This Time Fer Shure

And now for the newest poison on the block, Lamotrigine.

An anti-epileptic, known overseas (and sporadically known here) for its kickass ability to knock the crap out of Bipolar Depression. Not known at all by my gp and she is letting me try it at my extreme insistence. 

Also known for its ability to give users The Rash, aka Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, which leaves the skin as if it had been badly burned, and it can be fatal. So we have to titrate veerrryyy slooowwwllly.

What this means is that the former anti-psychotic Zyprexa is no longer in my system and I am now on such a piddling dose of Lamotrigine that it couldn't cheer up a dung beetle in a pile of dung.

I feel like whale shit at the bottom of the ocean. I am walking through molasses. I hate everything. I don't want to be around anyone. Bed is nice. The drug has buggered my sleep pattern so I am awake at night and exhausted all day. I consider what it would be like it I weren't around anymore,  The whole being trapped fiasco is making the suicidal ideation recur. I see no point to anything.

How long am i supposed to just live with this? Slow titration is one thing, but living with The Awful Blackness as a consequence just ain't right. Should I be sucking this up and riding it out or admitting myself to hospital for some additional medicinals to keep me on the living side of this hell?

My brain is so adrift I cant answer that question.

Stares At Screen Blankly

We now resume our normal broadcast.

Within 24 hours of stopping the Lithium, I could function normally. No more catatonia! conversations! Ability to write!

It didnt last long.

Lithium was followed by Seroquel. Hello zombie-world! Now I can enjoy 16 hours a day of zombification! How useful when you have two young children. Doubly useful when your husband has a hernia operation sprung on him and suddenly I am the one who has to do everything.  If it werent for the wonderful parents at my son's school, he wouldnt have got to school at all for 6 weeks coz mummy was still comatose.

So I kicked Seroquel in the arse and picked up a shiny little hussy called zyprexa. This one promised the world, and for a while it delivered, in the form of a nice little mania which helped the saucepans shine like never before and lots of baking got done. Baking? Are you fucking kidding me? I hate baking.

Of course, there was something zyprexa forgot to mention during the honeymoon phase, and that is how I would turn into a giant tub of lard. Lardy McLardarse, eating her way through the kitchen then baking some more goodies when all else is gone. 20kg I've put on.

20kg.

If you're new here, you might want to read this post to discover how utterly diabolical it is that I of all people have not been able to control my eating to the point of putting on twenty.fucking.kilos.

I've tried sodium valproate for pain relief before and the "dry mouth", well it literally glued my mouth shut.

So what next? Tuesday will tell. I've been stuck on zyprexa over the holidays until my gp comes back and I'm steadily feeling worse. Now I am back in the throes of depression, hiding myself away and staring blankly out windows. Where did my happy mania go?

What will be thrown at me this time? I want to try Lamotrigine but its not on the PBS and I figure that means there is no way I can afford it. Some other zombifying, obesity-inducing poison?

This really is shit.

How was your spring?

The Drugs Dont Work, They Just Make Things Worse

I doubt The Verve were singing about Lithium, but they may as well have been.

Tomorrow I see my gp to tell her I Say NO to Lithium. 

I have only become able to write now through taking a Lorazepam about an hour ago. Prior to that, I was (literally) catatonic much of the day, unable to move or communicate, with strange thoughts like just getting in the car and driving off, taking all the kids' money out of the bank, and not coming back. Ever. (Slight problem: I cant drive.)  I dont want to see people, I dont want to talk to people. Especially my kids. Their incessant noise makes me want to scream and kill kittens.

I cant live like this. I have no idea what is going on. Reaction to Lithium? Has it tipped me over into some strange Bipolar 2 mixed state? Am I NOT Bipolar at all and Lithium is making me crazy?


This drug-induced nightmare, whatever its genesis, has got to end. I was supposed to see my GP next Monday anyway, but the way I have been feeling I cant be sure I would be around by then.  Life was a lot easier when I was drinking all the time. How is this better? How can these effects of medication be better than being mellow on wine?

Fuck. I have felt shit since I stopped drinking and now its worse instead of better.  Did I kill the baby jesus in my past life?

Has anyone else ever experienced horrendous side effects from the meds that were supposed to keep them safe and sane?

Lithium, Thy Name Is...um...(hang on, I know this)

I am cotton wool brain.

I am thoughts stuck in a whirlpool unable to get out.

I am words on the tip of my tongue.

I am apathy.

I am lead.

I am sleep.

I am nothing.

The One Where I Get A New Label

Psychiatrists suck.

Psychologists suck.

Not all of them, granted.  There are some out there who do their jobs properly.  I met one psychiatrist the other day who seemed quite competent at diagnosing someone.  I also have a great psychologist who does what she is supposed to do, namely challenge thoughts and behaviors and help me live my life better.

But the rest - and there have been many - that I have seen since I was 19, well they can all bite my shiny metal ass. (erm...)  How can that many shrinks of one variety or another and that many GPs (also lots) miss something like Bipolar?

Bipolar 2 Disorder.  Bipolar Lite, if you will, which means I'm not about to spend the family fortune, shag everyone I meet nor will I talk a thousand words per minute and think I am Jeebus. But I will visit the deepest darkest pits of hell of depression and be serious about others being better off if I weren't here. I will also have amazing ideas for projects that take up all of my time every day, that I am not physically capable of doing, and no one else seems quite as enthusiastic about it as me...

My psychologist made me do a test. I love doing test. Love.them.  This one was an hour-long online assessment through the Black Dog Institute. It took an hour to complete, and I didn't need the whole hour to realise into which box my answers would be fitting.

My score:

• 30 out of a possible 30 for Depression (still? really? shit)
• 24 out of a possible 24 for Functional Impairement (that's some fucked up functioning)
• Severe PTSD
• Moderate Anxiety Disorder
• Moderate Social Phobia
• Moderate Panic Disorder

Diagnosis: Bipolar Disorder

When I saw the psychiatrist last Friday for a full assessment, the online assessment was confirmed and I was advised to start taking the mood stabiliser par excellence Lithium and the anti-psychotic Seroquel.

Tonight I have popped my first Lithium, and so begins the new med-go-round. I hope this doesn't play out like the trial and error of getting my pain management right. I don't want to waste another two years of my life trialling meds before I am stable.  I have lost so much time already from not being properly diagnosed when the Bipolar first appeared when I was 14.  I dont want to dwell on how different my life would be had I been treated then.  I want this diagnosis to play a positive role in my life now.

I now have a label on which to hang many things from my past. I have a way of making sense of things that seemed nonsensical. Nothing in me has changed. My behaviour hasn't changed, or not until the Lithium kicks in anyways. I'm still the lovable nutbag I was last Thursday. Its just that now I come with a label attached, one that is valuable and beneficial as far as my treatment, future happiness and understanding of my self goes.

It is unfortunate that with this label comes society's prejudices, assumptions and negative ideas about Bipolar.   And with those comes the likelihood of being discounted or dismissed because I'm manic (even when I'm not) or as just another nutter who doesn't have anything to contribute (when I do), or as someone whose friendship may be too difficult to manage (I'm harmless, promise).

The trick for me now is to concentrate on the benefits of knowing what is wrong with me my condition is.  That's a hard trick for me to learn, since I have spent most of my life being told I am worthless, but it is one I must learn.

Fuck the haters, right?

Image credit

It's my 42nd birthday in two days and I'll be happy about being Bipolar if I want to.

Warning: May Have Been Genetically Processed By The Same Equipment As Nuts

After I checked myself into hospital to get help dealing with my alcohol dependance (dependance? addiction? which should I call it? words are so loaded with hidden meaning) and there was some space for me to think, really think, for the first time in years, there were things that I began to realise about myself. Writing in my journal helped to solidify those realisations. There were certain behaviour patterns that kept cropping up, things happening in a cyclical fashion. There has been underlying depression present for as long as I can remember, with occasional windows of what I have considered "normality" that on reflection may not have been normal at all.

I have seen many many mental health professionals in my life. It started when I was 19, being treated for Major Depressive Disorder.  I have been on 6 different anti-depressants in my life. I have been so depressed I couldn't get out of bed. I have cried continuously for weeks. I have been suicidal on many occasions since my teens.   I was absolutely serious about it last year, when my GP made Monkey Boy take control of my medications to keep me safe.  When I see a new shrink, we do the usual thing of going through the family history, list the stressful things that have happened to you.  I've done it so often I now see it as some kind of entertainment: what will the reaction be when I tell them? Will it be humour? Sarcasm? Offer platitudes? Or a chin drop to the floor? (that happened just once, but was quite funny. Maybe you had to be there. Or be me.)  My most recent therapist told me shrinks love people like me because it makes their job all so interesting. I'm a complex case, multi-faceted.
Yes yes, I know I'm fucked up, that's why I'm seeing shrinks.

The family history has always been:

• Mother: controlling, manipulative, emotionally abusive in extreme, chronic depression for which she was given Valium and told to stop being neurotic.
• Father: violent, anger issues, developed Alzheimer's in his 80s
• Eldest brother: depression. Suicide in 1998
• Middle brother: violent, anger issues, turned to God to solve all his problems (is that in the DSM these days?)
• Youngest brother: paranoid schizophrenic. Suicide in 2001
• Me: well you all know by know I'm fucked up in an interesting multitude of ways

(You can tell I'm assuming I am never going to be working again at this point, yeh?)

So the therapist/GP makes assumptions and decisions about medications based on that information.  But what if its wrong? What if it is incomplete? What if it is incomplete and you don't even know it?

I'm a great believer in the power of Dr Google. Some may scoff (many most all doctors do) at self-diagnosis, but I believe that if you are using the information wisely it can bring you closer to a proper treatment a lot quicker than if you leave it up to your overworked, underpaid, stressed out health professional who just doesn't have the time to listen to all your problems.  I learnt pretty quickly while dealing with infertility investigations that I had to be my own advocate for proper health care and diagnosis, and this is especially so if you are dealing with a chronic health issue. I know my body, I know what is normal for my body, in a way my GP never will because she doesn't have time to listen to me tell her. There are a million nuances that I am aware of but cannot articulate.

So I read a lot of medical websites. Professional ones, as well as teh forumz. And sometimes I read stuff that punches me in the guts because it has described me clearly on paper, and made me reassess things I took for granted as being normal.

Trawling mental health sites and reading up about alcohol dependance, anxiety, depression etc, I came across articles on Bipolar Disorder. I read them out of interest more than anything else, because I have extensive experience of living with someone who had Bipolar 1 with Psychosis. (Fun times.) That is what I think of when I think Bipolar. That is not a label I would ever apply to myself.  Ever.

Except I keep reading. Especially the section on Bipolar II, where there isn't the crazy mania people normally associate with Bipolar Disorder. Instead, there is the extreme "whale shit at the bottom of the ocean" depression combined with at least one instance of Hypomania, or Mania Lite.

Cue Oprah's "Aha! moment."

It all fits and that means that maybe if I get the right medication I wont feel like whale shit any more.  Woohoo. Except the likelihood is fairly low unless you have a family member who has a Bipolar diagnosis too, which I don't.  But you never know right? So I get a referral to  a psychiatrist (I hate them, the last one I saw kicked me out of her office after reducing me to sobbing hysteria by telling me that society didn't want to help people with mental illness).

I will have a full mental health evaluation. Doesn't that sound like fun?

A couple of nights ago I had a long Facebook conversation with a family member (the only one I have any contact with) and discovered that what I knew about my family profile is wrong. It turns out that:

• Eldest brother: had Bipolar, prior to suicide.
• His daughter: has Bipolar
• Middle Brother's daughter: has Bipolar

Ummmm.

Well.

Um.



I have had depression for as long as I can remember, and despite the 6 different kinds of antidepressants I am still depressed on them, though not whale-shit depressed. I don't want to kill myself when on the right AD.  I become too apathetic to kill myself, which is not really a glowing endorsement for relief of depression, is it?  The only time I can categorically state that an AD made me not depressed at all was when I started taking Prozac and the first month felt like I was on Ecstacy. Looking back, I can see it: hello Hypomania!

I am so unbelievably grateful to have this new knowledge of my family's mental health history. It could very well make the difference between a definitive diagnosis and a "you might have this, or you might have this, here try these pills and see what happens."  I've had enough of those experiences. I know enough to know that there is something wrong with my brain other than good old unipolar major depressive disorder.  

On Friday, I will have what may very well turn out to be the most important appointment of my life.

This is probably the first time in the history of everything that someone has actually wanted to be diagnosed with a mental illness.

Image from here

Well, hey, I'm crazy like that.