Bipolar/Aspergers support and chat thread

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[/quote]I've tried just about every drug there is, and some of them have put me in a state of true euphoria. The idea of staying that way for days or weeks or months almost makes me want to cry. Is it really that good? Or is there a massive downside I'm not seeing?[/quote]

Honestly, it is pretty grand--most of the time. The thing I like most about it is that I am pretty self-conscious and self-judgemental, but when I'm hypomanic, it just doesn't matter. I don't care much what others think of me, I'm having a great time, doing what seems important at the time, don't need too much sleep, etc. The downside? no, not massive. But I always over-commit because so many things seem so important, and I have so much energy and enthusiasm. Then my depression hits after a couple of weeks of mixed mood transition, and I can't follow through on anything, let so many people down, and that just feeds the depression more.

Here is what I've learned about the depression though: After having been on Tegretol for over 20 years (for anti-mania), I had to go off of it when I lost my insurance, and my depression has been MUCH milder since. In addition, I took the Tegretol for Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, so I started smoking cannabis for the depression. After figuring out what strain helped my anxiety most, I've had no seizures (this will be my 3rd year--my moods cycle once a year, with the sun) and my depression/anxiety has also been greatly helped. In states where it's legal, you can get oils that will not make you high, but work fine. A personal choice, but it's also said to help with a lot of the sensory stuff of ASDs. However, if you've never tried it, do it with someone else the first time or two; most people don't experience much the first time, but if you overdo it, it can make you really anxious! But you cannot overdose enough to need medical attention. Psychiatric on the other hand? Depends on you-specific variables.

Best of luck.
Camela

I love my anti-depressant, and I hate it. The first I took (on two different occasions) were tri-cyclics, and made me hypomanic on one occasion, and VERY hypomanic on the second (landing me in the hospital for 17 days). These are totally NOT to be taken with bipolar disorder. Next they put me on Paxil and it works like a dream. However, there are three big problems with it: 1) complete loss of sex drive. Really wrecks a marriage. 2) there is a HORRIBLE, PROTRACTED WITHDRAWAL. If you can make it on any other med, DON'T take Paxil! Some of the newer anti-depressants have this effect, but none as bad as Paxil, from what I've heard. Not just depression and irritability, but VIOLENCE. If you stop it suddenly, you may have such problems with balance that you can't walk, drive reliably, and may even throw up. It takes a LONG time to get off of the s**t, and don't do it without a doctor's supervision. If they resist, tell them you'll go off anyway, and you'd appreciate it if they'd help so that you can do it safely. 3) teeth grinding. I cracked my back molars forward to back, all the way thru. They drilled and capped it, but I ground those off, and now need to have at least one tooth pulled. Others are also on their way. So, stay away from this one, carefully query your doctor about any and all side effects before you start something.

Camela whose mixed mood has resolved, but I'm not hypomanic yet! Waaaaa!

...

[quote="SharinEverything"]I Not just depression and irritability, but VIOLENCE. If you stop it suddenly, you may have such problems with balance that you can't walk, drive reliably, and may even throw up. It takes a LONG time to get off of the sh**, and don't do it without a doctor's supervision. If they resist, tell them you'll go off anyway, and you'd appreciate it if they'd help so that you can do it safely.
[/quote



I have to agree with this but with all depression medication. My husband is Clinical depression but was pressured to take himself of his medication by people that thought they knew better, He coped for a few days and then just snapped. I ending up in the wardrobe the hard way and he ended up on stronger medication. The second time he came off he did it slowly and with support, He have been of them for 4 years. If you are on depression tablets and want to come off them seek doctors advice first. Never just stop them. You can get VIOLENCE. My husband is not a violence man and have always regretted what happened that day but I never blamed him. It was the fault of stopped the medication straight off instead of coming of them slowly. Always do it with the doctors supervision and remain safe.

Anyone have any advice for dealing with a mixed state? For the past few weeks I've hardly been able to get up, just exhausted all the time, no motivation to do anything (not even to play video games, which I normally love). At the same time, I'm anxious and paranoid all the time. Whenever I go outside, it looks like everyone is watching me, that they're all just bad people. Whenever I'm around men I feel certain that they want to rape me. I end up hiding inside my apartment all the time.

I can deal with depression on its own, but anything that helps depression makes the mania worse. Anything that helps the mania (like smoking cannabis, for example), makes the depression worse. I really don't want to go on medication. I've survived episodes like this before. But I'm hoping maybe someone else will have some suggestions for how to level myself out a bit?

I'm also trying to stop eating so much sugar. I realized just how much sugar I eat, and recently I've gained a surprising amount of weight. I figure cutting the sugar will help. I'm also trying to make myself get some exercise every day (at least a 30+ min walk or a set of 100 situps or similar exercise). But I'm wondering now if maybe cutting the sugar is actually contributing to the current problem. I know sugar is addictive and people can go through withdrawal when they stop eating it... Thoughts?

[quote="kotshka"]Anyone have any advice for dealing with a mixed state? For the past few weeks I've hardly been able to get up, just exhausted all the time, no motivation to do anything (not even to play video games, which I normally love). At the same time, I'm anxious and paranoid all the time. Whenever I go outside, it looks like everyone is watching me, that they're all just bad people. Whenever I'm around men I feel certain that they want to rape me. I end up hiding inside my apartment all the time.

I can deal with depression on its own, but anything that helps depression makes the mania worse. Anything that helps the mania (like smoking cannabis, for example), makes the depression worse. I really don't want to go on medication. I've survived episodes like this before. But I'm hoping maybe someone else will have some suggestions for how to level myself out a bit?

I'm also trying to stop eating so much sugar. I realized just how much sugar I eat, and recently I've gained a surprising amount of weight. I figure cutting the sugar will help. I'm also trying to make myself get some exercise every day (at least a 30+ min walk or a set of 100 situps or similar exercise). But I'm wondering now if maybe cutting the sugar is actually contributing to the current problem. I know sugar is addictive and people can go through withdrawal when they stop eating it... Thoughts?[/quote



First I think you need to see a doctor, I would suggest some blood tests as being very low in some vitamins and things can make things worse in your mind. You could even be low in sugar but blood tests can show all this. Then you really need someone to talk to, maybe your doctor can suggest someone that you can talk to. Your fear of rape suggest an history in either your life or someone close to you and you rally need to open up about it. As for exercise do not put yourself under pressure with a hard routine but find a fun way to exercise. I got an wee-fit myself with fun games but there is music videos that makes exercising fun and you ore relax. Good luck in everything

What happened to this thread? It seems to be dead.

I'm having a rough period. Still seem to be in quite a mixed condition. Can't relax, can't sleep. I think more and more about possibly trying medication. But I have completely mixed feelings about it.

When I try to talk to friends about it, I always get similar reactions. I've never been hospitalized. There's no danger of me trying to kill myself or hurt someone else. I just don't have it in me. I've been faking normal my entire life thanks to growing up autistic in an abusive household, and I'm so good at it that no one believes for a moment that there's anything really wrong with me. People are so used to seeing me "fake-ok" that during the rare times when I'm actually okay, people always ask me what's wrong, because I don't look like "myself."

So when in my desperation I approach a friend to ask their opinion on medication, they always tell me that I surely don't need it. I think they're trying to reassure me, but it comes across the opposite way. They think I need to hear that there's nothing wrong with me. There is. There is most definitely something very, very wrong with me. The ability to persuade others you're fine is not the same as being fine. And so what I hear over and over again echoes what my mother always told me as a child. I'm making it up. There's nothing wrong with me. It's all in my head. I'm a hypochondriac.

It feels like everyone is saying that as long as I'm not a danger to myself or others, as long as I'm not going to kill myself, as long as I've never been hospitalized for psychiatric issues, I don't deserve to feel the way I feel. Like I'm just making puppy dog eyes and feeling sorry for myself when others have it so much worse than me.

I've been hearing it my whole life, from every authority figure since birth. I'm 29 years old now, and it's completely internalized. Logically, I know it's not true, but it's hard to fight that level of lifelong abuse.

When I think about trying medication, I can hear this chorus of voices in my head saying I'm not sick enough to need medication. I've survived 29 years and I will surely keep right on surviving whether I take medication or not. Even during the worst of my psychotic mania, when everyone's faces look like they're melting and everyone wants to rip my skin off and eat it while I watch, I will still pull it together enough to bluff my way through the 4 hours of work a day. Always. If I decide to try medication, it feels like maybe I really am just making excuses. That if I don't need it to survive, then I don't need it. Period.

But where do you draw the line between just barely hanging on and no longer able to hang on? What if I cross that line in the future? How do I even know where that line is? How do I know how much strength I have left, or how close I am to breaking down, if it's never quite happened before?

I'm feeling very lost. No one I talk to seems to understand. They only know me from the outside. I seem perfectly fine. When I mention these issues to people, I'm almost always met with the word "hypochondriac" or comparisons with other people they know with autism or bipolar disorder who are completely different from me. "You're not like this guy I once knew, therefore you don't have that problem."

What's the difference between being okay and being able to look okay? Some people tell me that if you're together enough to look fine on the outside, you must be okay. That if it was really that bad, I wouldn't be able to hide it. They say that's where the line actually is: when it's so bad that you can't hide it anymore, that's when you really need help.

I want to shout in their faces that they're wrong, that I'm a giant mess, just a great actress. But I have no way of knowing if they're wrong or right. For all I know, everyone struggles just as much as me. Maybe I'm not as sick as I think, maybe I really am just being a wuss about it. But it doesn't seem quite right. Surely other people don't fake smile all day then go home and cry for hours, or bang their heads against the wall because of the tornado inside. Surely other people aren't excusing themselves to go use the bathroom just so they can writhe around from the emotional agony, in private where no one can see them. Surely the world doesn't fade to a distant white blur after too much social contact and sensory stimulation; surely they're not all just pretending to listen when they've long since lost the ability to understand words.

Right?

Am I really over-exaggerating how bad it is? Or am I just so incredibly skilled at acting and faking and bullshitting my way through every situation that I should be incredibly proud of how doubtful everyone is?

I don't know. I have no idea.

^^^^

Their not trained professionals , these ignorant people are the ones who label school shooters as "evil" without knowing all the facts , at my worst i think i could have been another statistic if i some one had given me a gun . Thankfully their are some who are well trained and observant every 2 years i have a "review" to try to get me off the disability pension , the government doctor within moments told me to go back to my GP for treatment funnily enough i didn't think i was that bad at the time

I've been so long on the pension i think the government has given up on me, so much so when i asked if they can help me find part time work they asked why would you, you don't have to !

None of the "trained professionals" I've talked to have ever really listened or believed me either. Most of them insisted there was nothing wrong with me because I'm able to function, work, live independently. They wouldn't diagnose me with anything unless I was unable to function. Several suggested that I just needed to get more exercise. One suggested that my problem stems from an inability to plan for the future, because I'm almost 30 and have no intention of starting a family.

Only one doctor ever agreed that I might need some real help beyond a little talking therapy and herbal tea. But he assumed that I was simply neurotic. He didn't see my last manic episode (I couldn't get an appointment until it was long over). He seemed to believe that I was telling the truth, but not that it was really mania. He decided I probably only had severe anxiety issues. He prescribed me antidepressants, which triggered another manic episode. He was out of the office on a holiday when this happened and I couldn't get in to see him again until the episode had ended.

I only took one of those pills. Gave the rest back to him, told him there was no way in hell I would take antidepressants ever again, because this is the second time they have triggered mania. He agreed that antidepressants are not a suitable treatment for mania. He said that if I really want to try lithium, he would be willing to prescribe it to me, but that he doesn't think I need it and that I "seem fine" for the time being. I decided not to take them, and haven't been to another doctor since.

If I wanted to try lithium or another mood stabilizer, I could make an appointment with him (though it might take a month or longer to get in) and he'd give them to me. But I still can't decide. I'm suffering constantly, but every single person in my life insists that I don't need any help, because I go to work every day, I pay my bills, I can keep it together when other people are around. On those lucky rare occasions when I get hypomania, everyone does notice. They get annoyed with me, tell me to calm down, ask me what the hell is wrong with me. But usually it's the real mania, and people say I just seem quiet and sort of agitated. I'm afraid to speak, afraid to deviate from my routine. Everyone will know. The bad people will get me. Even if I know it's not real, I can't make it stop. Even with tranquilizers I can't sleep, and the few hours I manage each night are riddled with nightmares. But I put all my energy into faking it, something that is very, very easy for me, and no one can see the monsters in my head.

And the rest of the time is the depression. Barely able to move. Crying silently because I don't have the energy to scream. Making excuses to avoid seeing people. Just barely scraping by at work. Not eating enough. Hating myself for being unable to pull myself together and just shake it off like it seems everyone else in the world around me is able to do.

Generally, people don't notice the depression either. At the most, people get annoyed with me. I have had several people, even at work, approach me and tell me to stop looking so miserable all the time. That it wouldn't kill me to smile and be friendly once and a while. Those poor people. I must be ever-so-slightly inconveniencing them. It must be so hard for them to have to look at my unsmiling face. I'm so selfish for not hiding my depression better.

But the worst is right now. Mixed. Agitated, nervous, jumping at every shadow. Seeing giant spiders out of the corners of my eyes. Not able to sleep at night. But not able to wake up in the morning. Having no energy. Feeling hopeless and exhausted and lost and alone in the world. No one will help me. I don't even know if I deserve help. Other people have it so much worse than me.

Now I have to go to the post office to pick up an official letter from the foreigner police. I'm terrified. It could be an exit order. Maybe they're rejecting my application to extend my visa. I don't know what I'll do if that happens. My life would fall apart. I've lived here for 5 years. It's my home.

^^^

I did say some

I went off Aropax (Paxil) without severe withdrawals. I'm back on it and well it was working for a bit, but I'm finding myself becoming manic again. I don't have much depression anymore. I did crash hard after one manic episode went out of control but I'm trying my best to ignore my compulsions; the stuff I really want to do. The energy does eventually fade. I'm doing a lot of writing too which usually exhausts my mania but it isn't. I'm not even sure how long it will last. But my normal moods don't last for long. It's a shame, only a few weeks ago I thought I finally knew what it felt like to feel normal emotions.

The psychiatrist who could finally diagnose me and put me on the right meds is just too expensive at the moment and I'll have to go back to the psych who doesn't believe me at all about bipolar just so I can stay on the pension. Or I can work for the dole while manic and see if they want me back the next day. I'm still far too rapid cycling to be able to work.

^^^^

Are you sure it's mania for a moment their I thought the adrenalin rush was mania , not helped when outsiders thought I was depressive , anyways I was right I suggested beta blockers and it helps quite a bit ,

Silly doctors could have suggested this what use are they apart from writing scripts

No side effects to .

^^^

Sorry you confused me what did you mean by bank account?
My gp thinks anxiety and depression are two sides of the same coin , In my experience I think his wrong , why did antidepressants have little to no affect on me ? Yet beta blockers did , strange I went from 180 mg to 360 mg on the BB's and their was no improvement upped it another 180 mg and really noticed the benefits , thank god for the internet I was told in OZtralia you can only go to 360mg , yet in the usa it's 640 mg ! (the dose I'm on )


People here should try it ...........................

Got it ?
Mania makes you recklessly spend money ?