Here is how this works for me. It is a perfect example of “which came first – the chicken or the egg”.

I was originally put on an extremely high dose combination of different antidepressants and antianxiety medications for severe migraines. That is how it all started.

The antidepressants made me manic so they took me off them and I became depressed. So they put me back on them and I become manic again. Then they took me off them and I became depressed again. Then they put me back on them and I became manic again. Repeat, repeat, repeat for many years.

The cycle ranges from so majorly depressed when off antidepressants that I am unable to function. For example the psychomotor retardation is so severe that I cannot feed or dress myself, walk, sit up, read, understand conversation or talk. Last time I was in bed for nine months and was mostly suicidal during that time.

The mania is so bad when on antidepressants that I become delusional and engage in hideous reckless behavior including compulsive spending, hypersexuality, and physically dangerous activities. I get severe neurological symptoms such as Peripheral Neuropathy, Burning Mouth Syndrome, Focal Hand Dystonia, and tremors to name a few.

Each time they take me on or off the medications the degree of severity of the symptoms, either depression or mania, has worsened exponentially over the years. I cannot achieve any stability. I don’t expect perfection but waves in emotion would be much more acceptable than these radical spikes.

Currently I am on medication and going from hypomanic to full blown mania rapidly. I called the doctor and she said to quit my medications all at once.

NO!

I am going to try to taper down the drug most likely to be causing the mania that I am on gradually and see if I can achieve an acceptable emotional level. It won’t be perfect but I am hoping this reduction will relieve some of the intense psychological and physical symptoms of mania while not crashing me back in to major depression.

Unless anyone has a better suggestion?

Any comments would be appreciated.

Thank you,
Rebel Maven