Hey there....
It's been a funny old week. To be honest, there are large parts of it that I don't even remember, and for once that isn't down to any kind of drug. I tend to lose time when I'm depressed, so my best guess is that that is what's happening; mood wise, I'm going down.
Depression is a strange thing. Most people think it's simply about having a really low mood, but it is so much more disabling than that. For me, it has an effect on everything; mood, thougt and behaviour. I become an almost completely different person.
I knew in my own small way that I was pushing my luck. I've been high for so long, I really felt that all problems were in the past, and the future was going to be a much brighter place. Now, I am somwhat dreading the weeks to come.
I have been taking lithium carbonate (priadel) at 800mg for almost a year now. I didn't really think it was doing much, but other people tell me I am more together when I take it. I believe that it's made me gain a stone in weight, so I hate it for that already. Mostly I hate the thought that I have to take a medication to remain sane for the rest of my life.
But despite my misgivings, I do acknowledge that the lithium is a neccessity. I was watching tv the other night, and in a somewhat trancelike state, I pulled my toenails out with pliers. I don't mean a little bit; I mean all of them. I am now utterly toenail less. And yes, it is incredibly painful. But at the time, I felt nothing. And it bled like stink, and still I felt nothing. Some people make tea and do the housework on autopilot. It seems that my brain has chosen self torture as a hobby.
I went to see my care coordinator today. Naughty Norman was loitering around the CRT, and I said to him straight 'I have been poisoned and I need you to write me up for a blood test'. He just said 'Yeah, okay', but he went and filled in the forms. At least I will be able to find out if there is anything wrong with me or not, whether he thinks I've lost it or not. Bleurgh, I hate needles. The phlebotomist at the CRT looks like a russian javelin thrower, and takes blood in the same way. She is efficient though, I will give her that.
I was diagnosed as bipolar nine years ago, and have tried many medications since then. They also seem inadequate because there is one thing I want more than anything; to not have the illness. It's human nature to always chase the things we don't have the ability to achieve.
Next appointment with Norman next thursday. I am worried about it, as last week I let slip about the man who I have seen following me for the last twenty years. And my fear of windows and my eating disorder. Hopefully, he will think I was just winding up hyis student. The student was lovely, he's going to make a fabulous RMN.
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Saturday, 6 August 2011
How did I realise I might be Bipolar?
Welcome to my new blog!
Y'know, it wasn't until I started to blog that I realised quite what a big part of my life Bipolar Disorder was. I guess that I was kidding myself that it was something that I was 100 percent in control of, but I now know without a doubt that there are times in my life when it controls me. But we'll get into that when we know each other a little better, lol.
So the subject of today's little note, other than to say hello and welcome to my blog, was I wanted to talk about how it is that one might have that first inclination that they are bipolar. Well, in my case, I was young. Very young. I was 14 years old, to be exact. I had an idea when I reached high school that I wasn't quite the same as everybody else in my year. It felt like I had an older, more troubled head on my shoulders. My schoolmates were worrying about Take That and their nail colour, and I was worrying about people following me, and the world exploding! lol, I was not your average 14 year old, as I said before.
And then one day I met an older man, who was to become my music teacher. And he used to talk to me, probably quite inappropriately, about what was going on in his life. And then one day he said to me 'how long have you been diagnosed bipolar?' to which I replied; I'm not, erm, am I??. But even after that, I thought nothing more of it, and time went on. Then one day I was doing something quite unimportant; I think I was in McDs buying a burger; and IT happened; I had my first ever mental breakdown. It was a shock, and it took an awful lot of time to recover from. Months, to be exact. It took a long time for me to work up the courage to go to the doctor, where he took some basic observations and said 'you need to go onto some medication, because if you don't, you're going to have a heart attack'. My heart rate was somewhere above 160 bpm, and as everyone knows, that is bad bad bad. So the first medications I ever took were propranolol for anxiety symptoms, and chlorpromazine for everything else.
But I didn't get better quickly. I was being bullied at school, and had been for some years. And the stress of just walking in through the school gates triggered a relapse so bad that my GP actually feared for my life. And he didn't hold back in telling the teachers that. I was referred to the mental health team, and eventually ended up seeing a therapist, whose name shall, for now, remain anonymous. She broke my confidentiality, and created a situation that led to my parents throwing me out at age fifteen, so lord knows why I should keep her name quiet; she certainly doesn't deserve my discretion. But I suppose I want this blog to be about the illness, not the people who contributed to ruining my teenage life!!
Part two will arrive soon; love stories, huge spending sprees, dealings with the police and suicide attempts all still to come....
Y'know, it wasn't until I started to blog that I realised quite what a big part of my life Bipolar Disorder was. I guess that I was kidding myself that it was something that I was 100 percent in control of, but I now know without a doubt that there are times in my life when it controls me. But we'll get into that when we know each other a little better, lol.
So the subject of today's little note, other than to say hello and welcome to my blog, was I wanted to talk about how it is that one might have that first inclination that they are bipolar. Well, in my case, I was young. Very young. I was 14 years old, to be exact. I had an idea when I reached high school that I wasn't quite the same as everybody else in my year. It felt like I had an older, more troubled head on my shoulders. My schoolmates were worrying about Take That and their nail colour, and I was worrying about people following me, and the world exploding! lol, I was not your average 14 year old, as I said before.
And then one day I met an older man, who was to become my music teacher. And he used to talk to me, probably quite inappropriately, about what was going on in his life. And then one day he said to me 'how long have you been diagnosed bipolar?' to which I replied; I'm not, erm, am I??. But even after that, I thought nothing more of it, and time went on. Then one day I was doing something quite unimportant; I think I was in McDs buying a burger; and IT happened; I had my first ever mental breakdown. It was a shock, and it took an awful lot of time to recover from. Months, to be exact. It took a long time for me to work up the courage to go to the doctor, where he took some basic observations and said 'you need to go onto some medication, because if you don't, you're going to have a heart attack'. My heart rate was somewhere above 160 bpm, and as everyone knows, that is bad bad bad. So the first medications I ever took were propranolol for anxiety symptoms, and chlorpromazine for everything else.
But I didn't get better quickly. I was being bullied at school, and had been for some years. And the stress of just walking in through the school gates triggered a relapse so bad that my GP actually feared for my life. And he didn't hold back in telling the teachers that. I was referred to the mental health team, and eventually ended up seeing a therapist, whose name shall, for now, remain anonymous. She broke my confidentiality, and created a situation that led to my parents throwing me out at age fifteen, so lord knows why I should keep her name quiet; she certainly doesn't deserve my discretion. But I suppose I want this blog to be about the illness, not the people who contributed to ruining my teenage life!!
Part two will arrive soon; love stories, huge spending sprees, dealings with the police and suicide attempts all still to come....
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