Noramilty

So I have to reassess what is meant by 'normal'  For years my normal means that I'm either dangerously depressed or so hyper that I have no idea what to do with myself.  These two extremes is what I am, nothing more and nothing less.  However, since I've been on medication I'm in neither extreme and it's so strange.  For a number of weeks I have struggled with being able to sleep and just dozing during the day because I am too tired to do anything else.

Today has been different.  Today, although I am still tired, it doesn't feel so bad.  I'm beginning to get through the tired part and am more awake.  My brain is still working slowly but not as bad as it was.  I do feel more on the ball.  It's like I'm coming out of a thick fog into a more minimal fog.

I suppose I do have to work out what I man by normal, what am I when I am stable, what is the new me.  I know I'm not me any more.  I just don't know who or what I am.  And it terrifies me.  What will people think of the new me, people only really like me when I'm hyper.  Any other way I am no one wants to know.  If I don't go hyper any more I'm just going to disappear, hyper was the only thing that  got me out and about. I'm scared that I will just sit at home and not manage to do any thing, not because I'm depressed but because I don't have the energy to do anything, I will not longer manage to go out anywhere, I will fade away and shrivel into to nothing.

Part of me wants to stop taking the meds so that I can feel like me again, but I know this would not be a wise idea, but I miss the other me, the hyper active me, even the depressed me.  At least I understand who I was then.  At least the get out was easier, right now I don't know how i feel about anything, I don't know how to react to anything.  I just walk through the world and hope I do the right thing.

Christmas and Family

I do like Christmas.   Not the commercial side of it, but the spending time with the family, seeing friends and using it as a way of relaxing and enjoying spending time together.

However, this year, I don't know if it's because I'm in the wrong head space or what but I did not enjoy it this year.  I mean spending time with the niece and nephew is wonderful but the only thing that was talked about was my sister's family, her pregnancy (yep I'm going to be an aunt again), what the niece and nephew are up to, what her husband is up to and how his job is going, where they are at with selling their house, what me Mam is up to, even what my uncle is up to.   Not once was I asked how work was, Mam has asked me not to tell my sister about my Bipolar, I'm not allowed to talk about it at all.  I can't talk about work as I've been to work in a month, but my sister doesn't know any of this.  I actually forgot to take me medication to me Mam's and had to rush home to get it, but again I was not allowed to tell anyone why I had to disappeared.  When I did take the meds, I had to do it in front of my sister and my brother in law because there is not privacy to take it anywhere else.   It wasn't talked about, it wasn't mentioned.

I know I haven't told me Mam just how ill I have been this year.  She has no idea I attempted suicide in May, or that I planned it again in August.  She has no idea that I have cut myself so much this year that I've actually got scars.

I'm meant to tell my family this as they need to know what my moods are to help me deal with it, but I can't tell them.  Me mam is just one of those people where you just don't talk about mental illness.  If I had cancer or broken a leg she would be happy to tell other people and get support.  Because it's Bipolar we don't talk about it, we don't mention it to anyone.

So it was an odd Christmas for me.  I also had to double my dose of lamotrigine to 50mgs yesterday so we'll see what that does.  I'm still not sleeping too well.  Only a couple hours a night, the rest of the time all I manage to do is doze.  But still fully aware of what is happening around me.  I'm really tired, but not feeling depressed nor an I hyper.  I'm too tired to do anything.

In better news CD and I are talking again and hoping to meet up.  He's feeling better but I don't know how I feel at the moment.  I want to see him, and I have missed him but I wonder if he is the right person for me.  He needs someone who's supportive and I need someone who's supportive.  If we keep getting ill at the same time it's never going to work.  If we get ill at different times it won't matter so much as we can support each other.  The medication is also making me horney so I don't know if I want to see him because I want the sex.

Everything is so confusing and I don't know how I feel about a lot of things.  I don't know if the medication is a good thing because I don't feel like I'm me.  Without the extreme moods I feel like most of me doesn't exist.  I don't know who I am without the swings.  At some point I have to go back to work as I'm having money issues and without a full months pay I'm screwed.

In some ways having a diagnosis of Bipolar has been like a weight lifted from my shoulders, the mood swings I've gone through and the horror I've been through is not my fault.  It's not something I could control it's all part and parcel of being bipolar.  But now I have this diagnosis and I'm not sure what I should do.  I have to change my life style I'm sure of it, but I don't know what I should do.

I have many people who said that I can talk to them about stuff but none of them are bipolar, and not sure what to say or how to help me.  Someone asked me what they could do to help me and the truth is I have no idea.  I don't understand myself, I'm not sure I know who I am any more.  I know I don't really want to cut and I don't want to commit suicide so these are good things but other than that I don't know anything.  Having spent years trying to learn who I am I have to start again.  At 35 years of age and feeling so alone I'm not sure I can.

This is week 3 since diagnosis.

Didn't expect this.

Today has not been the greatest of days. 

I had 8 hours of sleep which was amazing, I've not slept like that in months.  It was peaceful, I did dream but for the life of me I couldn't not tell you what I have been dreaming about.  I think that 8 hours of sleep has been my only positive for me.

Today I started off being really dizzy and as the day went on I had dizzy spells, it was like I had no balance.  I would be walking and then veering off in one direction or another.  When I stood up, sat down or moved my head too quick the world would spin.  This subsided as time went on but my head would spin at random times through out the day, which has made me feel more than a little nauseous.   So I haven't eaten much today.  

I have also been crying on and off today.  Not so much full on sobbing, but I have had no controls of the tears that having been coming out of my eyes, so I am exhausted.  At the best of time I hate crying and avoid it as much as I can, but this has been uncontrollable and am thankful that nobody could see me or hear me.

I'm hoping that another good nights sleep will help me to get more in control of my feelings and my reactions.

But on the other hand I do feel calmer.  My body is more relaxed, I am thinking slower but it makes more sense, I feel like I can cope with anything and stay calm and relaxed.  I don't think I have ever felt this was before.  I think this is good but it's odd.  It's like I'm missing part of me.  I'm neither hyper nor am I depressed, I just am.  I'm sure I'll get use to this, but I do feel like I'm a different person.  Which one is me,  this one or the other one.  I have to learn to function as this person, to see the world as this person, interact with people.... in some ways I'm a toddler learning about the world again.

On top of all of that I think I have an ear infection in both ears.  

Week 1

For longer than I can put my finger on I have always had horrible mood swings.  Either I am hyper active or I am depressed.  When I am hyper active I would spend too much money and get into debt, I would go out and be overly social and meet lots of people, join lots of groups and volunteer for things.  I could do my household chores but not nescessarily in one go.  I would put a wash on then start on the washing up, get half way through that and decide that my bedroom would need cleaning, then part way through decide I needed to sort out my kitchen cupboards and so on and do forth.  It would take a long time for me to complete any job I completed, and I am talking a days not hours.  I wouldn't really sleep, may a few hours every few days.  People liked me when I was like this, I was happy and a joy to be around.  Although, as I got more hyper people would ask if I was on something, or if they could take what I was on because I just didn't stop, ever!  I would also get cranky and become very sarcastic and people would struggle with that, but I never saw an issues I would just carried on going.  When I was really hyper I would start cutting myself to bring me down a bit.

Then I would, what I termed, crash.  This is when I got into a depressed state.  I would not want to get out of bed, I would sleep all the time, I would eat very little and loose a lot of weight.  I would not socialise unless I absolutely had too, I wouldn't wash, I wouldn't do any house hold chores, I hated talking to people, I would just shut down.  I would also start cutting myself a lot to bring my mood up.  It would help me get up in the morning to go to work or do what ever job I needed to do.

I of course dealt with this in the only way I knew how, I would but myself when I could, sometimes take an overdose of painkillers and alcohol to get high, I would change jobs, I would move house, I would break of friendships and acquaintances.  I would do near enough anything other than deal with what ever was going on.

I was told I had depression, I would take antidepressants but was never convinced they would work.  I went through Cognitive Analytical Therapy (CAT) for 24 weeks and helped me a lot and for a while, although I still went up and down, I didn't hurt myself in ways.  But I still changed jobs and moved around then things got too much.

These mood swings got worse, then this year was a bad year.  I was hyper at the beginning of the year, got all my work done, was sociallising, was even a head of myself on the paper work.  Until in March/April I attempted suicide but failed.  I just ended up vomiting all night.  I was so angry and upset the next day that I was horrible to work with.  A friend cornered me and asked what was wrong, I said to them 'I shouldn't be here, I should have died' and walked off.  She watched as over the following months I withdrew from people and started to shut myself down.  She became worried, what she didn't know what that I was planning another attempt and that I was self harming.  All she knew what that I had attempted and failed a suicide attempt and that I was shutting myself down.

She got worried and told our management what she knew.  She was not wrong to do this, but I was not ready to acknowledge the place I was at.  So I was forced to.  I went through a suspension, I went to the doctor, who refereed me to the Community Mental Health Team (CMHT).  I was put on citalopram and went as high as a kite.  I was so hyper it was funny.  Then I crashed as didn't get out of bed.  So I was put on mirtazapine so that I could sleep, it has a sedative affect.  For three days I got 10 hours sleep a night.  More than I had in three months, and then I went hyper again and this was intense.  I couldn't sit still for more than 1 minute, I couldn't concentrate on any conversation more than a minute.  I would walk for three or four hours to try and burn off my energy.  Then I crashed and I wanted to die.  It was horrible.  So I was given an emergency appointment with the CMHT and was a psychiatrist and Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN).

The initial report they sent me was full of inaccuracies of the conversation we were having that I didn't believe I had been there in the room.  I honest didn't think I had been there.  It was crazy so I started to doubt this team.  Still, because I knew I had to, I carried on going to see the CPN.  She talked me through things and gave me a mood questionnaire to fill in.  It was 15 pages long but I filled it in.

The psychiatrist looked over the questionnaire, the conversations we had had, the edits to the report I had made, and with the notes my CPN had made from our sessions.  It was decided that I have Bipolar Disorder.

This is a big diagnosis and life changing. I was put on quetiapine but I had a bad reaction to that.  Although it made me very tired to the point I could barely move I could not sleep.  Then I hallucinated all night that something was licking me. It was a horrible, horrible night.  So now I am on lamotrigine which has calmed me down.  I can now sit still, I can concentrate for longer periods of time and the need to talk has decreased.  I am defiantly calmer.  My sleep has doubled from 1.5 - 2 hours a night to 3-4 hours a night, but I am more tired.  I doze during the day because I can't keep my eyes open, but I don't sleep.  I usually doze after I take my medication.  I am on 25mgs at the moment but as of Christmas Day it gets doubled to 50mgs.  I see my psychiatrist in January for a more complete conversation about what it means to Bipolar and how best to manage it. 

I don't know how soon I will return to work, if I go back full time or if I go part time or just find a new job.  I just don't know.  Right now I need to think about what I need to control my Bipolar and how to mange this condition.  It is something that will never go away, I have to learn to live with it and it scares me stupid.

It will be interesting to see what the new year brings.  

This is end of week 1 since my diagnosis and being on medication.

Well fuckadoddledo

It's official.

I have Bipolar Disorder.  This is something which is a life changing diagnosis. I'm not sure how I feel about it.  I know I've probably had this for a great many years, and it's only through being in one place for a number of year that the problem has really been highlighted and that I got forced into getting help.  Without that push I don't think I would have gotten help at this point.  It could have been another year or so, or I would have moved to get away from the problem.  Perhaps I would never have gotton help and could have successfully taken my life.  Something I have tried once this year and planned a second attempt which I never saw through.  The cutting would increase and that could have caused issues.  

I know I need to look at my life and work out what is good for me and what is bad for me.  Do I got back to work full time, do I only work part time, do I stay living on my own or do I attempt to go back into flat sharing..... there are so many questions going around my head but I struggle to keep it under control which only causes me to freak myself out.  Which doesn't help.

I got put on medication today so I need to see how that effects me and how it levels me out.  I'm hoping I don't go completely crazy on them, or they react so badly to me that I end up being really sick.  There is so much unknown right now and it scares me, really scares me. I need to to take one day at a time but the whole thing just seems so big right now and out of control.

This is yet something else I have to manage for the rest of my life.  I'm not sure I can do it, but I know I have to.  I just need to keep going.

It's not like life has actually changed, I just have the extra support and the appropriate support that I need to live a 'normal' life.  The mood swings should disappear.  But I have upset a lot of people lately, I have alienated myself and at some point I need to start rebuilding these things.  But that's an issue for a different day.

Right now all I need to concentrate on taking my meds, working out what they are doing to me and going to my appointments.

One day at a time.