Please Note:
I am not a doctor or health care professional. I am an expert of my own Disorder. I write to encourage fellow travelers on this path we call Bipolar and those who love them. Do not take my counsel as medical advise, but seek out professional help if you find anything that I have written rings a bell.
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Living with Bipolar Disorder, no matter what the degree, is a challenge.
Part of it is just knowing what the signs and symptoms are.
Am I Bipolar? Or do I have a Borderline Personality Disorder? Do I have demons?
Or am I just a mean, nasty, hateful sorry excuse for a human being who has decided to make everyone around me just a miserable as I?
The symptoms themselves makes it sometimes hard to know if this is just a deep depression or a depression disorder. While many of the signs are common, many are not.
These include:
But thankfully there has been and continues to be a growing body of research that proves that there are significant differences between regular depression and bipolar, especially in terms of treatment.
Years ago, I was placed on Prozac, along with clinical hypnosis. It actually worked.
For a time.
But like most Bipolar Bears, I found I wasn't really helped by antidepressants. In fact, I found myself having more mood states, highs and lows, so that after trying several different medications, I just stopped taking them and with the skills from therapy under my belt, I did just fine for many years.
Or so I thought.
Now we know that antidepressants can actually trigger manic or hypomanic stages. I didn't realize until a few months ago that the medication caused in my case rapid cycling, causing even my own head to spin. In my case, I found myself singing Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds over and over again, driving my family nuts. It was even so bad that I was singing the song in my sleep.
The right combination of medication and therapy, plus a good support base as well as a good sense of humour is key in being stable and maintaining a healthy state.
In my case, that is having a very loving and supportive husband and mother, our little Monti and a amazing, caring term of mental health workers committed to helping me have the best life possible.
More tomorrow.
I am not a doctor or health care professional. I am an expert of my own Disorder. I write to encourage fellow travelers on this path we call Bipolar and those who love them. Do not take my counsel as medical advise, but seek out professional help if you find anything that I have written rings a bell.
Living with Bipolar Disorder, no matter what the degree, is a challenge.
Part of it is just knowing what the signs and symptoms are.
Am I Bipolar? Or do I have a Borderline Personality Disorder? Do I have demons?
Or am I just a mean, nasty, hateful sorry excuse for a human being who has decided to make everyone around me just a miserable as I?
These include:
- Feeling unusually “high” and optimistic or extremely irritable
- Unrealistic, grandiose beliefs about one’s abilities or powers
- Sleeping very little, but feeling extremely energetic
- Talking so rapidly that others can’t keep up
- Racing thoughts; jumping quickly from one idea to the next
- Highly distractible, unable to concentrate
- Impaired judgment and impulsiveness
- Acting recklessly without thinking about the consequences
- In serve cases, delusions and hallucinations.
But thankfully there has been and continues to be a growing body of research that proves that there are significant differences between regular depression and bipolar, especially in terms of treatment.
Years ago, I was placed on Prozac, along with clinical hypnosis. It actually worked.
For a time.
But like most Bipolar Bears, I found I wasn't really helped by antidepressants. In fact, I found myself having more mood states, highs and lows, so that after trying several different medications, I just stopped taking them and with the skills from therapy under my belt, I did just fine for many years.
Or so I thought.
Now we know that antidepressants can actually trigger manic or hypomanic stages. I didn't realize until a few months ago that the medication caused in my case rapid cycling, causing even my own head to spin. In my case, I found myself singing Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds over and over again, driving my family nuts. It was even so bad that I was singing the song in my sleep.
The right combination of medication and therapy, plus a good support base as well as a good sense of humour is key in being stable and maintaining a healthy state.
In my case, that is having a very loving and supportive husband and mother, our little Monti and a amazing, caring term of mental health workers committed to helping me have the best life possible.
More tomorrow.
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