing is becoming more jumbled. I hate it. I get my Bipolar brain to cooperate and focus. That’s so awesome. I know that’s so awesome.

The chronic debilitating pain makes it only a shadow of a triumph.

No sleep is not sleeping no matter what the cause.

Oh my. I nodded off for a fairy tale minute. It’s passed.

I’m going to move the warm and melted ice pack from my butt to the freezer. I have four I rotate through. The big hospital size ones for things like knee replacements.

I am so exhausted. I think I might be tired enough now that the pain won’t be able to make me cry and whimper… maybe that means I’ll sleep.

I nodded off again.

I self medicated tonight. Two vodka shots of really bad vodka. Trying to kick start the painkiller and bring sleep and I together faster and hopefully for longer than zero.

I wish I were just Bipolar. Chronic pain plus Bipolar Type 1 completely sucks fried reeds.

Well… started to cry again. Gonna say goodnight to the ice right now. I’ve gotta sleep.

I wish I were Bipolar.