Bipolar Disorder

Dancing Drugs

/ Robin

I’ve just left my Med Provider. I have chosen to decrease my dosage of Lamictal (for Bipolar) because of the following side effect….. intense sensitivity to the sun. I burn in the shade and even while wearing long sleeves. I live in the Pacific Northwest and I love living here. However, that won’t stop me from craving sunny days and need to soak up some rays to feed and heal my brain and  my body. So, sun sensitivity completely sucks.

Freckles.

The med provider, lets call her Jane Smith, agreed with me in my desire to go off Lamictal. She made up a very stupid dosage and times to take it instead of exactly doing what I asked. I mentioned her “plan” to another health care provider and the look on her face convinced me she reacted to Small’s arbitrary orders the same way I did. I’ve been taking 200 mg twice daily. She wanted me to change that to 150 mg with dinner and 200 mg at bedtime. . . . say what??!!

So… I’m taking 150 mg in the a.m. and 200 mg at bedtime. This drug does not hangout in my body for a long time. My MP told me it’s half life is pretty short (how long it lasts). Some medications stay in the body for awhile after a dose. No so with Lamictal (according to JS). If that’s correct it seems so) then telling me to alter my dose schedule for it to the scheme I’ve just mentioned is, well, moronic. Yep, I said it. “MORONIC.”

Freckle soup.

My Many Eccentricities

/ Robin / 1 Comment

My way to mentally apologize before the fact for having so many eccentricities… is not to do or say anything at all.

This has to stop. Rather than stopping me, I need to stop doing it. Stop being afraid and freezing myself to complete inaction.

I panic and abort what I want to blog. . . because my attention span is – okay, I don’t actually have one. Even when I’m very manic regarding something my mind is ranging all over the landscape entertaining any little morsel it may find.

Seriously, I’m like my puppy. She stops to smell everything, is distracted while being distracted, puts everything in her mouth, stops in mid stride to grab a pinecone, rock or stick of ANY size. Okay, I don’t put everything in my mouth, thankfully. That would be so weird.

I watch Bailey (puppy – 4 month old Heeler) and how her attention is so excitable and well, iffy. Just like me really. She’s given me new insight into myself.

Here’s my problem. People don’t like it when I’m talking and I’m all over the place. When I’m blogging I think exactly the same way. I want to talk about whatever I’m talking to myself about. I don’t really want to focus on just being Bipolar or a Mom or… or… or… or… or anything single thing.

Because I’m not.

In the 2010 movie Alice in Wonderland Alice says, “I sometimes think about 6 impossible things before breakfast.”

This is totally me. Only expand it to include 24 hours and have no limit on how many things I’m allowed to think about. This is what and who I am.

“Sometimes I believe (or think) in as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
1. There’s a potion that can make you shrink.
2. And a cake that can make you grow.
3. Animals can talk.
4. Cats can disappear.
5. There is a place called ‘Wonderland‘.
6. I can slay the Jabberwocky.

I recommend you hold on loosely because it is going to be an interesting trip.

Eccentricity.

Eclectic Me – Bipolar 1

/ Robin

I’d like to think that I’m eclectic. Maybe its because in addition to hosting Bipolar 1 I’m also providing a home for the delightful yet unpretentious full blown dalliance of ADHD. For the moment sidestep everything accept the fact that my grey cells are no place for the faint of heart.

Translation: Stick my brain bits of everything in a blender and when it stops… eclectic is what you get. Eclectic. That’s me. My brain gobbles up anything and everything and shoots out something cool, something made from various different sources, something transcending one single idea. I think.

Thinking of my brain, of me, as being eclectic is a gift. Why? You ask? It’s simple. Eclectic takes the best of many different systems (I hope I stick with the best) and make them into something new. Let me try something.

1. I have Bipolar Type 1. I cycle rapidly and/or experience mixed states. Today I’m rumbling on towards mania.
2. I have ADHD. I experience what I think of as “wandering brain syndrome”.
3. Add BP1 with ADHD and you have a hopped up manic or depressed (or both) brain that can’t sit still.

Eclectic. . . I hope.

While I enjoy the thrill of discovery that I find accompanies this eclectica, I also find that as brilliant as I consider my ideas and such to be… I often forget what I was being so brilliant about.

My attention span is, um, alright – I barely have an attention span. And what is a “span” and how does it attend? What?

Talk about sucking.

I carry pads of paper or my smartphone. My phone is cool because my notes (I use GNotes) on it are synced with the same app on my Chromebook. I can keep track of what I was thinking pretty much all the time. I may experience “wandering brain syndrome” a bit more energetically. When this happens, I’ll probably (usually) forget that I even took notes.

Damn.

I might have worked out how to feed the planet, the whole planet, in one month!

Damn. Wander where it went?

The reason I’m dedicating this post to having an eclectic (BP1/ADHD) brain is because I find myself being stuck mentally and not able to focus on what I want to say here. Say to you. My brain draws information from anything it wants to and sticks them together. I do enjoy it when the ideas stick together on their own.

Wait, back on track please.

Right. I think sometimes that I’m writing this blog (Redux – doing over) so I can share my journey of living with BP1 with you. Never mind that both depression and mania tend to make it difficult to really focus on doing something as specific as writing and making sense when I do it.

Translation: I want to talk about so many things all the time… all the time… that I always want to talk about things I don’t think will fit here. So I write nothing. My ADHD is perfectly happy with the situation. It’s already bored and off to the next thing.

The way my brain works is very similar to the way our puppy’s brain works – it never stops!

All this is just to say that I’ve finally come to the conclusion that it’s okay, even healthy, for me to write on whatever my brain is playing with at the moment.

It is my hope that my BP1 and ADHD will join forces and keep you interested.

I hear-by grant to my brain all rights and privileges due when I experience a moment of clarity.

What was I talking about?

I’m in such pain…. I’m a BP1, ADHD, PTSD, FM, OA, MOM

/ Robin

Seriously though… I’m in an extraordinarly dismal pain deep in my bones I think. I’m not certain. It starts somewhere around my swollen and annoying disks down around the L-something-or-other.

Restless legs? Perhaps. Runs in the women on my mom’s side of the family.

Anxiety encouraging psychosomatic (maybe) spinal pain to radiate through Restless Legs and deep to the ass of the leg with the double times new knee.

Translation… My equal isn’t ibriumating. Get it? Equilibrium. Equal. Equal-ibrium.  New knee as in “not using it much for years and am lopsided and out of synch.)

What?

Seriously though… From my lower back down past my toes especially in my right leg and alien beastie is trying to pull the bones out of my flesh. Meat. Oh my.

Seriously though… Hurts like a “$(%*& ”   of  a    ” )(*&#_ ”   If you know what I mean.

Sitting on my bum on the floor is a feat of unsurpassed hilarity. Translation: I’m either laughing madly – or – crying with great abandon. Take your pick.

Tonight the pain started about 1:15 in the afternoon PST.   Not EST.   PST.

I took my Oxycodone and heating pad and lie down (lay down… well I wasn’t “sitting” down) on my bed while my puppy (Australian Shepherd/Heeler named Bailey, a little girl) snoozed at my feet. Literally. She slept temporarily where my feet could go on my queen sized bed. Then she slept where they also could have been. And then again. Add. Spin. Rinse. Repeat.

Where was I? Right. Bloody bleeding sickly . . . agony. Pain. Unrelenting, mind blowing, consuming… pain.

I don’t watch American Idol. Did once, when it all first began. Still have a fondness for Kelly Clarkson. The queen upon the Idol throne. I sat tonight not watching the 13th season with my son (Kyle, 19. He’s a boy.). I think I must have been doing it louder than I noticed because suddenly he sideswiped my attention from my ass to, well, to my whining. I was whimpering and whining.

I never allow myself that luxury while my kids are about. At least, not before this. Today, I’m in such pain… And it started well before bedtime.

Oh damn!  I just want to sleep.

I think, I think I’ll go soak my ass. Okay, I’ll soak everything that will fit in the tub too. Maybe some soothing heat not floating around my body will help some. Oh great bird of the universe I hope so. Damn I do hope so.

My car is in the shop. Again.

My phone is stupid and dead.

My knee is still new.

My weather is nice. Just right today.

My belly is too big.

My kids are amazing. And my puppy too.

I can see my feet again.  When I move my boobs out of the way. I’m short you know.

I’m in so much pain.

Good night.

Tomorrow is going to come whether I’ve slept or not. As it always does and always should do. I would do well to remember this.

Come on pain, time to have a bath. Pain, would you consider going down the drain? Please. No? Screw you. I’m having that bath anyway.

Again. Good night.

What’s Wrong with Me?

/ Robin

All right then…. early on in my adventure in this thing called “me”… things were really rough. Actually, things have always been rough for me.

STOP!

Wow, that was horrible. I cannot relive all the horror that I’ve been through just to tell you this thing I’ve discovered.

When my kids were young and I was coming apart at the seams I struggled against myself to find peace. Some days the darkness wanted me too much it seemed. God was nothing and I was all alone. Alone in my head with myself.

The thing about me is I’m never ready to stop. Even when that’s what I’m screaming that it’s what I truly wish for.

I came across an idea, a lot of ideas. Things written and spoken that gave me the beginning of control. Control of myself… stopping.

Think about this. . . I am the only one in my head, controlling what I think and who I am. Yes, I may be admitting I’m bonkers and I’ve chosen to be bonkers… but I’m not. I’m not!

Youch! Bipolar is . . . my brain dancing to a private tune. When I’m off my meds or on something that just isn’t working for me my blessed brain runs amok. Everyday I enter into negotiations with myself to see if I’m going to cooperate. Cooperate with myself.

I am the only one who can control what I think.

Just me.

Yes there have been and will times when I don’t believe that. But it is true. My strength comes from within myself. I had to be on medication after medication and so much pain… when the drugs started helping me begin to hold on to myself, I was finally able to find an idea that would see me through this day.

I am the only one who can control what I think.

Okay, I need a little help with that from drugs, but what’s a girl to do when her brain runs bizarre?

I am the only one who can control what I think. Just me.

I won’t say I’ve been saved, because that’s not what this is about. It is about mental health, about my brain dancing Bipolar, ADHD, PTSD and always some new alphabet soup. I’ve been trying on OA and FM. We’re not on great terms just yet. And then I saw the Neurologist last week and he told me basically I’m mental. This facial tick I’ve developed over the last six months or so is my brain trying to get my attention.

Let me get this straight. My often out of control brain wants my attention so it, my brain, thought it would have a party on my face? Seriously? Sucks. He suggested I see my mental health professional. Wow. Show stopper.

My brain, with a “mental” disorder… is mental. Super sucks.

I am the only one who can control what I think. Just me.

Maybe that’s what my mind has been trying to tell me. That I need to listen to myself, that I need to learn and teach myself. I need to find whatever helps me handle me (good and healthy things) and pursue them with great vigor.

I must always remember that I am the only one who can control what I think. Just me — with a little help from my meds.

Confused yet? You are? Good. Me too.