thanks everyone

i am under outpatients community mental health team and have regular check ups at the mo cos im so all over the place. i guess ive only given you snippets of information too. il try and digress a little here

leading up to my hospital admission i have been a bit of a nightmare.

but for the purposes of illustration il try and do this bite size...

after being diagnosed with 'depression' i went onto anti-depressants. they worked to lift my depression but didnt do much else for the highs i was having. i would be so depressed one day i found it a struggle to do things around the house and even entertain my young children. in my high stages i would be organising lavish parties at my house,,, be the life and soul of the party,, and pretty much just float around like my feet werent even touching the floor.

before my depression would sink in id have bouts of extreme irritability,,, usually upon coming down off a high. and the slightest thing would make me cringe with almost a kind of hatred. like if my partner sneezed i would sit there and think snappily "ffs does he have to sneeze like that" and go all moody afterwards. i went onto paroxetine and that helped massively with the irritability but didnt do anything for the depression and hypomania. anyway, irritability would last a day or two and then depression would hit. crying, low self worth, not wanting to be around.

sometimes i can be so high i no what im doing is silly and i cant stop myself. things come out of my mouth and i dont feel stupid afterwards,,, even though i know what i said was idiotic upon reflection.

this week i have been so high... im on day 7 now and im sitting in the chair but i want to get up and start dancing in the living room even though there is no music. last friday i went to the cinema and an advert for a new film was on. i just stood there looking at it and started laughing my head off cos i thought it was sooo funny. but it wasnt funny... i was laughing til tears were coming from my eyes. my mate who was with me at the time said "you're as mad as a box of frogs!!" but i feel happy like abnormally happy. its like im on drugs or something lol.

i asked on the borderline page and they all mostly say this never happens to them.

other times i suffer paranoia and pyschosis. i believe things that arent even there. like i can watch jeremy kyle show (uk prog similar to jerry springer) and i convince myself what some of the subjects on there are going through is what is happening to me. ie... man takes his wife on for dna of their baby. i am fixed in the stance then that my babies dont belong to their real dad. and that he is taking me for dna tests. but i only ever slept with him so they cant be anyone elses kids. looking back i can see this is kind of like psychotic behaviour but at the time i am scared for my life that Jeremy Kyle is gonna ring me and say ive got to go on the show too. most odd. i also hallucinate -and hear voices. just random voices. or just sounds,,, like a car engine running. its all in my head like this is happening right next to my ear.

and anxiety is sky high. i actually shake when i talk because its that bad and i stutter. this is usually during depressed mode. when im high i chat for england. i laugh when im talking even though what im saying isnt funny.

basically in a nut shelll... i go from being one extreme to the other. at the moment it seems to be once a month to every 6 weeks i go from one end of the scale to another. previously to that it was probably less severe. maybe every 2-3 months. but as im getting worse its getting more prevalent. i dont know if thats because of the med changes ive had.

ive gone from paroxetine to fluoxetine
then off fluoxetine to just mood stabilisers.
then mood stabilers to mirtazipine (i get night terrors also - usually about death, someone trying to kill me)
now im off mood stabilers and just taking the chlorpromazine (anti-pyschotic) and mirtazipine.

i think it too soon to tell what is easing things. the depression really has eased since the mirtazipine has been introduced, along with sleeping better at night.
and since the chlorpormazine has been introduced my anxierty has gone right down and i havent heard any voices for a while. or even hallucinated. but the mania (or hypomnia whatever you call it) still persists.

i also started drinking really heavily towards the back end of last year and went on a short stint of using class A. but im safe to say im off the drink and drugs altogether. this helped at the time but if i was manic id end up like i was king of the land on drink and drugs. and if i was depressed... well suicidal thoughts occurred most regularly.