coming of meds

It almost sounds like you are rapid cycling. It is hard to say if this is too much medication, not enough or the wrong thing and/or combination. This may not be the time to come off all medications, but time to definitely reassess them.

You don't say how long you have been bipolar. I know that bipolar, like some other conditions, can go into "burn out." They literally burn themselves out, like a candle with no more wick left. They can also shift between BPI and BPII types of problems. If you are rapid cycling, you are not responding to your current meds and you have had a shift in this illness. Find a new psychiatrist.

As for family and friends begging you to stay on your meds, they are not seeing that they are not doing you much good right now. You can't stay on for other people, you have to decide to do this for yourself. If they are bringing you no relief, it makes sense that you just want off of everything, but is this in your best interest?

Have you tried lithium? Results? Have you primarily been on anticonvulsants (e.g. Trileptal, Lamictal, Tegretol)? Have you tried Depakote, results? Have you tried combinations of things?

You need to do this for yourself...do you spend more time depressed or manic? What does these things feel like to you? Do you have lots of energy when you are excited by events in your life and you are happy to get on with things? How much are you sleeping? Are you eating regularly and eating well? Like any other chronic illness, sleep, diet and outside forces exert their own pressures. I also have lupus and I have been being much much more careful about diet, even to the point of going vegan and counting servings. I have allowed myself more sleep than I have had in years. It has helped the lupus a fair amount with having less pain, but it has worked wonders for the bipolar symptoms. It is self-care.

Something I rarely hear addressed with regard to bipolar is the person who suffers. We are not a disease, we are sufferers. We are worthwhile in our own right. We deserve good food, enough restful sleep, a certain quality of life. Bipolar brings others images to those around us and I think that others, even when they love us, see us as somehow less because we have a problem. Where is the respect for who we are? Where is the admiration of our abilities, the appreciation of what we know and can do? Being very Rogerian in my beliefs and approach just to life, I'd say that discovering who you are inside, without the illness, could be very valuable to your longterm functioning. I know when I learned to love myself fully and without reserve, the bipolar seemed to me as much a part of who I am as my redhair. It is a fact, but definitely NOT the center of my life. I wish this for you, too.

Keep coming here and keeping us posted.

Hey Gaz-

I do think coming off of your medication at this point would be a bad idea.  Recently, I was contemplating discontinuing my meds.  While this is something I still plan to try, it would probably be unwise to make a drastic change like that especially during the initial period of depression over a mixed episodic state.

I've felt the same feelings, and usually experience mixed episodes before getting to full blown depression after manical bursts.  It's probably just a natural response to avoid the depression.  However, for me, it has never worked because I cannot hide the fact at some point that I'm depressed and no longer care what anyone thinks.  Also if you quit your meds, it may take a long time to recover from a depression.  It took me about 9 months in the past without medication and now about 2-3 months.

It's important to remember that you might feel this urge because of the state you're in.  To control bipolar effectively, its good to remember that things may only be changing within your mind and to make decisions contrary to what you might feel is best.

-D