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Bipolar Disorder
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Posted 2/12/2007 11:24 PM (GMT 0)
Hello? I'm not the only person who suffers from this? Pleased to meet you guys (once i've met you's.) I suffer from Bipolar disorder,i'm 19 years old and live in the united kingdom.

        I've been hospitalised only once. I'm currently on no medication,I don't believe in medication even if it benefits me,i'd rather feel like myself even if it means finding myself in places i don't remember going to. I suffer from OCD also - but my obsessions are primarily focused on aspects of my appearance, it's known as BDD - Body Dysmorphic Disorder, have you heard of it? I also feel like i have many different identities because my mood obviously coincides with my personality,so i'll no doubt look back over this and cringe because it doesn't feel like 'me' who wrote it.

      What are you guys life like and how does this all effect you? Are you incredibly lonely? There is no specific subject here that i'm talking about,so i'll leave this post be. Thanks for your time.

Posted 2/13/2007 10:31 AM (GMT 0)

Hi there shine - welcome to our dysFUNctional healing well family :-)

You are by no means alone in this , there is a whole host of us out there with different "add ons". I have OCD but not BDD although I used to control my weight as that was one thing I could control.

I'm from the UK in West Midlands , Staffordshire.

I'm only just getting my life sorted as I have only just scraped the surface by being diagnosed - I have a long journey ahead of me.

As for being lonely , I think I'm the one who keeps them at a distance , maybe protecting myself/them as they can't understand.

Pleased to meet you too ,

Smiler tongue

Posted 2/13/2007 1:38 PM (GMT 0)
Hi,thanks for the wecome. haha dysFUNctional lol. I wish you the best on that journey,what age were you when you got diagnosed-did you ever guess it was bipolar? I'm glad your getting your life sorted,i've tried that many times, but there's no success like failure,failing's just the price you pay for leading the life you want to live,huh?

As for being lonely and keeping people at a distance. I'm not sure if you do this,but do you ever play over in your head the things you want to say to people,the way you wish things were like? But you just cant bring yourself to doing it and you end up just running over it all in your head and not doing anything? I actually have an internal world, it sounds quite psychotic, but i have the way i want things to be and the way things are in reality, i've just never been able to link both of them, but i'll keep trying.

Thanks for your reply,i've not heard from anyone else yet,maybe your the only person out there just now :) All the best.
Posted 2/14/2007 3:59 AM (GMT 0)
Hey there shine.. like smiler said, you are not alone.. I am not lonely, but I do feel alone alot.. know what I mean? There are always people around me, but I still feel alone... That's why I love this place... Great to have you here, I am looking forward to your posts..
Posted 2/14/2007 4:14 AM (GMT 0)
shine,

let me second our Fearless Leader's welcome to hw  and to our bp family.  some posts generate an amazing number of posts - seemingly unrelated to the original post.  other posts, that i would have thought would have generated a multitude of posts end up generating only a few.  you never know.

short answer to your question, no, shine, in the end there is nobody out there.  your ultimately your fate is in your hands.  you may have friends and advisors; but ultimately it is you who takes action or not.

i can appreciate your reluctance to taking medication.  but if you had diabetis would you take metformin or inject yourself with insulin to save your life?  you're only 19 and may simply be too young to understand the gravity of certain situations.  please, don't take this remark wrong.  the human brain grows at a certain rate and at different ages our brains are physically capable of understanding or dealing with certain concepts and events.  this has nothing to do with you as a person or as a beautiful spirit.  it's like gravity - it's a law of nature.

as far as i have been able to ascertain, if left untreated bp escalates and hospitalizations become more frequent and more prolonged.  one person on this forum likened bp to diabetis:  both car caused by chemical imbalances and both have dire consequences if left untreated.

sorry to be so blunt and honest with you, shine.  when i ws 19 (over 40 yrs ago) i thought i could conquer the world.  maybe you can.  i wish you well on this journey.

warren

Posted 2/14/2007 5:55 AM (GMT 0)
Hi Shine,

I can relate to what you are going through.  I was diagnosed with bipolar when I was 19 but didn't want to accept it.  I went a year without meds, and then I crashed. You said you didn't want to be on meds because you want to feel like yourself.  Well I didn't feel like myself whe I was manic, and when I came out of it I felt like my life fell apart.  The way I was when I was manic just didn't represent me.  I have been on a mood stabalizer for 4 years, and since then my life has been stable.  I feel more like myself because I don't have to deal with manic and depressed episodes.

I am pretty much symptom free, and people can't tell that I have a mental illness.  People don't know that I have a mental illness, and probably would not geuss.  I told a few very close friends that I have bipoar disorder and they were shocked.  The fact that they know I have bipolar has not changed our friendship.  So, you don't necessarily have to be lonely because you have bipolar.

I do still live with the stigma of having bipolar though.  It is hard to have something with such a negative perception.  Maybe as people get more educated about mental illnesses the stigma will not be as bad.

Posted 2/14/2007 6:16 PM (GMT 0)

Well you've met some of the gang now - they're great guys yeah

What age? Well...I don't give away too many secrets but I've been walking around wondering what the goodness is wrong with me for eighteen years or so nono   So , if anyone else is wondering whether there's something amiss get it checked!!!!!!!!!! LOL and no I'd never have thought until I was told....I knew I was depressed , but I couldn't work the "other" bits out confused

Posted 2/14/2007 10:15 PM (GMT 0)
Hey Ducky,thanks,i'm looking forward to reading you guys posts too and getting to know you's better. I am deffinetly lonely,but i know some of the reasons why. When i try to communicate with my family i find it very difficult, it has become routine to come into the house and not speak to anyone, i occasionaly mumble and my words barely come out right. When i try to express my true feelings,how much i want to be able to talk to them and tell them about my problems and hear about them i seem to struggle,so i,like you, usually prefer being alone,but i don't know if i really like it- it leaves me feeling isolated with only my bipolar keeping me company. But like you say,its good to be able to come to places like this where people can express themselves freely to other sufferers, i fail to understand why it's so much easier on here than in reality,fear of judgement perhaps,i don't know.

Hi warren,thanks for the welcome :) Well if i had diabetes and it was a case of dying or not then i would take the medication,but with bipolar the chemical reaction cannot directly kill me. If bipolar left untreated worsens then that's a risk i'll have to learn. I've only one principle for myself, no matter what state of mood i'm in,never commite suicide,i cant control my mood or the usual symptoms that occur with these moods,but if i always remember to keep going because the mood will end at some point then that is enough to help me through the each day just now. I don't know what the future consists of,but think of all the people who suffered bipolar hundreds of years ago and coped somehow,medications alter my personality,i've tried them before and they ease suffering but i just dont like the idea that i cant survive somehow using my inner resources. I may end up hospitalised,i may end up on meds,i don't know,but this is my ideology for just now. Bipolar's not just a recent disorder,it must have always existed,ya know? The pain that comes with it is often unbearable, but nothing worth achieving is easy.

Jade,hey,i' glad you can relate. That's amazing that you've been four years with no manic or depressive episodes,i guess everyone finds what's right for them in different ways. Do you take anti-depressents also? I used to only take effexor and i went completely manic during that period,but i didn't realise it much afterwards,i think it was the effexor that triggered it. Sometimes i can actually watch my mood alter and only stand and watch, like i can see my whole perspective changing and becoming hypomanic, but when it comes overwhelming i usually just try and wait till it passes, i've not done anything too damaging before, only stupid things that are against my general will,but the first episode was triggered by anti depressants. I'm not sure if there is still a stigma attached to things like bipolar,people might just not understand because it's something they can control (their mood) they may think it's just a lack of self discipline or a weakness.

Anyhow,it's great to meet you guys. haha smiler, i was gonna try to work out your age there,but i don't have a calculator handy for those high numbers :p only joking.

Thanks for your time.
Posted 2/15/2007 5:49 AM (GMT 0)

Hi shine,

I am currenlty just taking Lithium as a mood stabalizer.  A lot of people think Lithium sounds like a scary drug, but for me I don't have any side effects.  Somes studies have shown that in addition to being an anti-manic agent, lithium aslo has some antidepressant properties. 

I have been on antidepressants in the past and they make me manic.  I have been on both Prozac and Zoloft.  The first manic episode I had while on Zoloft, when I was fifteen.  They suspected bipolar but were hesitant to diagnose it at fifteen.  Then at 19 I went on Prozac, and that triggered a manic episode.  They finally diagnosed bipolar at 19.  Those years that I went undiagnosed were pretty unstable.  During those years I thought the worse thing that could happen would be to be diagnosed bipolar and have to takes meds.  Now I learned that it is a lot worse to be untreated and unstable than taking meds and living a stable life.

It is true that until recently there was no treatment for bipolar disorder.  And there were obviously people that had bipolar.  The truth is that a lot of those people were long term residents of psychiatric facilities.  We are fortunate to have treatment now that can enable people to live normal lives.

Posted 2/15/2007 10:05 AM (GMT 0)
Well Shine - to give you a clue , I knew quite young that something was not right with me.........no calculator? you will have to use fingers and toes devil
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