Thanks for the welcome. My name is Annie Laurie, and I was first diagnosed over 35 years ago in my early 30s, and I won't go into medications (and self-medications) I have tried. I am 30 years clean and sober, though, and am currently taking 20mgs per day of Lexapro and Neurontin, Topamax, and my mind's gone blank on the third mood stabilizer. I also have a prescription for a teeny dose of Abilify.

I also have PTSD and other childhood trauma issues (just to get some things out there). I'm currently having a very tough time emotionally and had lunch with a friend that hadn't known before I told her today that I have BP. After some conversation, she told me that she hadn't seen me as emotional as I was today and that she was very concerned about me. Long story short, she recommended that I add something to my medication routine to prevent myself from harming some of my other relationships by blurting out things to others. (My thoughts aren't always in the mainstream, and that makes me feel isolated, too.) I told her about the Abilify, but the thing about it is that it DEADENS me inside. It makes me NOT CARE about people. I HATE WHAT IT DOES TO ME. It deadens my soul, my spirit, everything that makes life worth living -- except I'm in hell right now, living in a constant panic attack.

There's so much more to say. I have a job where I'm around so many people who hold extreme views and I have to keep my mouth closed. This is stressful. I feel as if I cannot be myself. I cannot be myself at all. This is the way I felt as a child. I could not let myself express any feelings because my poor mother could not handle feelings. The ECT she had over a period of months when she (and my father) disappeared, dispersing their children to different homes where we didn't know the people who took care of us, caused her for the rest of her life to have an extremely narrow limit of emotional availability -- practically none, in fact. A BP trigger for me is feeling too much stress without relief, and I'm there.

I remember knowing when I was five that I was alone and that I would have to take care of myself. I knew I must have done something really bad that caused everyone to disappear. The family who took care of me made no mention of what happened to my family. Decades later when I mentioned it to the mother, she told me, "Kids are resilient. Nothing bothers them." She talked about how scared what happened to my mother made her.

I do know it wasn't my mother's fault or the family that kept me. They really did the absolute best they could.

When I'm in a panic attack, though, I forget everything and it's as if I'm that five year old, equipped with her knowledge of the world. I'm scared. My BP kicks in. If I'm in the manic or mixed side, I might start talking to anyone and alienating people or getting advice. Is the advice good? Not good? I usually don't want to get advice at all; it makes me really uncomfortable. I felt very scared when I heard today that I shouldn't speak to people when I'm feeling the way I'm feeling. That's exactly what I'm trying to do -- NOT talk to anyone -- because I'm so BAD and because I should never be the person I am. And when it comes right down to it -- that's the way I feel when I take Abilify: I feel like I'm killing myself because it deadens me so.

Am I just having racing thoughts here?

I hope what I'm writing here isn't full of triggers. I know I need help.

Up until recently, I was seeing a psychiatrist and was in a group. Both had been in process for years. I felt, though, that the psychiatrist was very Western med. in approach (Rx vs. talk or combo) and the leader of the group kept saying that she believed we should not linger in group, so I pushed myself to get out of the group because I had been there for several years.

I'm feeling pretty isolated (but surrounded by people to whom I really can't share these too-heavy things).

I'm sorry. Thank you.