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hopeless and know a swing is on the way

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Posted 7/13/2010 4:01 AM (GMT 0)
sorry this may turn out to be a rant

i m feeling so hopeless right now
i just started depakote and also on abilify
anyway i keep swinging from stable down (not up) and i miss my ups.. if i have to have downs i should get ups too

physical pain today and exhaustion
and emotional pain

when will it end?
i'm so tired of it!! and its hot here doesnt help my irritability

Post Edited (GreenTeaHero) : 7/13/2010 10:38:08 AM (GMT-6)

Posted 7/13/2010 2:07 PM (GMT 0)
GreenTeaHero, I can relate to what you're saying, although I have no wisdom to give you. I wish I did. I'm bipolar 2, so all I seem to get are the lows. I go from feeling "normal," whatever THAT may be ;-) , to depressed, and back again, so I never get the highs. Sometimes I guess I get hypomania--my diagnosis has always been pretty questionable; the pdocs go back and forth between simple (what's simple about it, I'd like to know? ;-) ) clinical depression and bipolar 2 --and that feels good. But I've been stuck in a baaad depression for over two months now, and meds aren't dragging me out of it.

And yes, where I live (Florida), it's miserably hot and humid, and that doesn't do anything positive for my mood, either. So I understand your irritability.

All I can do is tell you that I understand. I wish I could tell you something else that would be of help. Just know that I'm thinking of you and hoping that you feel better soon.

Are you seeing your pdoc? Seeing a therapist? Are your meds working for you? Write back, and let us know what's going on with you.

Warmly and with hugs,

Havana
Posted 7/13/2010 3:08 PM (GMT 0)

  Im BP 2 also. And i have just came thru a hopeless spell. TOok a month to get thru it but now i am out the other side and glad to be here. I am learning to accept that this just may be my lot in life.

  I hope you find a good place soon. I can deal with lots of stuff but that hopelessness place is the absolute worst.  If u need to post more here, that may help.

  Bill

Posted 7/13/2010 3:22 PM (GMT 0)
I'm exactly the same as everyone else who posted here. I'm on abilify too
and am grinding through a depression and gaining weight on the meds at the
same time. But it's better than it was...Bp II also. Hang in there!!!
Posted 7/13/2010 4:37 PM (GMT 0)
thanks everyone for replying.
i'm bp1 unlike you but with the abilify yes im not able to feel manic anymore.
i havent talked to my pdoc yet about it, should I? I just started the depakote a week ago.
therapist is absent for a few weeks. there was a fire in the apartments above nad the water leaked down and ruined their offices :(
so im on my own. i was hoping this week would be a session but apparently not.

hopelessness is the worst.
for me the moods last such a short period of time (hours, days) but the overall feeling in the last 2 weeks has been down and i hate that.
like down with a side of very down.

red lighting, also gaining weight on abilify? i think i gained.. 20-30 pounds...
Posted 7/13/2010 10:01 PM (GMT 0)
I agree with Bill: the hopelessness is the PITS. Feeling depressed is bad enough, but then having hopelessness thrown at you? ENOUGH already!

I'm feeing depressed and numb and on occasion hopeless. I keep hoping that some miracle meds will come my way. Of course, I'm still going through drug withdrawal from going off Lexapro, so all bets are off how I'll feel from one minute to the next. UGH.

Today I got a one-day-only temps job. And one day was ENOUGH! It was simple office work, but the woman who was supervising me was a piece o' work. She acted as though of COURSE I should know how to do everything. She was nasty and condescending. Some people, ya give 'em a little bit 'a power, and they go nuts. The atmosphere at the place was absolutely miserable. No wonder, from what I've heard before, there's quite a turnover at this place. Sheeeeeesh.

Well, at least I got paid $12 an hour for my stint. And now I'm free again.

Havana
Posted 7/13/2010 10:30 PM (GMT 0)
lol @ havana. Glad you didn't have to spend more than one day there!

I agree that hopelessness is the worst.

@ GreanTeaHero - I felt the same when I started Abilify. It took away my hypomanias and left the rest. and my hypomanias were the only thing keeping me functioning! Thankfully, the side effects were so bad that my pdoc had me try something else.
Posted 7/13/2010 10:34 PM (GMT 0)
Hey there,

I empathize. I'm currently living a nightmare episode of depression and feel very hopeless right now as well.

The best thing to do in times like this is to surround yourself with things or people that soothe or comfort you. Tonight I am looking forward to watching a TV show that makes me laugh. I am making myself a tea right now (the good kind--Tetley Orange Pekoe, I wish I could get into herbal teas, but I love Orange Pekoe!) My couch comforts me (which isn't necessarily a good thing LOL) and I am thinking of going for a walk with my bf tonight before bed. The exercise will do me good.

It's tough. I totally agree with you in that we should get to experience the "ups" if we have to suffer through the downs. I can barely remember my last hypomanic phase, what a raw deal! Having said that, during those ups some regrettable things can happen. What we all really want is to be stable. Ah.....my fantasy....LOL

I am surprising myself with how animated or upbeat I "sound" in writing this....

Anyway, thinking of you all in this low that we're all in together.

Hugs,
Mogs
Posted 7/13/2010 10:58 PM (GMT 0)
A friend of mine just called me and told me that she's taking herself off all her meds. (She's bipolar 2 with borderline personality disorder and ADHD.) She's become convinced that she's fine without meds, that she doesn't get depressed, that she doesn't have hypomania (boy, I've seen her moods turn on a dime!), and that all she needs to work on is her borderline personality disorder, which she can do totally on her own. She's purchased several books on amazon.doc, and she's ready to take on her illnesses herself.

Why don't I just toss my meds, toss my pdoc, and decide to enter the Brave New World of Help Myself Medicine Without Medicine?

My friend also told me about a program on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air," with Terry Gross, about the corruption of psychiatry, and how all pdocs are sellouts. It's evidently on in about 5 minutes (where I live, at least), and how none of the drugs that we take are proven to help us. "You owe it to yourself to listen to this!" thundered my friend.

Sigh. It's been a long day, folks.

The day I start diagnosing my own condition and treating myself is the day I start declaring Oreo cookies to be the world's best medicine!

May everyone's depression start lifting soon!

Hugs,
Havana
Posted 7/14/2010 12:47 AM (GMT 0)

   OH GOD, going thru this without meds??????  Are you freaking kidding me. I just went thru a mania that lasted a week and it was the pits. Absolutly awefull. And that was with meds on board. I wouldnt want to try this without them. I know, i remmeber how out of control i really was.  I can't/won't go back there again.

   Now there is something to be said for limiting stress in your life. Stress for me seems to really send me over the edge.  I have even had a chance to live overseas, on an air force compound for 4 months with no real family stress, got plenty of sleep, meals made for me, lots of excersise and a job i loved. Guess what, no issues at all aside from being a hypomanic happy person.

   That may be where i am heading, i may have to reduce the stresses to as low as i can go. Thank god for cycling, my pets, and everything else that helps me thru these days.

   Bill  

Posted 7/14/2010 1:05 AM (GMT 0)
havana - sounds like your friend is in the early stages of mania.  That is classic.  Can you encourage her to get help before it is too late.  Of course she doesn't feel like she needs it now!

Posted 7/14/2010 4:01 AM (GMT 0)
oh my gosh i laughed so hard when i read ur post havana. oreo cookies the salvation of the world!!
i'm sorry your friend is going through that, the crash / comedown is going to be really hard. i hope she doens't lose anything.
i know some one who lost her kid and someone else who lost her house ...
and that temp job sounds all kinds a nasty ~~ sorry, and glad its over!!

tortoise, what side effects did you have from Abilify ? just curious....

mogli, i agree that doing nice things for yourself helps. its just that i'm on a budget.. and been unemployed almost a year now so running out of ideas.. arrgh.

im doing better today so now i m terrified that i'l wake up useless tomorrow. . not that i have anything to do tomorrow, or even the next day,
but the more times i swing down, the closer i get to ... ending things. and that scares me.
Posted 7/14/2010 3:49 PM (GMT 0)
Bill, Tortoise, and GreenTeaHero, I'll probably see my friend today, and I hope that when I do, I'll get the chance to delicately tell her that I've seen her have really erratic mood swings. I think she needs to be on meds. She tried this once before and went on a totally "natural" thing: just vitamins and supplements. It didn't help. She's become convinced that all her meds are making her sick (for all I know, that could be the case), and that she can solve her problems herself.

She has a bf, and their relationship is constantly way up and way down. She usually starts some sort of argument that escalates into all-out war. But he's pretty calm, so he normally de-escalates the situation. She constantly questions whether she should leave him. I know him fairly well, his pluses and minuses, but when she's hypomanic, his minuses just take over her life. He seems to me to be a nice enough guy with a lot of patience for her illness. (He has clinical depression and so has a lot of compassion for mental illness.) And I fear that she'd be miserable without him. And I also fear that her backing and forthing regarding him will drive him away. Ultimately, of course, the decision is hers to make. But I don't think she should be making big relationship decisions when she's not stable, which she isn't.

She's not seeing a counselor. On occasion, she and bf see a couples counselor. But a lot of seemingly insolvable issues keep hanging in the wind. I don't see them as insolvable, but she does, at least when she's severely irritable and hypomanic.

When they were recently on vacation, they found a town that she really liked, and now she's plotting to pick up and move there. No job, no nothin'. I worry about her.

She gives me as an example to myself: No drugs are working for you, she says. You have depression, and I don't, she says. Yeah, but there's always the possibility I may find drugs that work, I say. And you have severe hypomania and mood swings, I think. I just need to say these things. Without totally alienating her. At the moment, I feel like I'm walkin' on eggs with her, and she's really a good good friend of mine.

And let's hear it for Oreos at the drug of choice!

GreenTeaHero, I really hear what you're saying. I, too, worry about how far down I can get. I hope, perhaps unrealistically, that grad school will help pull me out of a lot of my depression. I simply do not have enough to do. I hope that grad school will engage me enough to turn off some of the depression, even if my pdoc and I haven't yet found anything that works. PLEASE keep fighting the good fight! You matter to us. We care about you.

Warmly,
Havana
Posted 7/14/2010 6:55 PM (GMT 0)
Havana,
i wish you a lot of luck with your friend.
its pretty difficult to convince a hypmanic person of anything, especially to take meds. but she is your friend and so we want her to be safe.
and its such a hard line to draw between helping and angering them.

i'm doing much better today tho who knows about tomorrow. i also hope grad school will help and im convinced being busier will help..
thanks for caring... i feel like i've found a family on this board. :) *hugs* to everyone
Posted 7/15/2010 2:57 AM (GMT 0)
just crashed. dont know whats going on im scared.
does anyone else crash right around sundown (almost every day)
why isnt hte depakote working??
AAAAHHHHHH
Posted 7/15/2010 3:17 PM (GMT 0)
(((hugs))) Crashing is hard. I think my depression is always worse in the morning and right before bed it's been intense lately too. You are in my thoughts; come chat today....I will be in and out...
Posted 7/16/2010 2:01 AM (GMT 0)
Yes - I typically crash at 7:00 until 9:00 and them my mood gets high enough to interfere with sleep.

I took some advice that predictable daily mood changes are often related to diet. It was true for me. Maybe that would help you?
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