No One HEARS Me---anyone feel like that?

Hi, Sassie,

Your poem was very poignant, very beautiful.   I'm not good at poetry except when I'm in that dark place, then it just flows, right?   Your vision of it is really a wake up call, maybe to loved ones, but they will never know.

Being BP to me, is NOT for the faint of heart and I personally believe that any BP with serious problems who doesn't "do it" is an exceptionally strong person.   I think we have to have that intestinal fortitude just to survive and others would have no idea where our minds go.  

Shannon2, I am so with you on being seen only when manic.  When I fall, I am a total hermit, even more than now, lol.   I won't talk on the phone or see anybody but Paul.  Not even my family/sister.  Why would I?  All they can do is feel sorry and helpless and I end up even more frustrated.   Have you ever wished someone could experience just one day of each, mania and depression, like ours, not the garden variety clinical depression.  I mean the bedridden, nonfucntional depression with the leaden paralysis.  I would never wish this illness on anyone, just one day so they would know, not just feel sorry and helpless.   Oh, well, there's nothing they can do about it anyway except hugs and listening, at least in my experience.  But then, of course you worry about boring them and "overstaying your welcome" in that dept. 

You sound good, much better than a couple of months ago, I'm glad to see you here, and I hope you really enjoy your holiday.   When do you go back to school?

Sassie, take to heart everything everybody including me have told you about the drinking.   If you cannot stop, go to rehab and get counseling or go to AA too.  You HAVE TO!  Or you will NEVER get better.    The way I stay clean (2 yrs in March) is to remember exactly the depression that ALWAYS comes after drinking and stays for days/weeks.  That couple of hours of good feeling just isn't worth it, no way.   i dont even crave a drink anymore, but the first year was really really hard, I won't lie!

We are all here to suppport you, and WE do understand!  We've all been where you are and other places, too.

Take care,

Shannon

I am so glad to hear you are able to reduce your meds - geez 700mg Seroquel!   I'd sleep for a day and a half!  But then, I take lots of other stuff, lol.

Ah, the holidays.  I drink water.   Same as every single day, bottled water, at least 3-5 litres.  Doesn't lith make you thirsty?

I would get your thyroid checked again, Shannon, it doesn't show low becuase of depression, depression happens as a result of low thyroid!   And yes, lith often causes low thyriod function, it did me after only a few months, but there were so many intolerable effects, I quit it anyway.  I took Synthroid, but it resolved itself when I d/cd it.   If you have any hypothyroidism you will have very little energy and be depressed, so you might check it just to be sure.

6 more months!  Yay!  I bet you can't wait.  Writing papers sucks!

Take care!

Shannon1

Tears well in my eyes to find others who will trully understand.

Yes, Sassie, I speak and I get blank eyes looking at me.  Someone even said I might as well be speaking Chinese. I stopped speaking and sharing years ago.  I have been alone and isolated for the last half of my life.  I just did not want anyone to see me, I've always associated relating with people as pain.

Just reading these posts in the last few minutes has given rise to a new hope for me.  I have somewhere to turn.  I'm a rapid cycler who at times levels out to about four swings a year.

As a child of fourteen I decided I would write a book to tell the whole world how we were one spirit and how love, peace and understanding were all we needed to make the world a better place.  This was my first hypomanic moment.

Instead, what I've currently got is hundreds of pages of my story, peotry, thoughts both political and religious, inspirations and yes, my voice from the big blackhole.  The blackhole is real and fighting is all I seem ever able to do. Keep at it.  There are also hundreds of pages that I'ce burned, buried and simply tossed to the wind in hopes of ridding myself of such emotional burden. It didn't work.

I realized I was an alcoholic eleven years ago and quit cold turkey.  I still self medicate, despite the many meds I've been on and continue to shift through as I battle my way.  I use caffeine to keep going, sometimes going over ten cups a day, the limit my Dr. set is ten but it just kills my stomache.

Right now I'm borderline, one minute I'm flying feeling free, the next I'm crying.  Lastnight my boyfriend of a year left here with his daughter and we were not on good terms.  I can't see going on with him, despite the love, there are just too many issues, and with four kids of my own the risks seem high.

I always play it safe; I have children I need to stay stable for.  They are my inspiration to continue.  I won't deny the blackhole's existence though.  I'm on disability so I'm not left to flap in the wind.

Good news--I am feeling better today and I am learning to just live in the moments when I feel good.....and just hope they last.  I KNOW the alcohol was a big part of my weekend "hopelessness" so to speak.  This is the first time though that I realized that the alcohol is changing my moods.  I just thought it was normal to feel the way I did after a night of binge drinking.....I just thought being a hermit, tired, lifeless,,,,,hopeless was just what everyone did.....But since I began researching all of this, I have realized my alcohol consumption makes a huge difference. 

Anyway, finally met with a pdoc here in Alabama and he was WONDERFUL.  Was in there for over an hour...he was extremely thorough and very to the point--that is what I need....I have been made to feel incompetent and wrong for asking questions.  I am coming off of the Effexor and am adding Lamictal.......  got to run for now,,,my students are coming back from PE--thanks everyone...I am very thankful to have this place to come to!

Sassie

With each post I read I felt myself in them all.  I was recently dx with BP II.  I am still not sure about my PDOC my therapist is great.  I am playing the meds game right now trying to find the right cocktail. My husband is frustrated becuase his mother has convinced him that I am not BP that its menopause and I need to get over this sh** suck it up and pray because women dont have time for crap like this.  When I can get out of my bed to go to work I can see the disgust in his face like its by my choice.  I was just recently on short term disability from my job for 2 months because i sunk so low I couldnt leave the house at least not by myself.  This is the best place I have found where you can come and talk and not feel judged or ridiculed.  BP is just as real as cancer or any other disease.  Not having any support at home and hiding it at work makes it twice as hard.  Trying to act happy go lucky when all you want to do is run and hide back in your bed.  I was told many years ago that I would never have children but after 2 semi difficult pregancies I have 2 beautiful children they have saved my life many days, if it werent for them I would have been checked out of this misery.

Ria

Oh sassie, I'm so glad to hear your better today and that you realize the toxicity of alcohol.  Things sound on the way up for you.

Ria, I have tears for you, I'm soooooo sorry about your husbands disgust, I lived with it for years coming from my mother and brother.  It feels good to find a place of empathy.  Today marks my second day since finding this wonderful forum. Today has been really difficult for me.  I took a seroquel lastnight because my anxiety was very high, today I'm paying.   My mood is very unstable and as I rapidly cycle between a high state of wonder to then plunge into a hole of death I cling to caring for my home and children.  I have been on benzo's for over three years and my Dr. snuck in Valium last Christmas, which I'ce been trying to get off of since I found out.  It works and I won't deny it but I have trouble with addiction.  My body gained a tolerance toit and I could see myself craving more.  As it stands right now, I've been three days without; shakes and irritability, a sense of explosion and doom at the same time.  He didn't authorize me to refrain from taking Valium and has replaced them with Ativan but I can't seem to make it a day without one.  I've been slowly weaning off the Valium but the larger addiction is still there.  I want one soooo badly, it would take so much difficulty away.  I'll stave it off til later.  I went to the Clubhouse, which is a place to go supported by the Canadian Mental Health Society, for people in our community.  It's okay if I go there and stare off into the emptiness and space out.  It's a safe place and for awhile I forgot my troubles.   I'm haning on by the skin of my teeth right now.  Our teacher's are on strike and there is no school all week, my house is starting to get out of control and general kid bickering etc, is taking place.  I was just starting to adjust to the new school year.  Living in Chaos, something I'm sure yall know about.

Thanks for informing me, psychnurse, about leaden paralysis.  I too lived a few months of my life on such a state.  I had no medical care for most my life and I'm learning know about my conditions.

Love to you all and blessings too.

I understand what you mean completely!!!   My family is who doesn't understand...they think I should just be able to "snap out of it" (my Depression) and I can't.  They don't understand the side effects of the medications I am on nor do they try and research them.....it is hard sometimes...on the days you are too depressed to answer the phone.....on the days you decline invitations to come over because you just don't feel like it!

I just want you to know that someone out there DOES understand what you feel...and it is me.

Hi, Sassie -

I am soooo sorry you are feeling low, I know how you feel.  Dont you hate when other people feel blue and say 'I know how you feel" Arrrrrrrgh    They do not!!!!!

You may possibly be on your way down from getting reduced Effexor, I am telling you, it is a b**** to come off of.   I think Lily makes it that way so you can't without misery and so you keep buying it.   There is no need for that, the other ones aren't THAT bad.   Did you doc give you any kind of mood stabilizer or just reduce your Effexor?  I know he upped the Lexapro to 20, tho. 

There is a doc in the house here sometimes, maybe he will see this and answer if raising the Lexapro is enough to counteract the Effexor, but I don't know; you were on a HUGE dose of it.

If you feel like sleeping all w/e do it.  You have GOT to get rest, otherwise you will get worse.  I soooo understand about the schedule thing, it's actually a very important part of therapy for us.  Change isn't good at first, but when you get used to it, it will be ok.   I think!   I don't know what it is.

I do admire you for going to work, I missed so much due to those days, that's where every single bit of my vacation/sick/personal days went, always.  I never got to take off a day to enjoy, except the usual 7 holidays.  Work made me so sick mentally that i was chronically ill physcially too, IBS, chronic vomiting, migraines, back spasms to where i couldn't even get out of bed, much less be on my feet all day due to the tension.  I've had so much tension in my neck my whole life i have hardly any range of motion it hurts so bad and it cannot be helped by massage or chiropractic care, i've tried everything.  Not to mention hospitalized twice in a years time, ( the last year I worked)  that's why I am on disability and you know what?    I DON'T' MISS WORK!  I loved doing what i did, but the stress wasn't worth it.  I hope you never get to that point.  

Ok, sob story over.   Write me if you want, I hope you're at least functional, sounds like you are today.

Shannon