Hello friends,
I was diagnosed with bipolar 2 a year ago. It was my first obvious hypomanic episode, ie the best 6 weeks of my life – felt like a superhero. Damn it I wish I could bottle that stuff to take a swig of in the bad times. I reckon I got more done in those 6 weeks than in the previous 5 years.
Anyway I’m hoping there are some bipolar 1 or 2 fellow travellers out there who can share your perspective. Maybe even a word of advice. I know precisely 0 people with this disorder IRL
To clarify I was depressed for about 20y before this diagnosis but it was thought to be major depression. Hence little or no effect from SSRI/SNRIs. This is very common so they say. Did this happen to you?? Ihad more or less given up hope of my suffering ending and tried all kinds of alt treatments. Ayahuasca, tDCS etc. I continue on that path. I am now considering a witch doctor.
I naively thought getting the bipolar diagnosis would lead to effective treatment. Not so. Still depressed 60% of the time, about half of it with constant thoughts of death and suicide. It is so fucking exhausting. Have you walked this same disappointing and hope-crushing path?
I started using Daylio to map moods a few months before diagnosis because I could tell there were weird cycles going on. Not entirely a good idea – yes there are good times but not more than 10 days in a row, and the dominance of severe and milder depression is disheartening AF. I hoped I could find triggers or correlations with activities, meds, other crackpot interventions I tried. There seem to be none other than the earth shattering insight that it helps being with friends basically 24h a day, and that is not sustainable. Nor does it always work. Prolonged sleep deprivation is not good – go hypomanic.
How about you???
Anyone had a good response to treatment? likely not if you’re on here lol. While I hope there are positive stories out there the not so pos ones are just as welcome because I know you will get where I’m coming from.
Meds wise what has helped/not helped?
I was taken off venlafaxine (only antiD which ever helped at all but not much) because it probably caused rapid cycling and what not. I think sleep deprivation had just as much to do with it. Since then I’ve been on lamotrigine and quetiapine. Underwhelmed with the response. I can sleep better and the Q dampens the severe agitation and paranoia – I had a mixed state after the hypomania. The worst experience of my entire time on this planet. But I’m still depressed most of the time. Tried lithium- zero effect on mood, just made me into a creepy zombie with hands shaking so much I could hardly write or type. Frightened small children.
Did anyone else have a poor response to these 3 drugs, but then find one that worked?? Just hoping. I’m not stopping the L or Q at this point – only because I fear things could get 10x worse than they are already. The psychiatrists just increase the doses if I whine about still being depressed. Dose increases do nought except make me groggier.
Do you find yourself becoming an aggressive and hate-filled ogre? I have phases where I have no patience and fly into idiotic rages. I pick fights with anyone and rail against the most minor of inconveniences. Embarrassing. I quit a job because I was generating client complaints that were entirely justified. I’m waiting for someone to get fed-up and dash my brains out with a rock.
Thanks for any wisdom or fellow suffering you can share. This is a roller coaster ride I would prefer to get off, or at least avoid a Fabio vs bird type incident.
6 comments
brief political aside; bipolar and regular depression being the only two common varieties was a conscious choice by the AMA, one that many providers disagreed with. I personally dislike the inference of limitation. I like psychotic depression or depression or anxiety as either are a better description of my experience.
that being said, I’ve been diagnosed as bipolar, I don’t know if it is one or two. My cycles are long, and mostly depressed. I have taken venefraxaline/ effexor a few times. It sort of works. Right now I’m on prozac, which is decent. Either way that’s supposed to deal with the mood features, IE not wanting to get out of bed, panic attacks. Isolated from specific triggers, it works. Sadly, there is no isolation from these triggers, at least that I’ve seen in a functioning adult.
On the second drug, I can’t remember what it was like. It didn’t work for long enough for me to remember it.
The third drug happens to be my favorite chemical in the world. It feels like literal restraints, and if I try to get too excited, it flings me back to indifference like a fabulous bungie. I get decent sleep on it. We’re also on my third dose increase, because I haven’t found the upper limit of effectiveness.
My problems are what happens when I’m unmedicated. Without the specific combination of these two drugs and a few over the counter, suddenly I start to care about where my life is going. I’ve been told that I’m highly intelligent/competitive. When my life went well, I had a trajectory where I was going. I had goals, hopes, dreams.
Now? Nah. Those things will put you in a psych ward. There’s no help, and that’s just fine by me. I tried to function, I tried really hard and took every drug on the market trying to make it work. I function within my role, caring for my house and family. It’s just that so far if you include a career, it somehow obscures everything else and demands all of my attention.
I still get psychotic./slight mania. Right now, going through all of this, and thinking that I would probably prefer not to be restrained, it almost gets me up to angry enough to want to do something about it. That’s the thing though, local time it’s 11 PM, in a few minutes I start taking my night meds. When they all kick in, I cease to experience being a human being with willpower. It’s glorious, I am nothing, and nothing is required of me that I can’t give, because I can’t give it.
I think, under different circumstances, I could pull myself together in about three months. IF there was a reason to. There isn’t. As that is the case, and my needs are dealt with, I’m doing as well as I think is reasonable to expect. The drugs do their job, and worrying about stuff is something other people do, and I consider a memory not worth repeating.
I’m not particularly suicidal most days, because that would mean caring about where I’m going, which is exactly how I got as sick as I currently am.
Thanks so much for your perspective. I get a sense of what you mean about caring when you’re off meds and not caring when you are taking them. I have never fully attained that not caring state. If I had a home and a family, something stable I could rely on maybe I could embrace that. But I’m lonely, afraid of losing my work, my living situation is unhappy and I’m fearful of what the future holds. Its hard for me not to care about that stuff. I have no career ambitions. Like you I have the capacity to achieve but the cost to my mental state is just too high. I have a good job but I can’t do it full time anymore. I would be fine with that if I had a hobby or something else I was interested in or liked to do. Mostly I can’t be bothered with anything.
When they put me on supposed anti-anxiety pills, the first I took was a “Holly Dear Mother of God” what the F did I just take…. That was the end of the medications for me. Holly cow, how can anyone function on this crap. That was also the last time I saw this shrink. All she wanted to do is load me up on drugs and not address my issues in the brain. After several years the brain has tamed down, no drugs. Just me and the brain. I’m now at the point where I just tell myself “it only someone else’s opinion”. And move one. Seem to be doing better. But I can tell you the more I saw this shrink the worse I became. I don’t like drugs and all she wanted to is load me up. To hell with that. I’m chemical free, for the most part, and proud of it. Dam shrinks….more drugs is all they can do. Didn’t want to listen….just shove drugs. I’m now much better off after self discussing with the people in the head to leave me alone. Seems to have worked….for now.
I agree with your approach!!! we need to look out for ourselves. Doctors and shrinks receive kick backs to push certain drugs ($$$). Disappointing. The more they push, the more they make. It’s public information too. They’re not hiding it it anymore.
Have ya tried cannabis?
Pot makes me paranoid to the tenth degree. So, I prefer not to be hiding in a corner to paranoid to do anything. It doesnt do the right things for me..so no I prefer to stay away from it.