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beneficii
Veteran
Veteran

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Joined: 10 May 2005
Age: 40
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,245

15 Sep 2014, 2:04 pm

I began regressing in October of 2012. When this happened, things felt very wrong. I was having panic and rage attacks secondary to not having access to sex reassignment surgery. I attempted suicide, was hospitalized, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and put on bipolar meds (therapeutic dose lithium + low dose antipsychotic). I would have 2 more hospitalizations. Then I went for a second and third opinion and they said no evidence of bipolar disorder and took me off the bipolar meds, but the second opinion would end up having to put me on a high-dose benzodiazepine and high-dose antipsychotic; and now he is talking about putting me on an SSRI to help with obsessive thinking.

My therapist noted that last year I was able to work more consistently and it was during that time I was taking the bipolar meds. He noted this year, after having been taken off the bipolar meds, I have been unable to work consistently, taking a lot of time off of work starting in March as I fretted about my preauthorization for sex reassignment surgery and then hardly working at all (not making substantial gainful activity by May as measured by Social Security), to being off a month on disability and now another two months. He wonders if the removal of the bipolar meds wasn't a mistake and led to an inability to cope with stress and that restoring the bipolar meds (which here would mean restarting the therapeutic dose of lithium) might improve my situation. He noted how one doctor said bipolar and how two doctors said autism, but no doctor said schizophrenia.

I am personally doubtful of his explanation. In October 2012, I felt that something was very wrong with my mind. I wonder if I haven't been suffering from some sort of progressive illness like regressive autism or even incipient schizophrenia (with the full expression of schizophrenia currently being held off by a high dose antipsychotic) that has caused an increasingly declining coping capacity. I can't work because my ability to cope with stressors has been on a steady decline since October 2012 due to the development of some sort of progressive illness. The fretting over the preauthorization and the denial were simply the straws that broke the camel's back, the stressors that finally overcame a progressively declining coping capacity. This idea seems to have a ring of truth for me, because I sense something is very wrong with my mind right now and I have sensed the same for the past couple of years. I am doubtful that medication would do much to help restore my coping capacity.

Who can solve this riddle?


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