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Does your medication take it all away?

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Posted 3/18/2010 1:48 PM (GMT 0)
My wife and i are having a disagreement about medication. My view is that meds should allow you to gain control and relieve the worst of your symptons. Her idea is that it should relieve everything down to zero, in other words you should feel no symptons ever, nothing.
My view is that what my wife wants leads to being over medicatied. I dont want to be "numb" to life and every little bump in the road. I live with the BP compulsions still in me, allbeit very under contriol, i can still feel them whenever i chose too.
Maybe neither is right or wrong but what just works for me or her. I perfer to know my little demons and know where they are and exactly what they are doing. Knowage is power to me and i try to harness the positive energy they provide while being carefull of the pitfalls they present. I just cant live my life NUMB to the world. How can you ever really enjoy a great day if you havnt had a really crappy one to compare it to? Isnt love that much more intense as a BP person since you really know the depths of depression also?

Ok, i maybe totally off the mark on this one, But i was wondering what my fellow BP people who are medicated feel when they are medicated. Are you numb to the world or do you still keep in touch with inner demons?

Thanks Folks.

Happy Bill (Very happy today)
Posted 3/18/2010 3:14 PM (GMT 0)
I was told at a Depression and Bipolar meeting that
if your meds make you feel 'numb,' it's time to change
meds and if the pdoc disagrees it's time to change doctors!
Posted 3/18/2010 6:03 PM (GMT 0)
My med totally works!  (Yay!)  It only took 8 years to figure it out.  :)

I do not feel medicated and have no symptoms.  I have occassional anxiety and have the option of toughing it out or taking a different medication for it.

I do have one side effect I am learning to cope with - insomnia.  Thank goodness I feel well-rested even if I get less sleep than normal. 

Life is good.

Posted 3/18/2010 8:09 PM (GMT 0)
happy bill, I think it's better to feel than feel nothing at all. If your meds are keeping the bad times down then I c no reason to increase your dose. You know what is right for u no need to debate it. It's a matter of are you happy having some feeling than being numb. I think being numb is no kind of life and I was really worried that I would be numb to things so I say use the least amount of medicine possiable to keep you stable. Over medicating can sometimes be worse than not medicating at all. Ask yourself a few things are you satisfied with your life, are you happy, do u experience laughter, do you experience sadness, can you provide empathy, love ,lust and desire for the things you want, do you have rage or anxiety.
As for me yes I am medicated but I feel a lot of emotions, just not the rage and irritabality. I am finally stabilizing and glad to be here with a positive outlook. I am able to help others see that life isn't so crappy. I am by no means perfect but doing my best to be the person I like being.
Thank God for beepers!!!!
Posted 3/18/2010 8:57 PM (GMT 0)
I think that many of the meds I have taken have taken away all personality. I am just starting to get a glimmer of one back but it is just a glimmer. It is hopefully the Cymbalta. I also take Neurontin. I was numb for so long on the other meds we dropped recently so who knows. All I know is it has been 2 years since sharann has been sharann.
As for others, if tweaking meds gives you desired effects without being harmful, I think thats great. wish i could find that place!
Posted 3/18/2010 10:12 PM (GMT 0)
I'm not long medicated so I can't speak from experience, but I am shooting for the least amount of meds I can. I feel like I need a little help keeping the depression side in check and hopefully balancing out the swings so they are not so abrupt. Other than that I want to continue to feel all of the emotions that have been so prevelent in my life. I think it's just a matter of your personal fealings and how dangerous you are when unmedicated. If you think you might hurt yourself or others, it's worth losing a part of your personality to avoid it.
Posted 3/18/2010 10:13 PM (GMT 0)
Oh and something you said in the first post reminded me of another Wiliam Blake quote:

"You never know what is enough until you know what is too much."
Posted 3/18/2010 11:38 PM (GMT 0)
 

   Thanks everyone, that helped alot. Unfortunally my wife thinks all happiness and relief comes in the bottom of a pill bottle. Not happy with your weight, take a pill instead of diet and excersise. That sort of thing.

   Yep i'm generally very happy with my life, and i do love having FEELINGS. Are there days im sad, yep. But without those days i wouldnt know what real joy feels like.

  Thanks again family, you all are the best.

  Bill:-) :-) :-) :-)

Posted 3/19/2010 2:51 AM (GMT 0)
I'd like to hear your wife tell her side of the story LOL

From what you've written, I'd have to say "of course you're right!!!" The first week of this prozac had me feeling NOTHING and I didn't like it one bit. I'd much rather feel things really hard than not feel them at all. I agree wholeheartedly that these meds should bring us up (or down) just enough to enable us to function and do what we need to do.

You win! lol
Posted 3/19/2010 3:47 PM (GMT 0)
I'm with you Bill. We can't negate all our emotions -- we'd be dead. I think sometimes people around us, who love us despite our kookoo traits usually, think that ALL our emotions are related to bipolar. I have this argument with my husband sometimes. "I'm not just being bipolar, I'm actually ANGRY right now!" But everyone has emotions. We just have more than most. :) I wouldn't want to drown them all.

serafena
Posted 3/19/2010 5:51 PM (GMT 0)
Well said, Serafena! I totally agree! People seem to use bipolar to sweep our feelings under the rug - "Oh stop being so bipolar!" No, I actually do have NORMAL and REAL feelings, and they are justified! (most of the time) tee hee
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