I went off my medications thinking I didn't need them anymore, but in reality I was just in an elevated/manic phase.
I've been seeing a new therapist who I really like and I'm going to see a new psychiatrist this week and have decided to get back on medication.
The last time I sought out professional help, the decision wasn't entirely mine. The ultimatum was literally put to me to get help or get divorced and get out of the house, and I agreed. While my personal and domestic situation was definitely a factor this time, my decision to once again attempt professional help was entirely mine, and mine alone.
After 2 psychiatrists, 3 therapists and one hospital stay, I've learned a lot about my moods and how they cycle, I've finally been able to categorize my moods and I'm hoping this will enable my psychiatrist and therapist to better treat me this time around by making my therapy sessions more productive and by giving me the right medications in the right doseages.
My Bipolar 1 mood swings follow a very specific cycle with four stages, which I've titled as follows.
1. DEPRESSED/LOW
2. MANIC/ELEVATED
3. MANIC/IRRITATED
4. RAPID (cycling of all three)
This represents a typical cycle for me. Each cycle lasts about several months, I typically go thru about 2 each year.
The first three stages take about several months to go thru. Then I go thru this "rapid" stage where I go thru the whole cycle in a week or even a day. Over and over again for several weeks until finally, utterly exhausted physically and mentally I enter a depression and start all over again.
I've gone thru this ever since I was a teenager. I cannot control when they start or stop or how severe the different states manifest and how fast they change. Although drugs (illegal, legal, prescribed or not) mask, minimize, or lessen the severity and duration of the cycles, it never goes away and I suspect it never will.
Here are some of the highlights of my various mood stages.
Depressed/Low
* Suicidal thoughts and actions
* no sleep, no energy, no appetite
* Total avoidance of social situation, family and friends
* Panic attacts, anxiety, dread, paranoia, racing thoughts
* Completely unable to function, I'm constantly loosing jobs in this stage.
MANIC/ELEVATED
* Lasts several weeks to several months
* "God Mode" I feel bulletproof, invincible
* Overly Spiritual
*Hypersexual
* The ADD-Like Symptoms: Completely overfocus on subjects or completely unfocused with racing thoughts, ideas and speech (motormouth)
* Seemingly limitless energy on hardly any sleep.
* My "creative periods"
* usually when I meet people and enter relationships
* Delusional/Irrational/Manic Behavior & Thoughts
- Quitting my job to blog full time or write a book proposal believing I will become a famous writer.
- Opening a credit card in my wife's name so I can take
phlebotomy classess I'll never finish.
- Missing important meetings at work and risking getting fired to go on mental health days, reading at the library or meditating in my car
- selling all my musical equipment to buy tickets to a Roger Waters concert that I can't afford anyways, then walking around downtown phoenix for 7 hours looking for the band so I can ask them for free tickets.
- Those are just some of the ones that I'm comfortable
discussing here.
MANIC/IRRITATED
* Can last several weeks to several months
* Extreme Irritability
* Agumentative, unreasonable, ill-tempered
*decreasing, energy, focus and thinking
*The OCD-Like Symptoms: An almost phobic fear of loosing control causes me to seek comfort in predictability, order, routine, and I lose my shit when the routines are broken or when I feel I am not in control of my environment.
* Paranoia
- my bosses phone rings, it obviously must be someone calling to complain about me. I don't even want to be within earshot of the call, I gotta get outta here, I make up an excuse, hours later I'm online turning in resumes over a phone call and now afraid to go back to work
- I send a message to my wife, she doesn't answer, is she mad at me? she must be mad at me? very mad. Maybe she's gonna throw me out? I get outta work and go pack. Maybe she's so mad she's gonna have me arrested on some bs charge, or worse maybe have me killed. I should leave work now. Go to my folks. No wait, that's the first place she'll look. Hour's later I left work on some bs excuse and am at a Kinkos and have spent all my money on computer time so I can anonymously google how to change my identity and fake my death. All because my wife wouldn't return a text message. Prob because she was in a meeting.
RAPID PHASE
* Signals the end of a stage
* can last up to several weeks
* I go all the previous stages in the course of a week, or even a day, then go thru it all over again, and again.
* Usually about the time I have a huge blow up at home.
* Utterly exhausted since by this time I've usually taken a huge amount of verbal abuse over my behavior. I'm left embarrassed, humiliated, guilt-ridden, powerless and hopeless. I lapse into depression and the cycle starts again.
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I wanted to share this to educate people, who may be bi polar or may be living with someone who is bipolar.
Sure everyone goes thru hi's and lo's, but in my case, they are absurdly high and earth shatteringly low. They are predictable and those around me who know me well can see them coming, but even still I cannot control them.
I'm optimistic about the new psychiatrist I'm going to see and I'm hopeful we can find a medication/medications that will help me and still allow me to live an active life where I can keep my job and be somewhat physically active and not some drugged up zombie, sitting at home watching tv, eating cereal, and sleeping 15 hours a day, and getting yelled at by my wife because she's out working all day and I'm not doing shit.
That's not my idea of mental health and that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid in a medication this time around.
HERE IS A LINK TO AN ARTICLE ON ABOUT.COM THAT DISCUSSES HOW TO SPOT A MANIC EPISODE IN YOUR LOVED ONE.
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