oh dear. well, this seems to be the year of facing things so here goes. didn't want to go near this one but am sort of forced to.

i am on disability for bipolar disorder, just dx'd with d.i.d., so am mainly dealing with those issues. but i have a small parttime job two days a week as a home health aide, one day is 12 hrs. at night. i have to be very quiet because the client/her family is asleep so i started taking a book to read, which was like facing a firing squad. (at first i just sat and looked at the floor patterns but that gets old after 12 hours!)

you see, for about 15 years now, i can't read books. it's even a chore to read the posts here. it takes me twice as long and here's why.

i have to stop at every period, comma, question mark, quotation marks, dots (. . .), noting words in bold, italic, paragraph breaks, and sometimes even the spaces in-between the words when it's at it's worst. the two letters that i have to "trace" with my eyes (in books) are t's and g's.

it is pure agony. it takes me about 4 hours to read even 10-20 pages sometimes. i miss reading so much. i read constantly when a young girl as an escape. i even had a tree in the backyard that i would climb with my books to escape and loved hiding in the wonderful stories.

but now i just don't know what to do. i read here there are medicines for this? i am on celexa (citalopram) for depression (seroquel for the bipolar) and valium (for PTSD and anxiety/panic attacks). the celexa is also for PTSD and OCD but it doesn't even come close to stopping this awful urge when i am trying to read. i told my new pdoc but she sort of dismissed it because of the other issues i need help with right now. i am also very ashamed to admit it but i am learning that here at PC i can be honest for the first time about a lot of things.

i have actually finished 3 books over the past several months which i am proud of, but it is so hard to get lost in the book so that i "forget" to stop everywhere while reading, but then suddenly it will just rush back and i'm bombarded with the urges again. oh, and also, if i post here, it's getting to where i can't use capital letters much anymore, and i will edit a post to death trying to make sure everything is spelled correctly. help!!!

is this an indication of something else going on? or is it a "brain tick" so to speak? i really need help with this if anybody has had to deal with something like this, or knows of any medications that may help. THANK YOU!!!!!!