OK, I accept the diagnosis. Now what?

Guess what?  Lamitrical (sp?) and Cymbalta seem to be working.  This "even" feeling is something I don't ever remember feeling before.  I'm "normal" feeing.  I 'm not wonderfull all the time, but I don't feel like I am drowning either.  I don't feel "fragile" anymore.  I feel secure in my ability to deal with what life gives me.

Now that I think back to my past memories of emotion, I think I have always been this way.  I can remember times when I was 12 that would have been a clasic "mania".  I can also remember the amazing depths that I would fall into.  What I thought were "normal" teen moods must have been the Bipolor.  The feeling that I was always dealing with a crisis, one following on the heels of another through my young adulthood could have been brought on by mood cycles and the mayhem that follows them.

Here are some things that I would like to know.  Ever since I started the Lamictrical (sp?) I have itched. The prompt-care Dr says that I have hives, but mostly because he couldn't find a rash or any bumps or anything.  Sometimes I have bumps that are tiny pinpricks that are not colored, but not all the time.  I feel like taking a wire brush to my skin sometimes.  I went and got fake nails that are soft at the end so that I would not tear my skin up while I slept.  Does anyone else deal with this itching?  It's been going on for weeks.

Also, if you have never been "normal" before, but always thought you were, how do you know when the medication make you well?  I've never felt this before.  When I felt good before must have been a "manic" time.

I have always pushed hard and reached for perfection in what I do.  I never get there, but I commonly get further than those arround me.  This may be an effect of the "mania".  The Bipoloar can push people to extremes that other people won't go.  Many of the people who are seen as genuies in their field are actually suffering from a mental disorder.  Those people can use this to be extreamly sucessfull life as long as they can control the lows when they happen.

I don't want to loose my ability to go beyond the normal expectations.  I don't want to loose my drive to succeed in what I do.  What if the Bipolor is realy a gift given to those who can use it to succeed beyond where others are willing to go? 

Now that I am on the medications, can I depend on NOT going through the mood cycles, or will they just decrease in intensity and durration?  What if I have another depressive eppicode?  I don't know how to catch a "manic" yet because I have always seen them as a desired feeling out of the depression.  I can't yet tell what is "normal" and what is "manic".  I've just learned what is depressed and what is not.  

This has been nearly a year long journey of depression that sank so low that I could not function. Life stopped for me.  I was suicidal for a long time.  Longer than my family or friends know I was.  I was actually getting better by the time I told them to seek help.  I have been through several diffrent medications that didn't work.

My friends and family have gotten "support fatigue" and have moved on to other life events. 

Being on meds is sometimes hard, and even though they have helped me, I always think about long term affects.  But for right now I think about the present situation, instead of dreading the future.

As for med taking away from us, it does hopefully the bad things that plague us.  Like if one was manic, then over time it is controlled by meds.

I am taking Lithium and Geodon right now, and I feel a bit slowed down in my thinking process.  But I would rather be a bit slowed down, than not.  When I mean "slowed down", it is not an extreme things.  I just forget words here and there, or what I was going to do.  But it is not that bad, like you don't stay in a vegitative state at all.

I hope this helps with some of your concerns, and I feld energetized while I was on Lamictal.