When I was diagnosed bipolar in 2007, my life was greatly devastated. Since 2002 I was taking online screening for depression on a pretty often basis and finding I was considered “severley depressed.” Now I was being told that sometimes I’m extremely happy? When have I ever been happy? I was hospitalized for 3 days a day after the first Christmas my Grand-Mother passed away when I was diagnosed by this hospital as bipolar. I could understand if I may have falsey put on a smile when saying hello to a nurse in passing but, it doesn’t even sound logical that I was happy. I was told that I would most likely start driving wrecklessly as I would become “Manic.” The only most similar action of “mania” i think I experience is when I’ll laugh because something is so miserable that I just can’t believe it is possible. I wanted to rebel when I was told I was bipolar. (It didn’t help my therapist diasagreed with my MD’s diagnosis since, I valued the therapist’s opinion more so) I was put on some higher meds for a few weeks before they said that they actually felt it wasent the right medication for me (lithium) I gained sooooo much weight! I was already fat but I was semi okay because I planned on getting fit the right way. Before I double dosed a diet pill called “Xtreme Lean” to 108lbs (thouse where my glory days, minus three pass outs.) So now I’m fatter, and on abilify with no depressant? I stopped the meds two yrs ago and I’ve only recently had feelings like I had before I was put on it. At this point, I couldnt imagine even asking for help! Life’s been just so much worse than I predicted. I can’t even believe it.
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That f**** LITHIUM has destroyed my life twice already! It CERTAINLY makes you gain weight and grow pimples. I’ve spent the last 6 months trying to solve what those f**** doctors did to my body while I was in the hospital. So many skin treatments and even a liposculture! Now instead of pimples I have two stains underneath my eyes that aren’t going away! I f**** HATE that f**** drug!!! Anything they give you is better than that!
They don’t give you anti-depressants because they can trigger manias. It’s actually true. My life is now gone because some doctor prescribed one to me and off the wall I went. Stay away from Depakote or Zyprexa as well (mood stabilizers) if you don’t want to gain weight. Ask for Lamictal. Thank’s what I’ve been taking for years. No side effects.
I know what it is to live with this f*** illness and the medications out there don’t seem to help much but on the contrary make things even worse sometimes.
I am sorry if my comment is way too emotional and extreme but those f**** drugs have f**** up my life even worse than it already was and all I can see right now are these f**** stains underneath my eyes.
No one can even begin to imagine what that f**** Lithium has done to me. All the suffering and the loses I’ve had to endure because of it. I had to leave the US ten years ago because some government law enabled my doctor to put me in the hospital if my Lithium levels weren’t high enough on the blood tests I had to get done every week. And of course I stopped taking that s***, and of course I was escorted and jailed back in the hospital with handcuffs because of it, ’till I just couldn’t take it anymore! It was either being a fat girl with pimples forever or fleeing to a place where that law couldn’t find me. I had to leave! I lost my green card! It took me 8 years to be able to get it back.
I think swan just about covered it on lithium. My experience wasn’t that bad but, Lithium=no good for me.
For me, maybe I didn’t take it long enough. Maybe a couple weeks at most. I don’t have bipolar, I have depression and borderline personality disorder. I was given 1/3 or half of what a bipolar dose would be. 600-900 mgs a day. I didn’t notice weight change. I did notice it made the impulsive suicidal thoughts decrease. Didn’t affect my logic or feelings as to why I wanted to kill myself. Just less urges. I wanted to kill myself anyways and it didn’t change the way I think or feel, so I stopped taking Lithium.
Everyone reacts differently. What I can’t stand is how I have no jurisdiction over my body. A hospital can dictate what “should be done with me” and I have no say in it. I’m stripped of any rights over my own being, including the right to determine the time when it is best for me to leave this world.